Some years ago, before getting married and having a family, a woman I was dating was almost obsessed with returning a can of paint to K-Mart. The gallon of paint cost $12 and some change. For whatever reason, it took four trips to finally get the return done. To her, it clearly wasn’t about the money (she undoubtedly spend more time and (gas) money effecting the return than she got back); it was about the principal. She had been given the wrong color or something and she was determined she get her money back.
With that in mind, I have a comment about sending returns back to us. Let me say that we are happy to accept returns, do the degree that we will refund everything but what it cost us to ship the part(s) to you. Even that doesn’t really cover out cost of sending orders, as our fulfillment costs (labor + postage + packaging) are more than we charge for shipping on every order. But that’s fine, we’ll take that hit. And I should say, if the incorrect order is our fault (something more than a customer not fully reading our website product description), we’ll cover the shipping too; it’s the right thing to do.
What surprises me is when people send low cost items back and it costs them more postage than they will get as a refund. For example, we recently received a return for a hardware set that we sell for $4.49, and the shipping on the outside of the return enveloped was for $4.50. I have to wonder what was gained by sending the return back. Perhaps it is a principle thing.
On that note, if for some reason we mess up and send you the wrong part, you may find that we may want you to just keep or dispose of the wrong part, rather than send you a return envelope; if the cost of all that return shipping is more than the cost to produce the part, it just doesn’t make sense from our perspective.
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