I've
been an online shop owner for almost two years now. Running a
business from home is alot more effort and work hours than people
credit it to be. They think, well, you're at home all the time so you must have so much free time! This is not true.. When working at home, you are basically living in the
work place. Or rather, your living area is the work place. So there
is no escape. You could actually spend less time working if you were
to clock in and out of a workplace than you do working from home. On
top of that, you are also living in your home much more than if you
were gone all day..So you have all the household to-dos on top of
your work schedule.
I have set up and am running TWO online stores by doing the graphic
designing, creating and posting shop banners/appearance, bios,
profiles, creating item designs, making the templates to post online,
individually posting each item in it's correct category, marketing
the item, filling out item descriptions, their titles, and tags (adds up when you have 500+ listings),
social media advertising, shop policy, sending proofs to customers
who ordered custom designs, and much more. Aside from all that online
work I briefly touched on, there's the task of actually producing the products, packaging,
and shipping them, which is another workload in itself.
Besides those crucial tasks, I also deal
directly with the customers, answering questions or handling
complaints. Anyone who has ever worked in any form of customer
service knows the falsity of the over-quoted statement "the
customer is always right." I bet a customer came up with that
one. The more you talk to people, the more you realize how stupid some people really are. Talking to the customer(s) includes
answering anyone and everyone's inquiries politely no matter how easily it could be found if they actually read what
I've already taken the time to type out in our store online, whether
it be processing time, policy, or in the item's description. Next, there's, of
course, the chore of patiently working with the problem customers.
Open a shop; they will come.
I
dream of one day opening a physical shop that would have such amazing
products that people could not help but flock to my store. I would
have strict rules, a motto that the customer is not always right, and
no complaints tolerated. I'd love to be known as "The Store
Nazi." Jerry Seinfeld's episode inspired me. Watch it for a
better idea of how I would run my store. It would be awesome. The Soup Nazi-Jerry Seinfeld
Since
I can't do that yet, I have taken to creating this tshirt nazi blog
to vent. Well, not so much vent as to post the responses I wish I
really could send to some of our customers. My sense of humor
generally isn't sarcastic, but it flows out of me when I'm peeved at
a customer. I'm beginning to think this sign is true.
I'm
truly very polite to all of my customers and in no way a nazi (yet). My 5 star review ratings are proof of that. This
blog was created soley for your enjoyment as well as for my sanity. If you've been in customer service of any kind before, I know you can relate. If you haven't, I hope you'll still find my posts entertaining. Enjoy
and leave lots of comments!
