Noticing stain after buyer paid

[mammimshop]

While packing an item to ship I noticed light staining in 3 areas.  I messaged the buyer with photos and offered to cancel the sale or reduce the price if she still wants it.  She has not responded. I am not planning to ship the item without hearing back from her.  It has been over 24 hours since she purchased.  Ho should I proceed:  Cancel the sale now or wait another 24 hours?

[handmadeorhard2find]

I believe you have as much handling time as you listed to wait. So if your handling time is same day, you better ship today, but if you're handling time is 4 days, then you have more time to wait to ship before Ebay dings you.

[little*blackdog]

In your original message you should of ended with:

If I don't hear from you by (date) I will ship this out as originally stated in the listing.

Thank you for your purchase.

Your eBay seller, theyana0

I've had to do this once over the years and never heard back from the buyer, but shipped anyway. If anything came of it, I felt I had the eBay messages to back me up... to show I'd tried to offer choices and or compensation, but the buyer didn't respond.  The buyer never responded even after receipt of the items.

Maybe you can send one more message and say you are shipping tomorrow... ?

[randysauto01]

Take this with a grain of salt. When I first started selling, and before I knew about this forum, or about ebay for business on facebook. I had a customer that ordered a used auto door from us, it had been out in our yard for a couple of years, and at some point and time, it received a relatively small dent that wasn't in the original photo.

Already knowing full well how expensive shipping an item like this was, I wanted to let the customer know, and sent pictures, also offering to cancel on their behalf if they wanted me to, or a discount.

We have 2 day handling on our items, so after a day of not hearing back, I called customer service and asked how to proceed.

They told me I could just ship it, and see what the customer says once they received it (potentially leading to have to pay to ship it back), or...and this is where taking it with a grain of salt comes from, they said a non-response from a buyer is grounds for you to cancel the order at buyers request. Even though I was knew, it didn't seem to me like that would fly. But I did it, and watched for my next review to see if anything popped up on my metrics, nothing did.

Its possible that ebay was truly okay with it (to this day I still have my doubts, and thankfully haven't been in that particular situation again) or it wasn't on their radar to follow up on whether the customer themselves told me in writing to cancel.

[mammimshop]

Thank you, that was helpful I did send another message letting her know I would be shipping  Saturday if I did not hear back.  

[mammimshop]

Thank you, that was helpful I did send another message letting her know I would be shipping  Saturday per lisiting handling time if I did not hear back.  

[downunder-61]

The problem with this is that your buyer may simply not come back to the site for a while - I don't usually unless it is an O/S purchase or really expensive.

.

I purchase and pay and my bit is done, while seller's need to check daily, I don't need to as a buyer.

Send the item with a note advising the issue and letting them know you did try to cotact blah blah, and let them know you are happy to refund $xx  so could they please message you.

[katzrul15]

@mammimshop 

Is this on the Crib Bumper?  If it is not something NWTs, is it possible to work to see if the stain can be removed via laundering?  If you missed the staining when listing, perhaps this is a small area?  

[m60driver]

You wait until the last day, maybe even ship a day or two late if you have next day shipping.  And then ship and wait for the customer to contact you.  The worst that can happen is to just give them a refund for an item you probably wouldn't bother to relist.  If your lucky they might accept a partial refund.   And if you are really, really lucky, you will never hear from them.

[chapeau-noir]

Try getting the stains out.  If you're not sure how, post what it is and a couple of photos - some of us can get stains out of just about anything. 

[philo726]

Thanks to all who responded, I did try stain removal and laundering prior to messaging her and sending the pictures.  Fortunately she did respond and opted for the discounted price.  The item was delivered today, hopefully she will be happy with the purchase.  Thanks very much to everyone who took time to help!  Happy Holidays!

[randysauto01]

Thanks for the follow up! Often times the person posting about the issue never come back and let those who helped or offered advice, know how it turned out, so thanks.

Glad to know that it all worked out!

[luckythewinner]

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@mammimshop wrote:

While packing an item to ship I noticed light staining in 3 areas.  I messaged the buyer with photos and offered to cancel the sale or reduce the price if she still wants it.  She has not responded. I am not planning to ship the item without hearing back from her.  It has been over 24 hours since she purchased.  Ho should I proceed:  Cancel the sale now or wait another 24 hours?

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If you cancel the sale, the only applicable option to choose would be the "out of stock" option which comes with a defect. What I do in those cases is refund the buyer in full AND ship the item.

That aside ...

When asking a buyer "What do you want me to do?" IMHO you are asking for trouble unless you set a deadline with a default action. 

I never ask "Do you want me to do A or B?" I state "If you want me to do B, please respond by XXX and let me know. Otherwise, I will do A." And IMHO the default should always be the option you expect the buyer would choose.