No longer buying from stores not bought from before

JayB-SoCal

I don't know how well I can stick to this but I've completed 234 orders now and it's no longer worth buying from stores never bought from before. Why? Because of the order flubs. Stores that do well usually continue to do well. Stores that do poorly repeat the poor handling. I now have enough experience with multiple stores who have sent me 3, 4 or 5+ orders that have not made a single mistake, always ship professionally and don't leave me wondering if they have their act together. Even when there may be inventory issues, the better stores catch & notify me before sending and get the rest of the process handled fine.

To all the stores who have provided me with excellent handling of orders, I thank you. You will continue to get orders from me.

LaurenMac

I noticed that you ordered from my store for the first time the other day. I hope that when you receive it, you are satisfied with the product and would consider purchasing again. While I understand your frustration, your "favorite" stores to order from might not have the inventory you need in stock or might be a touch more expensive than a different store. Sometimes you have to take a chance. Not all stores operate equally - some take it serious like a business, others are not as specific to detail. - Lauren, Lauren's Bricks LLC

Totonel

I am totally agree with @LaurenMac. Some of us really put's the time and the effort in, and more often than not we hit this wall. Even if a new seller has that certain part/s, the buyer prefer to wait or suggests to one of the sellers who deal with in the past about it. But obviously is up to everyone to decide where they get there parts from and we respect that.

LaurenMac

My frustration is with the fact that I have had almost a 150 orders over the lifetime of my store but only 30 or so customers have opted to leave good feedback. I am sure this is true of a lot of stores on here - not nearly the amount of positive feedback we deserve. I am sure my store which has a decent inventory gets passed over because I have a very small sample of feedback.

JayB-SoCal

It's not about who has what parts at what price. It's about getting an order right.

Markyd7

@JayB-SoCal when you place an order for the first time with a store do you check the feedback?

Totonel

@LaurenMac The feedback situation is pretty much the same everywhere, when we are about to purchase something, visit a place, so on... we like to see what other people think about, what's there opinion, but only a few of us will take the time to leave a feedback after. In most cases we will leave a feedback if we didn't liked something about it.
I run a shop on the other platform and I have the same situation 150 orders and only 88 feedback, and I have a few customer with 3+ orders and nothing back. We just have to keep up with our quality service and good work and we will build our reputation.

Totonel

@JayB-SoCal Exactly, it's very frustrating when you order a green part and you get a yellow one, but you know you only find out when you shop around. But some people's don't understand that when you get into a business, the customer should be their priority and not the sale. If you can manage that you will end up with loyal customers, as yourself.
Happy shopping and maybe our paths will cross one day.

JayB-SoCal

@JayB-SoCal when you place an order for the first time with a store do you check the feedback?

The feedback for nearly all stores is 100% it's ridiculous to be able to tell anything from that because most people will only leave positive feedback and almost nobody wants to be honest when the news is bad. I only hesitated so far if it's 98% or less.

Markyd7

So is that a yes then?
Personally I rarely look at the feedback when placing orders and I'm sure lots of other buyers are the same.
I have a feeling that new sellers think that having 1000s of feedback will increase their sales, when it's actually the amount of individual parts, stock levels and then shipping costs.
All sellers get about 30% of their customers leave feedback. Yes as a new seller you run the risk of getting negative feedback early on that could mess things up a little, but that should give you the incentive to get everything correct each time!

tz6p06

I have been trying to sell on this site for a while now and have never been able to sell anything. For the sets I have they are priced very competitive but just cant get this site to work. I have been selling under the same name on Brick Link for many years with 100% positive feedback because of the way I do business. My prices are good and my shipping costs are what the post office charges. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get the store up and running?

JayB-SoCal

@tz6p06 your store has 4 sets and nothing else and 3 of them are pretty high priced.

JayB-SoCal

Just adding 1 more note to make sure my original post was clear:

It seems like when I order from a new store, too great of a % get the order wrong somehow (missing lots or major count issue with 1 or more of the lots). Also, in terms of quality, some very few stores send things claimed "good" when they should be claimed "acceptable". Let's say it's around a 25% risk that a new store I buy from can't fulfill properly.

If I only focus on the other 75% of stores who have no issues to do continued purchasing from, I have noticed almost 0 problems. But the times I have re-ordered from stores who had a problem... more than half the time I run into more problems.

So, it seems to me as a buyer that it makes more sense to avoid buying from stores I'm not familiar with regardless of the ratings as the resulting orders are almost perfect and no issues. But on the selling side, as a community, it seems to me that sellers should be encouraging others to be good sellers otherwise the new stores coming in will have to fight the tide of the bad experiences a lot of buyers like me would run into, shying us away from buying from new stores.

The rating system here is not optimal because the vast majority of the time people just leave feedback when its good - volume of feedback is meaningless. The score should partly be calculated on portion of orders receiving feedback as it seems that people more likely don't leave negative or neutral feedback if their experience wasn't good. Then the ratings wouldn't range just from 98% to 100%, it would curve and be more like 60% to 100%, making it easier for buyers to know which stores absolutely suck and then let the free market take over. Anyone who has a store which provides a poor experience should basically not have a store or not do well.

JayB-SoCal

Yup another note. Here's an example from today that I opened up, one with multiple lots, not huge order in $ but 177 total items.

- Packaging sub-par, all parts jammed into 1 plastic bag, tolerable
- The seller gave a small refund for missing parts (appreciated, tolerable, just relays mediocre inventory control)
- Many parts in "acceptable" condition not "good" - dirty, yellowed
- A part listed as Dark Gray was really Medium Stone Gray, shrug shoulder, minor
- 8 parts had stickers on them. Not the end of the world, stickers can be peeled off and parts wiped but still

None of this is the end of the world, but when compared to the majority of quality orders and especially when it's all the result of 1 order... it's just an example of wondering why I would bother when for that kind of result when I can just go buy old/used LEGO by the pound from someone local which will be the same quality but cheaper. The risk is the same but at least then I can see what I'm buying.