Are you losing potential sales?

A little story about Blocked Buyers.

Once upon a time there was a woman from Paris who loved to shop on Ruby Lane. She had purchased 113 items over the course of 3 years. Then one day she went to buy something in a shop where she purchased items often but she received this message:

Just as a buyer may choose not to do business with a retailer, each Ruby Lane Shop Owner has the option of not doing business with a buyer for a variety of reasons.

Shop Owners may also choose not to do business with a buyer that has been blocked by another Ruby Lane Shop.

This Ruby Lane Shop Owner has blocked you from Asking a Question, Purchasing, or Making an Offer in their shop because:

Date/Time: Reason (there are several reasons to chose from)

She panicked, wrung her hands, tears puddled in her eyes, and she exclaimed, "What does this mean? What have I done? Doesn't she like me anymore?"

Fortunately for her, she had the shop owners email so she sent her a note and told her what happened and asked what she had done. She apologized profusely although she didn't know what she was apologizing for. The shop owner was puzzled and set about to investigate and low and behold she discovered the Block tool on her Shop Owners home page. Her block threshold was set to '3' and she surmised correctly that 3 or more Shop Owners had blocked this 'good' customer which is why she was not getting the gals new purchase orders through her shop.

Come to find out the buyer had been blocked by several shop owners for two reasons: One shop blocked her because the gal had the audacity to return an item and perhaps for good reason. (How dare she?) And, two shop owners blocked her because she had inadvertently clicked 'include all addresses in my contact list' when sending out an email to another shop owner. So the shop owners receiving the email decided she was spamming, never thinking it might have been a booboo and they obviously didn't check to see if they had corresponded with her in the past.

The moral of the story. Think before you block and check your block threshold, you might want to change it to a number more accommodatingly than the default of 3. If you stop and think about it, there are over 2400 shop owners on the site and not all are patient and some will block for any reason, including the buyer returned an item (we do allow returns) or the buyer took a little too long to pay (but they did). Can you imagine returning an item to Macy's and they told you you were no longer welcome to shop there?

Carol

Tags: Blocked Buyers, Carol Augustine, Ruby Lane, Shop, Tools

3 members like this

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Suburban Treasure on January 25, 2013 at 9:50pm

Thank you. Never having utilized blocks in this way, I honestly did not know that shop owners could block customers just for asking questions or accidentally "spamming"! Nor can I imagine why they would...going to go change my block preference threshold.

=:O

Permalink Reply by Priscilla's Woman's World on January 28, 2013 at 1:17pm

Just giving you an update on my question to block or not to block. I finally got around to finalizing a purchase order that was a no pay and I decided not to block. Instead I sent an email saying that since I had not received payment I assume that she either changed her mind or that there was some misunderstanding. The customer emailed back that she was a first time buyer and thought that she had made a payment and immediately left on vacation and just got back. I emailed back thnaking her for communicating and left the door open to purchase of the item. Will she purchase, don't know, but I do know that she will return to Ruby Lane again and in the final analysis, the return of customers benefits us all. Priscilla, Womans World

Permalink Reply by Ruby Lane on January 28, 2013 at 2:39pm

Here is a good article in the RL shop forums on blocking:

http://boards.rubylane.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1...

The buyer 'thinks they paid' happens more often than one would think. New buyers, new to online payment services, etc.

Carol

Permalink Reply by Breezy Bluewillow on January 29, 2013 at 3:15pm

This just happened to me. A gal put one of my items in a purchase order and didn't pay. I sent several emails reminding her, she never acknowledged the emails. So Sunday I relisted the item. I sent her one more email telling her I had just relisted the item I thought she wanted. I told her it was okay to change her mind and to feel free to come back anytime. She contacted me immediately stating she thought she had paid and still wanted the dress. So we started over and she finalized the purchase. I don't know why she never responded to the other emails, she didn't explain and I didn't ask. Maybe she was embarrassed? Who knows.
My plan is to try not to block anyone. In all the years I've been selling on line, including ebay, I've only blocked one person and it was because she was rude.
Ruby Lane said:

Here is a good article in the RL shop forums on blocking:

http://boards.rubylane.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1...

The buyer 'thinks they paid' happens more often than one would think. New buyers, new to online payment services, etc.

Carol

Permalink Reply by Joel Gilgoff on January 29, 2013 at 7:35pm