What would you do, Part the Second...

[Comicopolis]

Somebody should start a thread where buyers can rate dealers in specific categories with marks out of ten.

As soon as a company that grades comics creates a message board that is.

 

Of course. As long as there is a membership charge.

[mycomicshop]

I discussed this with RMA via PM over a month ago and I don't believe anything new has occurred since then, so I have not been in touch with him via PM.

 

From our point of view: RMA didn't get something he ordered and was refunded. He's back at square one--still has $1.10 in his pocket (since that was refunded), still has a Man of Steel 5th printing shaped hole on his shelf (since we sent the wrong printing). He already paid $3.95 shipping once, but that shipping covered the delivery of 31 other comics that he also wanted, so there's no justification for us to refund that $3.95. Had the Man of Steel comic been the only comic in the order, he would have been refunded the entire cost of the order: item price, shipping, any tax, etc.

 

I think our policy on this is reasonable, though I agree with you that as a customer I'd prefer to get a replacement over a refund. If we were to change our policy, it would probably be offset by a modest increase in the prices of our books at the lowest end of the pricing spectrum, and that's something Buddy prefers not to do. I, personally, might choose differently, but it's not my call.

 

In response to RMA's issue in this thread, I have modified our eBay listing template, see "1. Item Availability" under the section titled "IMPORTANT: Please read this before buying". The modified text, with new language to specifically address RMA's concern, is as follows:

 

1. Item Availability:

If we are unable to supply an item due to an error in our inventory, we will promptly issue a refund to your PayPal account. Our fill rate is 99.5%; good, but not perfect. We work hard to keep our inventory accurate, but with millions of collectible comics in stock and thousands coming in and going out each day, some mistakes are inevitable. Also, please note that in the unlikely event that we send you an incorrect issue, we will refund your purchase price (return may be required at our discretion), but we do not send out replacement copies, so any replacements would need to be purchased as part of a new, separate order. Please do not order from us if you require a guaranteed 100% fill rate, or if these terms are not acceptable.

 

If you don't like our policy, I don't expect that additional text to make you feel any better, but at least it's clearer now. Better than nothing.

[Park]

Somebody should start a thread where buyers can rate dealers in specific categories with marks out of ten.

As soon as a company that grades comics creates a message board that is.

 

Of course. As long as there is a membership charge.

 

Cal just had an orgasm.

[Comicopolis]

Somebody should start a thread where buyers can rate dealers in specific categories with marks out of ten.

As soon as a company that grades comics creates a message board that is.

 

Of course. As long as there is a membership charge.

 

Cal just had an orgasm.

 

Too much information.

[thehumantorch]

Somebody should start a thread where buyers can rate dealers in specific categories with marks out of ten.

As soon as a company that grades comics creates a message board that is.

 

Of course. As long as there is a membership charge.

 

Cal just had an orgasm.

 

This orgasm is nothing without pics.

[Park]

Somebody should start a thread where buyers can rate dealers in specific categories with marks out of ten.

As soon as a company that grades comics creates a message board that is.

 

Of course. As long as there is a membership charge.

 

Cal just had an orgasm.

 

Too much information.

 

You are no fun.

[Comicopolis]

Somebody should start a thread where buyers can rate dealers in specific categories with marks out of ten.

As soon as a company that grades comics creates a message board that is.

 

Of course. As long as there is a membership charge.

 

Cal just had an orgasm.

 

Too much information.

 

You are no fun.

 

We might have a different perception of what fun is.

 

But you hit 2000 posts

[mycomicshop]

Conan, I'm a fan of yours but can't agree with you. I understand these are low

value books and from my experience your shipping rates are lower than anyone

else but failing to ship a book that is in stock is your responsibility not RMA's.

If the book was out of stock you should notify the buyer before shipping.

 

If we know that a book is out of stock we notify the buyer before shipping and the buyer is not charged for that item. That's not what happened here. I believe what happened in this case, was: RMA ordered a 5th printing. Our employee who was pulling the comics from where they're filed, pulled a 1st printing rather than a 5th printing. I don't know if it's because a 1st printing book was improperly filed as a 5th printing, or because the employee pulling the comic mistakenly pulled from the 1st printing group rather than the 5th printing group. We then thought we were shipping RMA a 5th printing, but it actually wasn't the 5th.

 

 

To those of you who have expressed your preference for us to ship a replacement rather than refunding the purchase, I respect and sympathize with your position, but our policy has been this way a long time and is unlikely to change. If that's a deal-breaker for you, that's up to you.

[comix4fun]

Conan, I'm a fan of yours but can't agree with you. I understand these are low

value books and from my experience your shipping rates are lower than anyone

else but failing to ship a book that is in stock is your responsibility not RMA's.

If the book was out of stock you should notify the buyer before shipping.

