eBay

city*satins · ‎01-02-2018

On Dec 15 I sold a clothing item that was $150 when new but was pre-owned. Before listing it, I'd carefully cleaned it, measured it, photograhed it etc etc and wrapped it in tissue, bagged it, and put a little post-it note on the bag saying (brandname) top.

I accepted a $20 offer on it. mailed it and it was delivered on Dec 18. No messages from the buyer, no feedback. I thought all was well.

Yesterday, doing a January 1 reoganization of my inventory what did I find but the item!

I wrote the buyer and told her that I'd found the item, promised to ship it out right away, apologized, and asked her what she'd received instead.

Today she wrote back to say that she received a different item by the same designer and liked it a lot and would keep it and that I need not to bother to send the one she originally bought, thanks very much.

The item I sent her was new with tags and retailed for $188. I'd forgotten I had it and it was packaged the exact same way, post-it note included.

Although obviously I made an error - I believe the buyer should have alerted me that she did not receive the item she bought. Instead, she apparently figured she got a windfall and never said anything.

Alhough sending the wrong item was my mistake, my view is that she took advantage of that mistake and said nothing, and then answered my query by announcing that she was keeping the more valuable item and not to bother sending the correct one.

The tone of her message suggested ( I admit that this is one of those sender/receiver kind of situations) that she was doing me a big favor by letting me keep the item that I originally sold her.

I thanked her for her message, told her that I hoped she would enjoy her new garment, and confirmed that I would not be sending the garment she actually bought. (I don't quarrel with customers but....)

Then I BBLd her.

What would you have done?

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the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth · ‎01-03-2018

The OP sent the item out two weeks ago. It's likely the buyer cannot send it back as sent. Regardless as a seller I would NEVER ask for something back I sent by mistake.

Realistically the OP is only out the purchase price difference between the two items. It doesn't really matter what she thinks she might have been able to sell it for. She's only out what she paid.

gramophone-georg · ‎01-03-2018

@odditiesandantiquities1 wrote:
As you pointed out Rose, you turned what could have been a negative situation into a positive one. One where the customer will likely become a regular repeat customer.

Win, Win, Win.

Rose also pointed out that it wasn't on eBay.

I have real concerns as to whether the deal would have gone down the same way here. Most likely rose and her buyer would have been limited in the amount of ebay messages exchanged, triggered the "you're trying to take these items off eBay" warning, or both.

eBay is a real obstacle to communication, and communication prevents problems.

Chaos is NOT an "industry standard".

odditiesandantiquities1 · ‎01-03-2018

@gramophone-georg wrote:
@odditiesandantiquities1 wrote:
As you pointed out Rose, you turned what could have been a negative situation into a positive one. One where the customer will likely become a regular repeat customer.

Win, Win, Win.
Rose also pointed out that it wasn't on eBay.

I have real concerns as to whether the deal would have gone down the same way here. Most likely rose and her buyer would have been limited in the amount of ebay messages exchanged, triggered the "you're trying to take these items off eBay" warning, or both.

eBay is a real obstacle to communication, and communication prevents problems.

When I had the issue with a customer, I received no warnings and no problems with the transaction and he is a repeat customer now. I do understand that my being careful with wording is saving me from many of those slap on the hand pop ups.

city*satins · ‎01-03-2018

I hate when people use posting IDs for questions like this.

Sorry about that. I have used my posting/bargain-floor selling ID here pretty much exclusively since 2003 when I finally accepted that auction interference was likely to continue in perpetuity. In late 2003 I set up another ID as my permanent selling ID and don't usually post with it.

Are we talking about similar item, brand/lable, style, size, color, etc?

As I already said - the item was the same brand. It's a clothing item. The item I sold was worth much less due to its being preowned. The item I sent by mistake was worth much more due to it being new with tags and (given how many units of it I'd previously sold at a much higher price) a much nicer item.

The first item was an asymmetric silk chiffon top with a silk liner. The NWT item I sent in error was a marled silk satin top. The first was nice. The second was knock-your-socks-off-gorgeous. The kind that almost any woman who opened the package would go O. M. G. over. Every feedback I received on the previous units sold said things like "Even better than described."

I realize that by using a posting ID I prevented anyone reading this thread from forming their own opinion about the relative aesthetic/$ value of the two tops.

