Rob and Melissa Stephenson, from Flea Market Flipper, talk about how they avoided a $1,900 refund request on their flip.
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How We Avoided A $1,900 Refund Request
Rob: What's up, Pro Flippers? On today's episode, we are talking about a refund request, $1,900. Oh no!
Melissa: And how we dealt with it.
Melissa: Alright, so on today's episode, you guys might remember we talked about the pizza dough press we just recently sold. I think that was a couple weeks ago. And the lady got it, or the guy got it, whoever got it. And they said it was not working right. So what happened with this was everything was working on it. The way that I checked it, this is actually my fault, the way that I checked it. I checked the temperature, made sure it was heating up, everything was working okay.
Checked it with my temperature gun, and you saw the gauge. Everything was all right. The only problem was when you lift these pizza press, dough presses up, they're supposed to lock into place up or have springs that hold it up, and then you press it back down and it releases the spring and it presses on the dough itself.
I didn't know that. So when you pick it up, you actually have to hold it up. The problem is when you're trying to pull the pizza out after it is pressed, it is supposed to stay in the air so you can pull the whole thing out. So when the lady or the gentleman got it, they said, hey, this is not working right.
I can't hold it in the air and pull the pizza press out. So please advise what to do. Now, this is the cool part about this. You have to think. Now, we tell you guys all the time that we don't get a lot of refund requests. If we do get a refund request, it's usually something that is broken in shipping.
In this case, it was not broken in shipping. It was actually missing two springs that hold the, the arm up on it. When you actually pick it up, there's two springs that were missing and I didn't know it because I'm not a pizza man. I don't make pizza. I don't work a, I don't own a pizza shop. So I have no idea about this.
So this was really my fault. I should have looked into it a little bit further to make sure nothing was missing on it. But I did not. So.
But before you dive into the rest of that, absolutely. I wanted to say, okay, so the, this is where, you can go different directions in a refund request. So you see the message that this person was saying, please advise.
And you actually told me they used exclamation, exclamation, exclamation point because they were upset. They were very upset. And so this is where a lot of people make the mistake of jumping right in and responding as soon as they get a message. And that's not what you want to do. You want to, you know, stop for a second, think. And we always tell our, the members of our group to post it in the group and get feedback because you don't want to just message, 'cause you can change the outcome of going, it can go either way at this point. So you can change the outcome by just waiting and getting more information. So.
Rob: So how did we handle it?
How did we derail, not, derail is not the right word. How did we respond? Respond. The biggest thing, like I said, they responded back with explanation points. They were upset, they, I got another message, and right away, the first thing that I do is I'm very apologetic. This was absolutely my fault.
I did not know because I've never. Like I said, owned a pizza shop. I didn't know exactly how these work. I knew that it was working the right way with temperature. It was rising the temperature up. I checked all that, everything was working on it, but I didn't know about the arm locking into the upright position, so I had no idea.
So what I did, I was very apologetic and said, hey, was something damaged in shipping? How did it show when it, when it arrived? And they sent a picture of up underneath the arm and it looked like it was missing something. You could see that it was missing something. So they sent that picture and right away, they said, I don't know if it, like I said, I don't know if this is a, the buyer.
A gentleman? Yeah. Or a female, I don't know. But the buyer said, hey, something is missing here. And acting like I knew that it was, and I wrote back and said, listen, I'm so sorry. Said, listen. Well, no, I didn't. I'm, I'm so sorry. You're apology. I'm always apologetic. I'm, I'm, I'm super polite. I'm not trying to cause any extra problems.
So I said I had no idea that it is, it was missing anything. I'm so sorry. I, I, this is not an item that I personally used. I don't have a pizza shop. I, this is not something that I've used, so I'm so sorry for, the inconvenience. Let me pull up the diagram and see what I can find if something is missing.
I think they let me do that. I pulled up the diagram, I wrote them back and said, it looks like two springs are missing. The assista springs are called, I will order these springs and I will get them to you. They wrote back and said, well, who's going to pay for the springs? And all this. And they went back and forth and, I told them, listen, I will absolutely pay for these springs. I do not. Yeah, I, I, this was my fault. I will take care. I'll make it right. So I told them that I would respond the next day once I found out what the springs, how quick I could get them, and I got them. The springs were $40 a piece. So remember we sold this for $1,900, $40 a piece, so $80 for the springs.
And then on top of that, I didn't know if they have the capabilities of being able to install these springs. So what I wrote back the next day was, listen. So sorry again for the inconvenience. I found the springs. I already ordered them. They will be here by the end of the week. I will forward them onto you once I get them.
But I also would like to give you a $250 refund, on this item to help you. Once you get the springs to get them installed. Hopefully you can find a local repair shop, appliance repair shop that will install them for you. If you don't know how to do it, that's yourself, but I feel like I would like to give you a $250 refund on this.
Now, I didn't have to do this. But I'm going to tell you my whole thought process on this, and this is very, very important when you have an incident like this, for, especially for an item that might be a larger item. So I'm going to tell you the whole thought process when I said $250, and then I also asked, hey, do you think this, this seems fair.
Wrote back, really, the buyer wrote back really, really quickly and said yes, this is more than fair. I greatly appreciate your help with this. So their whole demeanor changed after I said, I'll buy the springs, I'll order the springs and then I'll also give you a $250. Their whole demeanor changed and they were very appreciative and very nice towards me on that.
So immediately I jumped over, sent them a $250 refund on this. So instead of us making the $1,900 when we broke down the last time, the last episode we did, of what all the profit was and all that, and what I didn't, I didn't have months to figure out exactly how much this took off, but it ended up costing me about an extra.
