Customer Service Reviews for Merchant of Magic

Customer service is the life blood of any good magic shop

Have you ever written to a company to let them know how good their customer service was? Many of the customers at the Merchant of Magic do just that, and the team love to get the feedback it’s 100% what keeps us going! We are so proud of the thanks we get, that we have shared some of the recent comments below:

Dominic Reyes, first let me say that I am buying for my son who is 14 and quite interested in magic. Your book about learning magic, which I downloaded is a great idea to help a beginner find their way through all the various items and helps them to focus on a few important ideas rather be overwhelmed by all there is, thanks! Second, the reason I decided to buy with you is that rather than just sell the things for magic on-line, you actually try to understand what the person is interested in and what might be the most useful for them; which goes a long way beyond most other sites, which just are their to sell the items and move on. Your site makes one feel that they are more than just another customer to sell something to; which I find commendable and it gives one a sense that magic to you is more than just a way to make money.

Cordially, Fredrick Werstein father of a budding magician

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Very, very impressed with your communication and service. Thank you. – Steph Thorpe

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You asked me to tell you about the difficulties I might have been having. You won’t believe this, but you actually sent me something that addressed the exact difficulty I was having. You sent me the book Approaching Tables later on down the line. That was exactly the thing I was after.I hadn’t even sent you the feedback on this book yet, and you sent me the answer – and it’s a Godsend, like this book here. Thank you for this book, for Approaching Tables, and for those free books you’ve sent me since I joined the site. A lot of my work is more along the lines of being a mentalist act, doing cold reading, minimal material outlay – but the need to build up skill in approaching people, and the need to make sure to wind up the gig properly, is pretty much universal. – Alex T Greene

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Just a quick note to thank you for the absolute quickest ever delivery of an item I’ve probably ever had, ever. I ordered Revolution (at 3pm) – and was spinning away by 11am the next day. Even Harry Potheads Owls aren’t that fast. – Mark Willis

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I learned my first effect 18 months ago and have turned this into regular bookings… I’m not big bucks yet but people do pay me. I’ve incorporated a lot of the advice that has come from the Merchant of Magic blog as well as effects that are in your catalogue. The MoM blog was pretty much the guide to get me out there and performing and is a reason I am where I am now… Paul Bavill Professor Paul – Vintage Magician

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Hi Dominic, I am ever so sorry but I forgot to say thank you for answering the question I sent you the other day on the working material of a professional magician which you answered on your blog. You have helped me out massively ! As I now have a better idea and understanding of this. Not only that but I now know how to go about learning new magic tricks that I want to include within various acts. – Robert Olley

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It is my opinion that you offer the best service in the magical business and at the best price. I had not been in touch for years, placed an order and felt welcomed back home again. Thank you for your outstanding service. – Philip Hilton

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Exemplary customer service. Hope to patronise your company again in the future. – Martin Wall

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Awesome. All the staff working at the Merchant of Magic are extremely helpful. If it’s not available they will try and put you on the right track. Thank you Merchant of Magic – Derek Foley.

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Hello Ben,
Many thanks for your honest opinion, I really do appreciate it, and thank you for taking the time to reply. When I need any Magic, Merchant of Magic will be my first choice. – Gerry McCue

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Just a quick note to say many thanks for my order, which I received this morning. The packaging did an excellent job of keeping the books in great condition. Once again, many thanks. – Jamie Marsden

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Great to have a Well stocked, professionally run magic shop in the UK. – Gary UK

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Dominic Reyes, I should thank you for all your support in my early days of my magic. Without you and your guys in the shop in don’t know if I’d have stuck with it. So thanks 🙂 – Barry Fazackerley

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Thank you for the update , as always your customer service is second to none.
Best regards – Jenny UK

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Wow greatest service I have ever experienced. – Daniel Scharkinger

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I really do appreciate getting in touch with some valuable tips, I didn’t think I was going to get a reply so to get all this information I’m chuffed. – Jamie UK

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Wow greatest service I have ever experienced. – Daniel Scharkinger

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This level of customer service is first class and shows you care about your clients as well as products. – Anthony Adderley

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Thanks once again for all of your support. You and your company have been the most honest and fair company I have ever dealt with in the magic community. That means a lot to me and has enabled me to see my projects through. – Leon Mjolnir

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Such a great experience ordering from Merchant of Magic. – Andy Jones

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WOW!…Warp speed delivery service by MOM as my Zenith arrived today and I only paid for it at 6pm on Saturday…Thank you Dominic. – Griflex
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I have been enjoying your website and blog, learning a lot. Thanks for doing what you do. – Phil Foster

