How to Use Your Wish List and Notify Me

So it turns out our website has a powerful feature that a number of our savvy customers have been using for a while - you can set up your own personal "wish list".

We've never publicised it, so it's a credit to those of you who worked out how to set it up and have been using it!

Click the Heart and Our Robot Will Respond

If you take a close look at the icons on our product pages or the product category pages, you'll see a small heart icon next to the Add to Cart" button.

If you have an account with us and are logged into your account, clicking that icon will add the product to your "wish list".

Some collectors use this wish list to keep track of coins or notes that they are saving up for, others use it to remember items that they eventually want to add to their set, and others use it so they get an alert when an item they missed out on becomes available again.

At the moment, our eCommerce system is set up to send an automated email once each day when it recognizes there's a match between an item of available inventory and an item on a want list.

This is a fully automated system and we don't keep track of it, so if you're comfortable with a system-generated email when something you're keen on turns up, this might be something you want to try and set up.

As of the date I write this, more than 250 people have used this to set up an alert - some products are on more than one list too! This means if you're keen to get an advantage over your fellow collector, you have to act quickly when that notification comes through.

Click the Notify Me Button - It's Monitored by Our Humans

Now, if you like the idea of having the humans at Sterling & Currency keeping an eye out for something for you, you'll want to check out our "Notify Me" feature.

For the longest time, when we sold a product we just used to turn that page off so it wasn't visible to anyone visiting the site. My logic was that it was pointless to advertise an item that wasn't available - I know it drives me mad when I'm searching the web and I see a link to a product I'm interested in, and I click on it only to be confronted with a massive SOLD sign when I hit the page.

So with the technical expertise of the good people at our web developer (say hello to Keetrax), we've set up a notification system that we actively monitor and make use of.

If you're searching the web or checking a product page on our website and the product is no longer available, instead of just getting a frustrating OUT OF STOCK message, you'll see some statistics about when it sold and how much we sold it for.

We've built that so that even if you do miss out on a product, you'll at least learn a bit more about the market so you have some more information you can use next time round. 

On top of that, you'll see there's a "Notify Me" button you can use to set up an alert in our CRM. Keep in mind this function is obligation-free and is designed to be of service to you.

There will be two reasons we'd reach out to you after you submit your information via the Notify Me button -

1. We might need some clarifying information from you about the condition, eye appeal or provenance of the information you've tagged;
2. The item has become available again, and we're letting you know so you can consider buying it.

I know some collectors would rather poke their eye out with a fork than give any dealer an indication of the items they're keen on, but I also know there are far more who know it can save them time to make use of a trusted professional who has a network of contacts to keep an eye out for them.

As of the date that I write this, more than 40 people have used the Notify Me button to accelerate their collecting. Because we now have a system we can trust to remember who said they wanted what, we're now using it to actively track requests like this - I'm convinced it'll 

Back in the day, I had a filing cabinet with written notes on each client's collection - what they had and what they wanted. If I was lucky, those notes would migrate into an A4 "shopping list" I'd take to auctions and trade shows around the country. As with any system that involves humans (particularly a human as imperfect as myself) it was far from foolproof.

The real power of technology is that it relieves the burden of boring and repetitive tasks that are essential but time-consuming. Our new Notify Me system does just that - I hope you'll consider it when you next see a product you've missed out on.