Gotta say, this is a new one, need to try it out and see how it goes. Though a 20% restocking fee, no exceptions is usually enough to keep this to a minimum.
Gotta say, this is a new one, need to try it out and see how it goes. Though a 20% restocking fee, no exceptions is usually enough to keep this to a minimum.
grabs popcorn...
This is gonna be good.
I cannot think why in anyone's right mind that banning a customer for cancelling an order is a good idea, let alone the OWNER sending an internet meme with a nasty note... talk about terrible business practices. Wow.
Robbie wrote: Well, not to say you are wrong, but to look at it from their perspective - how many people do you think click 'buy' on their site and then back out? If each one only takes 5 minutes like you say, but they get 50 every night, that's more than half an FTE of cost on their end for nothing. And I bet it significantly cuts down on the number of false orders they receive if they just ban every false order-er from ordering in the future. If I had to spend significant time in my day working for essentially free to cancel orders from who I perceive to be flakes I can see how it would make me mad and I would choose not to work with them in the future. I would do exactly the same thing selling personally - if someone agreed to buy from me and then flaked I would be much less inclined to ever even answer an email from them in the future.
As a general rule, if a shop is getting 50 order cancellations a day at anything approaching a normal rate of orders being canceled, they'd need a pretty big shipping staff to keep up with the orders anyway. The time needed to cancel 50 orders is going to be a drop in the bucket next to the time needed to ship hundreds or thousands of orders, and you'd probably have a dozen or so people involved with shipping.
Unless there is some other backstory that I'm unaware of here...
pinchvalve wrote: Who cares if you cost them money? If they are worried about it, they can charge a restocking fee or a processing fee. That's pretty standard. Vorschlag rhymes with douche-bag, and that's what they are.
I'm not standing up for these "dudes" in any way, but that is easier said than done. I ran the website for a Honda/ACura parts for almost 2 full years. People would pull all sorts of stupid stunts and you'd be stuck with them. Hit them with a restock fee? They call and bitch to their bank/credit card company/Pay Pal and you the business got screwed. So now, not only are you stuck with some rare, overpriced OEM part, but now you get hit with the fees AND you get to pay Honda to (hopefully) take it back. We were "small time" and we lost thousands every year because of this.
I don't think restocking fees would fly in an "order then cancel before shipping" scenario. I think that would run afoul of credit card merchant agreements and consumer protection laws. You can't charge someone for never receiving a good or service, much as many poorly run companies would like to try.
dculberson wrote: I don't think restocking fees would fly in an "order then cancel before shipping" scenario. I think that would run afoul of credit card merchant agreements *and* consumer protection laws. You can't charge someone for never receiving a good or service, much as many poorly run companies would like to try.
Well, the argument here is that the reason for not wanting cancellations is that the seller has incurred a cost by placing a drop-ship order with the manufacturer/distributor/whatever. If so, then the buyer has received a service, even if it's one that's not directly visible.
If the order just sat in an inbox waiting for someone to show up at 9AM the next morning and process it, then there's no justification for a cancellation fee, IMHO.
dculberson wrote: I don't think restocking fees would fly in an "order then cancel before shipping" scenario. I think that would run afoul of credit card merchant agreements *and* consumer protection laws. You can't charge someone for never receiving a good or service, much as many poorly run companies would like to try.
You can absolutely do this, but you would have to make it quite clear and spelled out in the terms of sale.
So, I guess you feel like you were treated...unFairly...
Seems like the best possible reason for the sellers to be doing the banning is because somehow the order got drop-shipped before they got it cancelled and someone has to eat shipping costs.
In their shoes I would have made new customer orders wait 24 hours in some sort of in-house buffer before they process to the drop shipper instead of banning someone. I can't imagine with that kind of customer service they have a speedy shipping reputation so amazing that 24 hours would really matter.
