SHIPPING LESSONS AS AN ETSY SELLER

Today I’d like to tell you about shipping lessons as an Etsy Seller. I’ve had great luck getting my jewelry and supplies to my customers. But I had a particularly bad experience not long ago. A customer received an empty envelope! Agh! There honestly was a necklace in it when I deposited it into the postal bin. She will never believe it. My latest customer questioned the postage. This is a great idea when the postage doesn’t seem right. And she taught me a really valuable lesson. I weighed the box and then determined the postage as if it were going to California. The customer who purchased the supplies lived in New York. She is a lot closer to me than she would have been if she lived in California, so the postage wasn’t as much. I had two very closely related boxes of supplies – silk flowers – in my Etsy Store, so I have agreed to modify that listing with a note that explains how I calculated the postage and that they should email me before paying and I’d get them a more accurate shipping amount. I refunded the shipping money that I didn’t use. As she said, as a graduate student, that money can come in handy! She is absolutely right. Working with the customer is essential to my business. I’ve found out since I joined Etsy, that anyone can buy jewelry from any store. There actually is something out there for everyone. I want my customers to trust me. There is plenty of negativity and dishonesty out there in the world-wide-web. The lady who still believes I duped her, went straight to PayPal for a refund. No questions asked. The idea that someone doesn’t trust me is devastating. I have to make certain that I don’t ever repeat that mistake. As a business owner, lack of trust is a killer. It’ll kill your business faster than anything.