 

If we know that a book is out of stock we notify the buyer before shipping and the buyer is not charged for that item. That's not what happened here. I believe what happened in this case, was: RMA ordered a 5th printing. Our employee who was pulling the comics from where they're filed, pulled a 1st printing rather than a 5th printing. I don't know if it's because a 1st printing book was improperly filed as a 5th printing, or because the employee pulling the comic mistakenly pulled from the 1st printing group rather than the 5th printing group. We then thought we were shipping RMA a 5th printing, but it actually wasn't the 5th.

 

 

To those of you who have expressed your preference for us to ship a replacement rather than refunding the purchase, I respect and sympathize with your position, but our policy has been this way a long time and is unlikely to change. If that's a deal-breaker for you, that's up to you.

 

 

 

Lines in the Sand: Alienating actual and potential customers since the invention of sand...and lines.

 

 

Most of the people I choose to do business with stand behind their customer service ethic, not hide behind their policies.

 

"It's unlikely to change"?? Hmm...Are you going to be voted out of power by your board of directors for violating this policy?

 

I don't understand the digging in of the heels and falling back to the Stone Tablets your policies must be written on, being that there's no room whatsoever to correct an open an obvious error with corrective action.

 

 

A mistake was made (on your part) and doing the right thing for a customer that created a far larger order than he would have if not for the one book your inventory system failed on seems like the forest and you're stuck behind the tree of that "palms up shoulder shrug, oops, oh well" policy.

 

You don't have to be Walmart to have a broad based policy to correct these types of mistakes. You also don't have to be Walmart to see that a bunker mentality over a $3.95 shipping charge and clear error may very well cost you A LOT more than $3.95.

 

You are right about one thing. If poor customer service and inability to admit failure and correct that failure is a deal breaker, people can and will take their business elsewhere.

[Park]

Conan, I'm a fan of yours but can't agree with you. I understand these are low

value books and from my experience your shipping rates are lower than anyone

else but failing to ship a book that is in stock is your responsibility not RMA's.

If the book was out of stock you should notify the buyer before shipping.

 

If we know that a book is out of stock we notify the buyer before shipping and the buyer is not charged for that item. That's not what happened here. I believe what happened in this case, was: RMA ordered a 5th printing. Our employee who was pulling the comics from where they're filed, pulled a 1st printing rather than a 5th printing. I don't know if it's because a 1st printing book was improperly filed as a 5th printing, or because the employee pulling the comic mistakenly pulled from the 1st printing group rather than the 5th printing group. We then thought we were shipping RMA a 5th printing, but it actually wasn't the 5th.

 

 

To those of you who have expressed your preference for us to ship a replacement rather than refunding the purchase, I respect and sympathize with your position, but our policy has been this way a long time and is unlikely to change. If that's a deal-breaker for you, that's up to you.

 

I am confused. After the mix-up with the book in question, RMA was told the book wasn't in stock but was able to order it from the website. He had to pay shipping for that book but it was Lonestar's error that they thought it wasn't in stock the first time. Why should he have to pay shipping twice for the Lonestar error?

 

I must be missing something??

[Park]

Somebody should start a thread where buyers can rate dealers in specific categories with marks out of ten.

As soon as a company that grades comics creates a message board that is.

 

Of course. As long as there is a membership charge.

 

Cal just had an orgasm.

 

This orgasm is nothing without pics.

 

I was creeping myself out even typing that sentence but asking for pics???

 

 

[FlyingDonut]

There was a fifth printing of Man of Steel 18? Learn something new every day.

 

[Park]

Somebody should start a thread where buyers can rate dealers in specific categories with marks out of ten.

As soon as a company that grades comics creates a message board that is.

 

Of course. As long as there is a membership charge.

 

Cal just had an orgasm.

 

Too much information.

 

You are no fun.

 

We might have a different perception of what fun is.

 

But you hit 2000 posts

 

And I hit it like it owed me money too...

 

Stop fixating on the orgasm part and focus on the making fun of someone else part.

[thirdgreenham]

I wouldn't have ordered Death of Superman 4th and 5th prints.

 

Can you neg yourself?

 

[thirdgreenham]

I believe RMA is talking about an order he made with us.

 

He ordered 37 comics. Looks like almost all were 2nd printings, later printings, or newsstand editions. Of the 37 he ordered, 4 were found not to be available--our computer thought we had them but they weren't on shelf. Our fill rate averages 99.5%--for every 200 items ordered, there's 1 item that our computer thinks we have in stock that we discover we don't actually have. I'd attribute the higher number of misses in this case to RMA targeting somewhat unusual issues compared to the typical customer--issues that don't get ordered very often, so old errors in our inventory are less likely to have already been discovered and corrected.

