Silk Road forums

Discussion => Off topic => Topic started by: wright on April 19, 2012, 04:57 am

Title: Fronting product?
Post by: wright on April 19, 2012, 04:57 am
Just made our first listing public and have to say, incredibly excited to be joining the community.

As a seller here, it seems one of the great benefits is that product doesn't have to actually be fronted directly to buyers without at least proof of funds for payment. But the logistics of obtaining bitcoin anonymously are obviously slower and less convenient than cash transactions and may introduce a lot of situations where someone that has the means for payment may still end up with slightly less than what an item costs due to currency exchange fluctuations, transaction/exchange fees, etc. and would take a considerable length of time to just get what may amount to $0.50 or less.

So the question is, after a seller builds a solid client base here with lots of repeat customers, how often does it come up that a small portion of the payment gets loaned as a customer service request? And is there any mechanism for accepting slightly less for an item or would it have to be a new custom listing?
Title: Re: Fronting product?
Post by: bsalt on April 19, 2012, 05:05 am
Credit is a very bad idea, for customers IMO.
Title: Re: Fronting product?
Post by: wright on April 19, 2012, 09:56 am
Didn't mean to say that the whole or even a substantial portion of the product would be fronted. It just seems that it's common to be short a few cents (as can be seen in the rest of the off-topic forum) and that decent customer service would just dictate helping out your best customers and not forcing them to wait it out for such a tiny amount.

Regardless of what is a common response though, was just wondering if vendors get asked a lot. Seems like a lot of open requests on the forum.
Title: Re: Fronting product?
Post by: modest mouse on April 19, 2012, 12:06 pm
generally the forum members just help each other as a community, if you need a coin you can ask, and someone will send you one generally. then most people i believe follow through with repayment of say like 1.5 btc for the generosity

i am sure vendors get asked even more than the requests on the forum actually. depending on how one asks and the amount, and most are probably willing to help the customers if they have the coins.

personally i was short on an order from tony months ago... maybe even a couple coins. it was my first one, hadnt even proven myself trustworthy or a repeated customer worthy of his hassle. but the reason tony is number 1 and so highly regarded is due to the fact he genuinely cares about his customers and had no problem helping me out when i came to tony with my issue and didnt know what to do really. the reason i didnt have enough was to a terrible decline in btc value that cost me like forty or fifty dollars sadly. by the time tony sent me the coins directly and i got back on, they had declined even more and I once again didnt have enough, just by like fifty cents! lol, i was almost embarrassed but asked tony for another, way more than i needed to be safe, and he generously sent it to me immediately through the direct username feature on SR so I was thankfully able to finally place my order. after a few day i payed him back plus a coin or two. my order arrived with the wonderful quality and service, so tony has been my favorite ever since. much love!

now that he is so busy honestly though I probably would not hassle him these days. generally i keep an extra coin in a couple instawallets just in case i find myself in need of an extra. or i just play around with the items i want and find another listing if i cant afford...
Title: Re: Fronting product?
Post by: ProfADaemon on April 24, 2012, 11:14 am

So the question is, after a seller builds a solid client base here with lots of repeat customers, how often does it come up that a small portion of the payment gets loaned as a customer service request? And is there any mechanism for accepting slightly less for an item or would it have to be a new custom listing?

Never heard of such a thing
Title: Re: Fronting product?
Post by: MagicMan on April 24, 2012, 04:45 pm

So the question is, after a seller builds a solid client base here with lots of repeat customers, how often does it come up that a small portion of the payment gets loaned as a customer service request? And is there any mechanism for accepting slightly less for an item or would it have to be a new custom listing?

Never heard of such a thing

There is now, it's that gift code thing that DPR just added to the site. Say they're 0.5BTC short. Make a code that only works in your store with 0.5BTC on it and give the code to your buyer. Then they can make the purchase.
Title: Re: Fronting product?
Post by: kingpinirl on April 27, 2012, 07:31 pm
Depends on the person - I've had a vendor ship a product when I still owed around 60 bucks.  It just depends on the customer.  In my opinion, if someone is .50 cents short, fuck it.  Even a buck.  If it's a decent sized order, does that .50 matter that much?