What would you do?

[klingdesigns]

I do mainly website sales these days, no not ebay :) It's going pretty well but just had what I'm calling a very wacky complaint. I try to be very customer friendly and work any way I can with them but I can't keep refunding peoples money that seem to not even try to read anything and just click and buy.

Here's the situation. Lady google searched for airbrushed basketball stencils. One of the links took her here klingdesigns.com (http://www.klingdesigns.com/oscommerce/product_info.php?cPath=36&products_id=128&osCsid=81b534d878cc5db793c058de1a36b9cb)

I don't have a word on my site that even says stencils. The default product is the "Vikings" one which is a common name for schools so I didn't enquire why she didnt put words in it. Usually they just want it the same. She recieved the shirt and wanted to know why she got a shirt instead of stencils to make her own shirts for. I was very dumbfounded on how she thought my site sold stencils. I mean, would a flag raise when you see an option to choose shirt sizes, shirt colors, orientation of shirt?

Anyways, I told her I cannot refund her money back because we did the work and theirs a no refund policy on our website unless the artist messes the shirt up. She didn't argue and took it as that.

I'm curious on everyones opinion what they would do in this case? handle it different? same?
Also, I try to keep in mind you cannot please everyone but am always willing to improve the site. Think I should wait to see if it happens again? or how possibly to keep this from happening again?

Thanks

[Full Blast]

Howdy there. Yup I would say you did the right thing. Maybe your couldve turned an extra buck by offering to make stencil for her though. Say maybe about the same price as the shirt. hee hee
Rob

[ABD]

Yeah i think you did the right thing....All i could suggest is If she made the mistake (no matter how dumb it was) Other people may do the same....I'd just try and make it clear as possible what services are offered..Even if your blunt and repetitive ...It may look like overkill to you and 90% of the world..But it may help to keep the other 10% in check, hehe!

[blinddog 99]

Hey Kling, let's face it, if you have to choose dealing with the general public, you're gonna quickly realize the dumb factor you have to deal with. Why a search engine would select your site, when you don't sell stencils is beyond me, but I would tend to blame the bonehead who ordered... this is typical, and why I won't sell on the internet.

[klingdesigns]

Thanks all. I did run a storefront in a mall for 2 yrs so have dealt with my share of personal wierdo's too :)
I'm a family man so the web works better for me then working 80+ week in a mall.
Blinddog, I can actually answer that question about search engines. Actually google is what I use but I'm not sure what search engine she used. Basically they work as a percentage factor. What sites have the most possible words involving your search criterea. So if she put in "airbrushed basketball stencils" it will first pull up sites with all those words in it then narrow it down when it runs out of sites by showing sites with some of the words.

I've done a lot of research trying to get my site better ratings on search engines and I've pulled up some wierd stuff using certain search criteria. All it does is narrow sites done to the best possibility. Google is the best IMO, so if she used a horrible search engine, it may have looked up "airbrushed basketball" first then worried about stencils later on.

I do seem to feel much easier when people call for orders rather then doing these mysterious orders for people I never even talk to that order online.

[Full Blast]

:tee: So here's a fun question for ya. How does workin the internet compare to the mall? Are you doin anything near what you did, doin it in a mall situation? (Im NOT asking for figures here)
Personally I would kinda dig not dealing with the wacko's and all the stupid questions people in yer face come up with. I think it would be kinda nice to just check your orders paint the design or whatever without people interupting you every10 seconds with the same ol questions! LOL.

get the feeling Im tired of hearing it all the time? :cheeky-smiley-006:
And I just opened. sigh. Mornin all, Hey where the damn coffee!

Rob

[klingdesigns]

Hey full blast,
To give you a good idea, I started the website while I was in the mall to add to sales. It did take quite some time before I started getting sales and a lot of work getting the site going. Now it's running great but I only bring in maybe $400-$500 month give or take. I do work a reg job too and my overhead is way cheaper.
I was paying $1500 month in the only mall worth abing here, +$4k nov, $4k in dec. If I broke over $10k during the normal months I had to pay the mall 13% of sales. It just wasn't worth it.
I love abing though and all the hard work is done on the website + I'm kinda lucky and have a friend that pays my anual domain fee and server space.

Even if you had to pay, your looking at an overhead of no more then $30 yr for domain fee, then possibly $100 month for server space/ hosting. I have an associates degree in computers so I do my own web hosting.

Also, here's a tip. Don't Ebay! :) It's good for PR but they sale AB shirts and whatnot way to damn cheap. With shipping, credit charges, and material cost, I cannot see how their making any real profits.

hope this helps, just don't want you thinking it's easy. Took me a lot of frustrating hours to research and get it running this decent but now it can only get better as long as I don't screw it up :)

[Full Blast]

:clapping2:
thanks for sharing! I really appreciate your honesty. So many other Tshirt guys wouldnt even bother. I was just curious whether or not that was a way to go, like some of the other "big" sites like airmagination etc. I never really wanted to go Ebay. Ive seen the prices there too. And wonder why theyre selling themself's short there. Unless its just to get paid to practice, so to speak. So thanks for your answer. Hope you stick around here we could always use another :tee: squirter. :)

Rob

[klingdesigns]

Thanks,
I'll try, I was on the last forum until they switched over. I tend to have a bad habit of disappearing after a bit. Just not much of a forum whore :)
To many dang hobbies :P

[Saint]

Thanks for the info, Kling.

Also, yes, I agree with how you handled the customer.
Customers have responsibilities too...and reading seems like one of em...at least online!