by Candrakirana — Thursday, July 30th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
in Editorial and tagged with Online Shopping
You will agree with me when I point out that trust is the key of buyer and seller relationship, especially when it comes to transaction in the virtual world. Needless I say, we don’t intend to be deceived. Trust is not something that you can buy, but it is formed by numerous personal experiences or listening/reading others’ experiences (read: testimonials). That is why in our beloved forum, there’s a thread discussing about these online shopping experiences specifically, right?
Taking from buyer’s side, trust can be a shortcut for us to make a decision to purchase something from a particular seller. On the other hand, trust can mislead us. In this case, we may trust too much then we feel like we don’t need to ask something that in fact, is the fundamental part. What I mean by fundamental is that this question may relate to your hope on something you purchase. You want to buy this pair of red shoes from seller A because you imagine that you can wear them on your date, you dream of numerous occasions when you can exhibit them with your beautiful legs, you may imagine how many people will be envious of you. Just admit it, sometimes you don’t buy something because you need it but you want the dream that can be delivered by the product. Dream is something personal, something you desire. Therefore, I can say there’s nothing worse than crushed dream.
Let me tell you my experience on this. I was and still am disappointed with an apparel I purchased online because it was totally different from my expectation. It’s not that I never buy something from this seller. In fact, I bought from this seller, twice and the products more or less delivered to my expectation. Ok, I bought a leather jacket for less than IDR 160,000. Looking at the price, the pic, and reading the ‘label’ the seller put on the product (“brown leather jacket”), I concluded that this jacket was made from faux leather. When I thought about faux leather, it’s the artificial leather that’s based from plastic, but resembles pretty much like leather from the animal. I presumed that this was the universal language meant by faux leather.
However, when I opened the package, it’s a jacket made by shiny brown jersey. It certainly crushed my dream. At first when I saw the picture on the online shop, I imagined that I would look like a cool bohemian chic with a little rocker edge, wearing this with my tribal dress or my flower dress. I don’t know about you girls but jersey was not included in my dictionary of edgy look.
I still hope that the seller might send me the wrong item, but it’s not the case. After a series of texting and replying, I got the impression that what she meant by faux leather was any kind of material that looked like leather from afar, and it didn’t have to resemble the leather experience when you touched it. If I could turn back the time, I should ask: what kind of faux leather do you mean? is it anything like faux leather on bags or shoes? or other definition of faux leather?
I believed when the seller said that the photo displayed on the online shop was the real product. However, we ought not to forget that a lot of factors, such as lighting, might contribute on the photo result. It might ‘blind’ our perception on what the real object looks like.
The bottom line is: don’t be shy to ask, stay critical, be detail-oriented. Although we trust one, don’t forget that miss-communication may bound to happen and this can jeopardize the relationship between buyer and seller.
Images from veer.com
[From The Archive]: Online Shopping Experience: Trust – Double-Edged Sword http://t.co/6Eodqpxt
But you know most of seller in our beloved Market Forum banned questions from the buyer. They even frankly stating in the front page that no questions, PM etc allowed. Perhaps the seller dosn’t want to bother answering questions. In the other hand sometimes the buyer ask question too much.At the end, as you said, that trust is the key..
Gue udah sering jadi dua duanya (seller and buyer). Memang checkng PM itu agak2 annoying, kalo email masih mending..tapi PM itu entah kenapa kayanya ribet aja ngeceknya..mungkin karena nggak sesimple dan ngeloadnya nggak seringan email ya. Apalagi kalo yang ditanya ternyata udah ada jawabannya dipostingan, kan buang2 waktu aja. Udah gitu, misalnya pertanyaannya belum ada jawabannya tetep aja lebih enak ditanya di thread karena orang lain bisa ikut baca, menghindari pertanyaan yang sama datang lewat PM dan akhirnya harus menjelaskan yang sama lagi. Kayanya sih di forum pada welcome sama pertanyaan kok, asal nggak lewat PM.
Gara2 Marketplaza kayanya kita jadi lebih ngegampangin gitu kalo beli2 yah, karena toh nanti bisa dilempar ke MP lagi…:D
biasanya seller will feel annoyed kl ada pertanyaan such as *menurut loe yg bagus gw warna yg mana*…nah pertanyaan kayak gini yg amat sangat dilarang ditanya, kl di lapak gw sih…
i admit gw ngelarang pertanyaan di lapak, khususnya beauty warehouse, krn most things that i sell itu informasi nya amat sangat banyak di web, not custom made item dan brand nya pun udah well known. jd kalau mau cari swatch, dll, i encourage my customers untuk search di web.
lain kalo jual baju, dll, kl ditanya LD or size ya harus dan wajib dijawab
Baru2 ini mengalami pengalaman yang agak membingungkan berkaitan dengan jual-beli online [dalam dua kejadian berikut, gw sebagai buyer]:
1. KEJADIAN A – [barang harus dipesan] seller sms k gw kalau barang sudah jadi dan siap dikirim, dia minta nama dan alamat lengkap. lalu gw kirim yang dia minta beserta pertanyaan: berapa no acc untuk transfer pembayarannya? sampai hari ini tidak dijawab dan barang juga tidak dikirim, nge-gantung deh. gw udah sms lagi, tetap tidak dijawab. gw juga masih berpikiran baik, siapa tahu sms tidak sampai karena kesalahan provider seluler, tapi masa sih berkali2 sms ngga ada yang nyampe ya?
ya memang dalam hal ini gw tidak dirugikan secara materi tapi secara moril gw rasa gw cukup dirugikan karena saat si seller bilang barangnya jadi, itu sudah lama sekali jaraknya dari sejak saat pertama kali gw memesan barang tersebut [mungkin jeda waktunya lebih dari sebulan]. kerugiannya – menunggu tanpa kepastian, sesudah itu diberi harapan [dengan dikabari kalau barang sudah jadi] namun harapan tersebut juga kandas tercampakkan [...bahasa novel banget ah]
2. KEJADIAN B – [barang ready stock] transaksi terjadi via sms. notifikasi soal transferan juga diminta seller via sms. semua sudah gw lakukan. sms terakhir dari seller menyatakan bahwa barang sudah dikirim [minggu lalu]. secara perhitungan harusnya senin paling cepat barang itu sampai jakarta [seller di jawa timur kalau tidak salah] dan selambat2nya rabu. namun sampai jumat [hari ini] barang tidak sampai dan sms2 gw untuk cek no resi dll [apakah sudah dikirim atau belum, alamat salah dll] tidak dijawab. anyway, gw masih mau bersabar untuk KEJADIAN B ini, kali aja awal minggu depan sampai? owh tapi itu lama sekali kan seperti memesan barang dari luar negeri!
semua kejadian di multiply. oh, well …