Hi so I've recently posted up an ad and encountered this more than a couple of times...

I have customers who send me order requests, and I pm them back asking for more information for me to request payment etc.
And right after that they go MIA and haven't checked back. The messages are still left unread for a week or so.

I read the rules that sellers have to be on to check messages and reply customer orders at least once every 48hours.
Isn't there any similar requirement expected of customers?

At least check back after placing an order right It's kinda annoying if they place orders and go MIA.
What if I run out of credit stock while waiting for a response and they come back and complain that they ordered first etc. and I sold to a later customer who paid up first?

Has anyone else encountered this? And if so, how do you deal with it?

Hi JellyHearts. As a credit seller i have definitely encountered this problem. I send them a bill right after i get the order request. When i sent someone a bill i leave it for 48 hours and then delete the bill message. WHen you delete the bill message, they will not be able to see the bill message anymore. Maybe that can help you also.

When placing ads you will encounter many things. Some may be as you said they order something and then never respond. A hint there to see what happened is. If they have ordered and you sent out your bill within 48 hrs and if they have not responded in 48 hrs then take a look at their profile to see when they were last logged on. If they have Logged on since you sent the Bill and the 48 hrs has passed then do as Cysia says and just pull your bill and act like the order was never placed. Also send them a PM to back yourself up that you have pulled their order for non response. This covers you in case they come back at you and say they had their order placed first business. Also on your ad make a notation at the bottom of your Description that once bill is sent out they have 28 hours to respond if not their order will be pulled.

Now mind you some people do have RL issues that do keep them away from the forums. Take that for granted as well. But if they show that they have logged in once they have received your bill then give them a nudge, a PM reminder, of their bill owing and if they do not respond before they log off then assume they are no longer interested wait the 48 hours then send them a notice saying their order was cancelled due to non compliance to terms.

ES

We all get this. I get tons of T3DE order requests that go unanswered. You kinda just have to deal with it. If they take too long to reply to you just tell them they are out of luck.


Here's a small tip that Don and myself use to make taking care of orders easier:

Save your replies in a text document as a template. Don and I both have tons of pm templates that we use depending on the situation. For example when a customer wants to buy T3DE I copy and paste a reply that already has the bill and a thank you message for their interest in T3DE. For normal sales I have a template that has a bill ready to go and a small message explaining how to use the bill. This makes dealing with all customers including those that don't reply easier and quicker cause you don't have to spend time writing up the PM for each one.

Wow sucks this happens frequently to everyone else too.
I'm a pretty new seller so wasn't sure what to do or if I was doing something wrongly.

Thanks guys for all the great suggestions! I really need to start implementing these

The same thing happens to anyone who sells stuff online, most sites have a 70% customer MIA ratio after checkout. There are things you can do which make the situation better. For example, sending them a bill ASAP within a few minutes after they checkout helps a ton. The faster they get to the bill, the less time they have to loose patience or change their minds.