posted on October 15, 2002 09:16:09 AM
Fully 90% of my buyers are women, and I have had very few problems.
Perhaps one of the reasons is that I try to anticipate any and all concerns by making my auctions and terms as clear, and as easy, as possible. That does not prevent some buyers from becoming confused, but I am here on earth to hold their hands through the ebay process.
When there is a problem, I apologize whether it is my fault or not.
When I screw up, I admit it immediately, and make it right.
It is better to spend a few minutes of sweetness and get a payment, than to be coldly official and get a NPB.
Whenever I deviate from this approach, I get in trouble! The few problems I have experienced resulted from my forgetting my own rules.
posted on October 15, 2002 01:31:12 PM
Good for you, litlux. My mission statement is a bit different from yours: I am here on earth to make enough money to support my family...not to cater to people who no doubt get catered to entirely too much already.
posted on October 15, 2002 01:40:05 PM
Another approach used exclusively by females (or so it seems) is the bereavement discount.
I find this hard to write about, because it is so distasteful. The idea of using a loved one's death to cut a slightly better deal just does not sit well with me. But it has happened a few times, most recently this week.
A woman won an auction for a certain type of bracelet I sell that is engravable. As it happens, she got an excellent price. She wrote to ask if she could have 9 more at that price as she had recently lost her young daughter to leukemia and she was giving the bracelets to all of her daughter's friends engraved with "Angel [her daughter's name here]".
Tragic? Absolutely. I would never mock anyone who had lost a child.
But business is one thing, and bereavement is another. It is possible to extend sympathy without feeling compelled to donate to such a cause, and that is what I did.
Some here will call that mercenary and hard-hearted. I call it business.
