May 4, 2010 | Vacuum Cleaner Repair, Help & Advice | No comments
If taken care of properly your vacuum cleaner will last you quite a long time. We’ve got loads of articles in our Advice Centre that will guide you through what to do if your vacuum cleaner has lost suction. In our latest video our Marketing Director, Matt, will guide you through how to replace the power cable and reel on a Hetty (or Henry) vacuum cleaner.
April 29, 2010 | Laundry Appliance Repair, Help & Advice | No comments
As this was the most requested video topic from our customers, we’re quite pleased to have finished production of our video ‘How To Replace a Washing Machine Door Handle‘. The door handle on a washing machine is susceptible to wear and it’s not uncommon for it to break; particularly if you’ve got a heavy-handed member of your household. The good news is that a washing machine door handle is inexpensive to replace and easy to fit, in this video Mike demonstrates how it’s done.
April 27, 2010 | Uncategorized | 2 comments
You’ve probably noticed that we’re big on the idea that fixing an appliance with spares can save you a lot of money. In the last 24 hours we’ve received some fantastic customer reviews that reaffirm our view that the equation “fixing it yourself = saving money” is 100% true. Here are our favourite money saving reviews from the last 24 hours:
As a consumer I love saving money and spending wisely. It’s rewarding to work in a business that enables others to make smart financial decisions and it’s even more rewarding when they share their money saving stories with us.
* The video referenced in the review for the 2500 Watt Oven Element is How to fit a fan oven element.
April 22, 2010 | Gardening Tips | 1 comment
Like any retailer there is also a level of seasonality in our business. In the winter months it seems that people mostly are interested in cooker spares and in the summer it’s gardening spares. To make the most of this we’ve been spending a significant amount of time creating new videos that focus on how to keep your lawnmower and trimmer in top shape.
One thing that we cannot emphasize enough is the importance of a sharp blade when cutting your lawn. It’s pretty easy to go with the flow and cut with the blade in your mower, even if it’s blunt. A blunt blade will rip at your lawn, tearing it, and over time your lawn will appear patchy. Don’t let this happen to you. Make sure you always mow with a sharp blade. In our latest Flymo lawnmower video we show you how to fit a new Flymo cutting disc, which comes fitted with new blades.
Of course if you don’t need to replace the cutting disc and you just want to replace the Flymo plastic blades this is very easy to do as well:
April 21, 2010 | eSpares Updates | No comments
I would hazard to bet that the majority of people who shop online don’t give a second thought to the experience except for when things go wrong. One of the many secrets to being a successful online retailer is to continually test the usability of your website with members of the public. Fundamentally, as an online retailer, what you want to test is that people who are unfamiliar with your brand have confidence buying from it. In order to achieve this your website has to run smoothly and look great.
This week we’re running another round of website testing to make sure that the buying process is completely straightforward. Here’s how it works:
We recruit members of the public to come into our office and complete a few shopping ‘tasks’ on the eSpares website. Ideally you want testers who represent your target audience. So, if for example, your target user-group is female and 30-45 years old, you should get testers who fall within that category.
The tricky thing for us is that our website defies traditional ‘target audience’ metrics. We’ve got just as many women buying from our site as men and they come from all age groups with varying degrees of online shopping experience. As you can imagine our testing group is very diverse. Once we’ve got all of our testers lined up we go ahead with a round of testing. Our Marketing Director, Matt Henton, runs the testing in our meeting room whilst members of our team look on remotely, as shown in the above photo.
Even though most of us at eSpares spend all day looking at our website, there are things that we miss. Some of the feedback that we’ve had from testers has actually been quite simple, easy to action, and has made our website considerably better. We try to do testing at least once every two months to make sure that we’re moving our site in the right direction.
It’s quite easy to assume that all the tweaks and changes you make to your website are perfect and just what the customer wants. Hubris is responsible for the downfall in most Greek tragedies; don’t let your ego lead your website, let your customers lead it. If you’ve got a new bit of functionality or a new design it’s much better to test a new bit of functionality first rather than launching it and having to make a lot of changes to a live site. It’s also quite easy to fall into the trap that if functionality is live on your site, and no one has complained about it, then it’s working to its full potential. This is why you should test.
