Replacement parts were part of my business model from the beginning. It probably started when I was assembling games in the warehouse, and I noticed some of the parts were defective — most frequently the paper on the corner of some 4th Corner tiles had become unglued or the binder hadn’t lined up the Zombie Attack folds in the boards evenly so they wouldn’t fit in the boxes. I would trash the defective parts and grab some new ones that were okay.
With The Climbers, since it was assembled overseas, I have had to handle my first replacement requests from customers, because the assembly folks at the factory were not quite as diligent as me about quality control. In one case, a customer reported a broken ladder, so I wrapped one up and put it in an envelope and shipped it off. It arrived fine, I heard. In another case, the zip bag with the climbers and blocking stones had been left out, so I shipped a new set out.
I declined my first replacement request this week. Evidently UPS had been a bit too careless with the shipment of a box of The Climbers, and it had incurred some damage despite the thick paper and packing tape around it. I asked if the components had been damaged. They had not. I asked if the box was still capable of holding the components. It was. I understood that especially since the game was going to be a gift that the customer wanted it to look good, including the packaging, but it didn’t make financial sense for us to ship an empty box out in another box.
It got me thinking though, about how to avoid the problem in the future. The online ordering pages could be updated:
I considered offering a handling fee of $3.00 to get single copies of games into custom boxes for shipping. I considered mentioning that Priority Mail shipping was usually in a box and only a dollar or two more, because the post office provides the boxes for free. I have also considered putting our replacement policy on the ordering page — we will honor one request per customer in the first 60 days to replace a broken or defective component. For box damage occurring during shipping, customers must seek compensation from the shipping company.
What do you think?
Mark Salzwedel
Tags: 4th Corner, manufacturing, sales, strategic space, The Climbers, Zombie Attack