Back again for more help!!!

[musicyouneed]

I sold an item, 191961139962 to a US buyer and it seems that I no longer have this item.  Somehow it got relisted by mistake. 

This is the 2nd time something like this has happened in the past 2 months.  The first time, I was able to find the first CD from another ebay seller about 20 miles from my house, I purchased it and picked it up that day and sent it to my buyer.  Problems averted.  

This time there were no local sellers so I found one in the US, I sent an email to the seller, that I had sold mine and I was in a pickle and could I buy his and he could send it to my buyer.  He said no problem, I purchased it and it has been sent to my buyer with a tracking number.  Item # 253406866391.   Now this item has been described as in excellent condition and as a bonus is autographed by the band.

My question is:  what do I tell my buyer?  This is like drop shipping.  He is getting the CD he ordered with bonus autographs but not from me.  Help!!!!

[esclyons]

i would send a polite note explaining that the item you had for them, was slightly not up to your standards to send to a customer, so making good on the auction you sourced an upgrade for them.  And it is on the way with tracking,  done..

[momcqueen]

Ah, I’ve been so close to this situation with my Temple of Doom style inventory management system.

I agree with the advice you’ve been given; put a spin on it. Say your item did not pass second inspection, and that instead you turned to a trusted counterpart to supply the item. Tell the other seller it is a gift and not to include a packing slip, and tell your buyer to please not hesitate to contact you with any concerns. I don’t think the buyer will be offended the item is coming from another seller as long as it’s what they ordered AND there’s no packing slip that says it cost 65 per cent less or something.

Let us know how it turns out for you.

[ricarmic]

Personally I would just tell them what you just put here.

That the item couldn't be found, because of your strong commitment to customer service, you felt it important to not leave them without what they purchased so you acquired a better replacement which is on its way from a different source, and of course if there are any problems with it you will look after them just as you would if it came from you.

I think the important part of the spinning is making sure they understand your commitment to customer service, make sure they understand that is always your goal and I would be very surprised if you have a problem.

[musicyouneed]

Thanks everyone.  Ric, I especially like your response.

Here's what I will be saying, let me know what you think. 

I would like to thank you for your purchase.  The item that you purchased from me couldn't be found and because of my commitment of customer service to my buyers, I felt it important not to leave you without one, so I acquired a better replacement (with band autographs) which is on it's way from a different source.  Of course if there are any problems with it, I will look after them.

Thanks again and enjoy the CD. 

[kawartha-ephemera]

Not ric... but like his advice too.
If possible, I would try and obtain the other seller's tracking info and send that along as well. I feel the seller would be reassured to receive identical shipping info from both sources. Inventory sold twice is one of my worst fears, quite easy to do.

[musicyouneed]

Thanks I will include the tracking number in my message.  Should I post the tracking number to the sale on my listing?

[momcqueen]

Yes. Post that tracking number to your sales record for this transaction. If you were a dropshipper on the regular, that’s how you’d do it, right?

[musicyouneed]

Thanks, seems I will only be able to send him the tracking number in the message.  When I tried to up load it, this is what I got.

[momcqueen]

That’s interesting. Logical too. Maybe send your buyer the link to the website with tracking number embedded.

When you ordered from this other seller, you asked for it to be shipped directly to your buyer?

If you’d made this purchase outside of the eBay site it sold on, you might have different results. Was both your sale and purchase on eBay.com?

[musicyouneed]

Listed on .ca and I purchased on .com.  Yes, I asked the seller to send it to the buyer.

I got this message from the buyer:

Really? Well I guess thanks and a good feedback rating will be in order. Thanks for going beyond the expectation.

So hopefully the CD is good and he is happy.

I'll let you know how it turns out.  Thanks everyone for the help.

[momcqueen]

Hmm. On the one hand, I'm impressed that the ebay tracking programming is sophisticated enough to recognize a duplicate number (it makes sense that it does) but on the other it seems like if it can do that, it should be able to do other things better. 

I realize I'm in the minority here, but I wouldn't have been so candid with the buyer. Order fulfilment should have a bit of mystery to it, like the 'magic of online shopping', and as a buyer I don't think I need to know about the minutia of a seller's day. I had to cancel this order because: (a) my girlfriend gave it away (b) my dog chewed it (c) the kids barfed on it or (d) the mailman died. Some of these I have actually heard as a buyer and I can tell you that it didn't instil confidence in me that my chosen seller was so small-time they could be derailed from shipping my order by an ingrown toenail or whatever.

I'd merely have said, 'There was an inventory management issue and in order to meet our important commitment to you as our valued customer, we turned to a trusted counterpart to fulfil your order. Please accept a free upgrade as a token of our appreciation for your business.' Or something like that. 

I hope it all ends well for you, it sounds like your buyer is receptive.

[momcqueen]

Or, "Unfortunately, an inventory management issue arose and in order to meet our important commitment to you as our valued customer, we turned to a trusted counterpart to fulfil your order. Please accept a free upgrade as a token of our appreciation for your business.'

