Have you ever had that customer that no matter what you do you can’t seem to make them happy? I have learned that the reason for this is usually because what the buyer is asking you for is NOT what they actually want! So today we are going to “decode” unhappy buyer lingo!

First of all, let’s discuss buyer unhappiness in general. Here’s some statistics that may surprise you:

Now let's discuss these amazing statistics:

Obviously an item that broke in transit is a very logical reason for being unhappy. I’m sure you have had damaged items arrive and so have I, it sucks, but it does happen, especially during the holiday season when carriers are rushing and not “handling with care”. We are going to refer to these unhappy buyers as “100% reasonable buyers".

Additionally, the 23% who received the wrong item are disappointed, but also reasonably so. This just happened to me yesterday. I ordered an expensive bee house for my garden and was shipped a super cheap bee house. Of course I want to return it and I was legitimately bummed out after waiting for long for it to arrive. Also “100% reasonable buyers".

The 22% of people who claim the item looks different than what is shown are usually reasonable overall. They may not have understood the listing or perhaps they didn’t even bother to read it. On the other hand, the listing could legitimately be confusing, which would be the fault of the seller.  Let's divide this number in half; lets say 11% are “100% reasonable buyers" and 11% are those people who buy whatever on a whim then expect you to "make it right" if they dislike it.  These people are typically satisfied with a product return.

Finally, we have the 35% of “Other Reasons” unhappy buyers... the 35% other-reason-people are usually the ones that can cause total chaos for your business (and sanity!)... Not all 35%, but a fraction of the 35%. And, if you have ever had an utterly insane customer, you already know that a single psychopath can cause massive problems for a small business. So, let’s discuss those “other reasons” and decode buyer lingo; what they SAY versus what they ACTUALLY WANT.

Despite what the buyer SAYS, Here’s the 8 main ACTUAL issues…

1. You charge for return shipping and buyer doesn’t want to pay it
2. You charge a restocking fee and buyer doesn’t want to pay it
3. The specific item buyer purchased is “No Returns” or “Sold As-Is” and buyer wants you to take it back (and refund)
4. Buyer is a “scammer” and just wants it free or a discount or a store credit to use on another purchase. Buyer doesn’t want to return the merchandise, so offering a free return will not satisfy them.  They will come up with every excuse in the book to keep it.  They may even claim it's already in the trash and the garbage truck just picked it up.
5. You offer store-credit / exchange only and buyer wants their money back, even though it is not an option in your policy.
6. Buyer violated Return Policy yet still wants a Return even though they know they’re not able to return it at this stage. Examples of this issue: 

• Buyer removed the tags or wore it, 
• or doesn’t like the shade of lipstick because they used it, 
• or they dropped the flower pot and it shattered. 
• This also includes “Wardrobing”, which is a huge problem in the fashion industry. This is when a buyer purchases an item that they plan to wear 1 time then they plan to return it, at your expense. This is exceptionally common with fancy dresses. 

We are going to label these #6 people “scammers” because they outright know they are not entitled to a refund.

7. Return Policy timeframe has elapsed entirely and buyer no longer wants the item(s).  These buyers also are aware that they are not entitled to a return.

8. Lastly, the buyer may just be a total moron. We once had a guy buy a fashion brand bracelet for his 12-year-old daughter for under $20. Over TWO YEARS LATER he complained one of the gemstones fell out and that his daughter had scratched up the metal by wearing it daily. He wanted us to accept a return and give him back his $20. This is far from reasonable and not even remotely logical but those people do exist. Stupid people will be stupid. They are not malicious, they are not evil, they are not scammers. They are just stupid.

So now that we know the 7 ACTUAL issues, let’s start decoding what the buyer SAYS:

“I know it’s counterfeit” yet provides absolutely no “evidence”. The only “evidence” they have is their opinion, yet they are not an authenticity certification expert.  We have created an entire (free) guide to show you how to prove authenticity; we encourage you to first try to use our guide to prove to the buyer the merchandise is legit.  If you use our guide to literally prove to the buyer the merch is legit and they still insist its fake...

WHAT THEY ACTUALLY MEAN: The reason he / she is being uncooperative is because they KNOW it’s not fake and the issue is NOT the legitimacy of the item at all. The issue is actually that they either want their money back with no additional costs on their end or they are trying to scam you (hoping to keep the item plus get a refund or hoping for a partial refund).

