Can I charge for time spent / consultancy?

[peeknservices]

Greetings,

Is there someway that I can advise beforehand that their request may get a tad technical and result in several hours worh of research. (I guess yes).

Is there someway that I can "yes, can do" but it will cost this much $ ?

I am way over providing free and uncompensated for consultancy.... Just to be shopped about for the cheapest competitor (if even they decide they want a rolls but at the end of the day will settle for a mini minor)?

I would rather not say "you'll be right mate, do what you want!"

Ebay's help function seems to be more about Ebay rather than helping sellers some times,

Any thoughts would be appreciated as I do not think that I am a lone soldier here.

Cheerz

[digital*ghost]

Afraid not - Consulting is a sales rep's job, pretty much. If they're an employee of a business, they get paid an hourly rate either way, if they're the owner and working the sale room floor, they'd generally average it out in their sale prices. 

I get where you're coming from, I don't sell appliances or anything of that nature, but I've had a few buyers wanting comprehensive assistance where at a certain point I feel like a free tutor -  to monetise that specifically, though, you'd probably have to write a book or a series of guides somewhere (paid or free) so the time is only put in once, or if they are consistently unique questions / answers, find somewhere to point them to that they can learn independently. 

[peeknservices]

Greetings Digital*ghost,

Thank you for your reply, it is appreciated.

I am "picking up what your putting down" (something that one of the tradies I used to employ many years ago used to ask me!) with regards to sales reps etc..

I generally don't mind being a "tutor" to help someone move forward with their project, I would normally go out of my way to steer clients clear of any obvious mistakes that they may be making / issues that they may have not considered for their application. 

And yet ignore what I have advised (#embarrassed) and go elsewhere & perhaps spend a few more $ on an alternate product.

I would be hopeless selling insurance, I am just too honest....

Sorry for my diatribe.

Cheerz

[digital*ghost]

On the plus side, all the hours of research we tend to put in when a buyer asks a question that you don't already know, expands your own knowledge and makes it easier to answer that question, or related ones, in the future. I've had a lot of questions like that, and now I know enough to whittle it down to a short, simple answer.

I used to provide pretty long, detailed replies to customers who sent through a question, as to me I was just making sure they had as much info as possible to make an informed decision, but a lot of the time I wouldn't even get a reply let alone have it result in a purchase, so now I try to address the question as simply as possible, and just say if they require more info, let me know - this tends to eliminate quite a few tyre kickers and means I'm not investing hours into educating someone else for free. Sometimes it's people who have bought items and they're asking how to use the product in a certain way. I do the same there, offer a few suggestions, and then point them to something like a YouTube video for more detail. Occasionally the questions make me curious, so I've been known to actually spend an hour or so making or testing things, and in that case I just add to my experience / expertise as well as help someone, and usually get a loyal customer out of it (though I guess the return / investment on that would depend a lot on whether you have the kind of items they'd come back to buy on a continual basis, however one thing I do know is that word of mouth recommendations, even for online stores, can be worth a lot). 

[springyzone]

I had a look at your sales items. They seem to be electrical circuits and boxes which are probably just the sort of things where people ask technical questions. And as the buyers will usually be spending several hundred dollars, they probably want to check certain facts first.

I think your best bet would be to do as digital ghost suggests and give a short answer first. Don't go into long, detailed descriptions in PMs.

If the customer wants more info, they will ask.

There is one other thing you can do too. You could write a FAQ page for some of the more common sorts of questions.

And you could build up a list of web sites for more information.

That's what one of my sellers did. Not for electrical stuff, but for sourdough starters, he included a sheet with web sites for instructions, recipes etc. I guess it cut back on a lot of queries.

The one thing I think you'd struggle to do is charge extra for 'consultancy' fees on normal ebay listings.

So just make your replies short, sweet and an overview rather than hours of detailed description.