How do you deal with people poaching your customers?

[teenymunchkins]

This might be a bit long ... sorry!!

About 2 years ago I joined forces with a party plan company selling toys and helped set her up with the paperwork, terms and conditions, agent agreements etc.  At the time I had started a dropship

At the time of me joining this party plan company, I had told the owner that I was setting up my own website but that I was going selling different items to her company.  After a couple of months and me having done all the legwork with the paperwork,  setting up facebook pages, agents forums and other network she decided she no longer liked the idea of me having my own site so told me to either sell it or leave her company.  I decided to leave!

Anyway, my business moved on and my first year proved to be quite successful (far more so than her first year) and am looking forward to an even more buoyant 2nd year as my site is currently being redesigned and more user-friendly.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I had a customer ask me via my facebook fan page about a particular item.  Unfortunately I did not see the post til later that week and in the meantime it so happens that this woman I was with before bought this product from me on ebay the day after this lady had asked about it.  This was the last of that product that I had.  I told my potential customer sorry that I did not see the post but had already sold the item.  She replied that she had managed to buy it elsewhere.

Looking back at who are fans of my page I notice this other woman is and have put 2 and 2 together and reckon she might have poached her!!  Also, looking at her ebay shop she has just started selling party bag toys, which I also started doing in the New Year.

I know there is not much I can do about it and competition is good and there are loads of sellers selling similar stuff to me.  It makes me really cross that this woman seems to be going all out to nick my customers!!

Has anybody had anything similar happen??   

[jamhun]

Not in retail, but still got my idea's got nicked.

A number of years ago (about 18 years) I was employed by a leisure company that had just opened a massive site in Liverpool, it was built on the old festival site. Anyway i was the manager of the roller skating rink, when I was asked to put a programme of entertainment together (I worked as a bluecoat for Pontins for about 8 years). After spending about a month putting it together I was quite proud of it, but the powers that be said that it was to ambitious to put into place, I was a wee bit miffed to say the least as I had spent a lot of my free time in doing it. It was about 2 months later after I had cut my staff to the bare minimun that I was called into the office and told that my position was being made redundant. A week after I had left they put a large advert in the local paper about the new entertainment programme that they had, you guessed it, it was the programme that I had written. I can't put into words here how I felt at the time, but 6 months later the company had closed down. Although they had the programme, they had nobody with the experience to implement and run it. It made me feel a little bit better, but not much.



James

[DGTG Wholesale]

Thats not a lot you can do to stop them attempting to steal your customers, one thing though you should always remember is people who do this are so busy stealing customers they tend to forget to operate their own business. We found that often as long as you provide a good service and treat everyone with respect and a little consideration that more often than not they return to you after they were let down. Offer a good service, never promise something you can't deliver and be honest, and you will build a good but steady repeat custom, and the people who steal your customers let Karma deal with them.

[Gothic Dropshipping]

I've had two people do it now, copy my ideas and start as a rival..  last one joined my service just to see how it was done asked a ridiculous amount of questions then opened up within weeks.

Don't worry about them would be my general advice, in my experience just make sure the service you offer is second to none! they appear to fall by the wayside and fail as time goes on.

My most recent one has a much bigger range than I offer (although I believe and have some evidence that they're just a middleman) but I've only had 1 customer jump ship and I'll bet long term they regret it 

I used to let things like this annoy me, but it's a waste of your time doing anything about it, 9 times out of 10 you've got people that see what you're doing and think "oh I could do that and make lots of money" of course the reality is they haven't done the research nor do they have the ideas/imagination if they did they wouldn't be cloning you

[scotserve]

[Gothic Dropshipping]

or there is Bryon's method 

[teenymunchkins]

   I like Bryon's method!! LMAO

[pcbob]

Hmmm question is do you swing it or shove it