I wanted to share a story, now that the dust has settled and it's not really fresh in my mind.
I read on the forum a lot about people who had car accidents, fires, hospitalizations, and could not fulfill their orders and had a bunch of cancellations.
A few months ago I ran a Sunday auction where around 80 items sold, plus I had been selling Friday night, Saturday night, and all day Sunday. I spent Sunday packing orders up until bedtime.
I live in what's called a "stacked townhouse" where there are 10-12 units all together in one building, kind of like an apartment, but the entrances are outside. Each unit has an upper and lower unit, two floors, making up a four storey building around half a dozen units wide. They are building these in the towns in the outskirts because property is very scarce in Canada and these stacked townhouses now sell for around $500K as condominiums.
So I went to sleep after packing close to 60 orders, and woke up a few hours later because of an explosion, and quickly found out the building was on fire. At that point I didn't know if it was the unit above me, beside me, or what, but I could see the fire's glow and hear the crackling through my bedroom window.
Grabbing the orders I spent all day packing was not first on my mind, I was concerned with getting out, and grabbing a robe, phone and purse on my way out the door. I didn't even think of the packages, or the computer, or anything else that would have been valuable to save.
Fortunately the fire department did an excellent job and saved my unit, even though everything between me and the other end of the building had either severe fire or water damage. I was allowed home the next day, grabbed all my packages and took them to my shipper.
People would say "if you lose the item take it down before it sells", but I already had the sales, the auctions were running all day on Sunday and people were buying. I don't think to put the packages in my car because car thefts are significantly more likely than building fires where I live (near Toronto). The kind of car I drive is stolen from the driveways regularly around here. I wouldn't think of putting anything I deemed valuable in it.
Had the fire department not been able to get this fire under control as quickly as they did (and the adjacent units were soaked with water to prevent the fire from spreading), I might have ended up with close to 100 item cancellations and 40 disappointed buyers through no fault of my own.
It's sobering thought to think that I do everything right to make my customers happy and tragedy can still happen. The fire was not in my unit, I didn't do anything careless, but I have no control over the other occupants.
As a result of this experience I now put my bag of packages by the front door when I go to sleep, because I think if I saw them on my way out of the house in a hurry, I probably would have grabbed the bag if it was safe to do so. I wasn't about to wander around my house looking for things knowing the building was on fire.
The lesson learnt is when someone comes in here with a tragedy of their own that has cost them their selling account, maybe we need to be a little more empathetic and less judgmental about how they got into that situation and realize something like this can happen to one of us, through no fault of our own.
The dust has settled and they're rebuilding the units, but I wanted to share because never before have I ever felt bad about someone losing their selling privileges due to tragedy, until it nearly happened to me. I don't think eBay would ever forgive 100 cancellations, no matter how much I sell. And this type of thing wouldn't have stopped me from continuing to sell since I keep most of my inventory at the B&M store.
C.
