Stuck at Home!

[ellenmillion]

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.

Comments

[arslongu.livejournal.com]

I don't know much about etsy but I think what she is doing is horrible.

Like you I would have sucked it up, shipped the item at a loss and revised my listings so that never happened to me as a seller again.

[ryokomusouka.livejournal.com]

Her handling of the situation was off - she should have let you know that what you had already paid in shipping wouldn't cover actual costs, then offered you the opportunity to back out of the sale with no reprisals and a full refund of monies paid.

Personally, I wouldn't have been able to eat additional $25 in shipping - that's quite a whack. I'd be interested if it's JUST that it's going to Alaska, or if her estimate was that far off.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

I would say very politely, "Sorry, I'm cancelling the order. I was surprised that you had $10 shipping listed for all US addresses, but that factored into my decision to buy it, and you can go fuck yourse I can no longer afford it. Please return my money."

Ugh

[(Anonymous)]

What's pretty much been said. When I've undercharged for something, I've either swallowed the costs -- or if its a BIG discrepancy let the buyer know ( show them the postal rates v. weight/ size) and ask if they would like to back out of the sale, no worries.

Either way though, its her mess up, and it sounds like she is handling it poorly.

[puffbird.livejournal.com]

Making someone else eat the cost of your own mistakes is bad business and loses customers. Even if it hurts, she should eat it -- and then mark things correctly so it doesn't happen again. I've had to do that.

[frigg.livejournal.com]

I usually kick myself in the butt, cover the losses and update all my information, so that it doesn't happen again.

Say, theoretically, that I could not afford the loss, I'd so some sincere apologizing and offer the customer various solutions to chose from.

[kiri-moth.livejournal.com]

Unless her listing specifically said that the shipping price may be increased depending on where you live, I would consider the stated price to be part of the contract. You can't change the terms of the sale after the fact.

[owllight.livejournal.com]

it's the seller's mistake and the seller needs to be the one to absorb the extra cost. then they need to make sure that they go back and adjust their shipping policies in their listings so that something like this doesn't happen again.

[ursulav.livejournal.com]

She oughta eat it.

I ate nearly a thousand dollars in shipping costs once, through my own stupidity, so I feel pretty comfortable getting up on my high horse on this one and saying that the seller's behavior is quite unprofessional. (And when I came back and said "Whoops, screwed up, but I'm shipping them anyway, I had a lot of people come in and send me extra, because people are nicer than I deserve. But I would have eaten it no matter what.)

[astein142.livejournal.com]

The seller may have miscalculated, but it's a terribly unprofessional to extort more money out of you.

I've under-charged for shipping once. (My mistake: I offered free shipping on several items, and then got an order from JAPAN.) I ate the difference, sucked up my loss, and then immediately updated my shipping fees on my other items. I lost money on that sale, but I have a happy customer in Japan. ;)

[pixiewildflower.livejournal.com]

**BIG HUGS**

[datalore.livejournal.com]

I once sold a calendar on eBay for $7 including shipping, to find out it would cost $8 to ship. I grumbled and shipped it anyway, since that person was bidding on another auction of mine. To add insult to injury, that buyer did win the other auction, but was a deadbeat bidder.

But the point is, the seller needs to eat the cost and learn.