In the toy industry, cancellations of orders is fairly commonplace. Items are listed for pre-order that for a variety of reasons wind up being cancelled before the items arrive and are shipped to the customers. Historically, requests to cancel a pre-order is a simple transaction as nothing has been shipped out to our customers yet. However, in March 2019, PayPal made an adjustment to their policy where transaction fees are no longer reimbursed for cancellations, refunds, or transfers of money back to the sender. Since then, there has been increased risk of loss as any cancellations of pre-orders result in a guaranteed monetary loss to ACB Toys & Collectibles as the full amount of the order is returned and we have had to eat the cost of the fees PayPal took.
While we have reluctantly accepted this as a cost of doing business, we have also explored ways to try to minimize this effect. We could raise prices to all items so that losses from cancellation are not as deeply impactful. However, this does not seem fair to consumers who are purchasing and keeping their orders, and, higher prices could also lead to reduced sales. We could also stop selling pre-orders and only list items that are available and in stock. Several of the platforms that we sell on already have this requirement, but the bulk of sales in the business has always come from pre-orders, and by the time inventory arrives, what hasn’t already sold often stays in inventory for lengthy durations. There did not seem to be an obvious answer to addressing this concern.
Earlier today a purchase was made on eBay, and then cancelled 4 minutes later. From a consumers perspective, for whatever reason, they changed their mind. Something that anyone can do. As a consumer, if I were to make a purchase and then change my mind, I wouldn’t think twice about it. Cancel the order and get my money back. But with the PayPal policy, even that 4 minute period, fees were deducted and lost.
The customer who pre-orders an item that comes out in 6 months, and then finds a way to somehow get their hands on it in 5 months, the loss of fees can be rationalized. But a 4-minute transaction and cancellation has gotten us investigating alternatives.
As such, we have reached out to both PayPal and eBay customer service, and the options are very limited. They suggested asking the customer if it was okay to send them their money back and deduct the fees (and again, as customers ourselves, we wouldn’t accept that, so why would the buyer?). Beyond that, there was nothing to do to offset a loss of money to ACB Toys & Collectibles for the fees that would not be reimbursed for something that we had zero fault in terms of (the item ordered was even in stock and would have been shipped same day). The only solution was an adjustment to our policy….
Effective immediately and for all orders going forward, for PayPal payment transactions, any order placed, that is cancelled for any reason at the buyer’s request, will be granted, but the fees collected by PayPal will be deducted from the reimbursement. If, however, ACB Toys & Collectibles has to cancel an order (for instance, if our actual inventory was inaccurate and we did not have and could not get the item purchased), we will still issue a full reimbursement. This website and the various platforms we sell on have been updated to include this disclaimer.
While this is unfortunate, and we have definitely tried to fight the “system” on this matter so that our customers get a full reimbursement and ACB Toys & Collectibles does not get hit with fees for orders that were cancelled, we hope that our customers understand and that this policy adjustment does not impact your faith or willingness to continue to do business with us. As always, we wish to provide our customers with the toys and collectibles that they want at fair and reasonable prices, as well as information, news, and reviews. Thank you for your continued support.