Upset customer, grrrr.

[MartinP]

So someone opens up a sealed box ( I'm assumin it is sealed based on price,you didn't specify), take what they want out of it , return it, and you have to eat the loss?? Wow

I have run into that problem too. I went into Walmart and found a set on clearance for 45% off. I bought it and built it, but I noticed that all the minifigures were gone. Someone probably bought it took out the minifigures and returned it to the store. I hate when that happens.

[Dbroncoboy]

So someone opens up a sealed box ( I'm assumin it is sealed based on price,you didn't specify), take what they want out of it , return it, and you have to eat the loss?? Wow

 

Yes it was sealed,

 

In my mind it was a sign of complete disrespect. They even cut out the pictures on the small sides of the box. The box was just torn to crap and smashed. Never seen anything like it. I also estimate only half the pieces were probably returned (and they may not even be the right ones...hard to tell) I talked to customer support and they said I could ask the customer what happened, however that's a very thin line to walk. Pissing off someone and having them complain to Amazon about be contacting them really isn't worth the risk. 

 

Losing my FBA account would cripple me so I have become Amazons and Amazons customers door mat.... I know I am not the only one. :-( 

[Dbroncoboy]

I have run into that problem too. I went into Walmart and found a set on clearance for 45% off. I bought it and built it, but I noticed that all the minifigures were gone. Someone probably bought it took out the minifigures and returned it to the store. I hate when that happens.

 

This is something to really pay attention to on the hulk hellicarrier sets. I have seen two which were cut open but done with a razor so you could barely tell. The hulk sells for a lot and is easy to grab so they are a prime set for the scums to go after

[ufema]

I would offer a partial refund.  It's not worth the negative feedback.  Just let her know exactly what's going on.  Let her know this is how you provide for your family and even politely mention supply and demand.  Give here some options.  If she wants a full refund she will have to ship it back.  You'll have to take a risk and say you'll refund the full amount after she send you tracking information.  Like I said earlier, IT'S NOT WORTH THE NEGATIVE FEEDBACK YOU MAY RECEIVE.

[MartinP]

This is something to really pay attention to on the hulk hellicarrier sets. I have seen two which were cut open but done with a razor so you could barely tell. The hulk sells for a lot and is easy to grab so they are a prime set for the scums to go after

That is what happened to me. They carefully opened the bag with the minifigures, took them out, sealed the bag with hot glue or something like that, and returned to the store.

[carpet]

I would offer a partial refund.  It's not worth the negative feedback.  Just let her know exactly what's going on.  Let her know this is how you provide for your family and even politely mention supply and demand.  Give here some options.  If she wants a full refund she will have to ship it back.  You'll have to take a risk and say you'll refund the full amount after she send you tracking information.  Like I said earlier, IT'S NOT WORTH THE NEGATIVE FEEDBACK YOU MAY RECEIVE.

 

Just one perspective: whenever anyone ever uses a 'this is how I provide for my family' or similar phrase that is or verges on emotional blackmail it instantly gets my back up. But I'm dead inside. 

[Fcbarcelona101]

Just one perspective: whenever anyone ever uses a 'this is how I provide for my family' or similar phrase that is or verges on emotional blackmail it instantly gets my back up. But I'm dead inside.

Same. Some of them might be true, but it's just impossible to verify. I prefer to do make charity work to people I know really need it and trustworthy.

[DoNotInsertIntoMouth]

I would offer a partial refund.  It's not worth the negative feedback.  Just let her know exactly what's going on.  Let her know this is how you provide for your family and even politely mention supply and demand.  Give here some options.  If she wants a full refund she will have to ship it back.  You'll have to take a risk and say you'll refund the full amount after she send you tracking information.  Like I said earlier, IT'S NOT WORTH THE NEGATIVE FEEDBACK YOU MAY RECEIVE.

 

I don't like partial refunds. It seems easier for you, but there are buyers who threaten return and then hope for that partial refund sadly. Believe me, in 4 months I have had about 8 people come to me complaining about something and can I help them out. I reply to print a shipping label and return the item and I would be happy to send them another or refund. They never said anything again and I haven't gotten negative feedback.

 

I preach this a lot at work too, and its something a lot of newer people don't understand, but there are two reasons you have to stick to your guns in 99% of situations:

 

1. You show people you are weak and can be messed with.

 

2. You yourself convince yourself you can be messed with subconsciously. Once you do it once, you will find yourself doing it more. If you want to be successful, you have to have BALLS. (Thats figuratively obviously - pretty sure Justafrog has some big virtual ones doing this so long).