“It’s awful” with no reasoning for why it’s so bad. These buyers will often blow the situation way out of proportion; your terrible, atrocious item ruined their entire life and they’re “sooooooooo disappointed”. When you try to discover what specifically is making them unhappy, they give answers like “everything about it!” or “it’s just the worst ever”. This is an especially interesting situation when the complaint comes in days, weeks or months after the item arrived. You would think that if the Calvin Klein t-shirt item ruined their life they would reach out sooner, eh?

WHAT THEY ACTUALLY MEAN: Either they are in the “stupid” category and literally have such a low IQ that they are incapable of saying “it doesn’t fit” or “theres a hole in the sleeve” OR they are looking for a return + refund at your complete expense because they had a "mind change" or they are a scammer. There are no other options.

“It was so bad I threw it away!!!!”. I would absolutely love to chat with someone who rushes to throw things away before attempting to contact the seller, yet after pitching it in the garbage they find time to reach out to complain. I would just love to try to understand their logic because it has always mystified me. Like, even if the item is a lotion that is supposedly leaking, you can still throw it in a plastic shopping bag and contact the seller. 

WHAT THEY MEAN: This one can get a little tricky. The person could indeed be so overly emotional that at even the sight of something they don’t like they feel the need to throw it in a garbage can. It’s just bizarre that they would discard it THEN want a refund (in that specific order). BUT, more commonly, it’s a scam. We have had a couple people over the years that insisted it was so bad they threw it out. We asked them if it was still in their trash can. They said “yes”. We then asked them to please retrieve it from the garbage and place it into a prepaid return envelope. They always agree to do so. We would issue a refund, assuming we would get these “terrible” items back… I mean, why would you want to keep something so awful? Would it surprise you that not a single person ever returned our “garbage”, so we completely stopped issuing refunds without a return.

Additionally, not once has anyone ever sent a photo of the items in the trash, nor have they ever sent photos to show what was “soooooo bad” about it that made them run it to the dumpster. Weird.

“It’s terrible (but I can’t return it)” - Come on now. Either its really bad or it’s not that bad and you don’t mind keeping it.

WHAT THEY MEAN: They want a refund + keep it or they want a discount off their next purchase.  If it's truly bad, you would want your money back instead of the disgusting item, right?  

“I’m filing a chargeback! I’m contacting the BBB! I’m leaving bad feedback EVERYWHERE!!! I’m calling Channel 2 News! I'm going to tell everyone on planet earth how awful you are!  I WILL PUT YOU OUT OF BUSINESS!!” - These ones are the “Level 10 Crazies” because they rely on extortion to manipulate you. Wanna hear a story? Years, years, years ago we had a customer who was in the military. She bought a pair of really nice candle holders that were white metal with hanging crystal gemstones. I believe they were only like $28 for the set. Anyways, we shipped the candle holders to her military base and took a big loss on shipping, but since she serves our country we were totally fine with it.

Weeks after the merchandise arrives she turns into a Level 10 Crazy. She insists the candle holders are “filthy, rusty, covered in dirt, bent, broken, smell terrible and the gemstones are missing!”. We were utterly shocked to hear this. We quickly replied to explain that the gemstones are fragile, so they are wrapped in tissue and are inside of the box. We ask that she looks inside of the box for the wad of pink tissue. We also kindly request photos of utterly disgusting candle holders…. Because when we photographed and videoed them, they were beautiful. Our assumption was that something must have went horribly wrong in transit; we thought perhaps her parcel was smashed or opened, maybe somehow a liquid spilled on it in the mail truck???… but since she provided no details, it was hard for us to tell what happened.

She sends photos, which show absolutely no damage at all. We then ask for photos that depict the dirt, rust, breaks, etc. She says “I already sent them! Give me a refund!!!”.

We explain that we will pay for return shipping if she can at least show us one spot of rust or breakage... we just need to see that something is faulty with our merchandise. We also state that if she just wants to return them and doesn’t want to deal with more photos that she can pay for return shipping and we will issue a full refund right away, and even include the original shipping cost she paid to us.

Nope… she refuses to return them. She then starts the threats; she guaranteed she would destroy our company… and she actually tried! She did file a complaint with the BBB. Even though we are not a BBB member we were able to respond to the complaint and uploaded the photos the buyer sent us showing the damage-free candle holders. The case was closed because the buyer was unreasonable. The buyer never ended up returning the candle holders, never provided photos showing damage and never got a refund.  Such a bizarre situation as a whole. 

WHAT THEY MEAN - Most likely, they want to keep the item plus get their money back, we will put these types in the “scammer” category. Extortion is never ok and threatening to destroy a company because they won’t pay you keep their merchandise for free is beyond crappy.