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Love the MoM team..always happy to help,chat and advise and most importantly to me always make feel like they have time for me with my gazillions of questions. – Darren Ryder

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You have been an amazing help Mark , service like this is very hard to find these days …. Kind regards – Roger Armstrong
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Hey Dominic Reyes and the wonderfully helpful staff at MoM. Just a quick note of thanks for all the work and care you put into mentoring fellow magicians with your blogs and ematerials. Tips from pro performers have given me a new level to arrive towards and achieve. It is probably commonplace to receive these notes but I do like to thank those who join me in my journeys… – Dave from 952 Studios. Australia

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Hi there just like to say you are doing a great job. I love your blog and podcast. I have always been fascinated by magic and learned 1 or 2 card tricks when I was a kid but never went further than that, until now!!! I have for a long time used the old coin behind the ear trick on my daughter and she was always amazed until June this year when she told me how i did it. I was gutted and have been determined since then to work on some new tricks to impress her with. That is how I found you, and my love of magic again. – Michael Page

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I really love the customer services you offer I’ve made a few orders before and always received everything in perfect condition and on time. – Matt Brown

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Thanks for the help and for the extremely fast shipping. Wow! GREAT. – Marc Frese

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You’ve found a loyal customer in me, it’s a really great service that you guys offer. I am always amazed by the range of stuff you have for sale. Thanks a lot for the great service. – Adam Thomas
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Really great material which is exactly what I need. I have more than enough content that teach tricks and explanations.
Your ebooks represent real help for amateur magicians seeking to perform more.
Thanks for this. – Jason Wylie

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As always you guys are legends and I can’t wait for my package to arrive.. I’ve bought a fair few bits from you over the past few months or so and I’m always impressed with the communication and updates you provide regarding my order. .
I also like receiving emails of new products and one time deals… Awesome keep up the good work guys.. – Wayne Britchford

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Thanks for all the support and advice you’ve offered me over the course of the past year with my magic inquiries. Your service has been constantly shining. – Ben Phillips

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Thanks very much for such great customer service – Edward Watson

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I recently made an order of two books. I would like to say thank you very much for such a fast and efficient delivery – Tom Hancock

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Hi all at Merchant of Magic. Thank you for the update. Great service guys. I will definitely be returning for future purchases. – John Charlton

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Very pleased with your service. My order arrived as promised and very happy with the help received from one of your magicians, so nice to speak to another human being not a machine!! – Many thanks – Sandra Goodwill

Wow! You actually read all those reviews!! Here’s a free trick as a reward:

Magic Shop Customer Service Feedback and Reviews

by Dominic Reyes Leave a Comment

How the Magic Shop is Doing with Customer Service

Reviews and Feedback

Yes, yes, we know it's bad form to pat ourselves on the back, but we just can't help it… The team at the magic shop love what we do, and feel lucky that our customers allow us to keep going. Every time we get a nice email from a happy customer it makes our day. Seriously, It just feels WRONG to hit the 'archive' button in Gmail and file it forever.. So, here's a bit of self indulgent showing off about the customer service that we aim for at the magic shop:

'I have always found service from Merchant of Magic fantastic.' – David Turpie

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'Just want to say "thanks" for all you do to create these resources for fellow magicians. You're definitely one of the good guys, and your efforts and generosity are appreciated by many in the community.' – Scott Barden

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'I’ve watched many of your blogs and tips on improving magic. They are superb, too good for the average magician actually. I am a customer to your store and I’m sure you know I buy products from you on occasions. You run a great shop.' – Andy Fields

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'I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for a great service as always. Thanks!' – Lawrence D’Mello

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'I also meant to say that I think your series of pieces and articles (and free ebooks) on all kinds of subjects from looking after cards to approaching a table, etc, etc, to well it almost seems to be an endless list now, is a great added value extra on your website. It's well written and interesting advice, lively subjects, varied and topical titles and excellent marketing on your part. You've certainly come up with something that none of your competitors are offering. They don't always have a lot of depth but hey what can get for nothing these days! It shows a little bit of interest in your customers, gives them knowledge and advice and pushes them forward in magic. I expect it keeps them coming back for more. I think it's a great idea.' – Paul Preager

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'I know the reputation of your company and how fantastic it is. As per usual fantastic support from this site. I look forward to further business with you.' – Chris Lomas

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'Thanks for taking the time to go through the list and giving your honest opinions on the tricks, I couldn't have asked for more.10 out of 10.' – Ryan Watts

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'As usual tip top service and help.' – Malcolm Hickson