 

This is something to really pay attention to on the hulk hellicarrier sets. I have seen two which were cut open but done with a razor so you could barely tell. The hulk sells for a lot and is easy to grab so they are a prime set for the scums to go after

 

I worry about this a lot when I finally sell off my stash. 

 

They are at least trying to get the worst abusers this way. eBay had a similar bad buyer purge over the summer.

 

Cant these people just open a different account? Or do they do it by address, paypal, etc.?

 

I think Ebay should have much better buyer penalties. They are going to have to - you see more and more sellers drifting towards Amazon, Bricklink, getting tired of Ebays crap as a seller.

 

I think 2 unpaid item cases, you are suspended for a month

certain percentage of feedback negative and your account is reviewed

 

That type of stuff

[akohns]

That is what happened to me. They carefully opened the bag with the minifigures, took them out, sealed the bag with hot glue or something like that, and returned to the store.

I think that is why Lego has started splitting up figures among all the bags so it's hard to steal all of them in a timely manor.

[MartinP]

I think that is why Lego has started splitting up figures among all the bags so it's hard to steal all of them in a timely manor.

That is a very good strategy, but it still isn't applied in all the set.

[justafrog]

I don't like partial refunds. It seems easier for you, but there are buyers who threaten return and then hope for that partial refund sadly. Believe me, in 4 months I have had about 8 people come to me complaining about something and can I help them out. I reply to print a shipping label and return the item and I would be happy to send them another or refund. They never said anything again and I haven't gotten negative feedback.

 

In general I agree with this. There are mitigating circumstances - if I think the buyer is being honest and it's more cost than it's worth to have them send something back, I'll occasionally offer a partial refund. You start to get a pretty good "nose" after awhile - some buyers' stories stink, some don't. I've handed out maybe two or three partial refunds in the past year, more than 3,000 orders.

 

As for the toughness part, absolutely. Success as a merchant doesn't happen for sissies, or the dim-witted, or the disorganized.

 

There's an aspect of toughness, however, that goes like this, 'Is this the hill I want to die on?" We've got to pick our battles, especially knowing that both eBay and Amazon frown on us battling with buyers at all -- both have metrics in place where if you have too many cases, too many complaints, too many refunds (and here's where not giving too many partial refunds falls in, too - hand out too many of those through PayPal and eBay takes notice and holds it against you) too many "bad buyer experiences" in general and they start to get twitchy and think you might just be a bad seller driving good buyers from the site.

 

Amazon and eBay don't care, at all, not even the teensiest, tiniest bit, about individual sellers unless you're at the "diamond" level (ToysRUs, Target...) They care about the "herd", not the individual cow. If they have to kill off a few cows here and there (ban a few sellers here and there that wing a little too close to what their bots say today is a "bad" seller), they're fine with that - they call that maintaining herd health through necessary culling. Or they'd call it that if they were ranchers, anyway. 

 

End of the day, it behooves all of us to keep our eye on the main chance, and that's maintaining a healthy eBay or Amazon account. Sometimes that's going to mean giving a partial refund, sometimes it's going to mean refusing one. Sometimes we're going to get hosed, just like a brick and mortar merchant sometimes gets stuff stolen off his shelves. The smart, attentive, and motivated will survive. The rest... cannon fodder, I'm afraid, and good luck with selling your Lego on Craigslist instead.

[Soadfan4ever]

I halted selling early last week as I want to spend a calm Christmas without worrying for customer issues

Set all of my listings to end so that the 19th would be my last shipping day. I didn't want the people that buy stuff at midnight on Sunday night and expect it t make it across the country by Tuesday.

[Guest TabbyBoy]

Yes it was sealed,

 

In my mind it was a sign of complete disrespect. They even cut out the pictures on the small sides of the box. The box was just torn to crap and smashed. Never seen anything like it. I also estimate only half the pieces were probably returned (and they may not even be the right ones...hard to tell) I talked to customer support and they said I could ask the customer what happened, however that's a very thin line to walk. Pissing off someone and having them complain to Amazon about be contacting them really isn't worth the risk. 

 

Losing my FBA account would cripple me so I have become Amazons and Amazons customers door mat.... I know I am not the only one. :-(

Can't you send someone round his house with a baseball bat? If not, order a load of horse manure to be dumped on his driveway? I did do that once!

[Soadfan4ever]

That is what happened to me. They carefully opened the bag with the minifigures, took them out, sealed the bag with hot glue or something like that, and returned to the store.

