Catch 22 situation - Can anyone help please?

[sky-dreamers]

I sell personalised greetings cards and sometimes the buyers forget to enter the name they would like printed onto the front of their cards.

I send several emails asking them to provide the information but if I don't hear back I have been refunding them asking them to re-order but I've now discovered that as the buyer hasn't asked for a refund this counts as a refund due to me running out of stock. It's affecting my seller status 

I can't see anyway to get around this issue, if I issue a cancelation it goes against my account, if I refund it goes against my account and if I wait for the buyer to eventually respond I get a late dispatch mark against my account.

Apparently its against the rules to mark the item as dispatched while I wait so effectively I'm in a position where my account is being penalised because of the Buyer's failure to enter their personalisation information.

Can anyone advise what I can do to protect my stats from this sort of situation please?

[jonatjonatjonat]

I always thought one of the cancellation or refund reasons was 'Problem with the Buyers Address' which avoided any issues you mention.

[sky-dreamers]

Many thanks for taking the time to reply, that's so kind of you. 

Yes I was wondering if I could use that option but am unsure if that would also be marked as a non requested refunded item.

As there's no option for cancelling or refunding due to Buyer not providing sufficient information for me to fulfill the order perhaps I could ask if anyone has tried this and what the outcome is on their stats

Again jonatjonatjonat - thanks so much for taking the time to respond - I appreciate it

[tressygirl · Accepted solution]

@sky-dreamers  wrote:  As there's no option for cancelling or refunding due to Buyer not providing sufficient information for me to fulfill the order perhaps I could ask if anyone has tried this and what the outcome is on their stats

In which case you would be correct to cancel using the reason ' Problem with Buyer's Address'  and it is correct,  that you receive no defect / bad mark for this reason.

In your opening post you say you have cancelled when buyers have not provided the necessary information for you to complete the cards.  In this case,  I suggest sending the buyer  a polite  message that you need this information to complete the transaction , but if you do not hear by ***day,   you will deem the item to  no longer be wanted,  and will be cancelling the order,  which will refund the payment.  For this use the reason for cancelation as ' Buyer Requests to Cancel.  Again no defects for this reason.

If you use out of stock for your reason , you will always get that defect which could bring you quickly below the standard for selling eBay require.  Selling sanctions could follow.

@sky-dreamers 

[krafty-kreations]

I send two messages and if no reply I cancel on the last day to dispatch using the problem with the buyers address option, never had a problem.

[jonatjonatjonat]

Worth noting though that some of your personalised listings don’t actually have a Personalisation field on the listing page.

[sky-dreamers]

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply, I really appreciate your input

I've used the refund option using "other reason" for the reason and haven't issued the refund [I've never used the out of stock one but it seems that Ebay record it as such].

As the buyers don't request a cancellation I've never used that option as the reason for the refund

I send several emails to the buyers requesting the info before I refund but I will definitely try the Buyer requests to Cancel or Address issue in future to protect my rating,

Again, I really appreciate your helpful advice

Thank you

[sky-dreamers]

Thanks so much for taking the time to reply,

I really appreciate the input and will definitely try this

Appreciate your advice and help - very kind of you

[sky-dreamers]

Thanks again, had no idea that some of the listings were missing the option

I'll go back and double check

Really appreciate your help again - very kind of you to take the time to reply

[insidethe93]

It's important to have a default position that doesn't leave you hanging on and/or having a problem.

Maybe say on listings that if you don't receive customisation details by within [number] of days of order then you'll assume they want it without any customisation i.e. left blank.

Occasionally I've bought personalisable greeting cards and have asked specifically for no name to be added to the card. I think it's perfectly reasonable for a seller to set a deadline for me to send my personalisation information if any - immediately a purchase is made is the usually expected time. Certainly you shouldn't have to send chasing messages about it; well maybe one chaser, as you wish.

Or, cancel as advised by other posts here including by jonatjonatjonat and tressygirl, AND HAVE YOUR LISTINGS SAY that if you don't receive customisation instructions within [number] of days of order that you'll automatically cancel the order and refund. This is perfectly reasonable, and any tardy buyer can re-order. If you message on the deadline that that's what you're doing, they can't complain it was done without telling them.

If you like you could send a message to a buyer as soon as they buy, so that it looks like an automatic process, thanking them for their order and reminding them to send customation info and by when. Because there's bound to be a buyer who doesn't read the listing fully or doesn't take it in.

[sky-dreamers]

Thank you so much for your valuable input, great ideas that I will put to use

Appreciate you taking the time to offer such great help and advice - very kind of you and much appreciated