[Jewelry making - Article 00456] - Re: [Orchid] Adjusting ring sizes for internet sales

[Loren S. Damewood]

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RR,

    I sell rings, mostly, and what I do is tell my customers to have
    their fingers sized by a local jeweller, if at all possible.  I also
    specify the kind of gauge to use, or ask which one was used, since I
    make wide rings and that makes a difference. 

    I give detailed instructions on how to measure one's own finger if a
    gauge isn't available, too. 

    Recently a customer wrote back and told me that one of the pair
    they'd received was a little tight, and I gave him the options of
    having it resized there, sending back to me, or resizing it himself,
    with, again, detailed instructions.  He chose the latter and was
    successful, but I have gone so far as to make an entirely new ring
    when the original turned out to be the wrong size. 

    If I have any dissatisfied customers, they haven't mentioned it to
    me or to anyone I've been in contact with. 

    No package has ever gone astray, either.  One flighty young bride
    gave me the wrong zip code and her rings were in limbo for a week,
    but everything turned out fine. 

    My experience so far is that the internet works the way people
    expect it to.  If someone who knows the web shops carefully, there's
    no problem. People can mess it up to where they can't buy or sell
    anything successfully, by not providing adequate channels of
    communication or allowing flexibility in payment, for example.  I
    know people who are so frightened of spam and scams that they won't
    tell anyone their email address, which means they don't _have_ an
    email address as far as anyone can tell.  I knew one person who
    refused to use any online form of payment, i.e., PayPal or Kagi or
    any other 3rd party payer, wouldn't set up a credit card account, and
    spent most of his time complaining that nobody bought anything from
    him.  Astounding. 

    One can also go the other way, being too trusting and open.  I spoke
    with one lady who had sent thousands and thousands of dollars worth
    of art to Nigeria.  The guy barely had to work at it at all, she just
    jumped at the chance to let him take advantage of her, it seemed. 

    I don't tell my customers that I'm screening them for legitimacy,
    but by the time I send them anything, I already have a very good idea
    of what sort of person I'm dealing with.  Most times I've already
    been paid, with the check cleared, since I'm doing custom work and I
    get paid at least fifty percent up front.  The closest I ever came to
    losing money, a scammer from Moldova gave herself away by her
    reaction to the picture I sent of her bracelet.  "How much does it
    weigh, in grams, and how fast can you send it?" -- that's not the
    reaction of a delighted customer...  I immediately sought
    confirmation from the 3rd party credit card company, and they just
    shrugged, figuratively, and said "No problem for us, it's only been a
    month, and if it turns out to be a fraud, we'll just take our money
    back from you."  I canceled the credit card charge and apologized
    profusely, blaming the CC folks, and offered to send the jewelry as
    soon as I got a valid payment by other means.  Never did hear back. 

Loren
http://www.golden-knots.com/

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