I was all set to by a bear from a seller here on Folksy. They only have one photo of the bear and so I asked it it was possible that they could send some more from different angles. That was three days ago. No reply. No acknowledgement so no sale for them either.
Think on sellers. Take good clear photos of your work and use more than just one.
Always respond to your customers In a timely manner or you will likely lose a sale too.
This bear is priced at just under £30.00 which to me is a lot of money.
I do think that sometimes people set up shops all full of hope and then when they don’t have the expected rush of sales they forget all about it, but unfortunately the listings are still there for a time. I’ve had one similar bad experience, but loads of really good ones with beautiful products and great customer service.
I would send them another message. Just on case they mistakenly thought this was some sort of scam. Put the url of this thread in your message and they can see you are a genuine potential buyer.
The only reason I say that is because they may have thought the request for more photos was some sort of ploy to get their personal email address (which you would have if they had replied). I’ve read a few threads in the past, when people have been asked for more information about their goods and the general response was for them to ignore the messages and not respond.
That’s me being ultra kind to the lack of response (!) but it might be worth it, just in case there’s a mistaken intention here.
There was a glitch recently where all my messages and sales notifications from Folksy stopped.
Once I had managed to sort it out with support I got a message from someone saying I contacted you two weeks ago about a commission but have heard nothing - I was mortified, thankfully in that instance the sale wasn’t lost.
Not saying that this is a common scenario - but it happens.
I understand that you are miffed by this as I would be pretty peeved, but there may be a perfectly valid reason why the person has not replied.
Unfortunately life does sometimes get in the way of our shops. I check my emails every day as this is my full time job, but only this week I found a reply in my drafts emails that I thought that I had sent to a potential customer who had messaged me over a month ago. I thought that I had replied, but must have got distracted and it was never sent. I was really angry with myself as I have never ever done anything like this before and if I was that customer I’d be really cheesed off.
A huge oversight on my part and I sent a reply explaining what had happened.
Maybe this person doesn’t check their emails everyday, maybe they never received the emails, there is a chance that that may have happened or maybe the points that Helen and Heidi said.
It might be an idea as Heidi said, to try and email again.
Really? That’s madness! How can you possibly expect to run an online business without giving out your e-mail address? If you’re really worried it’s easy enough to set up an alternative e-mail and use that for business. But really, that’s just an example of the lack of professionalism with which some people seem to approach the whole enterprise Maybe it is ‘just a hobby’ for many but if one is expecting other people to part with their hard earned cash - and give out their personal information such as names and addresses - I really think it has to be approached with a degree of professionalism.
I totally agree with Helen. I’ve often had to ask a seller for more information which they should have put in their listing. Maybe I’m looking at a piece of jewellery and there’s no information about the size of the beads, or the length of a necklace. Or a handbag where perhaps I want to look at it from a different angle or to look at the lining. To me those are perfectly legitimate queries and if a seller really wants a sale they ought not to have a problem in answering them. It’s the buyers hard earned cash they are considering handing over and obviously they want to have all the information they need before they do so. Fortunately I’ve always been lucky that my questions have been answered and normally I’ve gone ahead and bought.
I’d definitely message the seller again, maybe they haven’t received the email or there could be another legitimate reason for not being able to get back to you.
I agree that the more info on a listing the better.
With the messages, however, I’d have to say that a lot of my messages I’m sent end up in my spam folder. Some get through ok, others don’t. I didn’t realise this for a while, and had to message people back when I realised and apologies for not replying sooner. But if sellers don’t know to check their spam folder then they could be missing all sorts of messages.
When that advice has been given in the past, to be fair, it was in relation to something that was pretty obvious it was some sort of scam. (I’m thinking oceanographers or freebie bloggers…)
I’m only playing devil’s advocate and saying maybe the fact this person got an ‘unusual’ request (not that I think it’s unusual to want more pictures) but maybe it was something which they hadn’t been asked before so it may have made them a bit wary.
It’s definitely worth messaging them once more, just to be 100% sure it isn’t bad service!
More likely they haven’t got the email or it’s gone to their junk mail folder or maybe they are having other internet or family problems.
Still they should have more than one photo it’s not as if Folksy charge us more to load up more than one photo.
I wasn’t getting any of my emails from folksy at one point so I missed out on a couple of sales. I could have made my item in the colour the customer asked for had I of known there was an email.
So please have a bit of patience. See if they have a facebook account and try contacting them that way that’s what one person did when I failed to get their message via folksy email.
I even have my business email in my profile but I guess potential customers haven’t noticed that.
Does the shop have their business email address in their profile have you checked?
hmmm… knowing how to check your spam folder is, I would have thought, pretty necessary for running an online business…
But yes, there are times when something goes awry, my e-mail provider stopped delivering some types of e-mails at one stage and I really would have been none the wiser if a customer had messaged me. My missing e-mails finally turned up a week later, who knows where they had been in the meantime!
When I get an email enquiry or message I always reply usually within the hour because I have access to my laptop even when I’m working, or if I’m out it’ll be a few hours at most before they get a reply, or overnight with international enquiries. It’s never more than 24 hours, it’s probably never more than 12, to be fair, before I reply. But even on the longest delay between me getting the email and replying the customers always seem to put ‘thanks for your speedy response’, even when it’s been hours. Makes you wonder how long they’ve waited for replies from other makers. You’d expect a long delay with a large national retailer, but not for a small business. Although, I would always give any company I email another chance after one unreplied to email, just in case there was a problem with the first one. After two non-replies though I would give up on them.
I’ve had this happen to me, twice. I fell in love with a clock and sent a message to the seller asking for dimensions, and got nothing back. I checked with admin and hey said that the message had been sent but not opened. Also I recently bought some cards that I saw on the FP and didn’t hear anything for a few days until I got a message from the seller saying that they didn’t check their email for the Folksy shop because they never get any orders. So I do think that people open shops and then forget about them when they find it harder to get a sale than they thought it would be.
I found two messages in my spam folder recently that came via the folksy messaging system. One was for a custom order and the other a trade enquiry! Nearly missed them both!
The problem with emails ending up in your spam/junk folder is you often have only get so long to view them as some email providers delete the after a given time. I know this happens for my Hotmail account something Hotmail puts into my spam/junk folder is deleted within 24hours if I don’t open it.
But not everyone who sells on here is totally computer savvy. A lot of people are incredibly creative, and work hard at the computer side of things, but still don’t know everything.
And I never used to have any problems with the Folksy emails until late last year, there had never been one in my spam folder before, so I hadn’t worried about checking much because this is my main selling point and I thought messages were still all arriving fine.
Maybe it is ‘just a hobby’ for many but if one is expecting other people to part with their hard earned cash - and give out their personal information such as names and addresses - I really think it has to be approached with a degree of professionalism.