Dill Fickle 2...Electric Booglaloo

This woman asks me about a sewing machine I had on Etsy. She says:

Hi! I'm interested in purchasing this machine, but was curious as to whether it had been in a smoking home or smelled of smoke. If you could let me know, I would greatly appreciate it. Otherwise, it looks beautiful. :)

I reply:

No smoking in this home and it's been in my possession for at least 15 years :)

She replies:

Okay. Also, I wanted to mention that my zip code would be -----. The shipping mentions that it's $37, but I know in the listing you said that it would be less for the East Coast. I'm definitely interested in purchasing.

I reply:

 If I ship via FedEx, the shipping cost would be $21.21. Via USPS, the cost is $32.00 to your zip code.

Just to let you know, FedEx cannot deliver to a Post Office box. All other addresses seem to be okay. Let me know which you prefer, and I can either edit the listing to show the shipping you choose or I can refund you the extra money after purchase.

She replies:

 If you could ship it FedEx, that would be great! I can purchase it now and have you refund me the extra. Whatever adjustments you need to make for packing, etc. are fine. Thanks so much!

She buys it, pays for it and then immediately cancels and says:

 I would like to cancel my order #---------, placed on Aug 7, 2014.

I apologize for the inconvenience and look forward to hearing back from you soon. After researching this machine further and taking a closer look at the machine that you have offered for sale, I have strong concerns with regard to the electrical cords and foot pedal. The foot pedal is completely different than I am seeing as would have been original to the machine. I'm very sorry that I didn't take a closer look at this sooner, and very sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Thanks,

Oh no, no inconvenience. I only wasted my time looking the shipping up for your ass, and replying to you when I could have been doing something else that would have made me money rather than costing me another .20 fee to re-list what you "bought". The fucking cords on the damned thing are original. And anyway, if you're planning on using the machine and not just displaying it, then who cares what the fucking pedal and cord look like as long as they work? Fucking ridiculous.

Cancellations like this are my biggest beef with Etsy. They should offer a relisting fee refund for when you encounter a fickle buyer.

In A Hurry? Go To A Local Store.

I smell a possible asshole speed bump ahead. It's no surprise to me that the buyer is a "cabbage patch person". Bidder wins item mid-day after I've left the house with the previous days packages. He contacts me 6:11 at night asking when I am going to upload tracking and mail what he bought.

Oh joy. 1 day handling means 1 fuckin' day, not 1 fuckin' hour. Jesus. I think people don't stop and think that there is another average normal person at the other end of these transactions, not some giant shipping company or bloated box store like Wally World.

I think some people must think that ebay sellers have one of those factories like you see on those old cartoons where the item just spits out. It then pops itself into a box, and the mailman is on 24 hour notice, parked right outside waiting to pick it up and run to his Lear jet to fly it to your fuckin' doorstep that same hour.

Charley was like: "That guy can't wait much longer to have tea with his doll so you'd better hurry up and send them"

Carrot Jumper

I saw this quote on ecommercebytes blog comments and find it amusing that Top Rated Sellers are generalized as "carrot jumpers".

Yep our 5 business days shipping looks better and better each day. But of course you can't be a carrot jumper and do the 5 day thing.

I am no carrot jumper. I didn't put down 1 day handling until after I had already attained TRS. After I did, I said why not try to get a discount? I never strived for Top-Rated at all, it was just a result of how I do business. If the money is in my hands/account then why keep the stuff lying around here? Especially with 4 cats, a clumsy college student, and a 5 year old. Too much breakage/damage risk.

If you have the resources to pack and ship the item, then why sit around on it for days? It makes you look bad. Why not just ship it?

I have shipped within 24 hours during very difficult emotional times. I've shipped when my car was broken down - I packed a large tote bag and filled the basket under my sons stroller and walked to the post office.

There was a time about 3 years ago that I had no printer, my car was malfunctioning, I was so poor that I could not afford a .89 convenience store drink and had to wait for the paypal to hit my bank account to ship, and only then would I have needed a 5 day handling policy. It still probably would not have prevented the "Pokemon Master" from getting my account restricted because he didn't bother reading my terms anyway, he would have had to click a link, lol.

I don't drink the "kool aid" but I've got to ask what the people who are complaining about handling time defects are doing to earn them. As long as I've got the ink, my postage is always printed within hours of a purchase, and then scanned in within 1 business day thereafter. I don't dump my paypal account until everything from one particular batch is shipped, that way I know everything is paid for, and I am withdrawing the net amount. My dashboard says:

99.28% of your transactions had tracking uploaded within handling time and validated by carrier

The reason it is not 100% is because there was a set of plates I waited 2 days to print the shipping out on. I wasn't going to know the weight until I completely packed them, and because Job Lot was out of medium boxes, I wasted a day.

I've got to say that a printer is one of the best business tools there is when you sell online. Mine was given to me by my ex-husband. It came free with a computer he bought. But...there are some that are fairly cheap to buy, just have to price replacement cartridge prices before you do. The particular one I use, I buy one $15 cartridge of black ink a month and it saves me all kinds of shipping time defect headaches.