Online sales of physical goods: Customers changing their minds at the point of delivery? How would you handle that?

[Min George]

I have seen many people do this to online business operators. They go online, order for products on pay on delivery basis. The business processes the order and delivers, only for the customer to change his or her mind at the point of delivery. How do you handle and mitigate against that as an online business owner?

 

[Springtime]

This rarely happens in my city as most online stores require customers to pay when placing the order. If there are defects found when the goods are delivered, customers can request for refund or return the goods

 

[Augusta]

This can be very annoying you must have a rule in place for such where the customer must be charged for such

 

[Suba]

In general, every online merchant has rules, both their own store or in the marketplace, every item that has been ordered and is starting to be packed, the order cannot be canceled, even though payment is made when the item is received (COD). and the courier will still ask for payment from the customer.

 

[Xtynehappy]

I too see that as one of the setbacks of the online businesses. Most customers would not show up on the delivery centers for their orders.

 

[Augusta]

You can call the customers to find out what is happening and to know whether to wait a while or not

 

[Nomad]

This is one of the biggest problems if you are selling for cash on delivery, however, if you already have received payment, this should not be a problem.

 

[eLdavis]

In most cases you can't really do anything to the customer cause they have the right to change their minds, though this doesn't change the fact that it's annoying. This is why most sellers do not accept pay on delivery for large products.

 

[Starmix]

I experienced it in my online business, The customer retracted. When the parcel arrived to the customers door he just told the rider that he was not anymore interested to buy. He attempted to parcel containing the branded shoes but the rider got it back quickly. I just blacklisted the customer.

 

[Augusta]

Nothing much but to be fair to your business, you need to try to get the feedback and find out what the issue at the last time was or is

 

[Laurentta]

I think the best thing to do in this is to stop offering pay on delivery option, so that even if they end up not buying the products, the delivery costs would be covered.