Rob and Melissa Stephenson, from Flea Market Flipper, talk about a $3,000 return request from an eBay sale.
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Oh No!! $3,000 Return Request From An eBay Sale
Rob: What's up, pro flippers? On today's episode we are talking about a $3,000 return off of an item we sold on eBay. Oh, no. What do you do? Alright guys, so what happens if you sell a high profit item and the buyer wants to return it? We get this question a lot. They don't want to sell items and they don't want to have to take returns on items or they're always worried about eBay, somebody doing not as described, and having to take a return.
So, guess what? We just had one and we're going to walk you through the process of what happened in our situation and hopefully it will help you out if you ever have to deal with something like this.
Melissa: And one of the big things in kind of how we sell stuff is we don't have a lot of returns. So this is the first one in two years that we've had.
The best part is it wasn't even a return so it wasn't like and that's typically what happens. It's not really a return It was actually damaged in shipping. So there's a process to go through and we're going to walk through that. But there is like people ask us, okay, you're selling these, what if you get a $1,000 return, $2,000 return? Most of the clientele of people who are trying to, are spending that money if they're spending $1,000 they're spending $2,000 on a unit. They just want it to work They're not in it to try to, you know, get it and then return it because that's just a hassle like they just want it to work. They're not trying and it's not like clothes you're trying it on it doesn't fit. They just want the item. They want it to work properly and it's good. So we don't get a lot of return requests for that reason.
Rob: So let's talk a little bit more about this sale- what happened, how the whole process took place, and hopefully, like we said, this will help you out in the future. This was an oven that we sold. We paid $120 for this oven. We were down in the keys, the Florida keys catching lobster. On the way back I wanted to pay for our trip. So I found an oven for $120. We brought it back. We sold it very quickly within like two weeks. I think it was, we ended up selling it for $3,000.
Melissa: The funny part is before you go, like every, when I posted that on social media, everybody's like, you're, I said, you're going to sell it for $2,200 or $2,500 and they're like, you'll never get that for that.
And then it sold for $3,000. I was like, yes.
Rob: Plus an extra $400 for shipping. So $3,400 is what this actually sold for. But we paid $120 for it. We sold it for, $3,400, including shipping on it. We got it shipped out and guess what? It got damaged in shipping. This is our first ever in 10 years pallet that was actually damaged.
This was an oven. It went on a pallet and that's how it got shipped. It was damaged in shipping. The buyer got it super, super nice. He said, hey, it's damaged. The bottom drawer it got bent. It's not working right. I gave him two options. I said, hey, do you want to do a partial return? I mean a partial refund to where you can fix it if it can be fixed and he said, yes, it can be fixed. And he thought about it for a day or two and then he came back and said, no, I just want a full refund. So I actually with our broker, this is the first time as of a year ago since we've joined partnering with an actual broker that, helps all of our community, helps us, helps our community. We can insure used items. A lot of other freight carriers out there, I haven't found one ever that will insure used items. They'll give you very, very minimal, pennies on the dollar. If they will insure it, but it's very, very cheap. But with our freight broker, we actually have a couple of insurance companies that will insure whatever we sell, no matter if it's used or new.
Well, I paid for insurance and the insurance was an extra $30, to ship this, very, very minimal cost for a $3,000 item. And I insured it for $4,000. $4,000 because I knew the freight charges. I knew my time to pout the item up I wanted to make sure that I got paid for that. So we insured it for it when it actually got there and the buyer reached out and said hey, it's not working. Took us a couple days to negotiate, talk about stuff and he said listen, I just want to send it back and I want a full refund.
So I did it. We actually did the whole process. I got through it I went through my freight broker who actually took on my behalf, argued with the the carrier, well didn't really argue, but he handled the whole situation, with the insurance company and the carrier and all that stuff because that is amazing that I didn't have to spend hours on the phone, fighting for this insurance to kick in and pay for it.
And guess what? We got the check. We got the insurance check for $4,000 when we sold the item for $3,000 plus an extra $400 for shipping. So it just covered our time, our effort into palleting the item up and the shipping, I mean the shipping rate that we got. It covered all of that including in it.
So, moral of the story is if you do this the right way, if you do this business the right way, then you totally will be covered. If something does happen, in, in damages and shipping or for whatever reason, like Melissa said in the beginning, this is most people buying this kind of stuff. They're not tire kickers.
They're not just going to buy an oven and say, I want to try this out and see how it looks in my kitchen. That's not how it goes. They want it. He had the same exact oven that was a little bit worn out and he wanted to replace it with this one. And it was, ours was in really, really good shape. That's why he bought it and then it got damaged so he definitely did not want to mess with it after it was damaged.
Melissa: And now you have the unit back and we can resell it for parts or, resell it just showing the dent in it if somebody wants it and we'll get less for it but we, we can sell it again. So, we have that option which is pretty cool. So, and, I wanted to say too the reason why a lot of stuff on freight doesn't get damaged as much, knock on wood we did have our first one in 10 years, but, is because people aren't picking it up.
