Penny for your thoughts... anyone?

Not a rant, but would like to get people's opinion on what to do.

I run sprees and take partial payments as deposit. There's 1 customer who ordered about RM1k worth of stuff, and paid the deposit of RM800 quite quickly (before it was due).

She was a great customer. Didn't rush us, didn't harass us for updates (though we do send updates to her quite frequently) and totally understood when her stuff got delayed (some stuff got damaged and we had to get replacements reshipped).

Finally her items arrived to our hands (a couple of days before the due date we set) and we emailed her about it to get the final payment before we sent her stuff out.

There's where the headaches started.

We emailed her multiple times (she used to reply within 3 days) but no reply. Then we SMSed and emailed, no reply. We got impatient by the third week and emailed and SMSed her saying that we need to know when she can pay us, or we'll forfeit her deposit.

A few days later she replied via SMS saying that she forgot about it (RM800 paid can forget ah?) and would pay us by the end of the week.

Nothing for the next two weeks.

We sent another email and SMS which were basically repeats of the previous one, but with a due date set. We also put in a note that if she can't pay us by then, she should get back to us on when she can and we'll hold her items for her until then.

Again, she replied only a few days later saying she will pay us within the following week.

So, we agreed and even gave her a few more days to pay up.

That day was today, but no sign of the money.

Now her stuff has been sitting in my room all nicely packed up for the past 1.5 months.

Should I give her another chance? Frankly I'm fed up already since I've given her >5 chances, but then again it's a lot of money to forfeit.

iPaid

I was helping my sister to buy an iPhone cover on eBay cause i told her its cheap but good and i got my phone covers 2 weeks after i paid so i trusted eBay.

HOWEVER! this particular seller actually got me annoyed at the very beginning already. he replied my emails so late and i was very anxious to pay and get it fast. but it was a nice cover so i proceeded with paying thru Pay Pal anyways.

Paid, waited 3 weeks. Haven't gotten it. Emailed the seller and he said sometimes parcel gets delayed. Okay fine wait somemore. 2 weeks later, still haven't gotten it (thats 1 month and 1 week), he said he'll check on it and at the mean time, let him know if i received it. UH NO. What happened to checking on it? He didn't come back to me on that!

Just last week I emailed him again, and that was already more than 2 months, saying that I got my items coming all the way from HK thru NORMAL air mail which is free postage only 2 weeks after i paid. And I said i wanted a refund (i knew i wasn't gonna get a refund).

Until today he did not reply, and i decided to go to his page on eBay to give him his feedback he wanted a month ago. AND WHAT DO YOU KNOW! he's no longer a member on eBay. GREAAAAAAAAT! >:(

before buying, i saw "Item Location : KL"

SO YEAY i thought, i told him i wanted pos laju since i'm also from KL. he said "oh sorry the item from HK."

uh, why the false info? (clearly a con there already)

okay fine i proceeded anyways. another thing i read on the information part, "Tracking code will be provided only if customer pay".

Uh why is that? don't you get your tracking code once you send out items? Why must I pay you for it? -.-

SO NOW IT MAKES SENSE. He's from KL. The item is IN KL. If he gives out the tracking codes, people would know that he's posting out from MALAYSIA. Cause you know you can tell from tracking codes, i send out stuff so i'd know how postages tracking codes are like.

So yes. I got conned and i dont want any of you to get conned the way i did. Be smart! Don't believe the buyer if he says the item is actually not where it is stated to be. If he replies really slow, don't bother! The other eBay buyers i bought from replies fast. SERIOUSLY!

RM22 iPhone casing btw. so much for a cheaper casing.

Update :  Seller is indeed AWOLed
Ebay ID : sos77
Email : jybe77@hotmail.com

Having the LAST say

We sell bras in big quantity to international ebay sellers, who will in return sell them in their local market.

I recently had a buyer from Australia who turn out to be quite silly actually.

She was interested in a few models which we are offering and ask me to send her more photos of their labels and described in detailed how the brand names were cut/removed.(we sell off season branded bras so we have to cut the labels away).

I took all the photos and did what she requested and in return, she asked me if I could show her more models since she wanted to buy more.

Happily I obliged because I tot I could make a bigger sale, so I referred her directly to our website.

Then a few days later, she emailed me to ask for samples, saying that she will pay for sample fee but will not pay for postage.

I was already thinking in my head, you want 2 samples and it's only USD 4.00 but I have to pay for postage to send to Australia. So immediately I told her we don't give free samples nor we fork out the postage from our own pocket. But to be nice and professional, I added, "why don't you pay for the postage as well, and when you place an order with us, I will deduct this amount from your total invoice?"

