I Almost Gave Up My Business

I have been selling used books on Amazon.com and Half.com for about 7 years now.  I have been running this business out of my home and have a room in my house dedicated to inventory.  I have spent many years building my business and building a good repuation.  I am proud to say that I have one of the best seller ratings on Amazon because I always bend over backwards for my customers. 

Lately things have not been going all that great though.  For one the post office keeps raising the shipping rates which always hurts the bottom line.  There are also a lot of sellers on Amazon whose feedback rating is not very good, so they sell the books at really cheap prices like a penny for instance, this forces anyone who is selling that same book to have to do the same.  This used to not be all that bad because the shipping and handling allowance used to be good enough that you could still make a tiny profit on those books, but with the new postage rates, you are lucky to make .10 on these sales after your packaging costs and such.  So profitability is way down, then there are postal losses, and it seems more than ever my customers items are being lost in the mail. 

More than likely though because of the economy more dishonest people have been ordering books, and claiming they are not getting them.  These people don't seem to realize that when they are ordering from the market place they are ordering from a small business or an individual like me who is trying to earn a living, and not some big huge corporate book store. 

There have also been some other problems like for instance I went on vacation last month for 5 days during that 5 days I had no internet access whatsoever.  I turned my Half.com and Amazon stores off and put them on vacation while I was gone, but unfortunately that does not tell customers that you are on vacation.  While I was gone a couple of customers contacted me with issues and of course I could not answer them, and so they gave me negative feedback, I contacted them as soon as I got back, and one person did remove the negative, the other person never responed to me. 

Then there was the lady who I accidently mailed the wrong book to.  I apologized profusely, told her to go aheand keep the incorrect book, and I sent her out the correct book immediately.  She sounded like she understood and everything, but before the book even had enough time to arrive she posted negative feedback on me.  So this lady who I gave a free book to, for an honest mistake thought it was a good thing to try and harm my business. 

The latest issue was with another cusomer whose order kept coming back to me.  The envelope stated the address was incorrect.  So I contacted her verified the address with her and remailed the book to her.  Guess who leaves me a negative, this lady.  It was not my fault the book came back to me, I used the correct address, the book has not come back a second time so I assume she has gotten it or is going to be getting it.  But guess what she files a claim on me, and was refunded, by Amazon taking the money from my accouunt.  Now not only am I out this book, my original postage, a second cost of postage for sending it back out to her and then she gets her money back as well.  So this woman has cost me about $11.00 and hurt my reputation.

I was really, really angry about this, but there was not much I could do Amazon was certainly not supporting me.  You would think for the thousands of dollars a year they make from me they would be a little more supportive, but the customer is always right.  I understand that, but the tone Amazon uses kind of upsets me.  In seven years I have had maybe 7 files claimed against me, that is an average of 1 a year, out of thousands of books I sell. 

So I was hopping mad about all of this, I couldn't sleep that night and I was ready to give up, and just sell off my business, it felt like 7 years of hard work were being torn apart by a few select several small problems that were all building up to one big one, and aside from sending the wrong book to the one lady, none of things were my fault.  The post office had lost a couple of my orders, and the nutsy lady gave the wrong mailing address.  And I am sorry but Amazon should tell customers sellers are on vacation, there should be some kind of automated message on there when they try to contact a seller, that the seller will be unable to get back to them until such and such a date.  That way people would not think you are ignoring them if you happen to go on a vacation. 

Well anyways.  I was going to quit give it all up, and then I got a note from a customer.  Not an email mind you, this customer actually took time out to write me a note and send it to me in the mail thanking for me for my excellent service. That really made my day.  Then I looked at all my feedback comments.  I looked past that one red one and I saw all of the wonderful comments from all the good honest customers that bought books from me. 

This made me remember that there are always going to be those people that can not be satisfied, that they actually thrive on hurting other people and causing conflict.  I should not let those kinds of people discourage me and get me down.  Because for everyone of them who leaves me a negative, and will generally just not be pleased no matter how much do for them there are 100 customers, that think I am wonderful. 

That one little hand written note, that wonderful little gesture reminded me of all that is good about my business, and I will continue to do the best I can and not let that occasional nasty person get me down.