Alternate thread title: “Help Me To People part IV”
I dunno, people are weird to me sometimes.
Background is, I have a small side biz selling a particular item from my home. A couple of times now, I’ve received interest from a potential buyer and - after discussing a few details - they send me a message stating that they live in {X town} which is invariably a few hours away. (Hey, I live in Texas. There’s a lotta room here.)
But then, that’s it. They stop there. It’s not, “Oh, I live in {X town} but I’ll be in your area for the holidays! Maybe we could meet up then?” or “Do you deliver?” or “Can you ship?” or anything following up their statement, that they drop in my lap like a rapidly chilling turd. Just, “I live {place}.” Full stop.
Are they waiting for me to volunteer? Hoping I’ll deliver for free? What do these people want from me?
If it’s Email message I’d send back a map, if SMS I guess I’d text them distance and drive time. “60 miles, Cool, you can be here in 45 mins!”
“I can ship that to you for $10, Paypal?”
Is the item you sell shippable? If so, I’d simply respond with the shipping cost. If not, respond with “Item is not shippable. Are you still interested in buying?”
The most charitable interpretation of that would be that they’re asking about shipping/delivery, so that’s how I’d respond.
It’s possible they’re also angling for a Texas-resident/I-live-near-your-cousin discount, but you can just ignore that (unless of course you want to give one).
So I think you just say “Shipping to X town would be $XX, or you can pick it up here in <Mytown>//Sorry, I can’t ship or deliver, but you can pick it up here in <Mytown>”. Maybe, if things have been chatty, you could add a comment about how you heard X town is very nice or your cousin lives 20 minutes away or something.