Fair right?

She then replied and say that she only wants to buy 12 pieces out of each model. Meaning 2 x 12 = 24 pieces of bras!!!

What a joke!!!!

With this small quantity, I wonder why she is expecting such a high level of service? Furthermore, this is her first purchase, she doesn't have a rapport with us like a regular buyer yet.

I told her that our last buyer from Australia bought USD 600 and asked politely if she could keep her demands to reasonable level since she is a first time buyer and her quantity was small.

She took offends and said that she was a power seller and that I should specify that I don't do small sales. She said she was not going to buy from us anymore.

Ok, I lost a sale. So I ignore the email and move on with my life. Since she was no longer a potential buyer, I shouldn't waste time on her anymore. Her ego is not mine to stroke since she was not buying from me.

I think she must have felt insulted that I didn't give her face or didn't email to save the situation. As if she still deserve my attention, she emailed me 1 day later to tell me to NOT TO EMAIL HER ANYMORE.

Some ppl are just sour grapes.

Uber motivated

I'm currently selling a chiffon dress that size at uk8-10. There is one buyer said she very like the dress and request to confirm the size from me again and she said she is looking for UK12 but this dress is only 1 size eh.

So i replied her that the only size for sale with the measurement in detail.

Few days later, this buyer said confirm to purchase the dress but i am a bit doubt, because she said she is UK12... So today i emailed her again make sure she want to purchase this dress as it is size UK8-10 only.

And i got her reply: "Yes, i am UK12, and your dress is UK8-10 only, now I am losing weight to get myself fit in this dress, so it should be FINE for me"....

Sorry not to offend as i really hope that she can fit this dress too but UK12 to UK8/10 is so big different...I dont want she complaint at me later she cant lose her weight to fit in this dress...

Obnoxious Nilai-an

So yesterday, was Urbanscapes.

There was this customer who walked into my booth, and started to pick off clothes from the rack. I was so happy cos she chose bout 8 pcs.

The total amount was RM340.

Buyer: Ok i pay you half. The other half i pay you when you deliver it to my house.
Me: May i know where exactly is your house?
Buyer: Nilai
Me: Er... i'm so sorry but that's too far. Im afraid i cant deliver it to you. Why don't you bank in the remaining and i will mail the items to you (assuming that maybe she don't have enuf cash right now)
Buyer: Ok i pay u full now, you come and deliver it to my house on Wednesday, 3pm.
Me: I'm so sorry but Nilai is really too far and i dont know my way there. And plus, I've got work on weekdays. Can i mail it to you via pos laju? I'll give you a free postage. *smiles*
Buyer: Don't know the way then find your way la! i will give you address what! What work on weekdays? Isn't this shop your work and your responsibility as well?
Me: (and then i suddenly realised) -  If you can pay full for the clothes, you can bring back the clothes now.
Buyer: No. I don't wanna bring it home right now. i want it to be delivered to me. on wednesday, 3pm. Gimme pen n paper i give u address now.
Me: Really sorry but i'm really not going to deliver it to your house.
Buyer: Eh! I'm paying for these clothes ok and i have the right to request for a home delivery.
Me: *Grabs all the clothes back from her hand and put back into rack*

That crazy biatch was shocked with me grabbing back the clothes, she just stood there staring at me hanging back the clothes. My neighbour vendor witnessed this, and she came over and said to the buyer:

"Eh excuse me, you are blocking the way of our potential customers la. Can please go go go!??"

Weird ppl.

Should I Should't I?

Someone commented on one of my sold out item: "This is nice, you should restock this!"

Why should I? You want to buy meh? If you are interested, send an email to me to request for restock. If you are not, then why should I restock and keep stock?

Do you buyers know that we seller's money are stuck on the stock we have?

Well I sayyyyy...

I was at a bazaar recently and I was nice enough to allow customers to try on the clothing before purchasing.

But I BELIEVE that I have my right to refuse anyone from trying on my clothes, even if they're a prospective customer. Based on reasons within reason of course. Don't you think so too?

There was a girl, really overweight, and who believes that she's the hottest thing on the planet.
Why do I say so?
Cos she walks like she's a model, talks in a very fake Brit-American accent and swings her fake LV bag around. (hello, it's not that hard to tell between a real LV to a fake one). Her tattooed shoulders (yes omg she was wearing a halter top with her fats bursting out everywhere) even reads 'hot stuff'. WTF, how tacky.
That was my impression of her, but I was nice and all smiles when she and her mousey friend stopped by my stall.

