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Comment by _Lemon_ | Hacker News Reader

> Customers, particularly ADHD tech types, are very sensitive to shipping delays.

Just to expand on this: very /very/ sensitive. However providing them an accurate date upfront is a great way to combat this, even if it is a week away. Adjust it accordingly and don't break your first promise to a new customer.

The moment the clock ticks over the 7th day (and I mean, they will wait /exactly/ 1 minute past 7 days for this). They will open up every support channel and complain loudly and demand a lot from you. It's just not worth the hassle!

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Unfortunately these same ADHD types can't seem to read the webpage they're ordering from. It's said "shipping in 4-6 weeks" forever.

Surely if the page says that they're shipping on x date when the customer ordered and the person with this problem can prove that to google this is a non issue. Isn't the issue here that the person hasn't got any evidence of the shipping? If he could say to google "customers ordered on 28/04/2010 and it stated the item would be shipped on 28/07/2010" that would be enough?

Unfortunately these same ADHD types can't seem to read the webpage they're ordering from.

This is a constant among all customers, everywhere. Even English teachers have the literacy sucked straight out of their eyeballs. Trust me.

(There are also pervasive trust issues, such that folks will ask me to confirm whether the three places in bold that say "Every card will be different" means that every card will be different or will every card be the same instead because that would be very inconvenient if it were true.)

Incidentally, something I have learned about customer psychology: no promise is so binding as the one the customer imagines you made them.

> Even English teachers have the literacy sucked straight out of their eyeballs. Trust me.

I was about to say the guy is being overly optimistic. Users can't bother to read a dialog box before pressing OK will never, ever, read, much less recall, a web page that contradicts their wishes.

OK but...4-6 weeks is a very long time. Customers are used to Amazon-style shipping. If you aren't going to ship in < a week, you should auth and not capture or have a mailing/waiting list. (We don't capture till the moment they get a tracking number.) Taking customer money to finance the current manufacture is a fools' game - all it ends with is pissed customers

Note that Authorize/paypal (and google?) have a limit on how long you can wait to refund (~90 days), and LIKEWISE, paypal (and google?) have a limit on how long you can wait before filing a claim (45 days iirc). Guess when you should ship packages after capturing? -Well- before 45 days.

AND WHILE IM AT IT...While customer literacy is always a bit questionable, if you're finding a lot of confusion about your shipping policies - you should probably change them! YES even if you think you are right. For example, we used to (like everyone else) say that USPS packages were not insured. Guess what? They'll chargeback anyways. So now all packages are insured at a very reasonable rate. We get no complaints about the extra $ - but we DID get complaints when packages were lost.

I agree. 4-6 weeks is too long these days. Unless I'm ordering a special order of parts on a slow boat from China, it shouldn't take that long.

I've had problems recently ordering motorcycle parts. Very few motorcycle parts places are all that professional. Many list things on their site as 'in stock' when they don't really have them, and they wait for 10 orders to queue up before putting through an order to their supplier. Then even after they have them in hand, they don't ship them out quickly. I'd pay much more for parts with Newegg/Amazon style shipping that I knew I could have tomorrow if I wanted them.

Hey Tibbon, unfortunately the motorcycle industry is about a decade and a half behind the rest of the eCommerce world ;)

We are working on changing that.

You wouldn't believe how hard the suppliers make it to get real inventory and catalog data.

Check out my business, linked in my profile.

What I'd pay good money for (in addition to what I mentioned prior) would be a part-for-part changelog for motorcycles between models along with better cross-compatibility information. As I'm sure you know, its difficult to tell immediately what parts are compatible with what bikes.

BTW- great looking site. I'm checking out now. Shoot me an email at my username at gmail if you've got a chance.

Hey tibbon, did not find see an email in your profile. Filling out the form at http://www.revzilla.com/customer-service will get to me though ;)

What you are looking is really tough. We are working on simply being able to browse products by fitment.

Unbelievably none of the part fitment data is readily available in a normalized fashion. There actually isn't even a standardized list of makes / models out there. Each retailer has to essentially build this database and keep it up to date manually, which is incredibly resource intensive.

Of course though this means there is opportunity to have because once you have built out this database, there is some defensibility built in.

A small group of people are making an item by hand. If 4-6 weeks is too long for you, you shouldn't order the item. Sorry, not everything is sitting in a storehouse waiting for your order.

That's your decision as a customer, just like it's the sellers decision as a merchant. Complaining to google checkout because the terms of the deal that were explicitly stated are going according to plan is asinine. I don't care who has ADHD, grow the fuck up.

If there is a 45 day limit to file a claim with google, then yes, 4-6 weeks is too long.

Sorry, make the items first, then sell them. Or at least don't charge till you ship.

You are right...but it still doesnt matter who said what when, because Big Daddy Merchant will always side with the customer because Big Mommy Credit Card will always side with the customer.

Not sure if you have ever sold goods to customers but fairness isn't relevant and its a hard lesson I (and others) have had to learn - The only thing that matters is the customer must be happy and they become a customer the moment you take their money. This is why you should not take (capture) their money until you have something to ship them.

If it's the customer's responsibility to pay attention to the 4-6 week ship date, it's probably worthwhile for the seller to actually read the Google Checkout order management policies http://checkout.google.com/seller/policies.html which require you to capture funds within 7 days of authorization, and ship within 24 hours of capturing.

His "4-6 weeks to ship" appears to be in direct violation of the Google Checkout policy; you can't do fulfillment on that sort of timeframe if you want to bill with Google Checkout.

I'm surprised to learn Google is so anti-etsy. I guess he should get his money and then switch payment services.

Yep, Google Checkout is definitely the wrong choice for this business model. It is extremely unfriendly if you are not shipping within a week of an order being placed.

Commerce... Every hump above ground, is your master.

I haven't looked at your web page, but living in a world saturated with advertising and lawyer-induced disclaimer/warning/contract pollution has caused me personally to develop a very powerful filter. If there's something on the top or sides in text or flashy colors or dancing animations: ignore. If there's some checkbox associated with terms and conditions that I have to check to get where I want to go: ignore the text and click the box. If you have "SHIPPING IN 4-6 WEEKS" in flashing red 28 point characters with a giant check box that I need to click before you will process my order, I guarantee you that the checkbox will be clicked without me actually reading and understanding that it will take 4-6 weeks for my item to arrive. You can thank the people who bombard me every day with this useless visual spam for the fact that I probably won't notice when you're trying to tell me something important about your service that is different from what I would naturally expect.

for the record, i'm an ADHD tech type, an iPhone and iPad owner (and the sort to pre-order the iPad and stand in line for the original iPhone) and I knew perfectly well that my DodoCase (yes i ordered one) wasn't coming anytime soon. anyone who failed to note the expected shipping delay is a moron and deserves to spend a month and a half gnashing their teeth in frustration.

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