[musicyouneed]

Hi Mo, good points.  I will definitely use your response the next time.   Too late for this one. 

[momcqueen]

My intention isn't to be critical but I can tell you that the last time as a buyer that my order was cancelled (note it was outright cancelled and not fulfilled in a different manner like you did for your buyer) the seller guy told me it was because his wife was in the hospital having a baby. 

Now, I should be sympathetic to that, right? As a mother of four, I've spent up to a week in hospital postpartum care each time, or with a newborn who needed to be re-admit. Was I sympathetic to his plight? No, I was not. I wanted the thing that I bought, regardless of the reason he decided to cancel the order, it's not as if his wife took it with her.  I didn't want his excuse. After my fourth child was born, I came home on literally a combined total of FIVE hours of sleep (for the whole week amid my own postpartum issues) and STAYED UP ALL THAT FIRST NIGHT HOME packing my orders that came in while I was gone. My husband was furious with me, but I did what I felt I had to do to meet the commitment of my buyers, or I was going to die trying. Never mind the newborn and his three siblings. As it turned out, in my state of advanced sleep deprivation, I sent the wrong boxed version of something to a buyer and (same item as he bought but a different package) and then pre-emptively shipped him the right one a week later when I realized my mistake at my own cost with no obligation to him to return the first one. I could have left it and hoped he didn't notice, or cried the blues about my error, but, no pride gets in my way of that.

I think you handled it marvellously the way you did it. Going forward, though, I feel like sellers who want to maintain that aura of professionalism have to make like the Wizard of Oz and keep the magic behind the curtains. While it might be true that I lost something, or spilled my darn coffee all over it, or that my kids had friends over and they ripped into a box and wrecked stuff without me knowing it, I probably don't want to tell my buyer that. I'm going to pretend I'm running a corporate entity of more than one person sitting in my jammies in my basement at 4:30 pm in the afternoon. 

Ya know? Haha. 

[rosscd57]

Here is what I did:

I sold a vintage radio and a year later - for some reason I re-posted it cause I thought I still had it and it sold. I telephoned the guy and told him what had happened. He was OK with it and I refunded him and sent him a message that if he purchased another radio, I would give him 25% off and he took me up on it 

Later after receiving his radio - he bought two more.

[jt-libra]

You have far more listings than I do, but I think sometimes it is not our error when an already sold item is relisted.

This has happened to me several times in the last two months.  The first time I kicked myself for being so careless.  It ended up costing me a lot of money.  I sold a lipstick to a Canadian buyer for $18.95 CAD, with free shipping, and I didn't have it.  I thought I simply misplaced it but I realized that I had already sold it.  I ordered it online at regular price and had it shipped directly to the buyer.   The total cost with shipping and tax was $49.00 ($36 for the lipstick, 7.00 shipping and tax).  I was honest with the buyer and she was pleased to get it within a couple of days.

Two or three days later, I sold a DVD that I had had multiple copies of.  I knew I had none left but, luckily, I had kept a copy for myself and I shipped that one.

A couple of days later, I noticed it was still in my active listings.  I have my listings in alphabetical order so I quickly looked down my list and found several items that I no longer had.  I could see myself making a mistake now and again, but I think these are eBay glitches.  So now I make sure to check from time to time.  As I said earlier, you have a lot more listings than I do but I would suggest you check them periodically to see if any already sold items stand out.

[momcqueen]

Do you, by chance, use a third-party listing tool?

[zee-chan-jpn-books]

I have had it happen before too, with eBay relisting something I have sold before.

One time it was a book, I bought a copy, then I received one as a gift. I sold my copy and then three months later I sold it again, so unfortunately I had to send out the one I got as a gift.

The other time I was able to "drop-shipped" it with an extra note buyer that, since I have ran out, I had bought it from Amaz0n Japan to have it shipped directly to you and the buyer was impressed by the fast shipping lol. And Amaz0n Japan also charges import fee upfront so the buyer didn't have to pay it.

And a different time I really can't source it elsewhere affordably (it'll cost me 3x what the buyer paid) so I had to cancel and refund. It was a repeat buyer so she was very understanding and still came back a few months later and bought something else.

Since then I have been very careful... I think it was back in the days when I still used turbo lister.

[momcqueen]

I have a working theory about the phenomena of ebay Relisting Sold items. It never happened to me, not even once, in the five+ years of selling. Also, I've not even once used an third-party selling tool to manage my ebay listings. 

With moving my ebay listings to another venue, however, the third-party listing tool that I chose (I looked at quite a few and ran trials of some too) makes no effort whatsoever to differentiate between Active Listings and Unsolds and Solds. Like, none. It considers the listings as 'ebay active' so long as it has been listed on ebay within the past 90 days regardless of whether it sold its single quantity, ended unsold with a multiple of six, or stayed active as a GTC. 

I wonder, therefore, if third-party listing tools are responsible for the error. It happens too often to sellers who swear they didn't relist it, but something did. If not ebay, the third-party tool.