Returns Refunds and Regrets - how to start a craft business

hi besties I want to jump right into this okay and let's talk about something really uncomfortable returns refunds and regrets and I want to break this up into three separate categories to make this information a little bit more digestible for you so we're going to take this from a legal aspect though I'm not a lawyer so don't follow my advice unless you consult a lawyer I'm disclaimer I'm not a lawyer etc etc disclaimers okay and then we're going to go into um we're going to take this from kind of an ethical standpoint aspect and then the aspect of the third aspect will be kind of the where you are in your business growth aspect because all three of those things can change whether or not you should or shouldn't issue a refund and when so first legally most businesses do accept returns if a product hasn't been personalized meaning it doesn't have some specialized customization like maybe your name is like Billy Joe Bob and you had your name engraved on something then you're asking to have it returned a store will normally not accept a return on an item like that because it would be difficult to find another Billy Joe Bob to try to sell the product to legally though most of the time at least here in the US you aren't required to accept returns at all legally that person agreed to your terms and conditions so you have every right legally to not accept returns the only time you could be sued or legal action taken against you is if you send a dysfunctional product or your product isn't what you advertised on the web then then you might end up on like judge duty or something now credit card companies they don't care what the law says because credit card companies have far more power than even the government most of these situations I think you'd agree right usually the credit-card companies they're the first defense of a company or of a customer before this customer even like goes to find a lawyer so sometimes if you send a fantastic product nothing's wrong with it everything's perfect but maybe a customer goes to their credit card company because they're unhappy that maybe the the color doesn't match the color on their computer screen right the credit card company will still most likely side with in the customer's favor unless you have some uber specific terms that they agreed to that says absolutely no returns and under no conditions whatsoever will we accept returns but that brings us to the best businesses practices aspect of it number two aspect of returns because most people won't even buy from you in the first place or trust you if you don't have a return policy that says in the smallest amount that hey if there's something wrong with your product we will take care of it we'll take care of you will take it back will issue a review a refund so you might not even get first-time purchasers if they see you have like a shady looking return policy so having said all that there's you can kind of see the reason why most retailers accept returns on non personalized products they want people to come back these come those companies are thinking of the lifetime value of the customer now while best practices say you should have a return policy on products that aren't custom-made or personalized what is the best business practice if maybe your product was delivered in less than stellar condition right because this happens sometimes Milman may have banked something up maybe the package was a little wet from the weather that day maybe your packaging skills were off at a maybe you know something to do with total human error which happens to everyone with their order so or maybe like you misspelled someone's name or something again like human error okay so what are best practices for a situation like that like what is the ethical thing to do okay you should be giving your customer first of all a heavy apology along with three options okay get out get out your pens bestie number one number one option for them they are welcome to return the product for a full refund after return the product number two they are welcome to return the product and you'll send a brand new corrected one so in exchange for a fixed one if there's a problem number three they can keep the damaged product but at a discounted rate so a partial refund if they want to keep it and not return it now notice I didn't say option 4 they can keep the product plus get a refund this is absolutely no don't do it it's an unreasonable request though I got it all the time anyway and you will too the whole situation is uncomfortable when this happens but if you tell that person I'm sorry I'm so so so sorry here are three options and say hey um and then if they say like hey I want the product or maybe even the corrected product plus a refund right because though they will say that then you need to say something like um these are the three options according to our policy policies policies these are the three options that were agreed to these are our policies these were agreed to upon ordering ok so I'm going to say it again because I totally botched it I want you to write that phrase down okay sorry about that these are the three options according to our policies that were agreed upon when ordering just copy and paste that right in the email okay that kind of throws it back to the fact that they agreed originally when they ordered to all of your policies when they place the order okay oh but by the way um for you Bessie by the way please make sure you actually add these the three things that I talked about like if if something goes wrong your options are one two and three that we just went over make sure you add those to your shop policies because if you don't put that like in your return section there you just they will look and they will call you a liar okay so third aspect what should you do according to what level of business you're in and this isn't this is important Bessie because as easy as it sounds to say hey you got these three options and that's it if you're brand new to Etsy and you don't really have reviews yet you don't have any feedback yet you and I both know you really need that good feedback it's oxygen to get your business off the ground so and this is really hard for me to tell you but if you have little to no feedback in your shop I suggest remedying the situation in any way possible and I know it sucks but sinks stinks but if that