10/19/2020
Sharing a recent experience with a customer:
It is not often that we are taken advantage of as a retailer. But occasionally, we see customers falsely blame us for broken items, where in most of the cases it is the fault of shipping services. Although we mention that 'our responsibility ends once the order is shipped and we do not guarantee the safe transit of the package' as our policy, in almost all cases, we do issue refunds or exchanges to keep customers happy.
But once in a while, we feel, customers do have ulterior motives in asking for replacements.This can be deduced in their communications. Because we know how and what packaging was used for a particular parcel, we can also guess the veracity of customers' claims. As a small business (i.e. we are not Amazon/Flipkart), we can not keep exchanging items or issuing refunds for items ordered by one customer where the chances are the item/s might have been damaged during transit or by the customer him/herself.
Today there was one such case. We replaced a large product after the customer complaint of some malfunction. The same product had been shipped with similar packaging to far away customers with the same shipping method without any troubles before. However, we gave her the benefit of doubt and replaced that costly item without any additional cost in exchange for the so called "damaged" first piece. On receiving the brand new, replacement item, the customer complained again of the same type of damage with it. Not only that, she accused us of sending her the same item back not knowing that we have photographs and videos of the new item shipped and the old item itself with us. She again demanded exchange/refund. We recommended her to take the issue with the postal service/manufacturer of the item. After persistent unfair demand with suspicious intentions from her, painfully we decided to not entertain that customer again.
In view of this, we are thinking of adding an option to purchase postal insurance while checking out from our site. We recommend that when available, customers use that option for large/delicate/expensive items purchased from our store. Meanwhile, if a customer wants us to purchase such insurance while shipping on behalf of them, she/he may also inform us by email ([email protected]) and pay for it off-site.
Also, if your packages are being damaged again and again, please talk to the postman/courier delivery man and/ try to investigate. It is very likely that either they are not handling your packages as carefully as they should or there may be some other issue related to delivery.