After having a repeat customer message me last night about a dress she bought, I was pretty negative.
She said she is leaving ebay because she has lost too much money in return postage for dirty and misrepresented items. She just hates it when something arrives dirty, smelly or just not what she thought she ordered.
Uh oh...I feel a problem coming on.
I had a nice Kim Rogers sheath dress listed. Clean, odor free and in very good condition. I made the mistake of telling her she may want to get it dry cleaned when she receives it. I made the mistake of saying I launder washable items but it is too expensive to have items dry cleaned.Time for a rant, from her. She is just tired of people selling dirty blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now I didn't say the dress was dirty. I said she may want to get it dry cleaned when she gets it. Her response? I should dry clean everything that I sell that is dry cleanable and just add the cost on to the item.
OK, let's do some math. I have about 700 items listed. About 500 are clothing items. Of those 500, at least half are things that could go to the dry cleaners or laundry (dress shirts). So now we have 250 items at the very least that need a trip to a professional cleaners. I don't know what the average price at dry cleaners near you are, but the cheap ones near me are expensive. Shirts 2.50, dresses 5+, sweaters 5+, coats 7.5+ and who knows what else I should put in the dry clean pile. So an average of all of the items I have is about $5 each, not including the trouble of taking them there and picking them up. So 250 items times $5 per item is ta dah.....$1250. And I get that money back only if my item sells. If I donate the item back to the thrift store I get...zero. And she said it would cost her $13 to dry clean that dress.
So according to this customer, I should tack on the cost of dry cleaning to my cost. Now that $19 sweater I am trying to sell becomes a $24 sweater (just using an average here). Oh sure lady. No problem. Let me guess....you don't sell on ebay....you just buy. How did I know? Just a lucky guess!!
And now some good to balance out the bad karma.
I recently sold a Vera Bradley purse.
The New Hope fabric (black with pink ribbons and lily of the valley) that is for breast cancer awareness. It is retired so I knew it would sell, for a lower price, even though it had a small ink stain in the bottom. I really did try to get the ink stain out but it wouldn't budge.
I got this nice message today from the buyer.
"I just wanted to let you know my daughter loves the purse. Her great grandmother died from breast cancer when she was just a baby. It helps her feel connected to her. Her father one night got ink cleaner out cleaning the ink stain out. Thank you"
Ahhhh there are nice people out there, after all.
Wow that dry cleaning lady is crazy. She should buy her clothes new at the store if she has so much bad luck on ebay. Jeez.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know there is something to remove ink. I think I'll research that this morning and maybe get me some.
If you find something that works, please share. I have had marginal luck with the linen soak in getting ink out. Sometimes, when you don't know what kind of ink it is, it never comes out. Of course Sharpie is the worst to get out.
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