Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Quick delivery?

When I returned from work tuesday evening, I saw I sold two necklaces to a customer in Germany. I love my European customers so it made me really happy! When I printed the receipt, I saw in the message to seller the request if I could have it at her address by thursday. She was willing to pay the extra cost for shipping.
I phoned the local post point in our supermarket since that was the only option that was still open in the evening. They told me it wouldn't be possible to get it there on thursday by regular mail. They advised me to ship through Taxipost and I decided to contact DHL and Taxipost the next morning to inform about their rates.

When I phoned them the next morning, I was shocked by their rates but I let my customer know about it and asked her if she could send me a reply with her decission by 1pm since I needed to go to work.

When I opened Etsy around 12 o'clock to see what she decided, I saw a conversation and the first word I saw on the message was 'saturday' - I jumped on my bike to get it mailed so that it still would be in time for the afternoon pick up from the mailbox. I didn't read her message carefully enough so when I got back home I saw that she requested a different shippingaddress.
Arrghhh, I could hit myself for not having read it more carefully. I was so anxious and persistent to get the package to her that I acted silly and stupid! Sad me! I phoned the postoffice to tell them I dropped something in the mailbox with a wrong address and if they could help me with that. They were very resistant to help at first because they were so busy but when I insisted they told me to come and collect the key of the mailbox. If I promised to bring it back after I changed the address, it would be fine. I couldn't believe that Belgian Post would actually give me the confidence of opening a massive mailbox but they did! So I went to the headquarters to collect the key, drove to the mailbox but I couldn't get it open. They gave me the wrong key... (you can see me trying to get it open on this picture) In the end, a postwoman came with me to the mailbox and opened it up for me. I changed the address and now the package is on it's way to Germany.

My partner dropped me off at work and I asked him to deliver a box of chocolates for the ladies at the post office headquarters to thank them for their cooperation. My customer was very nice about it and I sincerely hope that it will arrive there on saturday. I will never forget this experience and next time I will read my convo's with more care and act a bit more sensible... *blushes* I'm sure the ladies at the postoffice headquartes will laugh at this incident - I hope they will enjoy their box of chocolates... :)
Unfortunately these pictures are poor quality - they were taken with a mobile phone camera *sigh*