means letting them have the damaged product plus a refund think of it as feedback pay but I do have an additional suggestion if this is your situation because I was um I was once here too right and when you're brand new and you're just a little more susceptible to mistakes right so if you're brand new you're making products for the first time and you don't have everything completely streamlined so you're again you're a little more susceptible to mistakes when making products okay wouldn't you agree so I always turn and I was the same way when I first started out but I turned this into a plus for the customer and requested feedback at the same time that I told them they could actually keep the damaged product and I issue a refund now you might be scared to ask for the feedback if the customer seems entitled or whiny but if you haven't already picked a fight with them and you feel safe you can say something like um listen I'm again I'm so sorry about all of this normally make sure you say this normally I do require that you return the product for a refund or I'll just offer you a discount if you want to keep the damaged product however it's really really important for me to keep you happy as a customer so I'm going to go ahead and issue you a refund in addition to allowing you to keep the product but if you wouldn't mind could you repay me with maybe some good feedback on Etsy it would help out more than you know now I know that is really scary I know my lighting keeps changing sorry I know it's really scary but I've learned that people in these situations often give I'm not kidding people in these situations if you do this they give the best feedback you'll get if you go above and beyond to correct something that's wrong then they give you feedback that can be the best feedback especially if they say in the feedback she corrected everything something went wrong and I know that sounds scary because customers might read it and think she does things wrong but they don't because everybody knows there's human error so instead they think this person will communicate and correct if something goes wrong with my order and that is invaluable alright Betsy I want to hear your stories post and give us a thumbs up on the video while you're posting your refund return stories I'm going to I'm looking away here but I'm actually looking at your comments here morally says there are some things like bedding pillow forms that can't be legally returned because of health issues it cannot be resold yes so again like I would go through the three aspects you know so really it's even more than a return like it's them getting their money back so even if it's like a non personalized pillow for that you're talking about it it would depend on your best business practices where you are in business how much feedback you already have if you have a thousand things of good feedback and then someone gives you one bad feedback and then you're allowed to respond to that and say we offered to do these three options most people reading that or gonna side with you and they're like okay she's a real person so it looks real so don't be worried about it if you have a lot of feedback already Tom don't send our scented candles you're so bad Mary can you ask for a picture of the damaged products that's a really good question you absolutely can just be careful because you might just it's all in your email tone okay so if you're if you come across this as kind of like well prove it you're going to get some really ticked off customers but if you come across as I'm so sorry that happened you know you're showing them that you believe them if you could just send a picture of it so that so that I can know what went wrong for future customers I would really appreciate that that's kind of what is our policy to get the refund going for you or and these are our options and stuff but we'll need that picture to just to know more for future customers then you know you don't want them thinking like you don't believe them as long as you have that in mind DSS she always asks for photos if they claim it was damaged yeah I'd love to see your swipe on how you asked for that Wendy wall decals cost more to return them to make so I usually just ask for a photo and if there's something wrong with the product then I send a new one I usually say I need the photo for my records there you go need the photo for your records I love that and yeah if it costs more to return then to make a new one just make any one and send it but you're not making a new one and sending it and giving them the refund you know what I mean adilyn what do you think of customers who have used your product like skincare and then want a full refund because it didn't agree with their skin that would I would definitely say that falls in the best best business practices category of the three things that we talked about Adeline and for you I know you're a really established business so for you it's probably not as important that you get the most amazing feedback ever but um I think it's more as a skin care thing I know that more people will buy from you again or trust to try other products if you accept refunds I know that the major companies do if it's like a skin care thing and you're not happy with it a lot of them like that Bath & Body Works I think like a lotion if they didn't like the lotion even if the I shouldn't tell you this my sister used to work there and she said some people would use their products down to like there's like 1/4 of it left and then they're like I don't I didn't like this and they still give them the refund they take it and give them the refund and end up throwing with the product so it really like it goes with like the that would go with the lifetime value of the customer is this person going to order from you again or could you tell like they're just never going to order from you again or are they going to start and I hate adilyn Facebook page you know like you know it takes for you it might be a customer on customer basis adilyn i try to give them store credit plus five bucks that is a great great solution absolutely Malory what if your item gets lost overseas which I've had happen and they thought I was like a scam it was so awful I'm like the tracking number stopped in like California when it left the border and then I had no idea where the package was um for that situation when it's like the Mail's fall I always took responsibility