The other day I finally figured it out….
This tired, bitter business owner figured out why online shoppers are getting more and more putrid in their old age & it comes down to a basic misunderstanding of economics.
At this point, I should mention that I failed economics at Uni TWICE and was caught cheating….so get those grains of salt ready.
First up, there are two main economic outputs – one is goods and one is services.
If you’re purchasing goods – you’re purchasing a thing, say like a carrot.
If you’re purchasing a service, you’re purchasing someone’s time and attention so they can perform a task. Like paying a chef for their time and skills to cook that carrot.
It’s why a shop carrot costs 20c but if you want it steamed, sliced, drizzled in delicious butter and delivered to your table- it might cost you $8.
Both carrots are the same and both carrots end up in the same place. However, the difference comes down to the time and attention required.
So after that economics lesson I’d like to offer my theory on entitled customers….
I don’t think they know the difference between the two.
They pay ‘shop’ carrot prices and expect ‘restaurant’ carrots to be included… And with that realisation, I’d like to walk you through my infamous meltdown of 2022.
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It all started when I copped some shtick for telling people to take more responsibility for their online shopping and I stand by that.
Here’s why…
Doris places her order… then the next morning she remembers she hasn’t been a size 8 since 2004 so wants to change the size. Doris thinks that’s no big problem.
Now let’s change scenes to the business owner. We’ll call her Jemima for shits and giggles.
She’s been packing orders since early in the morning and has a miniature Mount Fuji of Australia Post parcels growing in her office…
For Jemima to change Doris’s order she needs to dig through Mount Fuji until she finds Doris, then carefully peel off her postage label and tear open the parcel. She must then return the size 8s, exchange them for the 10s, re-pack the order, apply the postage label and then manually update the inventory to reflect the change.
Depending on the size of Mount Fuji and the slowness of the internet, this can take 10-15 mins a pop… So when you’ve got a few Dorises a day, it really starts to add up.
Or let’s take Marge. Marge would like to buy a shirt, but she also likes to feel ‘seen’. Marge will send a lengthy message explaining her anatomy and also her life history. Marge likes to tell you if she’s lost weight, gained weight or has long arms. She will ALWAYS mention her bust size.
Even though Marge has checked the size chart, she likes to outsource the sizing decision. For some reason she thinks Jemima is best placed to do it for her.
Jemima begins her career as an internet shop keeper by accommodating Marge. She will send through the size chart (again!) and say things like:
“Congratulations on your weight loss! The shirts are quite stretchy so you can choose THIS SIZE if you like them to fit well or THIS SIZE if you want them to be a bit looser”
In the back of her mind, even though she’s quite desperate for this sale, Jemima does wonder what to do here…
Marge could just whip out her tape measure but instead, she prefers to play sizing roulette and talk about herself.
As months and years tick by, Jemima starts to dread these messages because she knows Marge will soon message and say
“Thanks for the shirt, it’s great but just a little tight. How do I go about exchanging it?”
Marge is ok with this because as far as she’s concerned, it was a joint decision. It never even crosses her mind how much time she’s taking up… because she is the customer and that means she’s entitled to very, very extensive customer service.
She doesn’t care that Jemima’s profit on that shirt was eaten up weeks ago but soon she will proudly announce when she’s lost a few more kilos so the merry dance can begin all over again.
In the end, both Doris and Marge really like the shirts they received… but even more so they like the attention they got in the process.
Over time they become addicted to this attention and they begin to expect sliced, steamed and drizzled with butter service on every transaction they make.
After all… they paid right?
Well no.. because Jemima worked out her pricing by treating her shirts like ‘shop’ carrots. She priced them to cover costs with a nominal profit.
Those costs did not include a service surcharge… And nor should they.
Because for all the upstanding non-Doris customers of the world, they should be able to click in & checkout without paying extra to cover the time wasters.
The non-Dorises get it. They’re just dropping in to buy a carrot. They’re happy to make that decision like a grown up and choose the best carrot for the job.
They grab their carrots and off they trot.
Not Doris doesn’t expect to return her carrot for a slightly bigger carrot or arrange a meeting with the Produce Manager to discuss the size of the carrots…
So let’s all give thanks for that – because otherwise we’d be paying $4 a pop for a carrot and we all know who would be the first to complain about that.
Anyway…over time, Jemima becomes worn down and burnt out. She can spot Marge a mile off and starts heading her off at the pass.
To Jemima this is brilliant because it saves her hours and hours of Marge. To the general public this seems pretty rude.
To poor Marge, it’s a criminal offence…
So on and on it goes. Doris and Marge hone their skills while Jemima starts losing her mind.
When Marge’s cousin Susan starts showing up, Jemima takes up meditation to try and deal with the mind fuck.
Susan can use the internet but for some reason she does not like clicking on links. Susan fondly remembers the days of going into a dress shop where a stream of attendants would bring the clothes to her so she didn’t need to leave the dressing room.
Susan loves the feeling of being ‘served’ so she uses her clicky finger to request attention, instead of using that very same finger to click the link.
Strangely, Susan doesn’t even mind that it takes much longer to type the question than to do a single click…Because, as we all now know – it’s about that drizzly, buttery service and nothing less will do.
When Jemima starts to push back, all hell breaks loose… Susan burst into virtual tears and writes things like “Never in my whole life have I been treated so badly by a business”
So one morning Jemima wakes up and thinks to herself
“Fuck this…”
“I didn’t get dragged in front of the Dean for economics plagiarism in 2001 just to get schooled by a bunch of uptight old bitches every morning. I’m outty”
And with that she starts responding with what she’s actually thinking, instead of what she’s supposed to say.
Once those fateful words came out of her fingers, the flood gates opened and something really strange happened…
Unsurprisingly Marge, Susan and Doris get themselves really worked up.
They start punching the keyboard with furious threats like:
“If you ever start up another business, I am definitely not buying from it”
Jemima does not give a singular fuck though.
She watches on as they get wilder and wilder… They start clasping at their pearls and wondering what higher power they can complain to.
Smugly, Jemima realises that no one relevant can hear them scream… She sees them ‘like’ each others posts and give the CAPS LOCK key a massive workout…but in the end, all they can do is ‘be offended’ and nothing more.
On the other end of the scale, people start buying like mad.
It’s like the magical words ‘Fuck off love’ were a bugle calling to all the legends of the world.
They converge on the website in biblical proportions. The next morning there are over 250 orders, with many of them leaving comments to express their sentiments.
So there you have it. The highest single day of trade in five years – all thanks to telling someone what I really thought 😎👌
I’m not sure who needs to hear this today but you actually CAN reject the entitled customers. You can nip them in the bud by being honest…
These people are not your friends. It’s ok.
All they can do is squawk and flap while announcing they’ll ‘take their business elsewhere’. They’ll call you ‘fowl mouthed’ and draft a few reviews but after realising how ridiculous they sound, there’s nothing left to do.
Meanwhile, you’ve just gifted yourself hours and hours of NOT hearing about Marge’s long arms and made good sales from decent people instead.
So if you’rer clinging onto the very edge of sanity and don’t want to burn your business to the ground – then why not give it a whirl?
You’ve only got Marges to lose and so very much to gain 💪
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