If you think about FedEx, UPS, they can, people are picking it up, the packages, and they can throw the package. So they can pick up the package, they can throw the package around, and things get damaged. With this, it's just a forklift picking it up, machine setting it down.
So things are a lot less likely to get damaged. Not saying they can't, but it just, it's a lot less likely, so.
Rob: Out of the hundreds of pallets that we've shipped, this is the first. First and only one that actually got damaged.
Melissa: Knock on wood again.
Rob: Absolutely. So, but it is what happened.
Melissa: We have insurance now, which is super exciting.
Rob: So our broker has that built into our software that we use to actually book all of our stuff, and it's in there so we can choose to pay for insurance, which is usually an extra $20-$30. Or we can choose not to in all of ours and I pay for insurance every single time I ship something. Whether it's FedEx, UPS, USPS, as long as that price is expensive over the hundred dollar that they already cover, then we pay for insurance on everything that we do because of situations like this.
You just don't know what's going to happen.
Melissa: Yeah, there was a time when we shipped out a bunch of Sleep Number beds. We had bought, you bought 60 of them that one time. If you've been around us for a little while, you might have known this story. He bought them from a hotel. The Sleep Numbers, you can wash them. They go, we put them in the commercial laundromat. And they wash, but we would sell them for about, he bought them for $60 each. And then we'd sell them for $500 to $600. And they're just all foam and cushion. They can't break, like it's a mattress, it can't break. So we, I remember one time we shipped two, I think it went in two boxes, two separate boxes.
One of the boxes got lost in shipping. And we were not covered because we were only covered for a hundred dollars. So we got the a hundred dollars from FedEx or UPS and we didn't get the remainder for $500 because they lost the item. So no, it did not get broken, but it got lost. So since then we get insurance on everything.
We, yeah, we, we don't ever not get insurance.
Rob: So the reason why we did that and we learned that the hard way was because you would think all foam, all padding can not get damaged. It can't get damaged, but you are not covered for a loss package. And this was actually lost. So we do that as well. So.
There's a couple other things that I will note out about how we do business on eBay. We under promise and we over deliver on everything that we are selling. I want my, my buyers to be very excited when they get the item. So I'm not making false claims. I'm not making, outrageous promises. When I'm selling something because I want them to be excited.
I think about this and you guys have probably, I might've said this before if you do. I remember one of our recent ones that we sold was a stretcher and it went over to Puerto Rico and went on a pallet and went over to Puerto Rico, the guy who bought it, and he gave me amazing feedback on that saying, this is way better condition than I assumed it was way better condition than you said it was.
This is like a brand new stretcher and he left that on my feedback on eBay and I was like, yeah, I'm very appreciative when people appreciate how we sell items and the way that we do business. Because that's what I want. I want people to be super excited about that. Now, a couple of things that go into that.
I make sure that I take good pictures of the item. I make sure that I have a great background. I don't put a lot of clutter in the pictures, so people can understand what it looks, looks like and I stage it. And then I also talk about any imperfections, even if there are imperfections, like those stretchers.
I specifically said, you know, this is a used item, please expect normal wear, could have scrapes, scratches, and scuffs. So right there I'm setting the stage that don't expect this to be a brand new, in mint condition item. Even though the stretcher was very, very nice. It was in great condition. But I don't want somebody.
Melissa: You still never say mint condition.
Rob: No, you don't want to do that. So if you're listing your items that way and setting that proper expectation, if there is a noticeable dent, scratch, something like that, make sure you take a picture of it. You want them to know you're trying to show them everything about the item before they actually get the item.
Because remember they're paying you before they even see the item on eBay. They pay you, we ship it, they don't get to see it until after they've already paid for it and inspected. So, make sure you're doing that the right way and then like we said, packaging the proper way. The guidelines for UPS, FedEx, USPS, or even the freight carriers, make sure you are packaging it to their guidelines.
So you are protected. If something does happen, you want to make sure that you are protected by the insurance. They inspect it to make sure that it was packaged properly, and you're doing all that the right way. So, it's not just a, hey, I don't ever have to take returns. You have to make sure all these ducks are in a row.
Before you sell an item and for the whole process and then after that you're paying for insurance And then if anything does happen you have proof you've done everything the right way that you if you do have a return it was damaged in shipping and you are 100% covered because you package it the right way and you paid for insurance on it
Melissa: Another thing you do is you take pictures after you package something and put them in. It's something you could just put in a file on your phone and just keep it You know, however long until the person already has the item and you could delete them if you need to then.
But just put them in like their separate folder. Just take a picture of your packaging job so that you have that if you have to go and make an insurance claim to FedEx, UPS, or whoever. So that it proves like we had padding, we had, you know, whatever we used So many, you know, whatever your packaging process so that will just help protect you.
Rob: Such a great point and like Melissa said not just after you package it. But during it we teach our students to take usually three or four pictures of the packaging process. When the item gets packaged with bubbles and you put it into the box take a picture of that if you put peanuts around that make sure that you're taking a couple different pictures like that because the other thing that you will run into to, to to what Melissa is talking about.
If somebody does get it, they take it out, they unwrap it, they throw the box, they throw all the packaging away, and then you find out that it was damaged and you have to open a claim. If you do not have proof of that, how you did it, they will not let the claim go through. So make sure you are doing that as well.