A little less than $350, to rectify, to right this whole sale on this. Now, I paid $270, if I'm not mistaken, on shipping on this. I had the option because this was my fault. I would've had to eat that shipping to the buyer and then also eat the shipping back, so it would've been over $500. What is that, $540 it would've cost me in shipping costs, and then I would have the item back.
Now I had that decision. Do I want to do that or do I want to try to make this right and make the buyer happy, and, you know, make the situation right? Because it was my fault all around. I should have known about this myself, and I did not. So that's why I offered to give, an extra $300. It cost me less than $350 to try and make the situation right, or I could have paid another $270 to have it shipped back.
Lost it. $540 and then tried to resell it again on that, which I don't want. I didn't want to try and resell it. I already found somebody who wanted it, who needed it. So that's why that is the whole thought process on this. Now, when you do have a re return request, we've talked about this before, we very, very seldom get a return request.
And this buyer even told me throughout, the buyer's like, hey. I don't, I didn't want this.
Melissa: They wanted the pizza press, they didn't want to return it.
They just wanted it working well.
Rob: Well, they said I wouldn't have bought this had I known it was not working right. And I said the same thing.
I said, I wouldn't have sold it to you had I known that it was not working right. So we went back and forth a couple times with instances like that. But finally everything was worked out properly. So you have to think about if you do get a return request, how can you make the situation right, even if you're going to lose a little bit of money?
And we didn't lose money. We still made well over a thousand dollars on this flip, but at the same time making the whole situation right versus getting somebody mad. Because a lot of sellers will go after the buyer and be like, well that's not my fault. I sold it as is because I sold this as is. I could have went into them and said, I sold that as is.
Sorry, you're screwed. But that is not what you should do. You should really be trying to figure out how to help the buyer. For us, we had plenty of profit on it. I wanted to make sure that the buyer got what they wanted in the working condition that they wanted. So I was more than willing to actually work with the buyer to make the situation right, and I didn't want to lose the $540.
Bring it back and then actually fix it myself and or pay an appliance store to fix it and then re-list it. That's just a lot more time, effort, and energy into this that I did not want to spend when I had already found the right buyer for this item. We just had to figure out how to work through the situation.
Melissa: Yeah. So if you get a refund request, like we mentioned earlier, don't panic because it does happen and sometimes, you know, people sell different items. We are going off of our experience and the kind of items that we sell. Like if you do like clothes and shoes, you have to take into account, you know, size and things fit differently.
But for these kind of items, we don't get a ton of refund requests because they're people. And that is one thing that people are scared of a little bit, getting into the higher value items, like thousands. They're like, what do you do? Like somebody ask a re for a refund? Well, typically if they ask for a refund, it is, for a situation similar to this. Yeah. Or it was damaged in shipping. You don't have people just tire kickers who are buying these kinds of items. They want the item and they want it working. So you don't have to worry about somebody just like changing their mind. Typically, they don't get buyer's remorse.
They actually want the good deal that you're giving them on this item and they just want it to work. So, and had you sold that for parts or repair you wouldn't had to have given absolutely refund because it was parts of repair. But you listed it as working condition. And I tested it and showed it in a video.
Yes. You thought it was working condition. You didn't realize that the spring had to, had to do, but we rectified the situation, so just know that anytime in business, like every side hustle. Every business you do, there's going to be stuff that you don't like about, there's going to be like refunds or whatever that you don't like, but you can do things to minimize them or you can do things to salvage the sales to still too.
So just, you know, everything. What, what is that, book that Stacy had? I can't, everything is figureoutable. So don't, you know, freak out that you first get, somebody's upset customer. You want to make it right. You know, like you want to make things right. Right? So, but just don't get too frazzled, you know, think through it.
Take a minute before you respond to them and do some more digging because sometimes you'll find out that the whole situation, like you might think it was a refund request, and then you have to find out, oh, it was a damage in shipping. So now that's a shipping claim. It's not, actually, I'm not going to, it's a whole different process than an actual refund.
So, just be more of a detective and figure out absolutely what's, what is going on. And also, you know, always be polite. Like it doesn't ever hurt to be polite, you'll win more people over and it will be a way better, what is it, transaction or way better experience for your buyer. So yeah.
Rob: And you might wonder how I came up with a price of $250.
I just came up with a price. I didn't, I, I knew I did not want to lose the $540 by paying for shipping there and back and then having the item to resell again. So I figured $250 and I figured a labor cost for like appliance shop, probably $50, $70 an hour. And I know this would not take more than an hour for the right appliance shop to actually replace this. So, and I, that's even what I said. I said here, if, if you have to pay somebody to do it and for the inconvenience of having to deal with this situation, I want to give you this much refund back. And they were happy with it. So you can also reach out and ask them, hey, I, this might, you might need to have an appliance shop change this out. How, how much? I would love to give you a, a partial refund for this. How much do you think is fair for this and get their number from them? In my case, I just thought $250 was very, very swallowable for me to do. I still was not going to lose that much money. I'm still making well, great profit on this.
So that's one of those things that I just threw out the number and they agreed that it was a fair price. So we, we agreed on that. So, especially when originally they reached out, they were like, who's going to pay for this? Yeah. Who's going to pay for the parts? Who's going to, and it's my fault. I should pay for it.
So that's why I agreed to pay for it, find it, and do the whole, everything that I could do in my power to make this a better transaction, a better sale for the buyer. So. Hopefully this helps.
Melissa: Hopefully this is helpful to you to know like when things come up because they will. It's business, that there is a solution for it.
And we hope you enjoyed the podcast.
Rob: You guys are amazing. Have an amazing day and we'll see you on the next episode.