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Home > Magazine > General > If OYB went Pro?

If OYB went Pro?
February 01, 2010

I just read a WSJ story about smallshop guys who offer knifesharpening services. The story spent most of its attention on evaluating the various levels of ordering/shipping service.

I wonder how much good it would do OYB if I could do same-day shipping and had a totally pro buying/shipping interface.

I wonder how many of my potential customers are turned off by the Homepun aspect of this project. Of course, OYB is *about* homespun reality. But maybe online shoppers enjoy reading about that, but they want 24/7 pro CS. Like, online shopping has some built-in worries that a pro interface makes disappear. I would hope that me being flesh'n'blood and being gungho doing onemanshow 100% satisfaction service for thousands of customers thru the WEB *since the Web started* would do the trick, but, again, given the Web, customers might not really know or sense or trust that.

??

Reader Comments - Add Your Own Comment
sisu - ann arbor, posted on Feb 08, 2010
Hey Jeff,

I dunno, I've never thought twice about ordering stuff from you but I "know" you from reading first the 'zine and then the website. But I would worry about ordering something off the web from a low-tech website that didn't have a "face" like yours does. Especially if I was giving out my CC#. But if you have customers that are finding the website for the first time and are there for a specific product, maybe they need more reassurance? What do other indy websellers do on this front?