Oops! Sent wrong item!

[billscountry716]

I sent the wrong item to a customer. I did not cancel the order. Instead, I printed out a new shipping label and sent the card again. Package intercept is more than the cost of the card. I've reached out to the buyer hoping they would send it back at my expense with an inconvenience fee. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. I was wondering if anyone else had devised a better way to handle this than the above-mentioned approach. Any help would be appreciated!

[duffy4444 · Accepted solution]

   Since it was your error, I believe you did the right thing. The only other thing you could have done is not send out the correct item until the wrong one was returned, but that would obviously be wrong and get an understandably upset buyer who did nothing wrong - with a probable negative feedback because of bad service by being quite inconvenienced.  

   In my Ebay selling career, I have made the same mistake three or four times out of over 18,000 transactions. I followed up immediately with a sincere apology to the buyer and the correct item shipped out immediately with a partial refund for inconvenience, just like you did. In every case the buyer sent back the incorrect item, and I refunded the cost of the return shipping. Or I said that the buyer could also keep the incorrect item if it was not worth the buyer's hassle to return it. Buyers don't like to be inconvenienced by a seller's goof-up. It's been many years since I've repeated that mistake, and now I always double-check the item before sealing the package and attaching postage.

   Most buyers are very understanding and forgiving, especially with receiving a partial refund for the inconvenience. But in this current atmosphere, with some buyers having a short fuse, don't be surprised if you receive a negative or neutral feedback. If that is the case, you can always attach a reply to that feedback with an explanation that the error was immediately corrected, with the buyer being shipped the correct item.

   If the buyer is unforgiving or does have a short fuse and tries to punish you over such a relatively minor human mistake that was quickly and easily corrected, you can always add them to your Blocked Bidder List. I occasionally do that as my way of dealing with intolerant or vindictive buyers.

Cheers, Duffy