if the mail had any type of problem because that's not the customers fault like the customer didn't damage the product they didn't use the product they didn't just say oh I don't like it now that it's here you know so if it was the mail I always sent a new one but you know what I and I used USPS for overseas and I know everybody's oh my gosh so scary I think it in my seven years of business I had two packages get lost total so that was worth it to me to use them so I could do like click and ship because I had like two babies on my hip you know so it's like I couldn't go anywhere okay nobody likes International shipping it's so true Rene what are your thoughts on shipping fees who pays shipping fees fees for a return product that depends I've had um I've done both where the customer had to return a product on their dime and I've also returned the product for them on Maya dime it just depends on the situation and the product and the weight and how much product they ordered that one I would take situation my situation basis I know a lot of companies like Zappos will take as they pay for any return I know Amazon pays for return them if they pay for every return but they just they pay for return so um that that just depends that I think that also depends on it how new you are a business like is that going to break you you know what about restocking fees you can do you can do restocking fees um not on not on a personalized item though like if you're like oh your thing had Billy Joe bomb on it and it's a damaged item I need you to return that and then you get a restocking fee like that doesn't make any sense but and a restocking fee can also tick people off because they're like a restocking fee it's not a shelf in your house you know but hey that shell space is precious right that's also a case-by-case basis I would say Denise says usually she pays her customers pay to return and then she Pete pays to reship kind of an even-steven and she says if they ask or complain I will email them a return label I think that's kind of what I did is I was like here you have to return it this address and then I'll issue you refund and if they were like totally irate I would say um show me a picture of the the shipping label with like the receipt that you paid and I'll issue you that refund on your order there will always be difficult rent transactions and scammy customers for me this is just part of a successful business I always go above and beyond despite my instincts it's worth at most times yes yes and there's I guess there there's like Facebook groups dedicated to like Etsy shops and shops who they can scam and pull these kinds of things and who's going to let them have the product and the money and they actually have like tips to say make sure you order more than one product make sure you do this make sure you do that so that they think that you're going to be a valued customer for life and then ask for the refund and you know tell them you're going to give them bad feedback and everything and that's just that makes me so mad but it does happen and so watch out for that for sure alright oh we are a little over our time but I have a giveaway do you guys still want to do the giveaway today even though we're a little bit over on time roll it over on time but I'm thinking like I don't I don't know if it is a giveaway tomorrow or really quick do it today let me know what you guys think someone asked Carrie said someone asked twice what are your opinions in Etsy's new guarantee badge doesn't override our shops policies I'll have to look I'll have to look more into that and give you guys an answer on that another time because I don't I don't know with a guarantee badge actually guarantees yeah all right today and tomorrow okay all right clearly you guys want the giveaway so we have I'm really excited about this this is like 18 months we've been waiting to do these giveaways and stuff so we have this enormous eight hundred dollar giveaway of products from our brand-new color-block hold on my brand new color book just came out yesterday um I know we're running a little late today so sorry about that I'll just take a second to it explain the giveaway and you guys can go over to the page to get more details and enter okay so we have oodles of products in a for this giveaway that are inside this book so um and the giveaway includes a copy of color as well so the giveaway has kid products home decor so um so it includes the whole giveaway includes the color book a purple cone hat by Baba moon on se crocheted stuffed animals by roth woodrow designer toy keys from a Ming official calm and that spelled ynd li ng official calm and you can see the links on the giveaway page as well it includes butterfly soaps from cozy rose cocom ballerina doll from so many pretty so many pretties on etsy ballerina shoes from Elk kid's boutique on Etsy a floral headband from Mason and Harlow on Etsy a welcome sign from catchy crafts calm stuffed houses little stuffed toy houses by handmade happiness by roofs calm fairy peg dolls by Tiffany Lee Studios calm I feel like I'm graduation names right now a princess and the pea pillow by Landon's toy box store envy calm and a stuffed purple bird which is one of my favorites from la pate la Petite molina on etsy so all of their links are on the actual giveaway page so that you can check out their shops all of these products together equal over $800 worth of handmade goodies for one lucky besties the giveaway starts right now and will end on Saturday and a winner will be chosen by Monday so how do you get started you guys ready for the link I'm so scared go to cupcake trainings calm /color 1 the number 1 so see olor 1 all lowercase and you can enter to win Kari will post that link in the comments as well for you again that's cupcake trainings calm / color and the number 1 so see olor number 1 alright alright okay Tom Cote a wrench you're so funny to Cody 3 guess you guys are bad All Right see you tomorrow besties love you peace out yo [Music]

Channel: Cupcake Trainings

Views: 8,575

Keywords: renae christine, rich mom, cupcake trainings, makerspace, etsy, www.etsy.com, seller, craft, shop, make, money, jewelry, crochet, knitting, christmas, holiday, marketing, target, market, traffic, sell, sales, increase, more, #hangoutsonair, Hangouts On Air, #hoa

Id: NCuJrXl2-9M

Length: 23min 11sec (1391 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 21 2017