When you work in an online marketplace, it’s quite easy to forget about the customer as your face-to-face contact is limited, we try our hardest not to let this happen. If you work for an online retailer we’d encourage you to test your website with members of the public as frequently as you can.
April 19, 2010 | eSpares Updates | Vacuum Cleaner Repair, Help & Advice | No comments
We hold our hands up and say that carrying cleaning tools that are considered ‘generic’ or ‘universal’ has been a real struggle for us. We carry them for our customers who own vacuums where the genuine tools just aren’t made any more. On our landing pages we do our best to explain within the product description what you need to do to ensure that the tools will fit. Regardless we still encounter a higher than desirable return rate on these items with the reason being that the tool didn’t fit the cleaner.
As we all get more comfortable with online shopping it’s not always the case that the full product description is read prior to the item being purchased. I’m guilty of this too and currently own a beautiful, but very oversized, laundry basket. After all if the tool looks identical to the one that you need that’s basically all you need to know, right?
In order to combat this problem we’re trying a different approach and using videos to convey the fitting information. Here are our two latest videos that we’ve shot, we’re hoping that they’ll decrease our returns rate for the products they feature and increase customer satisfaction.
This video is featured against our universal 30-37mm vacuum floor tool.
This video is featured against our universal 32mm dusting brush.
As a retailer you don’t want people to return products to you, generally it means that you’re doing something wrong. Even worse is when a customer orders a product, is unhappy with it, but doesn’t bother to let you know or return it. We’ll be keeping a watchful eye on the conversion of these products, their returns rate and customer reviews now that the videos have been added.
April 14, 2010 | General Appliance Care & Advice | 4 comments
One of the obstacles that we’ve had with our help videos is that we’re a bit limited to the appliances featured based on what our team members own. We’ve got to hold our hands up, we’re a thrifty bunch and we didn’t want to shell out a lot of money on new appliances for our videos.
Mike got the idea to source old broken appliances on eBay, trying to get them as cheaply as possible, just to see what we could get.
Here’s what we bought…Read more
April 9, 2010 | Uncategorized | No comments
We’ve started our search to recruit an excellent Customer Support & Sales Advisor to join our team.
Providing a top rate service to our customers is our absolute priority and the successful candidate will need to demonstrate excellent communication and sales skills, be flexible and professional. You will need to be computer literate and be very comfortable navigating around websites and intranets. You must be fluent in English and have had experience in delivering great customer service in a previous role. We’re looking for someone with a ‘can-do’ attitude who can take ownership and continually strive for improvement.
We have a great working environment, the team is vibrant, young and friendly and our offices look out onto the river Thames in Chelsea.
Main duties include:
This is a permanent/ full time position, working 5 (40 hours a week) out of 6 days. The call centre operates a shift pattern which includes working weekends. Our opening hours are 8am – 6pm, Monday – Saturday.
To apply please email your CV and a covering letter explaining why you’re perfect for this eSpares job. The email address to use is: callcentrejobs@espares.co.uk.
April 8, 2010 | Laundry Appliance Repair, Help & Advice | No comments
The lifter in your washing machine drum is responsible for agitating your clothes so that the dirt disperses and your laundry becomes clean. If the drum lifter is broken not only will your clothes not get as clean as they should, but you could also risk creating tears in the items that you’re trying to clean. In a similar vein you could lose socks and small articles of clothing through the gap a missing lifter creates.
April 8, 2010 | Uncategorized | No comments
The lifter in your washing machine drum is responsible for agitating your clothes so that the dirt disperses and your laundry becomes clean. If the drum lifter is broken not only will your clothes not get as clean as they should, but you could also risk creating tears in the items that you’re trying to clean. In a similar vein you could lose socks and small articles of clothing through the gap a missing lifter creates. Replacing a drum lifter in most washing machine models is quite easy. In this new eSpares video Helen will show you how to fit a drum lifter in a Hotpoint washing machine:
