I buy my instruments directly from a person who has most of the instruments manufactured for him, under his specs and under his private labels directly from the manufacturers.
This same character runs a small retail store (although his love is buying the instruments, not retail).
You could take some great lessons from him in the art of "How to Treat Nasty Customers".
On any given day, this 70+ year old man kicks out no fewer that 5 people from his retail store, sometimes physically escorting them out the door with he and the clients yelling back and forth at each other.
To heck with reports to the BBB, he tells the BBB the complaitant has no right to complain until they are a customer and he threw them out before they bought anything, so they were not a customer.
Sure he has lost sales, repeat business and referrals, tons. When I am there I see opportunity going out the door with each person being booted out. Never in my entire life have I ever witnessed a daily event like this.
It comes from being in the business for 40 years and having 75% of the people that come into his store, buy somewhere else after he has spent time "educating them" as he puts it, about the instruments they are interested in, only to have them go to his competition and they match or better the deal he gave them, after he invested all his time.
His solution, kick out 75% of the customers a day and sell only to 25% of them.
It certainly is an interesting sight to see. But I have a feeling that you and Glo might enjoy working in his store for a couple of weeks every year to blow off steam, you know, let loose and get rid of all those frustrations that build up from those nasty eBay customers every week.
Maybe you could take a 2 week vacation every year, come to Ottawa and work in his store and do nothing more than kick butt. I am sure it would be better treatment than any spa you could find.
As a matter of fact, I offered that he run my e-commerce business for a week and send nasty emails to some of my nasty customers (especially the non-payers) and I promissed that I would kick out at least 3 people a day from his store.
It is truly a comical thing to see. I have even been there when the police were called in. You gotta love this crazy political town I live in!!
Malcolm