Proof of how you're doing it. Everything that we're doing, we're either videoing it or we're taking pictures for our community to teach our students. And so we have all that stuff. I video every pallet that I do, I want to have proof of it, but I also want to help our community, our, our students learn from what we're doing, all the different things that we pallet, and we ship, and we box, and all that kind of stuff, so we have all that already, but if you're not doing stuff like that, make sure that you're taking a couple extra pictures and keeping them on your phone, your camera, whatever you're doing, just so you do have proof that it was done the right way.
Melissa: Yeah, I did want to add too, when you you used to say when you were younger that items were in amazing condition, mint condition, and then you got that first big return. It was a $1,700 Nordic track. You might have heard this story from us, but that was a big, it derailed him for a little while from selling on eBay.
And so that was a, like a, okay, I'm not doing that anymore. You learn the hard way. Like, don't say this thing is better than it is. You thought it was in good condition, but the buyer didn't think it was an excellent, you said excellent conditioning or did you say mint condition?
Rob: One of those. I did one of those and I advertised it wrongly and that's where I learned the hard way that my idea of excellent or mint is not what a buyer's, what they're thinking that it is actually is.
So you're getting two different perspectives. And I was a kid. I mean, for me, it looked way better than any other thing that I saw, but it still was not by any means off the showroom floor. So you do.
And when you're a kid, $1,700 is a good, big return, especially when you're spending it as quick as you make it.
Right away.
It's a lot harder to do that. So for us, we know now that we keep the funds. We keep them available to if something does happen in shipping, because I did have to give a return. Yeah. On this $3,000 oven that we're talking about. I did have to give a return before I actually got the check back from the insurance company.
And it was probably an overlap of, I gave the return and probably took me another 20 days, something like that to get the whole insurance claim to go through. I had my broker working on my behalf, so I didn't have to spend all my time getting frustrated with it and we were able to do it, but there was a lapse time of, I had to give the refund on this, before I actually got the funds back.
But then we got the funds back. We made the money we we did all that plus like Melissa said we have the the range right now I can either recycle it and and give it to a scrap yard I can take a couple pieces off of it and sell the pieces that if there are any good pieces on it that I can do that. We can do
Melissa: was it really damaged?
I didn't see it.
Rob: Yeah, so the the fork slipped right above where the pallet was and hit the side of it and it dented it in. There's a drawer on the bottom of the range. Yeah, it messed that that drawer up so that has to be fixed and also it looks like they're on the sides of it. It got dented down. So there is damage to it and it is not we're not dealing with new ovens that you can just go get parts and replacement parts because these are this is a discontinued oven, a specialty oven.
Melissa: People would want the parts.
Rob: Absolutely. Parts that are good off of it. We can totally sell them and do that.. And yeah, that's one of the things but do know an insurance claim. Sometimes the insurance company will pick up the item. We gave them that option if they wanted to pick up the item and take it and give us a check. They didn't do that on this they left it with us to to discard it or do whatever we're going to do with it. So, that's what we will do if I can find and recycle any of the parts off of it that I can, I totally will. If I can't, whatever we do, we'll send it to the scrap yard or anything like that.. We can totally do that as well. So.
Melissa: Yeah I was gonna say if you were to list it as a whole you would take the pictures of the dent and show like each part of what is like what it looks like so that the person knew and you'd take it probably close up. But then you take it far away so they could see. And good pictures.
Rob: And a key. I would list it for parts or repair. Yes. I would not list it as in used condition. So, make sure if you are selling.
Melissa: It's working. So, even if it's working, but you'd still sell it for parts or repair, so, because somebody can't come back and say, it's not as described if you list it for parts or repair because it is in used condition.
So they can't say that it's not working because you sold it like that. So that's a big one. We've had that happen before. So we've listed stuff that you thought was questionable for parts repair, and it's still worth money. Like there's still people will buy it. Parts of repair. They know like they might need to do something to it, but anyways, so that's a little tangent, but that's a big one. Did you have anything else you wanted to say?
Nope.
Rob: That's it. Awesome. Hopefully that was helpful. Hopefully we gave you some good nuggets of how we navigated this $3,000 return, and a lot of good stuff in this episode of just what our normal business practices are so we protect ourselves. So hopefully you guys gained a lot out of this episode.
Melissa: You can protect yourself a lot and, you know, stuff does happen. It will happen. Like you just have to know something will happen in the future. It's business. Anything with business, you're going to deal with, you know, a damage or return or something like that. But if you can prepare yourself and prepare your business as best as possible, then you can have better outcomes, typically.
So, well, thank you guys so much for listening. We do have the drawing for the $50 Amazon gift card coming up next week, so you can still be in that drawing. We were doing this to celebrate our 300th episode the other week. So so yeah, if you want to leave us a review and then screenshot the review and send it to rob@fleamarketflipper.com or melissa@fleamarketflipper.com. And we will get you entered into that drawing and we will announce the winner, next week on the podcast.
Rob: You guys are awesome. Have an amazing day and we'll see you on the next episode!