In selling my items online, I find a variety of people and a larger variety of expectations. When I post something has handcrafted, I always thought that it is a one-of-a-kind item and there are things about it that make it look handmade. I have been to craft shows in several different areas and seen a lot of hand made stuff, and nearly every piece of it had some flaw somewhere, even though it had an appropriate price for the quality of work and the craftsman’s time.
Recently I shipped a chess board to a customer and got a reply that the board had a misalignment along one row. I hadn’t noticed that is was a large a misalignment as it is, so I replaced the board, paying shipping both ways across the country for the new board and the return of my first board. It ends up that in this deal I lost the profit from the sale, and ate into my costs a bit so that I ended up losing about $45 all in all. That is doing business, and the misalignment was my doing. However, what happened from there isn’t my issue, as the customer expected something far above what I deliver, especially for the price, and is in a position that I doubt I can please this customer.
I find that every now and then someone expects perfection from handmade items, yet for cheap. I often tell people I do work in three ways, Cheap, Good, and Fast. Of those you can pick any two. Cheap and Good won’t be Fast, Cheap and Fast won’t be Good, and finally Good and Fast won’t be Cheap. Of all my customers, when I tell them it’s going to take a couple of weeks to do something that seems simple, they usually get that I’m taking my time to do it carefully and as good as I can, that way they get the quality product they desire. I’ve had to put disclaimers on my listings online to prevent people from picking the work to death, they have to allow for some things.
When I sell things person to person at a craft show, I expect someone to inspect the item they are buying, and sales are final. Online is a bit more difficult as there isn’t a personal inspection, so my pictures are as good as I can make them. The alignment issue I spoke of is clearly seen in the listing pictures, I hadn’t noticed for some reason, but it’s there. That could have been an out for me, but I likely would have seen a negative review from it, and the price of not having those is sometimes worth paying, but there is a limit.
So I’m interested in knowing what others have dealt with in the ‘flaws’ area of handcrafted stuff. I don’t often have this issue, but every now and then something crops up. I’m a one-man shop, so anything done that is flawed is my work, but I’m also not perfect. I think I do better than most that I see in the crafts circuits though, not saying what else I see isn’t good, but there’s a fine line of good and really good. I see a few that are really good, but most (average) have more flaws and ‘character’ in their work than I do.