Did I "select the wrong postage" ?

DavidW

Hi all,

As a customer I've done many orders on Brickowl, but for the first time a seller has come back and told me that "I selected the wrong postage." On the sellers page it came to a Large Letter, and when I added a little more to the cart it forced me to use a Parcel. So I removed a few things and it went back to allowing me to select a Large Letter.... (its a good way to moderate my purchases!)

The seller has come back and told me I selected the wrong postage and I need to send him further money direct via Paypal to cover the parcel. Is this right? My understanding is the settings for the store should have not given me the Large Letter option if the order was too big?

Thanks,

David

Lawrence

I'm sorry to hear of the trouble that you have had, it is not the customer's responsibility to choose the correct postage, this is down to the shipping methods. We have informed the store of this, and requested that they resolve the situation with you.

DavidW

Thank you for your help, much appreciated!

P6tu

I've been friendly with the sellers and I've had few times quite a similar - actually exactly the same situation. In some cases the sellers have either miscalculated their shipping rates/weight or there was even once a case, when in BO some booklet had incorrect weight (or dimention - don't remember that precisely) and then the actual shipping methods/cost will not be adequate. Luckily for me, I've been able to talk it out with the sellers that we have either removed some specific items and even have cancelled the deal all together in a friendly manner . Mistakes happen - it's the way we solve them, that matters .

gazzabrickstore

P6tu , exactly how I would have handled it but DavidW didn't come back to me to talk about it and went straight to the forums
its happened a couple of times in the past and my customers have been very understanding about it
Also when a customer of mine has picked small parcel but its fitted in to a large letter I have refunded the difference back to my customer
I have always done this on here and my bricklink store I even have positive feed back about the refund on Brickowl
No harm or foul was intended here and the customers order will be posted today
and I will look in to my setting on shipping
Many thanks

Vosblokjes

Looking at this, I think it is mostly the way things were communicated, or communication was received.
'you selected the wrong option, I need more money'
is very different then
'your order can't be shipped with the option you selected, let's talk on how to resolve this.'

And yes, take a look at your shipping options, with this order try to find the item(s) that make it a parcel, maybe your settings are just to tight

And yes, communication between buyer and seller would have been better, but as said, it also depends how someone receives a message

Calibrick

@DavidW first and foremost, I am so sorry this happened to you! I promise you that this is NOT common seller behavior on this platform. In your shoes, I'd honestly be offended considering how you were broached (blaming you as the customer? Utterly ridiculous).

@gazzabrickstore, I'd like to offer you an alternate perspective to consider. This is just my opinion ok, as I try to view things from the lends of multiple stakeholders. Take it or toss it as you see fit, as I consider YOUR store's success also MY store's success! The last paragraph in this post explains why. :-)

When I setup my store five years back, I simply didn't have my measures right to best cover internal packaging (e.g., bubble). But it NEVER crossed my mind to ask a customer to pay more for MY early mistakes, not for a second. Warfair, Amazon, Target never reach out to me and say they're sorry they misestimated my shipping, please send more money. So why would I do that to one of my customers?

It is my personal opinion that incorrect shipping settings are on me as a seller and I should (and previously have) simply eat any loss. And then fix my settings really quick. ;-) While I do not know about the UK, in the United States, every US seller simply writes off overall shipping expended off a single line item on their taxes, so the worst case might be that my profit drops by a few bucks over the course of the year.

And on the occasional overpaid shipping (still happens a few times/year), per my store terms, I proactively refund a customer immediately when I print the postage. It sounds like you do that too, for which I applaud you. :-)

To jump back to the customer (David's) viewpoint, @gazzabrickstore - as a buyer I would be quite askance if a seller reached out to me and said they undercharged shipping and asked me for more money. I don't blame him/them for hitting the forums, this is why they're here - to ask questions and to understand what is common and not common. In fact I'd likely cancel the order if I was asked for more $$ unless they were polite and had a reasonable explanation (e.g., they just opened/learning, or had a rate typo that would have cost them a LOT of $$). Respectfully, I find that unprofessional (yes, I know we're selling LEGO here, but we are still businesses here, no?). Sorry, just being honest to give you that alternative point of view! In my mind, what we advertise as our rates are a contract between our buyer and ourselves as sellers.

As @BasKrie noted, communication comes into play too - and with this being an international platform and comms via text/email, that just adds to the challenge. But if you did advise David that HE chose the wrong band, please know that this absolutely reads as blaming the customer (whether intended that way or not). Word choice matters in textual business communications. The customer is doing you the favor by choosing you and giving you their hard-earned money - and it simply wasn't correct, to boot - buyers only see what shipping options you setup for your store. Again, IF that was the messaging. Honestly, I'd have been quite offended if that was the approach - I not only would have canceled the order, but I'd have added your store to my block list.

Written communications can be challenging, for sure! :-)

While my views here may not be the popular one from a seller perspective, it likely is one that many customers also share. I see a lot of 0 and 1 feedbacks, meaning a lot of NEW folks here these days. So we need to be aware of and really tailor our business rules to accommodate our customer's most likely assumptions.

So whether you're like my store and never ask for more $$ or do ask for add'l funds if the shipping is incorrect (both are fine methods, it's all up to your biz rules!), courtesy is A#1 critical! Any errors in shipping rates are on US as the seller 99% of the time (there may be the rare BO dimension error) - NOT the buyer. Who is doing you a favor in the first place.

I truly do see all of us here as professional businesses - and the actions of one business in turn reflect on all of us. Consider this: When people have a problem with a product they bought from Amazon that was from a third-party seller that the third-party was shipping, they don't say the third-party seller did a poor job boxing it or were slow. They say AMAZON did a poor job boxing it or slow. It's a similar thing with Brickowl - we are seen as a whole by the occasional and new users, not as a bunch of indie stores using a sales platform. :-)

My humble two cents, is all! :-)