Hi Everyone!
With the expanding of the products we've been offering for OCN, I wanted to see what I can do to make sure we're catering to you guys as best as possible. With that in mind, I'd like to know if you guys have any requests, suggestions, or general ideas that you'd like to offer up, to help make sure I'm making your experience with us as pleasant as possible.
I have identified a few "known" issues that we're working on, as outlined below. Anything else you can think of, please, let me know!
Slow Processing Times
This happens sometimes. For anyone who doesn't know, this is a "hobby" business for me. I actually work a normal full time job. My wife's job also requires a lot of travel, which leaves me alone to take care of all the normal household duties, and our 4 year old, as well as the business... in all honesty, there are just some days that there aren't enough hours in the day! I've also had issues with FedEx drivers picking up USPS boxes (and the other way around), or FedEx ground guys grabbing Express boxes... general things outside my control.
That being said, I've been working the last couple of weeks to streamline and further automate as many processes as possible, so these delays should prove to be even more rare. I've also worked directly with my pickup drivers to streamline that operation to avoid those headaches. I'm sure it will still happen on occasion, but I think we'll cut it back significantly!
High Shipping Costs
Not a whole lot I can do about this sadly. We don't do massive volume, so we don't get huge discounts from the carriers. The rates I charge are direct from USPS/FedEx with no markup. On occasion, our cart software does overcharge people. When I notice, I am sending refunds to people to cover the difference. Otherwise, I just need everyone to order more stuff, so our volume goes up and we can negotiate better rates
Site Downtime
There was a spike the last few weeks of downtime (unplanned, whoops!). I've increased my monitoring level and this shouldn't happen nearly as often now. The exception would be if there's an issue while I'm at work and am too busy with that to fix the error until I get home. Otherwise, we should be up most of the time now.
Limited Selection
This business is very, very, very competitive. In the past, I focused on unique and high quality brands (CSX, Diablo, Team) that you couldn't find other places. I also work to offer high demand, low supply items at competitive prices when possible (The early 80Gb Intel SSDs, New stepping CPUs, things of that sort). Lately though, I haven't run across any niche brands that made sense, and there haven't been any huge product launches to take advantage of.
On general parts, I'll never compete on pricing with the "big" stores. Look up any CPU on Newegg for example, and sadly (for me anyway hah) the price they sell at is usually $5-$10 less than I can even get it at wholesale... before I pay any of my costs, shipping, etc.
In any case, this is why there isn't much on the site at the moment. I'm up for suggestions though, if anyone has any!
So, aside from the above, what else can I do to offer you guys a better service, over all? Better product info? More pictures? Any unique/niche brands/items you want to see? Let me know!
With the expanding of the products we've been offering for OCN, I wanted to see what I can do to make sure we're catering to you guys as best as possible. With that in mind, I'd like to know if you guys have any requests, suggestions, or general ideas that you'd like to offer up, to help make sure I'm making your experience with us as pleasant as possible.
I have identified a few "known" issues that we're working on, as outlined below. Anything else you can think of, please, let me know!
Slow Processing Times
This happens sometimes. For anyone who doesn't know, this is a "hobby" business for me. I actually work a normal full time job. My wife's job also requires a lot of travel, which leaves me alone to take care of all the normal household duties, and our 4 year old, as well as the business... in all honesty, there are just some days that there aren't enough hours in the day! I've also had issues with FedEx drivers picking up USPS boxes (and the other way around), or FedEx ground guys grabbing Express boxes... general things outside my control.
That being said, I've been working the last couple of weeks to streamline and further automate as many processes as possible, so these delays should prove to be even more rare. I've also worked directly with my pickup drivers to streamline that operation to avoid those headaches. I'm sure it will still happen on occasion, but I think we'll cut it back significantly!
High Shipping Costs
Not a whole lot I can do about this sadly. We don't do massive volume, so we don't get huge discounts from the carriers. The rates I charge are direct from USPS/FedEx with no markup. On occasion, our cart software does overcharge people. When I notice, I am sending refunds to people to cover the difference. Otherwise, I just need everyone to order more stuff, so our volume goes up and we can negotiate better rates
Site Downtime
There was a spike the last few weeks of downtime (unplanned, whoops!). I've increased my monitoring level and this shouldn't happen nearly as often now. The exception would be if there's an issue while I'm at work and am too busy with that to fix the error until I get home. Otherwise, we should be up most of the time now.
Limited Selection
This business is very, very, very competitive. In the past, I focused on unique and high quality brands (CSX, Diablo, Team) that you couldn't find other places. I also work to offer high demand, low supply items at competitive prices when possible (The early 80Gb Intel SSDs, New stepping CPUs, things of that sort). Lately though, I haven't run across any niche brands that made sense, and there haven't been any huge product launches to take advantage of.
On general parts, I'll never compete on pricing with the "big" stores. Look up any CPU on Newegg for example, and sadly (for me anyway hah) the price they sell at is usually $5-$10 less than I can even get it at wholesale... before I pay any of my costs, shipping, etc.
In any case, this is why there isn't much on the site at the moment. I'm up for suggestions though, if anyone has any!
So, aside from the above, what else can I do to offer you guys a better service, over all? Better product info? More pictures? Any unique/niche brands/items you want to see? Let me know!
My System
(13 items) |
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My System
(13 items) |
