Misleading lighting in photo?? Returns?

[meloncauliflower]

Hi all, 

I am a new seller. I sold an article of clothing at a pretty low price but the buyer has written to say "This is not the colour I received", with a photo. 

Comparing their photo to the ones on the original listing, it seems that my lighting unintentionally made it look quite a bit darker than it really is. I described it as "navy blue", in my photo it's approaching black, but in the buyer's photo it's not quite that dark. 

In this case, should I be paying for the buyer's return postage in addition to a refund? 

If so, I'm almost tempted to just give the refund and let them keep it/give it away since postage is over half the cost of the item anyway. 

What do more experienced sellers think?

[springyzone · Accepted solution]

I had a look at your ads and I must say, the clothing does appear to be a very dark navy, almost black.

I know monitors vary and in your defence, you did mention navy several times. 

I think in any replies, I would point that out-that the word navy was in the title and mentioned in the ad several times so there was no reason for any buyer to assume they were black.

You say the photo they have sent shows a fair degree of difference in colour. I am assuming it was quite a bit lighter navy. You saw the item, which photo is more accurate? Yours shows too dark, is theirs too light or is it pretty  spot on? That's something we can't gauge, only you can.

If their photo is pretty accurate, I don't think you owe them a full refund & postage at all because they had no reason to suppose the clothing was black, that's their error. And I'd be pointing that out, as I said.

But you could add that under the circumstances you are prepared to make a partial refund to compensate for their disappointment or else they can make a change of mind return for a full refund, but they will need to pay return postage.

However, in future, get the photos right. I don't mean to sound harsh but the rest of your ad looks so professional that people would expect the photography to be pretty well spot on too. Okay, monitors vary but the colour showing in an ad should be reasonably indicative. I've in the past bought clothing on ebay and been very put out to find on a couple of things that the colour differed a lot from what was shown. (These were private low volume sellers).

If a colour isn't showing up properly in your photos, try a few different places-perhaps outside etc so you have a range of photos to show under different lighting.

[springyzone]

PS 3 weeks after an item arrived is suspicious. If the colour was wrong, it was wrong upon opening and should have been mentioned then. That's why I would only be offering a change of mind return.

[justkidzbiz]

Seems to the buyer is at fault with « I thought it was black ». You don’t need the disclaimer in this case it was noted 3 times in your listing that it was navy blue.  I would offer to accept the return as change of mind.

having said that, I was at the mercy of eBay. I sold a jacket listed as charcoal grey.  Buyer received jacket and said it was black and opened SNAD dispute.  I lost the case despite showing eBay the jacket was actually dark grey.  It was an expensive jacket so had to accept the return, pay return postage and refund original postage so was out of pocket around $30 taking into account all the postage, fees and fact PayPal wouldn’t refund the initial fees.

[meloncauliflower]

Once again, thank you so much, all of you, for taking the time to help me with this. Yes, the buyer's photo was much more accurate than mine was regarding the colour.

I found your suggestions very helpful in my  communications, and we ended up reaching an amicable solution of a 50% refund.

I will be careful to get the photos right next time, and include the colour variation disclaimer. Thanks again 🙂