She picked a particular dress, which was 3 times smaller than her.
The material was stretchy but I doubt it was stretchy enough to fit her, seriously. And she held it, looked at it like it was love at first sight and asked me, "ini boleh try ke?" [Can this be tried on?]

I was like, "Boleh try, tapi.. err.. No offense la but I think this dress can accomodate sizes S-M only. The material is not that stretchy."

She spoke with her fake brit-american accent,"Oh, nonsense. I think it can fit me perfectly fine. After all, a size L is only slightly larger than an M size. I want to try."

If anyone had seen her, she's definitely a size XXL.

Me: Umm, sorry miss but I don't want to risk my dress being damaged. I really don't think it can accomodate you as it has a small cutting.

Her: Hey, how you know? I never try it on yet, how can you tell?

Me: So if by any chance IF the dress gets damaged like ripped or torn, then how?

Her: Hello, you're in the fashion business, don't you have a sort of back-up plan to cover damage costs?

Me: No, I don't. I buy and I sell, that's about it.

Her: That's wrong. Let me tell you, as a business major from the UK,  you cannot start a business without any back-up. Like what if your shop burned down or something and destroys your clothes? You need the insurance to cover that.

Me: [WTF] My shop's online by the way. And if my clothes got destroyed in a fire, I'll bear the cost myself. And right now, as my own way of ensuring I don't need to make any losses, I'm not allowing you to try this dress on.

She then went on a bout how unprofessional I am and yadayada, then left with her mousey friend. How rude!
I'm no business major and I don't have much knowledge on that, but I don't think I even need that sort of insurance as a part time blogshop-owner. Am I right?

Can someone clarify this with me please? Thanks.

You dont care?

I'm kind of frustrated now because there's this seller is super ridiculous. Here's the story:

I'm interested in one of her dress which is branded and brand new. She bought it in hong kong and guarantee every item in her blog is authentic.

Her price is really attractive, yes. I planned to buy 3 dresses from her and guess how much of postage fee she charge me? RM18. All 3 dresses don't add up to more than 500g also and she's sending through pos laju, why charge so expensive?? Maths seriously fail.

A rude one too. I texted her today saying i'm interested to add on orders, she replied me rudely!

me: but your blog didn't say anything about charging RM6 per item (including pins/hairbands etc) :/
her: I don't care whether you can find it or not, my policy is like that.

Such a great turn off. Slap me if you want but the charges for postage is preposterous.

Lost in Electronic Transition

I'm a buyer and have been purchasing stuff online for i dont remember how long. This time i've met the worse seller i've ever dealt with.

Its a pre-order site on facebook and mostly are men stuff. Before i ordered i made sure that the date it reaches me would be before my whole family leave KL back to my hometown.

Placed my order and confirmed purchase in mid-may and seller told me that it takes at least 25 days to reach. fine, done the math, i would able to receive it before i go back. Texted her last week and seller said that item will reach on the 20th of June and items will be sent out this week. Texted seller again just now, and guess what? Apparently an SMS was sent out to all buyers from this batch of items informing that the suppliers left out all our items and had to re-post it. now item will only reach us on the 5th of July, that's if the supplier is not smart enough to miss out the items AGAIN!!

So i replied the seller's sms nicely telling that i didnt receive the SMS. To my surprise, the replies i got were ubberly rude!! "but i sent out the SMS to all my buyers on the 19th, no point lying right? thx"..."so do you want me to screenshot the page to prove to you that i have sent out the SMS"...

Excuse me, if i got that msg and received it that day, wont i reply you on that instance if i cant receive it on the 5th of july? Why would i wait until today to find out this good news that the items werent sent!!

Seriously, SMS is not a perfect tool even thought it is convenient.

So what now. Do i at least deserve a sorry for the delay and the rude replies or a compensation on the postage?

There are such people around...

There's this buyer who kept asking me on sold out items. After the 7th email (all asking for different item) i ignored her.

After about a month, she strikes back. But not wanting to offend or ignore any potential customer, i politely replied her enquiries and request. And finally, she bought a dress (and i was like FINALLLYYY!!!).

and then for some unfortunate reason, after 4 days, she emailed me asking me why i had not send out the parcel.

I replied her that i already sent it the very next working day after her payment, and even emailed her to the delivery tracking number on that day! So i tracked her parcel online, and cut and paste the status of the parcel to show her. It's stated "Item arrived at processing center", and advised her to call the hotline and find out the reason of delay (as im from KL, and the parcel is already in Sarawak)

After 2 days, she mailed me again telling me that she still haven't receive the parcel.