Paul_VR6 wrote:dculberson wrote: I don't think restocking fees would fly in an "order then cancel before shipping" scenario. I think that would run afoul of credit card merchant agreements *and* consumer protection laws. You can't charge someone for never receiving a good or service, much as many poorly run companies would like to try.You can absolutely do this, but you would have to make it quite clear and spelled out in the terms of sale.
You know it turns out I was wrong about the legality - I was thinking of Ohio's law that states that contracts must be terminable within three days without charge, but that turns out to only apply to contracts "signed in your home." Now you might be able to claim you were home when placing the order but that seems unlikely.
I do know that nine times out of ten the credit card company would side with the consumer and refund that cancellation fee. And ten times out of ten, PayPal would do the same.
Dr. Hess wrote: They probably have some sort of auto-drop-ship ap running. You order and they auto-order from their supplier who then drop ships to you. You ordering and cancelling probably screwed up their whole system. They don't want your business. Fine, spend your money elsewhere.
Thank you.
We've had a rash of high dollar orders followed by random cancellations lately. Who makes a $2500 suspension order "on accident"??? Seriously, it screws up our whole system - cash flow, purchase orders, shipping, etc. We come in every morning, look at orders, place PO's, etc. Then see an email that says "oops"... so we have to un-do a lot of work. I've still got a small business here and seeing orders vanish for no reason is painful.
Another example: We had one guy last week call in a panic, order an entire LS1 kit but he needed it in 2-3 days. We were out of stock of some of the fabricated parts, so I pulled both of our fabricators off paying customer jobs (@ $105/hour), they made his parts over the course of a few hours that day, and I was about to rush them to the powder coater the next morning... when he cancelled. "My wife found out", sheesh. Its beginning to piss me off.
So I told my crew here that the whiny guy posting about his random accidental shock order here - his money is no good at Vorshlag. "But I'll order them AGAIN when I make up my mind and the wind blows the right direction!" Nope, don't call us again. He got miffed, sent me a snarky email about how terrible our customer service is, and I told him to never contact us again. And included a Picard Facepalm.
Your flippant order cancellation screwed up my whole day, pal. But likewise, I won't come to your work, take a big steaming dump on your desk, then get pissy when you complain about it.
All of you that want to burn Vorshlag to the ground because I told a total flake of a customer to not call us again, go right ahead. Feel free to create your own business, hire employees, pay overhead and taxes, stock parts, manufacture parts, and see how "easy" this is. Ha. With Amazon, fleaBay and all of the big online wholesellers (all of whom violate MAP pricing policies left and right) we don't make any money selling parts anymore. Its a giant mess.
I'm switching to decaf...
Cheers,
And that just ensured that I will not ever order from Vorshlag when I get back into the BMW game. Wow.
Response did not disappoint! Now I need more popcorn.
Things are tough all over.
Wow, that's uh, not exactly stellar customer service. Put me down as another one who will never buy from Vorshlag ever...
I'd like to ask Mr. Fair if he actually believes that no one else here has ever run a business and encountered those same problems.
But I'm not going to, because I actually don't give a berkeley what his response is.
