Stuck at Home!

Well, it snowed another 4 or 5 inches last night, and is still snowing. Jake got stuck in the driveway, making is much worse than it had been, and I am stuck at home. Woe! :P

(Yeah, I don't really mind much, can you tell??)

I have a question for etsy people. When you list a shipping price on your page, are you required to stick to it? I ordered ... a thing. It's, admittedly, a large and heavy thing, and I was surprised to see that shipping was listed as just $10 for US addresses. I do live at a US address - this is the kind of thing I check carefully, and usually, they say continental US (which I also am, but allow that most people aren't careful about the distinction), or mainland or SOMETHING. So, I paid $10 shipping. It's a $40 item. That was about as high as I wanted to go on this thing. (Saying what it is would make it very obvious who the seller is, and I don't want to point fingers.)

So, she comes back this morning and wants to charge me $25 more in shipping. Not a 'can you' or 'will you' or 'I messed up and this won't cover costs' - just a very simple 'you owe me $25 more and I'll ship when I get that.'

A 50% increase makes a HELL of a difference in my shopping decision. Can she even DO that?

I should add that I have been in her place, and it bites (so I have some sympathy), but I've always sucked it up, paid the shipping I should have charged, and immediately change my policies to cover that kind of case again.

My reply...

Hi (nameremoved),

A 50% increase in the price I was willing to pay is pretty significant. I appreciate that it may cost more to ship than you anticipated, but I need to re-evaluate this purchase with the new total.

I have to confess that I'm surprised you are asking it of me. I have been surprised by shipping bills before (as a seller) and it's not pleasant, for sure, but I have always decided that the professional thing to do is eat the loss and immediately change my terms so that I don't get stuck in that place ever again. I've lost as much as $40 mis-charging for shipping on an order, but it's one of those live and learn sorts of things, and I've gotten really good return customers that way, who are willing to further promote me as well as come back many times.

I need to think about this purchase some more - I would very much like this (itemremoved), but $77 was outside what I had budgeted. I do appreciate that shipping to Alaska is not cheap, but I need to check my funds and see if I can still afford this.

Thank you,
Ellen

...

My thoughts here are... well, give them a chance to do the right thing. Explain WHY it's the right thing. Explain why I'm dragging my heels. Hopefully not sound too preachy. Meh. Stupidness.

Our driveway has gotten worse. I think Matt is hopelessly stuck in it now...

(no subject)

Okay, the seller CALLED me out of the blue, having not checked their email (and therefore not having received my reply), and I told them basically what I said in the email. They protested that, yeah, it costs a lot more, and they can't take that kind of loss, that they would eat the loss if they are shipping to California, say, but their listing should have said contiguous (she DID use the right word!) states and blah, blah.

I asked if they'd meet me halfway and we could split the shipping. Which, hello, is a pretty huge concession. No... they can't do that, but they can knock $7 off. They'd lose that $7.00, and that's so much... blah blah. Yeah. I told them I'd think about it until Monday. We ended with mutual, 'yeah, I understand where you're coming froms.'

I'm not sure I really need to think until Monday.

That's just bad customer service. I will pay up to $10 more, which is more than I ought to have to, and if they aren't willing to take that, screw them. THEIR error.

(But... I do SO covet the thing. *covetcovetcovet* Maybe $70 worth.)

YAY. She called back again, found a cheaper shipping method that would only cost $10 more and is willing to split the difference. *paypals $5 quite cheerfully...*