lbhsbz
Putting on the brakes
- Joined
- Jan 11, 2010
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Looking for perspectives and experiences here, as I need to create a policy regarding this. We have a lot of racers who likely have stuff overnighted quite a bit.
Situation came up yesterday afternoon where a guy in New York needed a pair of calipers today so he could get the car fixed for an event he's attending tomorrow. $150 for UPS overnight w/ Saturday delivery by noon. The package arrived at a hub in Kentucky at 2AM and now it's delayed due to weather and won't arrive until monday.
I've familiar with the "poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine" thing, but I try to be helpful when I can be.
Since the delay was out of the control of the vendor, would the buyer in this case expect a partial/substantial refund for shipping?
Should the buyer get a partial/substantial refund for shipping?
I'm torn on whether or not UPS should issue a refund, after all....they did bust ass and get it as far as they could on time before it was either delayed by weather or they're lying about it being delayed by weather. One one hand, they should be aware of forcasts and simply not offer the overnight service if there is a good chance it will be delayed, but on the other hand...things come up that are unpredictable and out of their control.
In this particular case, I offered to refund the customer $100 of his shipping charges and likely just eating it because I have better things to do than deal with UPS on this issue, and he seemed OK with that, but I need to establish a policy moving forward as to how to handle things like this.
As a customer, or if you're a business who ships stuff....what would you be comfortable with?
I'm leaning towards a simple "We are not responsible for delays during shipping that are outside of our control (Weather, carrier errors, etc) and no refunds will be issued due to delays in customer requested expedited shipping" ... but if others do it differently, it may be a good idea to align my policy with that of others.
Situation came up yesterday afternoon where a guy in New York needed a pair of calipers today so he could get the car fixed for an event he's attending tomorrow. $150 for UPS overnight w/ Saturday delivery by noon. The package arrived at a hub in Kentucky at 2AM and now it's delayed due to weather and won't arrive until monday.
I've familiar with the "poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine" thing, but I try to be helpful when I can be.
Since the delay was out of the control of the vendor, would the buyer in this case expect a partial/substantial refund for shipping?
Should the buyer get a partial/substantial refund for shipping?
I'm torn on whether or not UPS should issue a refund, after all....they did bust ass and get it as far as they could on time before it was either delayed by weather or they're lying about it being delayed by weather. One one hand, they should be aware of forcasts and simply not offer the overnight service if there is a good chance it will be delayed, but on the other hand...things come up that are unpredictable and out of their control.
In this particular case, I offered to refund the customer $100 of his shipping charges and likely just eating it because I have better things to do than deal with UPS on this issue, and he seemed OK with that, but I need to establish a policy moving forward as to how to handle things like this.
As a customer, or if you're a business who ships stuff....what would you be comfortable with?
I'm leaning towards a simple "We are not responsible for delays during shipping that are outside of our control (Weather, carrier errors, etc) and no refunds will be issued due to delays in customer requested expedited shipping" ... but if others do it differently, it may be a good idea to align my policy with that of others.
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