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NERF N-Strike Magstrike Dart Gun Blaster with Clip 2007 – Sold $85.49 – November 2014 |
In my previous post, I shared with you my January sales. Well, along with those sales, I also had quite a few sales that I had to refund. Six may not sound like a lot, but, when you average 0-1 per month, 6 in January was quite a bit. Even though I opted for the 90-Day Holiday Return option, none of these refunds were due to buyer’s remorse and no one left me negative FB.
It’s depressing that all these refunds were due to my own negligence. Three items had flaws I overlooked; 1 item was damaged in shipping, and 1 item had an error in the description. Another item was lost somewhere in my inventory so I had to refund the money and cancel the transaction.
The one that hurt the most was the refund for the NERF Magstrike (pictured above) that went to a buyer in the United Kingdom. The mom purchased this as a Christmas gift for her son. She contacted me right after Christmas and said the gun did not work very well. Ugh!
I always test the guns before listing them, but I certainly am not an expert. We exchanged a few messages and in the end, I agreed to refund her money. I imagined her son opening his gift on Christmas day only to discover it does not work right. I’ve been in her shoes and felt bad for the boy.
Anyway, I did not ask her to return the gun as I certainly did not want to pay $50 for the shipping, especially if it didn’t work. I just won’t be doing international shipping on NERF guns.
And then I lost my Top-Rated Status with its 20% discount. Not because of any defects, but because I failed to meet the 90% TRS qualification for 1-day shipping. Bah humbug!
Truth is, since the end of 2014, I haven't been focused on my eBay business. I knew my store was suffering so I put it on vacation for the last 2 weeks in January. I had to take a step back to get myself together and refocus on where I was going with eBay.
After getting rid of some old inventory and re-pricing my active listings, I am down to about 100 items. I plan to do more 99-cent auctions to purge more old inventory. I have my store active again, but I haven’t been getting many sales. As soon as I can, I’m downgrading from Premium to the Basic Store.
Until next time, keep calm and prosper!