I really wanna provide my customers good service, so i called Poslaju for her. Filed a report, and updated her. I gave her the complain repoert numbr (so that if she wants to call and know the status of the parcel, she'll just have to give them the report number), and told her and Poslaju will take 3 days to rectify the problem.

And plus, since the parcel is already in Sarawak, it would be easier that Poslaju contact the recipient straight in any case. So i provided her number and person in charged and everything.

1 day later after that, she email me again she havent got the parcel. i asked her whether did she receive my mail earlier on the update, she just reply "Oh yea... im just waiting..."

2 days later after that, she continue to bug me. i don't know what's so hard to read  "POS LAJU WILL TAKE 3 WORKING DAYS TO RECTIFY PROBLEM". My dad don't own Pos Laju helllooo!!! and if she's so concern why can't she just CALL herself la!

Thank God that she received the parcel after 3 days.

And this is her mail to me:

"Hey i received the parcel! Just it's the WRONG dress! This is not what i wanted! i ordered the wrong dress! Can i send it back to you and change it please please please! I really want to change it! Oh please!"

Do you all think i should let her exchange?

Over Accommodated

I run an online blogshop and I think the pricing of the clothes I sell are very reasonable.

I had this customer who was very interested in a dress I was selling. She said she was away for the week and begged me to reserve it for her till she gets back to COD. I thought whattheheck, it's just 1 week so I reserved it for her.

Texted her the next week and we agreed to COD at place A on Friday during her lunch break. I informed her that I was on my way 10 minutes before I arrived and she said 'Okay'. Called her when I got there, and she said she's having lunch at place B. It was 10minutes away, so I thought okay nevermind, I'll go meet her there as I didn't want to really make her stop eating her food and drive up to place A just to meet me.

When I reached place B, I called her up, and she said she and her colleagues changed their minds and they're all now having lunch at place C! It's someplace I wasn't very familiar with, but she insisted to give directions and that I meet her there. Fed up, I just agreed. It was at least another 10minutes before I got there.

She checked the dress, said it was really pretty BUT, she didn't have enough cash on her atm!! She suggested that I give her the dress, she'll give me a RM20 deposit there and then, and cash deposit the balance when she gets a chance to. She begged and begged because she needed to use the dress the next day(Saturday) for a themed party she was attending. She seemed nice and innocent and since she didn't ask rudely, I agreed.

Gave her the dress and my bank details. She said she'll make payment on Sunday. Waited for payment, nothing. Contacted her on Sunday night. She told me that she spilled juice on the dress(even gave me a photo to prove it) and that the dress was stained(it was) and can no longer be worn so she'll not pay the balance.

I was bloody furious, but told her politely that it wasn't my problem that SHE ruined the dress and not me. Then she started telling me the quality of the dress was bad and it was only worth the amount she already paid, RM20. HELLO?!

She AGREED to buy it earlier at it's original price, she has touched and held it before making the deposit, she has worn it, and now she's telling me it's made of bad quality when SHE was the one who ruined it? And yet she thinks I'm dumb enough to not know that she's just giving me excuses not to pay up the balance that she owes?

I was being nice agreeing to drive around because she changed COD location THREE times, I let her deposit RM20 because she REALLY needed the dress, and she's blaming me for HER mistakes? What does bad quality have anything to do with how SHE stained it anyway? PFFT.

And yes, obviously she's gone MIA and is now completely uncontactable.

So bling?

I see a lot of japan/taiwan pre order/ready stock items with the description:-

Material: crystal ma

What type of fabric is crystal ma? Anyone care to enlighten me?

Like my props?

So, what's the point of posing with your LV, Gucci, Dior, Burberry bags when really, they are actually not for sales?

What are you trying to proof?

Peace Call

To all Sellers,
Let's all say NO to price war okay?

I'm a seller and there are some recent hot pieces which one blogshop brought them in first selling at RM45, then another one updated and selling them at RM40, then another one selling them at RM35.

Please, if you only want to earn RM5 for a piece, then might as well ask your customers to buy in bulk from your suppliers.

Price war is not good for anyone of us, because if you sell at this cheap, your customer expects you to sell at this price range even when some pieces you bring in are in margin price range of RM30-RM35. Then what are you gonna do? Sell them at margin price?

No slapping required. Just a friendly advice to sellers out there (who are doing this).

Thank you.

You hurt my eyes

I'm all for good web designing and great looking sites but please la sellers, don't put the background of your blogshops a bright green colour and the font in stunning red.

No matter how pretty your clothes are, I'll still close the window to protect my eyes.

Do us all a favour and change the template, pretty please?