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Drop-Ship US consortium (agreement)?

One_Click_OffOne_Click_Off
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As we load inventory into our store, we are aware that things happen...miscounts, buyer thinks the condition is not as indicated, there is a variation we did not account for...etc. Don't get us wrong- we are very vigilant about these sorts of things!

Is there a way to start an agreement with US Sellers for only domestic shipping, to, essentially, establish the relationships ahead of time, in the unforeseen event that we have to buy from a fellow Seller and have the piece(s) delivered after the sale?

Maybe this thread is the avenue for respondents to indicate if they are in agreement with being part of a group that takes on the "making good after the sale" and we can all have that beautiful list of go-to Sellers...and offer our [Rare] dissatisfied customers 3 options with confidence.

D
(plus 9)

Comments

  • 7 Comments sorted by Votes Date Added
  • qwertyboyqwertyboy
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    You won't have that confidence with such a list of shops, as you won't be able to get a group that has all of the parts you might want to have covered in that agreement.

    Pretty much all of the shops that have been selling many parts for a while have run into an inventory issue, us included. If we need to have a piece drop-shipped, we simply look at which shop has that item, contact them beforehand, explain the issue, and go from there. In the three or four cases we had to do this, we have not run into a shop that refused (or even didn't answer).
    We have also drop-shipped parts for other shops several times.

    Niek.
  • BrikomaniaBrikomania
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    I have been asked before to send missing parts to other buyers in Spain and elsewhere. I have also asked other sellers to do that for me and they usually had no problem! Count me in if you have a problem, specially to Spain/Europe.
  • CalibrickCalibrick
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    D (plus 9), I think the folks here have the best response - in the rare case you have an issue and want to make arrangements to cover a missing part, simply determine what credible (based on their feedback) shop has it for a reasonable price at that time and work with them. :-) There's likely only a couple of US stores that has a big enough catalog for you to go to consistently for nearly all common and many uncommon items, so why constrain yourself? :-)
  • One_Click_OffOne_Click_Off
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    Thanks Everyone- sounds great! You probably remember that initial time listing- wanting to get it all correct- excited, but then some trepidation of "what if?".
    We will proceed as you suggest and look into who may have what is missing, then contact, if need arises, and in the rare case that doesn't meet their minimum will ask for mercy- HA!
  • CalibrickCalibrick
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    @One_Click_Off, I can pretty much guarantee ALL of us had issues when opening our first store... I know I sure did! :-) We entered our inventory gradually over several years, knowing very little about part variants to start (as an example). Then going live, we found mislisted variants (due to our own lack of knowledge), simple data entry errors (bin number or quantity), etc.

    I'd guess over the past 18 months we've found and fixed 99.9% of the issues - during that I learned that people are very understanding so long as you demonstrate integrity, always make things right (fair refunds that don't cost them more shipping later, or drop shipping as you suggest), and they know you are truly working to prevent the problem in the future. :-)
  • CalibrickCalibrick
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    Oh yes - and COMMUNICATE. Proactive communication is super, super important!!
  • One_Click_OffOne_Click_Off
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    Your comments are So appreciated, Niek @qwertyboy , @BrickomaniaES , and @Calibrick (you are our role model...hope we can get the listing done sooner in total with the "army" we have but, alas, sent our second overseas last week [our best IT brain] and again to Asia...).
    We will do our best and then rely on the goodness of the BrickOwl community that we have been customers of and have thoroughly enjoyed dealing with thusfar.
    A great thanks is owed to all the sellers that our extended family has bought from to compile what now stands at 71 vintage recaptured sets- we really understand the front-end-load you had to do to provide the service to sell us the parts we needed- You are truly the best!
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