This is why I decided to sell only the hulks from these sets. I cellared a small profit off of just the hulk and I still have the entire rest of the sets.

[Guest TabbyBoy]

I've never sold on Amazon and never will, this has been going on for years. Also, I only buy from Amazon direct and never through a reseller.

[justafrog]

I've never sold on Amazon and never will, this has been going on for years. Also, I only buy from Amazon direct and never through a reseller.

 

Amazon is a good venue for smart, careful sellers. eBay has it's occasional traps for the unwary, but in comparison Amazon's a bit of a minefield. They don't mess around, either - it's one strike and you're out there, permanent selling ban.

 

We've sold on Amazon on and off for many years - right now it's "off" because eBay's taking a great deal of time and attention, and has always been the better venue for us with the types/configurations of books we sell, and it's turning out no different with the types/configurations of Lego we sell).

 

On eBay, I'm careful. On Amazon, I'm paranoid. 

[Dbroncoboy]

Can't you send someone round his house with a baseball bat? If not, order a load of horse manure to be dumped on his driveway? I did do that once!

 

I do have his address.... Maybe next time I'm in Florida I will make an unexpected detour. 

 

I've never sold on Amazon and never will, this has been going on for years. Also, I only buy from Amazon direct and never through a reseller.

I don't know why you'd avoid a reseller. Most of my inventory is commingled with Amazons therefore you buy a set from me, it may have been purchased by Amazon. If you buy a set from Amazon it may have been purchased by me..... We are held to the same, if not higher standards than Amazon. That being said, my prices are never low enough to justify that.. 

[Soadfan4ever]

Yes it was sealed,

 

In my mind it was a sign of complete disrespect. They even cut out the pictures on the small sides of the box. The box was just torn to crap and smashed. Never seen anything like it. I also estimate only half the pieces were probably returned (and they may not even be the right ones...hard to tell) I talked to customer support and they said I could ask the customer what happened, however that's a very thin line to walk. Pissing off someone and having them complain to Amazon about be contacting them really isn't worth the risk. 

 

Losing my FBA account would cripple me so I have become Amazons and Amazons customers door mat.... I know I am not the only one. :-(

There go those thoughts of opening an amazon store for me. Thanks for heads up everyone.

[jaredseiders]

I only shut down my listings when I am going away for awhile. I will be shutting down my listings tonight at midnight because I will be away until Sunday after Xmas. If I had shut down my listings (seller fulfilled for Amazon at least), I would have missed out on about $2000 worth of sales I had between 12/19 and now. And many of those were expedited for additional income. I set my Amazon fees to allow a six ounce expedited package to get to the west coast and not cost me much more than my expedited cost. I don't really seller fulfill anything that can't be shipped out at First Class, so when I get a minifigure being expedited to a nearby state I can make bank.

 

I sell a huge array of toys, that's why I selected Amazon. I am under the impression that everyday toys like Beach Barbies that are $4 in the store aren't being purchased on eBay. Am I wrong? Can I actually get $10 to $12 on eBay for Beach Barbies that are $6 in store and $3 door busters? I sold a lot of the Titan Action Figures this year for a whopping price of about $18 to $20 with shipping after Amazon sold out. Toys R Us still had them in stock for $7, even online. So there are lots of benefits to selling on Amazon, to go along with the negatives. In general, I've had a great experience on Amazon and I made a lot of money, so I'm happy. Just when someone screws you, you get a little upset, but when looking at the bigger picture, the traffic volume and hands off approach Amazon makes possible makes it worth while.

[supraboy888]

I had a customer purchase a Sydney Opera House (Architecture) off of me for $71 after shipping. Apparently, I forgot to take the $39.95 label off the bottom (thanks Barnes and Noble). Now she wants a refund. Amazon contacted me, and said the following: 

 

Details: Customer received in the box label of the manufacturer, sticker $39.95. Now customer demands a refund for this case since she paid $71.04. Please research the issue and contact the customer at XXX-XXX-XXXX.

 

/sigh

 

I called her back and got an answering machine. I said who I was and why I was calling but was cryptic because who knows if the person the item was intended for would hear. Just said that I heard she had questions about the item she purchased and she could call me back or email me and I'd be happy to answer them...

 

I'm really at a loss, honestly. My take home for this after paying shipping was $57.09. Subtract out cost of 42.35 and I made $14 off the transaction. I mean seriously, when you buy a toy on December 17th that's one of the hottest toys on the market, and it can't be found anywhere else, what do you expect?

 

The person paid, it was an agreement, no refund is required when someone agrees to it.

