Oh, the woes of being a business owner. Today a customer called to tell me to "call off" her special order because she found the item somewhere else. It has already been ordered (not paid for because I trusted that she would pay for it when she picked it up), and I cannot send it back; so, basically, I am stuck with an item in my store that I may never sell. It is only worth about $12, but, hey, keep reading. This is happening too much.
Take last week: Someone I consider to be a friendly acquaintance ordered an item over the phone that costs approximately $70. My mom trusted that she would pay for it when she picked it up. The item came in, and the lady now says she got it somewhere else so no longer needs it. Now I am stuck with a $70-item that may or may not sell this year.
I am losing money being too nice. Is that possible, being too nice? Here is another instance where I feel taken this week. I delivered some items to a location about 30 minutes from here. I unloaded the items on a table and asked if I could leave. The person in charge said "yes." In the ensuing minutes, several items were stolen from the table, and now the company is refusing to pay me full purchase price for the items. They only want to pay half. The items are worth about $100 retail, so I am out between $30 and $60 just because I was nice and delivered these items at no charge. I have proof that the items were on the table, and they agree that I have proof - they're not questioning my delivery at all. They just say that they cannot eat the total cost. An analogy of this situation would be if UPS delivered a box to your home; the UPS man placed it inside your front door in the foyer, and a burglar came into your house ten minutes later and stole the box. Now, would you charge UPS for the missing box? Of course not! The theft happened on your property, not in the UPS truck!
I told the company that if they will not reimburse me the total amount, that I will no longer make deliveries to them; they will have to pick up their own merchandise from now on. Was that fair?
I bend over backwards for my customers, and especially for those who I consider "friends." Changing my policies to include my "friends" always seems to offend someone. But this is a business, and I will eventually (hopefully) have to feed my family off of it in the years to come. My policies will have to apply to EVERYONE from now on. No more favors!
(Disclaimer: Ha ha. There are those of you who read this blog whom these rules just cannot apply to! **wink** **wink*** You know who you are. I can't stand making you pay for someone else taking me for granted. I KNOW you never would!)Thanks for letting me rant and rave today!
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. ~ Mark Twain
A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. - Sir Winston Churchill
Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.- Napoleon Bonaparte
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.- Thomas Alva Edison
It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.- Oscar Wilde
~always tryin' to do the right thing here~
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
B~ can you make a new policy that you charge upfront for any ordered item and then there is a 20% restocking fee? That's what a ton of store do these days since people are so fickle and don't honor their word.
I had a lady order 42 Frog Street Press Story Paper things in July~ 14.99 a pop... and 21 others at 4.99 each... the day that I left for my vacation/maternity leave. Well, I didn't ask for a deposit or anything because I was leaving and thought at first they would be like .99 or 2.99, ya know, it was PAPER. Then I ordered them. :O Our total was over $400. Yikes... well, they came in from Dallas Pen and we called her for 6 weeks. She just finally said she didn't want them after all. GRRRRRRRRRR... luckily for *ME*, Dallas Pen authorized for me to return all of the paper for credit. WHEW~ but that type of stuff drives me insane. I will not order anything anmore without payment first.
((((B))))) tried to call ya~ I worked until 8:50 tonight.
Post a Comment