We all like receiving free gifts, services and the likes, but do we like giving them? I've talked no end about promotional gifts over on that blog, but do such gifts always have to be tangible items?
Recently a customer has been struggling with his shopping site. Most items have a standard postage rate and PayPal was able to handle these perfectly. But some are heavy and bulky and cost almost 10 times the price to post. He couldn't code this into PayPal so asked for help.
The only solution was to write a customised shopping basket, in which he could also tie in the associated costs for particular items. Now this involved a few hours' work to get it going then odd hours to test and implement it. Maybe a day's work in total?
But he'd made it clear that his business couldn't afford a huge payout for any changes. That didn't matter. I could see that the custom basket could be used for other customers as well. With only slight modifications each time, everyone can have their own basket which links into whatever payment provider (or providers) they want.
I saw this as a potential opportunity. So I told him there would be no charge for the days' work - totally free.
Now he's delighted with me - first orders came through almost straight after the basket went live and it all runs smoothly. His business is running better and if he needs a new site or anyone asks him for a recommendation, hopefully I've just made sure I'm his first port of call!
But I've also taken something away with me with the shopping basket. I've developed a useful tool that I can quickly put into other sites (and in fact have done so). It wouldn't have been fiar therefore to charge him the development costs.
So we're both pleased. Hopefully it will help his business strengthen, and in a year or so he'll be back for a bigger & better site!
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