POD For You

[QuakerAnnie]

Ok, here's what I am noticing and wondering about....

On some of my products I have put on the description "this and other products available for less at.."  and then I typed out the link to my shop.

If someone finds me in the MP,  is viewing a product close enough then to see that and goes to my shop, do they call that a MP sale because it started from the MP?   And then do they charge the customer their higher price, even though I'm selling the item for less?

I ask because I do find it suspicious when I have one customer buying 5 or more items with different designs that are called MP sales -- I suppose they could be viewing my items all in MP (yes, yes, I'm going to leave someday - I am putting new and bestsellers in Zazzle and changing outside links to Zazzle only, but I am not going to turn away sales yet, can't afford to).

Most of my MP sales are one item to one customer, whereas my Shop sales are usually several different designs to one customer -- am I making sense or worrying too much? 

I don't track visitors, maybe I should.....

[RobertPlantFan]

Theoretically where ever they click the "add to cart" button that's where the sale is made. The item numbers in your shop are different than the ones in the MP which is how they can tell. Tracking visitors would probably help you see where they're shopping from. If they're shopping out of your store, you'll see it noted as shopping cart.

Phone orders show up as MP sales, too, I believe.

[Mayhem]

supposedly, phone orders will show up as MP sales if the customer omits the "030-" product prefix code. If the 030 is there, it is "supposed" to be a shop sale.

[lyricalb]

Also, there's a 'see more from this designer' thingie which brings up all your designs in the mp. I sell a lot of multiple designs, and I'm sorry to say they never show up in my shop tracking. And I do look, believe me.

[MaxMuhlin]

Many, indeed most of my sales are multiples within a particular dog breed, and even sometimes several different dog breeds in a single sale.

I guess they're finding them either through a very thorough MP SEARCH or the "other images from this designer" search thing. . .however, MOST of them are Marketplace sales.

Glad for each and every one, of course!  AND . . . they're rolling in!  17 sales today so far. . .

Ann K.

[NinaPA]

I've been seeing more multi-design sales ever since CP added the 'see more from this designer' option in the MP. 

[Wontar]

I had a person who has been coming back to my shop for three days finally buy two things today. One was a shop sale, the other was an MP sale.  As far as I'm concerned, your suspicion is well-founded.

[QuakerAnnie]

I took out a post I did earlier -- I had a kind of rush of Shop sales today and I am not sure why that happened -- but I do have that notice which I added to my description asking people to visit my shop, with the address to it typed out for them to copy and paste...

 I was getting paranoid that the text had been slightly altered, but it seems not.

If we recognize a customer on CP who has ordered through the MP and contact them, can we get in trouble?
 

[Tanith]

If we recognize a customer on CP who has ordered through the MP and contact them, can we get in trouble?

  Maybe.  I don't remember exactly what the language is about us contacting customers.  It is based on the privacy policy so is a customer has already volunteered contact information to you that would be quite different from researching a customer to find contact information.

[QuakerAnnie]

It just drives me up the wall to see the shafting of customers... bad enough when it is the general marketplace people, but....  this is my target market ... Quakers... and I recognized the buyer.  And saw that the products she bought (bags of mini buttons to hand out) I was selling for 14.95 (and ahem getting around 7.00 commission for each bag) but she paid 20.00 and you know what I got for each bag...  

but truly, it was as much if not more seeing how much she was paying. If I'm gonna get $2.00, then I am fine with the customer only paying $9.95 .. maybe I will do a huge special

[DiveArtist]

Is it against policy to have our URL's in the description field? CP allows us to do this? Maybe I should start adding that to all my decsritptions.

[Tanith]

Is it against policy to have our URL's in the description field? CP allows us to do this? Maybe I should start adding that to all my decsritptions.

  It is not currently against the rules.  CP is not obligated to include our descriptions, however, and if they think it is against their best interests they will just drop them. 

Personally I decided it wasn't worth the effort to write product descriptions.  Instead I write store or section descriptions.  Of course I've hardly added anything so it doesn't mean much.   My theory is that if CP's excuse for the marketplace policy is that we aren't driving sales there, then I want to make sure they are right and that I'm not driving sales there.  For my basic shops I've been able to script striping the product description, premium is a bit more complex and I haven't tried. 

[QuakerAnnie]

Is it against policy to have our URL's in the description field? CP allows us to do this? Maybe I should start adding that to all my decsritptions.

I haven't found anything that allows or disallows this.  On the downside, when people are already shopping in your shop and see the product description with an invitation to go to where they already are, they may think it looks a little odd -- but maybe not.