Accidentally ripping off a designer - WWYD?

[MeganPoppins]

I've been saving up for something for quite some time, and today I bought it. It's a handcrafted item. The crafter sells several different ones on her website, and one was "custom design" - she will make whatever you specifically want. I chose this option though was surprised it was no more expensive than the others.

I sent across the description of what I wanted her to make, and she replied saying that I would need to choose from the available selection. I replied back saying that I thought I could choose whatever I wanted, as that's what it says in the description. It turns out that she'd put the wrong price on the "custom" item and it should be a lot more expensive than the other items. She was very nice about it, and once she realised her mistake said that she would honour it. I feel a bit terrible - thinking about it, it was obvious that a custom design should cost more. I haven't replied to her yet. I feel I should either pay more for what I really want (though I'm not exactly sure how much it should have been), or choose one of the others.

YABU - take her up on the offer and get the custom design at a discount
YANBU - offer to pay more / choose a cheaper item

People make mistakes. I dont believe mistakes should always cost them.

You've almost certainly done her a favour in flagging it for her attention. I think I'd be guided by whether an enormous amount of extra work would be involved in your custom version of whatever it is.

As tempting as it would be to take her up on her offer my conscience would bother me to do so so I would probably offer to pay more/choose a cheaper option. The fact you're posting here shows you're feeling the same way. Whether you can live with that or whether it would potentially spoil the pleasure of owning the item is only something you can answer.

An alternative is you could offer to split the difference between the price she has offered to honour, due to her mistake, and the price it should be.

This reminds me of the bread bin thread

Hard to say without knowing what it is that's custom. If it's a case of putting different lettering on, say, then it's fine to go ahead. If it's going to take hours of extra work for the maker, then I would want to compensate her for that personally. It's not an easy job. However, when I've been in that sort of situation, I've sucked it up as being my own fault. I'd offer, if she refuses as she well might since she's already said she'll honour it, I'd do a bit of social media marketing for her - big it up on your feeds, that sort of thing.

Are you buying a breadbin?

Haha no it's not a breadbin

It's an embroidered piece of art, and I'd imagine it would be quite a lot of extra work as the other ones would be from a template. I think I definitely need to offer more money. I just wish I knew how much it was supposed to be!

in this instance, would pay a generous 'tip' on top of the price, that way you're offering a higher value for something and being nice about it.

I never hold someone to an obvious mistake

Just thank her for her kind offer but say as a gesture of goodwill you'd like to give an extra 10-15% percent as you realise more work will be involved.

Offer to split the difference with her maybe?

I just wish I knew how much it was supposed to be!

Has she not updated her website with the correct price for a custom item? Or you could just ask her?

Offer to meet in the middle between the intended price and the advertised one?

Ask her what the custom price would be and you can either pay that or meet her in the middle, but I’d ask her rather than try to guess how much it would usually be.

I would offer to split the difference. Embroidery takes forever!

Similar thing happened to me when getting tattoo..a new receptionist quoted me a price and when I went in the lady was visibly shocked and said it should be a LOT more but insisted on doing it for price quoted. I then insisted on a huge tip!

Just ask her!! Op you are good person x

I would ask how much it was supposed to be and then decide. If it's just a little extra I would pay, considerably more I would maybe come to a compromise, e.g a decent discount for pointing out the error.

Check the website, she will probably have updated it to include the custom price now you have shown her the error

I’ve designed custom embroidery pieces. Depending on how elaborate the design and how many iterations are needed, just designing the piece can be incredibly time consuming. Then add doing the actual sewing.

my answer depends on how different you asked her to make something.

@amusedtodeath1

Offer to split the difference with her maybe?

Perfect solution.

Legally she does not have to honour an incorrect price on her website.

I wouldn't want to exploit someone. Especially if that person was labouring under the misapprehension that they had no choice but to let me rip them off.

Just say, no thank you, please let me know the correct price.

Just say out of curiosity how much do you normally charge?

We were on holiday in a very busy tourist town. For our last night we usually go to an absolutely gorgeous fish and chip restaurant but on this occasion they were having a really bad off day and the service was very bad, we were starving and grumpy.
The owner was going to comp our whole meal so we tried to work out how much it should be and left the money on the side when we left.
The food was well worth paying for. I would haggle to pay a true reflection of the extra work.

‘Customised’ presumably doesn’t mean exclusive?

I imagine that unless your taste is really weird, she’ll simply use the new template to replicate more of the same design to add to her website.