to not understand why people do this and think it's fucking stupid?

[geegollygosh1]

I own my own business selling products via a webpage.

Every now and then I will put on a sale, sometimes randomly, but also for things like Black Friday etc.. I always ensure that all orders have been fulfilled before doing this.

Every time I get customers contacting me acting aggrieved at the fact that an item they bought is now on sale. I understand its annoying but some of these people ordered their items literally weeks prior and will actually be pissed off that the items now on sale WEEKS after they bought it.

I do actually occasionally refund the difference to someone if its a recent order and they are polite in their request but I have people emailing weeks later and being really shitty about it.

Aibu to think this is fucking stupid? A sale has to have a start date surely it's not feasible to expect a refund for something weeks later just because it's now on sale and be annoyed about? Obviously I can't simply go back weeks and refund everyone the difference otherwise there would be no point ever having a sale.

I just don't understand why people do this.

I know its fairly common to return an item within the time frame and then rebuy if a sale is on (personally I think that's still really shitty if its a small business but each to their own).

But 99% of my items are personalised snd therefore cannot be resold by me if returned. So no I can't just accept everyone returning perfectly good items and then rebuying it just because its on sale weeks after they bought it.

Well that's a bit of a drip feed. Of course then it's shitty to ask for a refund for a personalised item. Tighten your rules and have a no refunds policy and stick to it.

But 99% of my items are personalised snd therefore cannot be resold by me if returned.

But surely personalised items cannot be returned unless faulty anyway? That’s always been the policy at every store I’ve ever known to personalise products.

This is my policy now.

My original OP wasn't about returns. It was about people asking for a refund of the difference between the price they paid weeks ago and the sale price now, not returning the item to rebuy it.

And then acting shitty when I say no! Or acting shitty straight off the bat as if its a personal attack that I've put a sale on 2 weeks after they bought something from me "how dare I, refund the difference" kind of messages.

I do monthly offers, which I advertise about a week before the new month starts and give the discount from then. IF I'm going to do a mid month offer for any reason then I'll do them on products which no-one has bought that month.

I'm former cabin crew and once had a woman on board who bought a bottle of Vodka in the airport but she changed her mind and wanted Gin, so half way through the flight she asked us to swap it for her! Erm...I don't think so love! Sometimes I don't know if they're thick as pigshit or just cheeky fuckers...

Has someone written in a review at some point that you did this for them, and it's opened the floodgates? No one ever did this when I was running a small business so I'm wondering if they've all heard from somewhere that you'll refund the difference if they act shitty enough. You just need to take a hard stance on it and remember you're a business not a charity.

@Rachaelrachael I bet they wouldn't go back into their high street store and complain about it.

I worked for a high street retailer years ago and we'd often get people coming in with weeks old receipts demanding we refund the difference if their item got reduced! If the receipt was in date we'd usually honour it as they could technically get a full refund then buy the same item at a reduced price. Once the 28 days was passed though, tough luck.

There did use to be an insurance policy that came with the store card whereby if you kept all your receipts we would honour all reductions up to 6 months after purchase! Was a pain in the ass to do.

I’d do this! I think it’s fair enough I’ve literally just bought the item, haven’t used it, and can legally return it. (I probably wouldn’t be quite so blatant though, eg, I’d return it then buy the replacement online or something!)

I bought a barbie set for twenty pounds went across town found it on sale in another shop for four pounds so I bought it for four pounds and returned the twenty pound one 😅 I felt really cheeky doing that!

There are times when you take the loss though I just had to replace ds headset for forty pounds black Friday came three days later its thirty pounds 🙄 I didn't ask them to refund the difference I knew it was most likely going to be on sale I also knew (autistic) ds wouldn't wait that long for a pair

😲😆

Please tell me they didn't give the refund?!

I used to work for a mail order company and would occasionally get customer service calls when the main lines were busy. Someone phoned up once saying he’d bought an item at one of these consumer shows and it was faulty - he wanted his money back. I asked was he sure he’d got the right company, as while we sold the said item, we didn’t do consumer events; only mail order.

”Oh”, he said airily, “I’ve no idea if it was your company selling it there. But you DO sell it, don’t you? So you can sort it”.

He was most indignant when I said we didn’t accept “returns” when we hadn’t sold the item in the first place 😁

You pay full price for something, next week it’s on sale. Just bad luck isn’t it, but that’s life.

We avoid this by doing either a value add or something that can't be compared.

For example buy X on Black Friday and get a limited edition Y

Or buy our sale bundle containing XYZ (when they are highly likely to have bought only X, Y or Z rather than all 3).

Or buy our mystery bundle (vague ideas of what's in it + the retail value), so they don't know the specific items included.

This also increases cart value rather than reducing your income.

£300 on a tracksuit, that's more than my wedding dress

I've done that before. I've ordered something and then it's promptly gone in the sale.

I order another one and send it back with the full price receipt provided its been less than 30 days or whatever the return times are.

Your point being? Seriously what's your point?

People can spend their money how they choose.

It's better to spend money on something that will be worn a lot than a wedding dress that will be worn once.

I would do it if I hadn't worn the tracksuits, and have done this in the past. It's within your rights. But I wouldn't be asking for the change in price if I had already worn them.

I run an online store and don’t have random sales as i don’t want to piss people off and devalue my products. You end up with people only buying in discounted periods if you do that anyway. I do sell end of line damaged stock at a reduction.

I have online shop. I don’t really do sales, but people seem to expect things that I doubt even the big high street retailers would offer. Like keeping something they’ve decided is faulty without returning, demanding big discounts for some minor issue. A lot don’t read the item description and get upset when they receive what has been described. I’ve had ‘it looks bigger in the picture’ ? Although might add 99% of my customers are lovely, it’s just a small minority of idiots.
I wish other small retailers would stop jumping through fiery hoops for these individuals, because it sets a precedent for everyone else to do the same.

What you can do if you've had it 3 weeks is order a sale one and send that back with the full price receipt, unworn and with the tags on.

It's the same item.

I used to work in the now defunct Victoria Wine when at uni. We used to get these fucking idiots (mostly students) who thought they could swap around the sticky price labels on the booze and then demand at the till that we had to sell that bottle of champagne for 99p 'because it is the law'. When they were invariably told 'no' and to piss off you then got the obligatory 'well I have studied two terms of law and you are wrong and I am going to take you to court'. Muppets.

That's funny. Law students ought to have known that an item on a shelf is not an offer for sale it's an invitation to treat.

There is generally no intention to be bound by an invitation to treat, and it does not form a legally binding contract for sale. I'd love to have said that back to them.

Stupid chancers.

I have 3 online stores and used to have an actual shop. This is why I don't do sales, I set my prices fairly and stick to them. None of my items are personalised, but I design and print them all so you won't find them anywhere else.

I prefer places that don't do sales. That's what it costs and you know that.