Who's Eligible
Any Shetland-based business is welcome to be a part of the site. In fact, if your a Shetland business - we want you! We are happy to consider businesses from outside Shetland, particularly those that have a strong link to Shetland, but these will not usually be eligible.
Crofts and very small businesses are more than welcome too. Even if you only sell products at certain times of the year, that won't be a problem.
What can be sold on the site?
Pretty much anything really. Products must be new, in stock in Shetland and available for mail order Shetland or UK-wide. We aren't just talking about Shetland-made products either, we would like highstreet retailers to use the site to list special offers and bargains that customers don't need to get shipped up from the Mainland.
The main no-no's are services, vehicles, animals, second hand goods, products of an adult or controversial nature etc.
What You'll Recieve as a Provider on our site...
Firstly, let us explain - we call the businesses that sell through the site our "Providers".
Once registered, you'll gain full access to the Shetland Market site, a advanced multi-seller e-commerce website. This site is based on a fully commercial and well tested web software package. It is very specialised and offers all users , customers and sellers a simple but very capable system through which to sell a variety of products. It is also highly customisable so the site will eventually develop with more features to make it even more user friendly.
Shetland Market is a safe and secure site using the best online payment systems available to ensure your customers have a safe online shopping experience.
As a Provider you will get a custom page at www.shetlandmarket.com/yourbusinessname which will detail your business as well as link to your website if you have one, and include your business logo if you have one.
You'll also get 24 hour access to your "Provider Area" - the place where you can check for orders, add new products, maintain your stock levels and manage your store. Its a very intuiative system, but as we mentioned the site is very capable with many advanced functions, so we've written a specific Provider Knowledge Base just for Shetland Market Providers. We'll give you access to this later
If the answer's not there, we're only an email or phone call away, anytime.
You will also benefit from Shetland Market's marketing strategies. We aim to ensure the site is well publicised and will ensure the site becomes well known to both the Shetland public and to Shetland's thousands of annual visitors. As a part of this you will receive marketing material directly from Shetland Market such as busness cards and flyers for you to distribute to your customers if you wish.
How much does it cost?
It is free to become a Provider with Shetland Market. We do not aim to charge businesses unneccesarily to be part of the site - that's why there are no setup fees, monthly charges or listing fees on our site.
You will be charged a commission fee for your total sales (see below). Our commission rate is very competitive and far lower than other outlets such as eBay Shops and Amazon Marketplace. We're hoping to lower it even further to even make it competitive with your own website!
NB. The commission rate is under review. Commission is 0% until July 2012. Thereafter it will be 10%, and possibly lower if we find adequate advertising and sponsorship to fund the site in other ways.
How it works...
Its well worth reading our "About our Site" page to familirise yourself with the site workings.
Shetland Market is made up of several different local businesses, all listing their products in one online shop. They can browse and add products from anwhere on the site, from several different Providers and pay for them in one go with our secure checkout.
Then, we send an email out (automatically) to all the Providers that the customer ordered from.
Each Provider then gets in touch with the customer to confirm the order and provide an estimated despatch date.
The Providers then send out the products to the customer.
Shetland Market deals with all the incoming payments on the site, and every month we will send you a breakdown of your orders together with payment. We'll deduct our commission from this total before we send it. We can usually process payments more regularly than 1 month, especially for larger orders. Just ask us if you need your payments quicker and we'll do our best.
Provider Requirements
That's just the basics of the service - there's a lot more detail that we've broken down in our Terms and Conditions that we ask you to read and agree to.
The main requirements for Providers are:
- Regular and reliable access to a computer and the internet (you must check for orders daily in your email account)
- An email address
- The ability to dispatch your products to customers within 2-3 days, although non-standard and custom orders can take longer if necessary as long as you explain this to the customer. Customers should be receiving standard orders within 7 days of ordering.
- A bank account so that you can receive out monthly payments
- A basic knowledge of computers and of online selling (such as using ebay to sell items etc)
Some of the main requirements for using the site are:
- We ask that you limit postage and packaging to £3.95 per order for UK orders where possible. We would prefer it if you could offer Free Postage and absorb the costs into you prices. This makes it much simpler for the customer. We appreciate some large items are exceptions to this and special delivery prices can be set subject to approval from us. (International orders are currently not allowed, however this will be changed soon, and you will be able to set separate delivery charges for this)
- You must email the customer personally every time you receive an order to confirm that you have received it, and estimate a despatch date. You must then follow through the order with emails to confirm when the product has been dispatched.
- You must deal with all returns, refunds and disputes regarding orders yourself. We will refund the customer if you ask us to, but you will be charged a 5% refund fee to cover our costs.
- You must maintain an accurate product inventory and keep your stock levels up to date.
- You must add products to your Provider Area yourself - although at the moment we're offering to get you started with 10 products added by us for free.
- You must keep your product page tidy and well presented (search for Climb Shetland's Miniguides as an example of an appropriately laid out out product page)
- You are responsible for everything listed on your Provider Area
That's just a few of the details as we said. You should read the full terms and conditions to make sure you are familiar with the service - there's nothing hidden though!! Click here to open up the Terms and Conditions in a new window
All done? Click below to continue.