 

We sent him 33 comics for our eBay $3.95 flat rate shipping. I understand there were two errors in what we sent. A Man of Steel where he ordered a 5th printing but got the 1st, and an X-Men 2099 newsstand issue (not sure what that error was--maybe not the newsstand edition). He was refunded the $1.10 and $1.30 purchase prices, respectively. He was not refunded the $3.95 shipping since the shipment included 31 other comics besides the two for which he was refunded.

 

A copy of the Man of Steel 5th printing that RMA wants is still listed in stock. He's welcome to order it as a new order, either by itself or with other items, subject to the standard shipping terms ($3.95 flat rate if ordered through eBay; free shipping on orders over $50 if ordered through our web site; etc.). Nobody is forcing a "second" shipping charge on RMA--he just didn't get one comic he wanted.

 

Even though our computer shows that we still have the desired Man of Steel 5th printing in stock, we told RMA that we do not send out free of charge replacement copies. When a large percentage of the items you sell are $1.00-$2.00 comics, sending out shipments to replace a single item is expensive. Most of our customers order from us frequently, so if we sent a wrong item, we'll refund it and then it's not a problem for the customer to throw the replacement copy in with their next order. Maybe they have enough items in the order to qualify for free shipping, maybe they don't, but bundling multiple items together in an order helps minimize the amount of dollars going to shipping rather than comics.

 

We believe this policy works well for us and our customers. Everything's a trade-off, and cost-conscious decisions like these are part of what allow us to provide the industry's largest selection of comics at low prices. There are other dealers that have more generous return/replacement terms than we do, but none with the selection and prices we provide.

 

In answer to RMA's "what should I do?", I'd look at it like this: "I got 31 comics I wanted, many at $1.10 a piece, for $3.95 shipping. It probably would have cost quite a bit more, and required multiple orders from multiple dealers, to get those comics elsewhere. I didn't get one comic I particularly wanted, but I got my money back with no hassle. I'll either pay the $1.10 plus $3.95 to order a replacement, or wait a few weeks until they have some more comics that I want so that the $3.95 shipping cost is covering more than just one comic, or order $50 worth of comics and pay no shipping at all."

 

On such a low number of errors from your company, I would expect you to go beyond the call of duty to make things right with the customer. In the end, it wouldn't cost you that much, as the volume is so minute. Plus, avoiding negative press is invaluable.

 

Dropped the ball, IMO.

[thirdgreenham]

Plus, he wouldn't have even placed an order if he knew he wasn't going to get the only book that he truly wanted. That's a major kick in the nuts from the buyer's POV.

 

 

[dupont2005]

I think it was Newkadia that had a super rare comic I wanted listed for something ridiculous like $1.50. They said they had two issues in stock. I bought them both. When they arrived they were the wrong comics. I saw how they could have made the mistake though because the series had many reboots and reprints early on, but the stock photo they used was of the one I wanted. I e-mailed them and told them of the mistake. They offered me a refund but I said no problem, I'll keep the comics, just fix the error on the website for future buyers. They did, I think it all worked out okay

[RockMyAmadeus]

Still ruminating on my responses....

 

[thirdgreenham]

I'm not so sure you'll hear back from Conan. He seemed to believe in what he typed.

 

I hope he does respond again, and I hope it's in regards to making an exception for you. Although, ultimately, the problem still remains.

 

 

[Gatchaman]

In answer to RMA's "what should I do?", I'd look at it like this: "I got 31 comics I wanted, many at $1.10 a piece, for $3.95 shipping. It probably would have cost quite a bit more, and required multiple orders from multiple dealers, to get those comics elsewhere. I didn't get one comic I particularly wanted, but I got my money back with no hassle. I'll either pay the $1.10 plus $3.95 to order a replacement, or wait a few weeks until they have some more comics that I want so that the $3.95 shipping cost is covering more than just one comic, or order $50 worth of comics and pay no shipping at all."

 

I have bought a lot of comics off of Mycomicshop and have had missing comics, but I let that go as part of business, but when a mindset like this is set because you think that offering a good price or getting a good deal trumps over customer service it is just wrong. A good seller treats the their customers the same whether they buy one comic for $1.00 or spend $500. Customers aren't going to remember the great deals they got as much as they are going to remember how they were treated when a problem arose.

 

I have had many sellers on eBay try to use the excuse that I got a great deal anyway, so why am I so concerned about a mistake they made.

 

I sell a lot of comics on my site for 95 cents and there have been a couple times that they ordered something I didn't have. I would refund them double the the amount they paid for the book for their inconvenience. My shipping is $3.00 for unlimited books and if they spend more than $15.00 shipping is free. I may make little to no money on that particular transaction, but I will have repeat customers because they know I took care of them.

 

Also, even though there are a lot of inexpensive comics on Mycomicshop's eBay there are also a lot of way overpriced ones.