I bought a pair of earrings in a gift shop in Sitka, Alaska. Each earring had five pieces on a wire stem, with a tiny whale dangling at the bottom. The retailer put the $18 pair in a lovely little fabric bag with a bio of the "artist" who made the earrings, Helen Mercado. of "Island Artists Gallery." When I got home and unpacked, one of the earrings was broken; I couldn't even find two of the five pieces that had come off the stem. I pulled out Helen's bio and emailed her, suggesting she send me a replacement.
Her reply? " Gather up what you can find and
send it all back to me. I'll see what I can do to either fix it or make you
something very similar."
The earrings probably cost her, oh, $1 to produce. But she expected me to go to package up her shoddily-made earring and spend way more than $1 to mail pieces back to her. I guess she hasn't heard of "protecting your brand," or "the customer is always right." read more