If people were to get angry about such a situation, then I need to get angry when I bought the Death Star at $360 knowing that someone paid less than $300 just last week at Barnes and Noble. I should ask for $100 refund.

[Soadfan4ever]

Amazon is a good venue for smart, careful sellers. eBay has it's occasional traps for the unwary, but in comparison Amazon's a bit of a minefield. They don't mess around, either - it's one strike and you're out there, permanent selling ban.

 

We've sold on Amazon on and off for many years - right now it's "off" because eBay's taking a great deal of time and attention, and has always been the better venue for us with the types/configurations of books we sell, and it's turning out no different with the types/configurations of Lego we sell).

 

On eBay, I'm careful. On Amazon, I'm paranoid. 

With that being said about Amazon and eBay, how has your bricklink store been doing? I have had the thought of selling minifigures from sets and selling the pieces on bricklink as you have described doing. I just haven't had the time to wade into bricklinks website, it seems complicated to set up.

[Dbroncoboy]

There go those thoughts of opening an amazon store for me. Thanks for heads up everyone.

 

 

While it all sounds bad and I really would prefer less people to sell on Amazon because it helps me, these bad incidents are rather isolated. The time and effort saved, the higher prices items sell for, the time not spent haggling with people, cheaper shipping prices (like 25%) all make up for that. 

 

There are goods and bads, FBA has been a very lucrative market for me and has allowed me to sell far more than I ever could without using it. I could spend 14 hours a day at home and I still would not have been able to ship all the stuff I sold this holiday season. 

 

To each his own, but I wouldn't want you to take my worst experience and base a decision on that.

[jaredseiders]

You are absolutely correct. But that doesn't mean Amazon will see it the same way. Amazon sees an upset customer. They want the customer happy. They don't care about the seller. They're bread and butter comes from the customer. Too many upset customers hurt Amazon. I'm not going anywhere and they know that.

 

You're fighting windmills if you're fighting Amazon. You're not going to win, and you have to know that going into it. If we were talking a $150 item, I might have fought harder. I didn't have to give her the item for free though, which might have been the result of an A to Z claim, so I'll count that as a win since I minimized my loss.

[jaredseiders]

For the record, Year to Date I sold 4594 items in 4272 transactions. I have had 2 bad transactions where I felt I got screwed and 3 or 4 weird transactions where people returned things in perfect condition for unusual reasons. Sometimes I think people feel they have to make up excuses why they didn't want the item that sound legitimate. Or maybe they were just having fun with it. I dunno. But out of 4272 transactions to only have 6 total with problems, that's not bad at all honestly. That's like 0.14% of my transactions with issues. I only had 54 returns for the year (so far) and some of the items were truly defective. I sold a few cheap ass R/C helicopters I got off one of those Deal websites. I couldn't get the damned things to work either so I cancelled the rest of my listings of them and tossed them in the trash.

 

1% of my items sold were returned to me. That's not bad at all. It might sound bad to have 54 returns, but when you're doing volume it's really not.

[justafrog]

With that being said about Amazon and eBay, how has your bricklink store been doing? I have had the thought of selling minifigures from sets and selling the pieces on bricklink as you have described doing. I just haven't had the time to wade into bricklinks website, it seems complicated to set up.

 

Bricklink is a slow churn, that's for sure, but on the plus side I'm very confident that I can make it work.

 

We have been building our inventory slowly, which has allowed us to make all our newbie mistakes on a small scale, and has allowed us to refine and change our procedures in-house (how we buy, how we upload, how we sort, how we file, how we pick and pack, etc.) as often as necessary until we have now, I like to think, a pretty good system in place to maximize our (eventual) profits.

 

In nuts and bolts, we're up to 45,000 parts on BL and every month we get more orders than the month before. In terms of actual dollars, it's a pittance that doesn't even begin to register on our radar financially, but the groundwork is there, we continue to increase our number of parts offered on a weekly basis, and I'm projecting that BL will at least pay its own way in maintaining and increasing its inventory (rather than being reliant on the "free" parts I feed it now from the minifig sales I make on eBay) in 2014. In 2015, I expect to start being able to pull some actual money from it on a monthly basis as profit.

 

I can see why so many people give up on BL in a hurry, though, or sell there purely for fun because they enjoy Lego. It's a bit of a learning curve to use it, much more so to learn what to do as daily pick, pack, sort, file, buy as a seller, and there's no way to make any significant money in loose parts until you reach a certain tipping point in inventory. Right now I'm thinking it'll be around 250K parts for us, but that is merely a slightly-educated guess at this point in time and subject to change.