Hello,

I have one e-commerce site that is run only by myself. The only thing I knew about business is the same thing everyone knows, "someone buys from you, and then you get money".

Although I only make less than $30K per year selling instant download digital goods, it's still not bad considering that it's only a part time hobby.

With the experience I had from running an e-commerce site, I have learned a few things about customers: I'm going to use those little programs I created as examples:

(*) They always want more...features
(*) Since they are computer tech savvy, they're always trying to hack my site (through input forms) trying to by-pass the purchase through SQL injections or XSS...according to my log.
(*) After their failures, they would buy it and then do a "charge back" fraud! (I use PayPal and won every case! Shock there huh? Even shocking is the fact that I don't require them to have a PayPal account. PayPal's PHP API is really good, if you know how to use it).
(*) Trying to make me feel sorry for them for the purchase by saying something like "I thought it could do this, that, etc"...trying to make me give them a refund out of pitty.
(*) Some blatantly email me and ask "This is not what I expected and is poor quality. How can I get my money back?" (I never reply to those).
(*) "This is not what I expected. I'd like to get a refund. It doesn't have to be full, but at least 60% because I know you put a lot of work on these".

And for those wanting refunds, every damn features are listed on the site. Asking questions are easy as emailing our support team (me). And the fact they want a refund for an instant download is just too funny. I'm sorry, but I'm not WalMart. WalMart do not refund instant downloads...if you get my drift.

I do get offers from some training sites wanting me to give them all my programs so they can teach their students about the possibilities etc (I'm innovative, I guess?). In turn they will send my site to 50,000,000 of whoever they're affiliated with. F**k that. So they will charge their students $1,000 just to see what can be done using my programs as examples??? No share for me, no freebe for you. I can market on my own, thank you very much.

Well, that's about my experience in e-commerce for the type of business I run on the side.

Whatever type of business you're running, I would like to hear customer behaivors (weird, bad, etc) that you have encountered.

Some guy named,
$howdy$

I ran an e-commerce store for over two years selling model trains and Digital Command Controls and accessories. I made okay money but the amount of time I put into fulfilling orders was too much for me and it was not worth it. As far as customer behaviors I only had one bad one. I was sent back east for a week by the company I worked for without notice. And the first day I was flying this guy ordered something. The next day he was all over me because I didn't answer his e-mails all day because I was in meetings. The item he bought clearly stated that I had to special order it and to expect an extra week before shipping. I ordered his items and then he started blasting me because it was not in the USPS tracking page I had set up. I explained to him about the extra week and he blasted me because he claimed it was in fine print and not readable. The funny thing was the whole description was the same font size. Then a week was up and I flew home and he had sent me a ton of mail asking where is item was. I told him I ordered the item and it came in on Friday and I was flying back on Saturday and I would put it in the mail to him on Monday. He came unglued and threaten to turn me in to the BBB for making myself look like a big corporation instead of the one man show that he just found out that I was. I laughed at him over the phone and told him I was not going to mail it to him and I would issue him a refund. Then he started back peddling and asking me why. And I told him he was too difficult for me to deal with. I hung up and issued the refund and about 3 months later he started buying more stuff from me and eventually became one of my better customers. He never sent me a curse e-mail again and was a pleasure to deal with. Go figure.

I feel you on that one. Running an e-commerce store by yourself is one tough job. Although only part time, I was spending 6+ hours on it whenever I could get free time.

For me, it was mostly support...for those that requested them. That was probably the hardest thing I had to deal with. It came to a point that I was bombarded with so much emails that it takes me 5 days before I can respond. I never knew where to draw the line from always satisfying customers in hopes of future sales/referals.

I do remember going off with 3 people because they just pissed me off so much. I know it's bad and I regret it, but sometimes you just have to set them straight. Customers don't always know what's right. They just think they do and they have the right to be treated as that, but I'm no pro at this so I treated them with the same respect they gave me. If they're going to make my life more stressfull, then they can go somewhere else. Bad business model? Almost everyone would say yes, but I just couldn't help myself sometimes. And for those 3 people I stood firm on, ended up talking to me more giving me suggestions, getting me referals, etc. How about that? It seems like when you treat them like you don't want their business, it makes them feel like they're not good enough for your sevice(s) and try to get on your good side.

Isn't that the whole goal? Making yourself look like a huge corporation, even though you might be the only one running it. Then if the business takes off, get enough revenue/profits in, and you just can't handle the services by yourself anymore, start hiring people for low money. At least that's the way how I've been approaching it. Luckily I haven't had to hire anyone yet, and I get 100% profits.

... I never knew where to draw the line from always satisfying customers in hopes of future sales/referals.

It took me awhile to figure that out too. Now the line is a clear no money no help. If someone hasn't paid me I generally won't even respond to their e-mail at all. I've had way too many people take advantage!

I also sell digital goods but not instant download so I've been able to avoid the types of fraudulent activity you're referring to. Also, my customers already possess the items they are paying for. So other than a bit of security features added to the demo they know exactly what they are getting.

The main problem I have with customers is just the ones whose orders I won't process, either because I don't trust they will actually pay (looks like possible fraud or just scumbag) or because they've treated me crappie or deceitfully prior to or during payment process. Sometimes that can get pretty contentious - with threats and nasty language. :eek3:

It can be hard when people think you're a sizable business and instead it's just one person. I'm actually considering changing my business so that people will realize it's just one person and not make such excessive demands (like expecting instant service 24/7) .

Providing technical support can be very aggravating. Sometimes I try to wait before capturing transactions if I suspect someone might be more trouble than they're worth. I'll occasionally just void a transaction rather than hassling with them.

I've got my process of delivering orders nicely streamlined so that it doesn't take much time now to process them. so I can spend lots of time learning new skills for creating new products etc. All in all, working out pretty well.

I think that whether there's only one, two, or three people running the site, we always want to make it seem larger.

I've thought about giving hints that it's not being ran by more than one(1) person, but I just don't know how to go about it. Context in my site are populated with the words "us" and "we". Trying to bring in the words "me" or "I" just doesn't seem to fit in.

I wasn't doing instant downloads before, but I had to change it. After they placed their orders, they would be sent an email telling them that it could take 6 - 24 hours before the process completes. Little did I know that I would get emails from them saying something like "Just want to let you know I just purchased your product and waiting on it" or "I purchased your product, but I didn't get the download? WTF?".

Now imagine this. On 2002, I was new in selling stuff on the internet. I marketed by specifically finding forums that I think might be interested in the products I sell, then I would post links etc. Well, little did I know that within the first week, I would get 2,000+ orders from all over the world :smokin:. And this was from my first product that I was selling for $50. I was like damn!!! Most people don't even earn that much in a year. But my point is that, I had 2000 people to process within that week and most asking where the hell is their download. So I had to automate everything and make instant downloads available...which opened me up to scams, frauds, and bad stuff people do to get stuff for free.

Trust me when I say that I make a lot less now compared to when I started.