It would have been a lot less expensive to pay the shipping X3 (wrong one sent, wrong one returned, right one sent) than what $ I lost by having the buyer keep the wrong one. The only up-side is that I forgot I had this last one in stock so it wasn't listed for sale.

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city*satins · ‎01-03-2018

I would also not waste money wrapping garments in tissue. I bag my better garments in ziplocks with the label showing so i can see what I am pulling out to ship.

I don't do it with every garment but I always do it with leathers, beaded garments, and delicate silks.

Silk chiffon and silk satin are both delicate and tend to be slippery. If you just put it in a baggie, every time the bag is moved from a to b, even if you burped the bag, the garment is apt to drift to one side or end of the bag and wrinkle. To prevent that movement, I fold it in tissue. I also enclose a snack bag containing a pair of food handling gloves and a note suggesting that the buyer put on the gloves before trying on the garment, to avoid accidental snags from nails or rough patches on the skin) I put the tissue wrapped item in the baggie, then the snack bag, seal the bag, and attach a note to the bag saying what the item is.

In this case Brand X M

Originally, I had only one style but multiple sizes of the NWT Brand X and they were packed the same way with a note saying Brand X S. Brand X M, Brand L M., Brand X 1X I had one left that I had forgotten and it was marked Brand X M

So it was a mistake on my part to originally label the bags that way, not taking into consideration that I might get more inventory in that brand. And it was another mistake not to count my original inventory correctly and fail to notice that I had an extra NWT item. So when I made the same label for the pre-owned item, I didn't think about the possibility of there being a duplicate. So I made 2 mistakes, actually.

Which I've learned from.

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retrose1 · ‎01-03-2018

@odditiesandantiquities1 wrote:
@gramophone-georg wrote:
@odditiesandantiquities1 wrote:
As you pointed out Rose, you turned what could have been a negative situation into a positive one. One where the customer will likely become a regular repeat customer.

Win, Win, Win.
Rose also pointed out that it wasn't on eBay.

I have real concerns as to whether the deal would have gone down the same way here. Most likely rose and her buyer would have been limited in the amount of ebay messages exchanged, triggered the "you're trying to take these items off eBay" warning, or both.

eBay is a real obstacle to communication, and communication prevents problems.
When I had the issue with a customer, I received no warnings and no problems with the transaction and he is a repeat customer now. I do understand that my being careful with wording is saving me from many of those slap on the hand pop ups.

Actually georg is right. I had to refund the customer because the part time clerk didn't imput the right zip into the barcode and the package evidently just sat until it came back to me. Some of it was my bad, she wasn't used to my writing.

Because of the refund, everything I would have done would have been suspect by ebay, and the note that the item came back to me and I'm just shipping it to you would probably gotten me a defect.

(*Bleep*)

city*satins · ‎01-20-2018

Fun update.

I decided to listen to some of the other posters' better angels and unblocked the buyer.

2 days ago, the buyer submitted an offer on the same item she originally purchased and I accepted the offer.

Today, I got a message from her saying she will not be able to pay.

OK. Definitely and permanently blocked now.

I still appreciate having had a chance to read the many different points of view expressed. So thank you all again for that.

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southernfriedbelle · ‎01-20-2018

Wow! Definitely someone you don't want to do business with. Glad you decided to give her a second chance, as it apparently removed any lingering doubt you may have had regarding her character.

At first I was on the side of those saying you shouldn't have blocked her, but sadly, nine times out of ten, what looks and quacks like a duck is usually a duck ... (Apologies to all duck lovers. It's a metaphor. Don't hate!)

Belle

Anonymous · ‎01-20-2018

@city*satins wrote:
Fun update.

I decided to listen to some of the other posters' better angels and unblocked the buyer.

2 days ago, the buyer submitted an offer on the same item she originally purchased and I accepted the offer.

Today, I got a message from her saying she will not be able to pay.

OK. Definitely and permanently blocked now.

I still appreciate having had a chance to read the many different points of view expressed. So thank you all again for that.

Wow, interesting update. I was curious to find out if she would try and come back to buy the original item (if you had unblocked her). By the way, what price did she offer? The same price as before?

Good thing you were able to unveil her true colors. Definitely one for the BBL!