eBay Order Mix Up

By Adam  |  6 Nov 2015 10:00:00

There's a rather funny story in the news recently which involves eBay. A woman named Jacqueline Johnson ordered a table from eBay, but on the day of its arrival there seemed to be some kind of mix-up. Rather than the table she ordered, Jacqueline found that she had been sent forty bags of fish. I should be clear: the fish in the bags that Jacqueline received were not processed, it wasn't the sort of thing that anybody would eat, it was forty bags of living fish, all just happily swimming around and oblivious to the fact that they'd been sent to the wrong location. The discovery of this mix-up has actually been videoed and you can watch it here, though I must warn you that video contains bad language.

I thought that was the kind of story which might amuse all of you in the eCommerce industry! But not only is this story something to laugh at, but you can learn from it too. Firstly, this shows how crucially important it is to ensure that you are sending your products to the right place; what on Earth is Jacqueline going to do with all of those fish? And what if there's now somebody out there who was hoping to set up a nice big aquarium which now has nothing in it but a table? It also goes to show how things can become viral: the fact that that video was quite entertaining means it's been shared and watched by hundreds of thousands of people. And you know what's worst at all? The mix up wasn't actually anything to do with eBay – it was actually the fault of the delivery services, but through the power of misinformation and social media, eBay has been made to look a joke!

Of course, you can't stop delivery services making mistakes, but you can certainly be extra cautious when sending products to customers. Anyway, I hope this story has given you something to smile about on a Friday morning and that your own eCommerce website will never be involved with a mix up of this kind! But if you don't even have an eCommerce website yet, then sign up to Sellr and make one for no cost at all!