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'Hey Merchant of Magic. Just want to say how much I love your page and all the interesting honest and valued posts made regularly on here as well as the REAL information and sharing that goes on great job keep it up valued reader and watcher from Australia' – Steve Prior

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'Thanks guys for your exemplary customer service. I progressed as a Magician. What more could anyone ask for? Cue applause. Hopefully for both of us.Love and respect. Right.' – Joe Black

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'You have became my first shopping option now great service as usual' . – Arturo Lazcano

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'I appreciate the hard work and dedication that goes into everything concerning your business. Which if I may add is without a doubt the best out there. Ben Williams has talked to me a couple of times on the phone and again he is a great representative of your business.' – Chris Stevens

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'Dominic Reyes, love it all very interesting indeed! Learned so much already and never enough for me to learn.
Thank you for being so kind' – Daniella Vejjajiva

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'I am a magician from Liverpool and gig on a part time basis at the moment. I’ve read a few of your ebooks and they’ve helped a lot, so thanks.' – Paul Dawes

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'Merchant of Magic is always the 1st one I go to when I need to top up my magic kit.' – Ciaran Cahill

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'Good ideas are always useful, and there are some here I had not thought of doing – so thanks.' – Rob Slater

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'Great tips and great customer support! Keep 'em coming!' – David Tilley

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'Thanks So much for sending these amazing magic tricks links guys , keep doing what you're doing.' – Justin Fortuin

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'Thanks so much Dominic, your mails and advice really do help me… :)' – Abel Sunny

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'Please also pass on my thanks to Ben Williams who was extremely helpful and prompt in responding to my emails. I received a much better experience and customer service from you guys than I haves had from other magic dealers.' – Philip Kite

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'Would like to say a big thank you to your team for helping me with my problems. I will be seeing you all apon my return to the UK thank you again.' – Steve Phillips

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'Thanks very much for the advice it fits the show perfectly.' – Eamon Corbett

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'I really do appreciate all your help and your excellent service. – Malcolm Hickson

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'Every question answered promptly, professionaly and personally… Perfect!' – Wayne Cooper

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'Have taken on board your Advice, very helpful it was too. I will certainly use your suggestions. Really liked advice on orchestrating the moment for magic and will work on that.' – Chris Mayne

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'Thanks Dominic love the things you keep me in touch with I will continue to shop at magicshop.co.uk beacuse it's the best place to shop. I recomend this shop to any magictian, professional or beginner – David Ki

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'Many thanks for taking the time to explain these points they really are helpful . at my age I'm not going to make the big stages its just for my own pleasure . I've always been intrigued with magicians and their tricks. ive always been led to believe only members of round circles could actually learn these amazing tricks until I found your amazing website . I'm a carer for kiddies with health problems. I have been practicing my new found hobby on them it seems to be going well . ive been going over and over your DVD and now I cant believe I'm actually performing these tricks , thanks again I only wish I had found your website a few years ago.' – Pete Skinner

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'I am most grateful to the Merchant of Magic for your time and trouble. Excellent customer service and much appreciated.' – John Bradley MBE

UK Magic Shops Customer Satisfaction – Problems with the Magic Shop

by Dominic Reyes 2 Comments

Does the Merchant of Magic UK Shop have problems?

Our magic shop wouldn’t have been growing the way it has, without our almost obsessive interest in how we are serving our customers. After all, its whole purpose is to supply magic tricks and give support to the magic community. So every now and then we ask our customers how we have done and from that feedback we can learn how to make things better. Last week we asked magicians who had recently placed an order at The Merchant of Magic to give us feedback. 1000 responded which gave us a nice sample size. Here’s the results and some lessons we learn’t from it:

Magic Tricks and Customer Satisfaction

This is a hard one, as we have little control over which magic tricks magicians will order from the magic shop. One persons meat is anothers poison. Here’s a graph of the results:

It’s great to see that most magicians are happy with the magic tricks that they order. Although we are a ‘whole of market’ magic shop, so we stock everything without our own bias coming into play, we do try to highlight the best magic tricks on the site as much as possible.

What we could do better: The shop already has a team of magicians on hand to give opinions either by email or by phone. As we don’t mainly manufacture, it doesn’t matter to the team which magic tricks they recommend as far as profit is concerned. For them, it’s more important that the magic tricks fit the person planning on using them, so they will always tell you if they think a trick or product sucks or if it’s a favourite. It would be great to expand the customer reviews section on the site, perhaps add in staff recommended suggestions, and system that shows general feedback about items taken from social media sources.

The most important factor is aftercare here. We offer a returns program and with many items a 1 full year magic trick exchange period. Building in ways to recontact customers after a sale, so we can follow up if they have any problems is on the to do list for our developers.