“It looks different than what is in the listing” - This unhappy customer can range from a legitimately great person who didn’t understand the listing (or maybe there is even an error in your listing that you didn’t realize!) OR it can be someone fishing for freebies. If you ask the customer to explain WHAT they feel is different than what is shown you should be able to determine what type of customer you are dealing with rather quickly.  I have always found it best to provide the buyer with the actual listing when you reply.  Give them an opportunity to review the listing prior to responding.  The buyer may realize they accidentally purchased the wrong item entirely.  This does happen... heck, I've personally done it!

The buyer *should* be able to tell you what specifically appears different; and perhaps you carry a different item that is what they are seeking. But if they refuse to explain what is different...

WHAT THEY MEAN -  "I just don't want it anymore".  This typically has nothing at all to do with the listing but the reason they are telling you "YOUR LISTING IS WRONG" is so you eat costs.  More than likely, they are just having "buyers remorse" from spending too much or an unexpected bill popped up and they are trying to return everything to pay the bill.  In some cases, the buyer could have bought the item after a night of drinking or even found it cheaper somewhere else. Who knows what their actual reason is, but they just want their money back. 

"Its DESTROYED!!!  You shipped me RUINED Merchandise!!!" - Here's another fascinating one.  You photograph or even video a beautiful, flawless item yet somehow when it arrives to the buyer it has a giant hole or a big gash down the center.  There's a couple different reasons why merch could arrive destroyed:

• Rarely, it is severely damaged in transit: Keyword "severely".  We have had USPS literally RUN OVER parcels with a high-low or mail truck or something.  The parcels actually have TIRE TRACKS across the mailing label. This would absolutely, positively explain why something arrives utterly ruined. 
• Most likely, the buyer opened the parcel with a knife and sliced right through the merchandise.  
• If you had multiple duplicates of the same item, maybe one of the duplicates really did have damage that you didn't see
• And lastly... the buyer INTENTIONALLY damaged it to keep it and get a refund.  Wanna hear another crazy story?  Well, back in like 2016 we had this repeat buyer that we will call Sarah.  Sarah would buy merchandise from us all the time... in fact, she was one of our top spenders at the time... BUT... every single order Sarah placed was supposedly "damaged"... yes, every single order.  Now keep in mind, we ship TONS of parcels (literal Tons) and we have such few issues that it became blatantly obvious that something was going on with Sarah because it just wasn't possible for all of this damage to be occurring with every single purchase.  So, we were forced to start asking Sarah to send photos showing the damage because prior to this we were just being nice and issuing store credits.  After Sarah started sending photos showing these "holes" in everything, we began to research and we almost immediately realized that Sarah was intentionally cutting clothing along the seam to get store credits. She was basically just undoing the stitching at a seam to create a hole. When she was taking the photos to show us the damage, she would get such a close-up of the hole that it was impossible to tell that it was directly along a seam.  After she got the store credit she would sew the seam shut and sell the merchandise as New on eBay then turn around and use her massive credits to get big discounts off the next purchase, then the process would repeat.  We nipped this in the bud by starting to insist that she returns the damaged merchandise.  She was absolutely livid that we wanted back the 8 designer shirts that all had "holes" in her current order. We even sent a prepaid return label and she still refused to send them back. She then stopped ordering entirely when she realized she can no longer scam us.  Unfortunately these people DO exist. 

WHAT THEY MEAN - Maybe it really is damaged.  Maybe they just want to keep it for free.  Maybe they are just testing the water to see if your company requires returns on damages.  There isn't really a way to know but if you have one buyer who is constantly having problems, yet continues to order, most likely something is up.  Would you keep on ordering from a company who always sends you ruined stuff?  I sure wouldn't!

IN CLOSING

Remember that as an online seller, there are only 4 options you have:

1. Offer a Return
2. Offer an Exchange
3. Let then keep it and Ship a Duplicate Replacement
4. Offer a Refund (or Store Credit) + They Keep the Merchandise 

So with that in mind, regardless of what the buyer claims is "bad", you, or the buyer, will have to pick from those 4 options because the 5th option is "Do Nothing", meaning they keep it and remain unhappy for whatever their reason actually may be.  Being that there are not any other options to pick from, you have to choose what makes the most sense for satisfying the buyer and maybe even turning them into a repeat buyer, or, at a minimum, avoiding a chargeback.

If you find yourself dealing with a Batsh*t Crazy Customer, read our new post: How to Deal with Insane Online Buyers