I make custom stuff. I don’t keep much of anything “in stock.” I make oils, candles, and powders in tiny batches, I double check jewelry for weak links etc before shipping out, sometimes using jeweler’s glue or replacing jump rings as necessary, and I individually dress, bless, handle, pack, and ship everything in my store.
Furthermore, every single one of my listings says “please allow one week handling time,” because that is how long it takes me to do it right given the volume of orders, the individual nature of many of them, the amount of emailing back and forth I do with clients even before they purchase products, never mind after, and other conditions of my life.
So it really, really burns my ass when I get bad detailed seller ratings on “shipping time” on ebay. And, in case y’all don’t know, with ebay’s new changes, a “4” on a detailed seller rating can seriously hurt a seller’s exposure in searches. In fact, while it’s true that sellers don’t know the individual DSRs left by individual members, we have a pretty darned good idea of who it is a lot of times — for instance, my DSR on shipping time went from a 4.8 to a 4.7 one day, and since at the time DSRs only counted once (that’s about to change too), I knew who did it. I didn’t block her from bidding, but if ebay’s new changes, which are designed to make seller’s lives miserable in my opinion, end up being as bad for business as I fear they will be, I will start blocking bidders just because I get a wild hair up my ass or feel paranoid. Admittedly ebay is probably the wrong market for somebody like me (and I bet everybody on ebay who does custom work but for whom ebay is not a full time job is experiencing the same sort of trouble/fear that I am. People like me need to have a website and stop trying to feed the people-pleasing meter that ebay has set up. That’s not to say I’m not trying to please my customers and clients, but I think for most of my customers and clients, the quality and personal attention that goes in each product is more important to them than my shipping it within 24 hours. The quality and personal attention are more important to ME, anyway, and if I have to ship within 24-48 hours or else give up the ebay store, then I’ll give up the ebay store).
Obviously I’m preaching to the choir here. This really ought to be a letter to ebay. But I had to get it off my chest. Hope all y’all have a wonderful St. Patrick’s Day.
Big Lucky Hoodoo 