Fair wrote:Dr. Hess wrote: They probably have some sort of auto-drop-ship ap running. You order and they auto-order from their supplier who then drop ships to you. You ordering and cancelling probably screwed up their whole system. They don't want your business. Fine, spend your money elsewhere.Thank you. We've had a rash of high dollar orders followed by random cancellations lately. Who makes a $2500 suspension order "on accident"??? Seriously, it screws up our whole system - cash flow, purchase orders, shipping, etc. We come in every morning, look at orders, place PO's, etc. Then see an email that says "oops"... so we have to un-do a lot of work. I've still got a small business here and seeing orders vanish for no reason is painful. Another example: We had one guy last week call in a panic, order an entire LS1 kit but he needed it in 2-3 days. We were out of stock of some of the fabricated parts, so I pulled both of our fabricators off paying customer jobs (@ $105/hour), they made his parts over the course of a few hours that day, and I was about to rush them to the powder coater the next morning... when he cancelled. "My wife found out", sheesh. Its beginning to piss me off. So I told my crew here that the whiny guy posting about his random accidental shock order here - his money is no good at Vorshlag. "But I'll order them AGAIN when I make up my mind and the wind blows the right direction!" Nope, don't call us again. He got miffed, sent me a snarky email about how terrible our customer service is, and I told him to never contact us again. And included a Picard Facepalm. Your flippant order cancellation screwed up my whole day, pal. But likewise, I won't come to your work, take a big steaming dump on your desk, then get pissy when you complain about it. All of you that want to burn Vorshlag to the ground because I told a total flake of a customer to not call us again, go right ahead. Feel free to create your own business, hire employees, pay overhead and taxes, stock parts, manufacture parts, and see how "easy" this is. Ha. With Amazon, fleaBay and all of the big online wholesellers (all of whom violate MAP pricing policies left and right) we don't make *any* money selling parts anymore. Its a giant mess. I'm switching to decaf... Cheers,
This guy has got to be being hacked. There is no way this is for real! But if it is its awesome.
Fair wrote: seeing orders vanish for no reason is painful.
More painful than not having them in the first place?
Listen, I'm in small business and have been my whole life. In our current business I can spend weeks courting a customer and drawing up and modifying proposals and leases and spending big money having architects do concept drawings, and at the final moment the customer can say "never mind." It happens. It's frustrating. And you know what my response is? "I'm sorry it didn't work out this time, but I look forward to the opportunity to work with you in the future if your situation changes." I have literally sent almost that exact email a number of times, after spending thousands of dollars and dozens of hours on the potential client.
Yes my first inclination is to chew them out and complain about the $2000 I still have to pay the architect and the dozens of hours of work I have into it, but here's the crazy thing: I'm a professional and I react professionally and the result is we've built up a good reputation and have a full building and a successful business. And those people you would have called flakes and sent a kiss off flippant email to with some rare pepes and a l33t meme? Most of them never come back. But one did, and he has been a great tenant for five years now and is doubling his footprint in our building right now. Paying more a month in rent than all the others that haven't worked out have cost me.
There's a reason for the phrase "cost of doing business." Cancelled orders is a cost of doing business for you. If you can keep your ego and temper in check you might make something out of enough of the "flakes" (again, your term) to make it worth your while. If you don't, you get the reputation you have now, as a douche-bag with a bad temper. Your call - although it looks like you already made it.
this makes me glad i don't play with BMWs and never intend to play with BMWs... this guy sucks..
at least someone quoted the response post so that it won't just disappear when he deletes it...
One cancelled order "screwed up the whole day"? Might want to get some management or some consulting help if that affects your business that much.
"take a big steaming dump on your desk, then get pissy when you complain about it." Placing an order is the equivalent of E36 M3ting on someone's desk?
Any understanding or sympathy for the seller's side of this transaction is completely lost. Good luck with your business.
Replying to this guy's thread - looking for sympathy and/or help in bashing my company - was a mistake, especially on this forum. There's no way to win in this situation. I think I better just cut my losses and kindly say farewell.
Fair wrote: Replying to this guy's thread - looking for sympathy and/or help in bashing my company - was a mistake, especially on this forum. There's no way to win in this situation. I think I better just cut my losses and kindly say farewell.
Dude, if you can't see the problems this reflects in your business you might be saying farewell to more than just this forum before long. Kinda remarkable how many issues are apparent from this momentary snapshot of the Vorshlag operation.
Interesting. I understand the frustration, but the response is rather juvenile, and unprofessional. I can't tell you how many times I've been contacted by folks wanting illustrations (racing, publications, rich bastards, even GRM forum brethren...), gone through all the processes of back and forth emails, waiting for reference materials, evaluating supplied reference photos... then had them decide the funds just weren't available. It happens. Burning bridges isn't good business practice – those same customers often return when circumstances are better, or make it up to you with related work or references. But just like the soup guy, it's entirely up to them how they run their business, you don't like it, buy elsewhere.
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