When are the featured and premium stores going to be able to do the self service newsletters?
Mark,
Back in September you told us this
Self-service Newsletters will be available in the Featured Store subscription in the near-future. With a Premium Store subscription you have an account manager who will work with you hands-on to create newsletters and help with best practices, setup sales and promotions, and provide marketing help based on what works well across all of our sellers.
https://www.hipstamp.com/forums/discussion/comment/2337/#Comment_2337
Now seeing that this is a feature for which the featured and premium stores are paying part of their subscription fees for,the question then is WHEN is this feature going to be ready for us to use? (Seeing as this is now 4 months later and we still have no news on WHEN this will be ready)
Thanks
Michael
Back in September you told us this
Self-service Newsletters will be available in the Featured Store subscription in the near-future. With a Premium Store subscription you have an account manager who will work with you hands-on to create newsletters and help with best practices, setup sales and promotions, and provide marketing help based on what works well across all of our sellers.
https://www.hipstamp.com/forums/discussion/comment/2337/#Comment_2337
Now seeing that this is a feature for which the featured and premium stores are paying part of their subscription fees for,the question then is WHEN is this feature going to be ready for us to use? (Seeing as this is now 4 months later and we still have no news on WHEN this will be ready)
Thanks
Michael
Comments
https://www.hipstamp.com/site-fees
There are also many different new and enhanced features which we are always working on, some of which may be available only to certain Store Levels. When we add a new benefit to a Store Level, we'll add it to the list we make available. However, you're certainly never paying for features which do not yet exist.
That being said, we do provide updates on upcoming features, and Self Service Newsletters are something we're working on for the future. However, at this time we do not have a further update on this.
However, as a Premium Store (which you are), you're already able to send more newsletters than you would be able to with the Self Service selection by working with your Account Manager.
As we recently announced in the Forums, over the past four months we have already doubled monthly sales on HipStamp to $195,000 per month, which is more stamps sold per month than ever before on either HipStamp, bidStart or StampWants. In reviewing your specific sales, I think there's a few additional options as a Premium Seller you can be taking advantage of to help increase your own sales further. I'll ask your Account Manager to follow-up with you.
I do get what you are saying here BUT there are some issues with the way the newsletters are being sent out right now. Which is why I am asking about us having a bit more control over it,because at the moment it seems as if there are few issues with it.
1. The first and most important is that they are NOT be sent at the times I request. (After having done this for 10 years I should have a pretty good idea of WHEN the best times for my newsletters to go out) If those newsletters ARE not going out when I request them it defeats the purpose for sending them out. If I already know that a certain day of the week is best for the buyers that visit my store,shouldn't they go out on that day and not another day of the week?
The reason I ask for a certain day is because those newsletters that are sent out on a certain almost always out does the ones that are sent on a DIFFERENT day then I requested.
2. If I do NOT request a follow up newsletter to be sent at a certain,then should you be sending out that newsletter WITHOUT one of you asking me? (That happened this week,and because of this I couldn't request one to be sent on the day I wanted it to be sent)
3. Wouldn't it be better for BOTH Hipstamp and the seller to be on the same page on sending out the newsletters? (You're not helping me when we are not on the same page on the newsletters,and if not wouldn't it be more beneficial to both of us for me to do it myself?)
4. I am aware of the fact that the sales been increasing on Hipstamp. And while $195,000 is quite a bit of an increase,broken down between all the sellers it means the average seller is selling $300 a month. I am also aware of the fact that over the last month there have been about 50 new sellers added to the site. I know there are some things that can be tweaked on my end. But I do think that having done this online for over 15 years and having sold over 150,000 items on your sites,that I may just have an idea or two on how some of these things work.
5. All I am asking is there some way to resolve these issues on this?
With regards to sales, there's really no "average" Seller. We have Basic Stores with 10 items, and Premium Stores with over 100,000 items - so the amount each Seller sells each month varies significantly from one to another.
also, I was extremely disappointed Mark, I have to say if I am very frank and honest, with your answer to him because basically you ignored his question and actually did not answer it. Also it is a question I have written to you direct on and had no answer.
Furthermore the " benefits" to premium member, as far as I see and actually receive are VERY limited, or to put it another way, rather insignificant. Based on my experience and the number of emails I have had from Justin and the number of promo's / advertising letters I have received over the past months I am getting hardly any recognition, advice, guidance, opportunities etc etc, chose whatever words you want, by being a premium member, except, by chance because of my listing volume, my site is on the first page.
I certainly agree with Michael Duehr that the time of of those emails from Justin, in my case I think there has been one - yes 1 in all the time I have been a premium member - just one - the timing is pretty useless to me.
And finally, as I have also written to you privately, but will raise it publically now because it is also relevant to being a premium member as far as I am concerned - is that the focus on US dealers and the whole site being 99% US centric shows a lack of interest towards premium members who are not US based. I honestly think something should be done to address that because I think this also comes back to an understanding of the timing of messages given the global time differences. By example when the mailing I was involved in was finally sent it was already half way through the weekend in some parts of the world!
Regards Michael Dodd
Gold HipValues Subscription - really!!!!
Dedicated Account Manager - right, one email about every 3 to 4 months????
Sales and Marketing Support - none received unless 1 email in perhaps 6 months counts
basically I am paying premium to be on the home page.
oh, and I do realise the one obvious response to my comment.. but would like to think I will get some value soon please
Am I alone in this???
Michael
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best price and service. As a buyer I have not even seen any newsletters but perhaps I missed them.
1) With regards to Self Service Newsletter, this is not a feature we currently offer, and is not promoted as being a feature available for any Store Subscription level. If this is something you are interested in doing now, there are many third-party services you can use to do this, such as Constant Contact, MailChimp, etc. It's also something we plan to offer as a feature in the future, but do not have any further update on this at this time. As such, and with any other feature which we may offer in the future, but do not currently, it should not factor into which Store Subscription level you select.
2) There are many benefits of having a Premium Store with us. One of which is an Account Manager and Sales & Marketing support. More specifically, Premium Stores are always the first to be offered to be included in special events which we run, and regularly featured in our site newsletters to our 75,000 members.
As a specific example, in December we had reached out to you to offer inclusion in our Free Shipping Event, of which you participated as a Premium Store, and were featured in our newsletter which went out to our 75,000 members:
As a Premium Store, we'll continue to feature you in Site Newsletters, and reach out to you for inclusion in events and special promotions. Whether this specific benefit, and the other benefits provided to Premium Stores are right for you - is up to you. We have many Sellers who opt for Premium Stores because the benefits work well for them. However, as a Seller with less than 100,000 items it's completely your choice if you're a Featured Store or a Premium Store.
I totally agree with you on this also
I honestly think something should be done to address that because I think this also comes back to an understanding of the timing of messages given the global time differences. By example when the mailing I was involved in was finally sent it was already half way through the weekend in some parts of the world!
It doesn't just affect the international sellers but it also affects the North American sellers who do sell internationally.
I periodically receive SALE notifications from PC sellers on Hippostcard. I think if you post the above comments on the PC site, you may get a reply.
My comments on this are concerning BOTH sites as I am on both sites.
The more I think about this I think you are correct also on this and I am getting a little testy about some things so I do want to apologize for this.