The shopping experience

Firstly we asked magicians to give us feedback about the website:

Overall the results are good, but they do highlight some issues.

Website Layout

The layout is pretty basic and we don’t change it much. It’s always been about content over style. Most customers arrive on the magic shop site on specific product pages rather than the front page, so it’s vital that the product pages are clear and give as much information as possible. It would be nice to change the design for the front page, but it currently seems to help people find something interesting as quickly as possible and that’s the goal.

Magic Shop Search

Search really needs some work. It’s quite hard to find a specific colour sponge ball for example. We are looking for a new search function for the site and that’s going to be fixed as a top priority.

Magic Trick Demo Videos

The demo’s are an issue for us. We used to host a lot on Youtube, but many magic demos have music that needs a licence to be used and often the magic creators don’t get this permission. Youtube contacted us to say they were unhappy with the licencing for the music on a lot of the videos, so we switched to have the demos downloadable instead. That seems to work OK, but it’s not ideal for customers using mobile to browse the site. It’s a work in progress.

Pricing

Pricing of our magic tricks seems OK. We don’t want to be the cheapest bargin basement shop, as we want to have sufficient margin to allow the best customer service we can, and have room to advertise and grow the magic shop. We don’t want to be the most expensive magic shop either. It’s about finding a balance that allows us to employ magicians full time to answer the phones and emails, and at the same time give good value.

UK V.A.T

We received some feedback about how we show VAT on the site. It’s a difficult issue as we sell to trade, and have a huge international customer base. At the moment we have a button on every page to allow visitors to choose it they want UK specific tax to be shown. We need to work on making this more customer specific, so once you log in, we know where you are based and can show prices to reflect that. It’s an issue of your privacy that we strongly respect. At the moment we are working with our designers to see if we can default to your countires tax automatically, so expect some changes soon that will make this much simpler.

Customer Contact

Customer contact seems on track. We don’t want to spam our customers, but we do want to provide aftercare. Our phone lines get clogged up, but as we don’t want to just hurry people into placing orders, we sometimes need to chat with them for a long time giving advice. It’s not unusual for one of the team to be helping a magician through using a trick they have purchased and that has taken over an hour sometimes. Email is always a second option, but it would be great to be able to employ another magician for the phone lines. Once again it’s a balancing act as we can only build in so much budget for this and still compete with guys selling magic at almost cost price from their bedrooms. It seems that most magicians are understanding about this if the phone lines have a long wait, and they are happy that we have not outsourced calls to international call centres. We need to find a way to get more people in contact faster.

Delivery of magic shop orders.

Next we asked magicians to give us feedback about the delivery process of the orders they place at the magic shop.

The main issues here are speed of delivery and our delivery methods. Speed of delivery needs to be better. As we have grown we ran out of space at the shop, so we warehouse a LOT of the range if they tend to be slower sellers. It was a hard choice for us, but we wanted to sell everything we can, just like an Amazon for magic. That means we need distribution centres in the UK, Europe, and the US. We keep most of the popular items in stock in the UK magic shop, but other items have a 1-2 day wait for the item to be picked at the warehouse and sent to the shop for packing. One option we are looking into is moving packing to within each warehouse, so that it removes the transfer time. That would mean having extra staff at each warehouse, so it’s a balancing act between product price and logistical costs. The plan is to brainstrom ways we can streamline this to get items picked quicker.

Shipping methods are limited in the UK at the moment. We use Royal Mail. As we offer free shipping for orders over £50 it’s difficult to switch to UPS or DHL and offer the same low rates or free shipping options. Looking at the data, most of the issues are on our international shipping speeds, so we will work on finding ways to improve international shipping whilst still keeping the price a low fixed rate.

Magic Shop Customer Care

Getting an order out to customers is one thing, but customer care is everything. Here’s what our customers thought:

Happy with that. We do have a problem with not enough staff to cope with the customer contact, so phone wait times can be long. We don’t want to pass on calls to a call centre to take orders, as it’s important that the person on the phone to you is a working magician.

Recommended UK Magic Shop

Finally we asked the most important question. Would our customers recommend us to their friends and family. Here’s what they said:

Yay! That was an excellent result to see and the whole team were over the moon. However, it doesn’t mean we can rest. The magic shop feedback from magicians gave us a LOT to work on, so we will take all the suggestions and see how we can keep going on our mission to provide the best magic shop we can.

Thanks to all of you for taking part and leaving us with such great suggestions and feedback!

Have we missed something? Let us know how we can improve things at MoM in the comments section below: