What are your return policies? How long do you give the person to be able to return her piece? I've experienced people buying art and calling to return it after a week or more. What to do in these cases?
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I try to have really good customer service, which includes a blanket return policy. If the item is returned after the show, I send them a check or credit memo. My policy had resulted in more "up-sells" than just straight returns.
I've only had one person ask me to take something back after more than a year, but what she really wanted was for me to use the elements in the piece and alter it to a slight degree. I explained that this would be an extra charge, which didn't bother her in the least.
I exhibit both jewelry and/or digital collage, depending on the day. In general, I'll exchange jewelry during the show hours, but will not take back signed, numbered digital collage works. I had a buyer who dropped her package and broke the glass and wanted me to take glass out of another piece to replace the glass in hers. I exchanged the whole frame/glass with one I had in my extras bin, and she's been a good customer ever since.
This happened to me two weeks ago.
Now I sell a product for the outside of the home for people who have vinyl siding. And I had sold out of garden hose mounts.
A woman came into my booth on Sunday and said her husband didn't believe you can hang anything from the siding without destroying it or putting holes in it, so she had to return the garden hose mounts she bought the day before.
Of course I gave her a complete refund (including sales tax) and while I was doing that, another woman saw the hose mounts and said she wanted both of them plus a couple plant hangers too.
So it was no big deal at all. The money went out of the register, and right back in.
I get a fair number of people who come up to me at a show, saying, “I bought this last year, and it broke as soon as I put it on.” I know it’s not true, as I can tell from the amount of wear or abuse it’s gotten. In one instance, an earring looked like it had been run over by a car! She tried to tell me it looked like that when she unwrapped it when she got home. (Really? Padded in a couple of layers of tissue? Maybe it was run over by the car while it was still in the bag. ). I put my foot down on that one, but usually I take it back, for the sake of goodwill. I’ve got quite a pile of unrepairable pieces with bezel-set stones gathering dust in the basement, though. I bought a Sparkie just to reattach broken posts on bezel-set pieces (that I swear were used to pry open a door lock).
It’s an ongoing issue, though: I wish I had a better solution. Most of the time it’s a dead loss for me.
I feel the same way about taking it on that weekend. Otherwise, exchange only. I have had people want to exchange something a year later. I don't even mind that so much as long as it is not worn. One time a woman wanted to exchange something she had received as a gift a year ago and never used. I was happy to let her do it until she spent over two hours in my booth trying on everything and just being a real pain (she came twice and even had the friends with her who bought her the gift). I gave up on her after the first 15 minutes of her second trip and my assistant took over. I let that happen by not really having a policy. I need to avoid that in the future. She was disruptive to my other sales.
Once I received an email from someone who had received a pair of earrings and a necklace as a gift and "while it is beautiful, your jewelry is not my style" and she wanted the money for it. That was pretty unbelievable. I told her she could exchange it and never heard from her again. I thought, geez, I've received some gifts I haven't like too much, but I would never try to get the money from an artist who made it.
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