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Billing prior to shipping is rapidly becoming an unacceptable practice. If you are billing prior to shipping and then taking 6 weeks to fill the order then you
by ewilson 16y ago
Billing prior to shipping is rapidly becoming an unacceptable practice. If you are billing prior to shipping and then taking 6 weeks to fill the order then you need to take a serious look at how you are doing business.
If your orders always take a lengthy amount of time to fill I would suggest immediately sending a "your item is on back order and you will not be billed until it ships" email with a link to an order cancellation page. This should drastically cut down on the complaints and ease the mind of those consumers who think you have billed them and are scamming them into waiting until the billing complaint period has expired.
- qeorge 16y agoExcellent point. IME, billing upon shipment is the standard. The only time I've been billed so far in advance of shipping was with Alienware in 2000. They were still a small company, so they actually called us on the phone to ask if they could bill now and ship in 6 weeks when the machine was ready. It was an unorthodox request, but we agreed. However, if they had billed us 6 weeks before shipping without asking we would have raised Cain. That said, it is abundantly clear on your page that the item will not ship for 4-6 weeks.
- protomyth 16y agoWell, small craftspeople will need to bill before shipping so they can buy material. Sure, for generic crap that is massed produced in some factory, no billing before shipping. Wanting small run cool stuff and not wanting to be pre-billed are mutually exclusive.
- solidsnack 16y ago> Wanting small run cool stuff and not wanting to be pre-billed are mutually exclusive. Why should customers have to provide financing? If it's so small run it can be financed post-hoc by a few customer orders, then it's small enough that it can be financed by a few friends, too.
- protomyth 16y agoBecause very few craftpeople can come up with the initial capital (especially today) and, unlike full manufactures, the local material sellers don't generally do net-30 or net-60.
- kscaldef 16y agoWhen something is being custom-made for you, it's entirely normal to pay at least part of the total up front. I could just as well ask you, why should friends have to provide financing, as you seem to suggest should be the norm?
- dagw 16y agoIf you're a legitimate craftsman running a legitimate business you should have no problem getting 30 day credit from your suppliers. Sure if I'm ordering something bespoke that would be hard to sell to anyone else, I'll happily make a partial down-payment up front, but other than that, no.
- Devilboy 16y agoGoogle Checkout specifically forbids this practice - according to their terms you have to ship within 24 hours of charging the client. I'm sorry to say but OP clearly breached their terms here.