Feel Good when you do good

One of the fun things I like to do on Ebay is give out refunds.  If it seems counter-intuitive to pay money to someone and call that fun, here’s how it works.

When I list an item, such as a parts catalog for a given model Harley, on Ebay I always estimate the weight on the high side a bit.  I've learned to do that because, when it sells to a domestic customer, shipping is free.  Of course, that’s a joke, “free shipping”.  Somebody has to pay.  In this country, thanks to some obscure law, a book ships via media mail, which is about $3.00 if it weighs less than a pound, so that much comes off the top when it is sold with an ad that says “free shipping”.  In China, the government pays for export shipping, meaning the taxpayers of China subsidize it, which partly explains why stuff is so cheap at Harbor Freight, and MOR, and Amazon, and so many other companies.  I find the cost of shipping in advance by using the weight and size, and two zip codes from opposite corners of the country, like 98058 and 33301, on the “Calculate a Price” option on the Postal Service website.

But foreign sales, on the other hand, are always done with calculated shipping, because the cost can vary so much from country to country.  I’ve repatriated Norton owner’s manuals to Britain, sold Harley parts to many folks in Australia, and camera equipment all over Europe, and I’ve taken a bath on the shipping enough times to not even bother to offer free shipping outside our borders.  Puerto Rico, Alaska and Hawaii will even cost you money if you’re not careful, so that’s why the shipping weight is a bit high and foreign shipments are calculated on every item, to provide that wiggle room.

I don’t mention it in the ads, but any time I sell something with calculated shipping, and the extra weight brings in a bit of extra cash, I always shoot the buyer a small refund of the difference between that and what it would have cost me to send it domestically, out of the blue.  I get some amusing replies when that happens, and great feedback, of course, enough to make it clear that refunds like these don’t normally happen on Ebay.  When you buy a ten dollar item for five bucks, but see he wants seven more for shipping, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to add up them numbers.

I’ve been doing this for years now, every so often, and I’m just now starting to pick up on a pattern of behavior followed by reward that is self-reinforcing and accumulative.  It goes like this:

I sell a book for $20, with free shipping.  The cover price is $52, so the buyer sees that and feels good about getting it for $20, even if he’s in New Zealand and Ebay tells him that $20 book is going to cost him $36.95 with shipping.  So he sends me the $36.95, but, much to his surprise, he gets a message back saying, “Hey, the shipping was a bit less than estimated, so you get a $5 refund.  Thanks!”  That’s known in the business as a Pleasant Surprise, also known as a Positive Memorable Customer Experience in the lingo of college trained experts whose job it is to complicate things.  So the buyer gets a smile on his or her face.  Often, I get immediate feedback in the form of a message saying, “Hey, thanks for the refund!  You’re all right!” which puts a smile on my face, too.  So the good feeling bounces from Renton, Washington to Aukland, New Zealand and back in a few electronic seconds, and puts smiles on two faces at once.  And what I realized was that, in my case, the anticipation of the good feeling preceded the actual refund.  I got that warm glow inside and a smile on my face just thinking about what a surprise it is going to be for this buyer when he sees that refund.  It’s like chopping mental firewood:  You get a warm glow thinking about it, then again when you actually do it, and yet again when the buyer responds!  That is well worth the $5 in my mind.

I guess that’s what the whole “Pay it Forward” thing is all about.  Unexpected good deeds reward the giver as well as the receiver of those deeds.  And if you accept that thoughts as well as deeds are energy that cannot be lost or destroyed then all our good thoughts and deeds become karma or grace or whatever you want to call it, and float out there to join all the others to help fight off all the negative crap that’s out there, too.

So get out there and do good deeds, and feel good about yourself.  What’s not to like about that idea?  :-{)}