What exactly is a restocking fee?

[Draftmare]

I don’t want to come off as snarky, but I am really curious what a restocking fee is… Maybe somebody in the know can explain it to me, but I don’t understand when a company has a saddle in stock, why they have to charge a restocking fee. They didn’t have to order it special, they didn’t have to hassle with shipping back and forth…

I recently took a saddle out on trial. Went to the tack shop in person and picked the saddle up, saddle was already in stock. Saddle didn’t fit at all, so I called the tack shop up the next day to let them know. Turns out the saddle was marked as the wrong tree size by the tack shop. So, I returned the saddle, in person. That part was frustrating enough as the tack shop was a 3 hour round trip, and I ended up having to make that twice. Now, they are wanting to charge me a restocking fee. I don’t feel like I should have to pay a restocking fee, but they seem to think otherwise.

[MissAriel]

For most things it is a deterrent to people bringing back high ticket items that may or may not require additional hassle to put back into inventory. For some items, they may be required to sell at a discounted “open box” price, which the restocking fee helps to cover.

In this day and age it is also to deter the buyer who uses the brick and mortar store’s inventory to size up their purchases, but then buys the same item at lower cost online. (not saying you were doing this, just why some stores implement the policy)

In the case of a saddle or other types of items you wouldn’t stock lots of the exact model, it might be to compensate for the “opportunity cost” of that saddle being out if another prospective buyer comes looking for that same saddle, but doesn’t buy anything because the one they want is out.

In your situation, I think they would be prudent to waive the restocking fee, since the tree was mismarked, as part of good customer relations.

[SnicklefritzG]

OP, if the saddle shop was in error in the way they marked the tree size, you should not have to pay a restocking fee. You likely would not have taken the saddle out on trial had you known what the true tree size was.

They may be doing this just to make a buck to see if you’ll fall for it.

[wcporter]

[QUOTE=Draftmare;8888350]
I don’t want to come off as snarky, but I am really curious what a restocking fee is… Maybe somebody in the know can explain it to me, but I don’t understand when a company has a saddle in stock, why they have to charge a restocking fee. They didn’t have to order it special, they didn’t have to hassle with shipping back and forth…

I recently took a saddle out on trial. Went to the tack shop in person and picked the saddle up, saddle was already in stock. Saddle didn’t fit at all, so I called the tack shop up the next day to let them know. Turns out the saddle was marked as the wrong tree size by the tack shop. So, I returned the saddle, in person. That part was frustrating enough as the tack shop was a 3 hour round trip, and I ended up having to make that twice. Now, they are wanting to charge me a restocking fee. I don’t feel like I should have to pay a restocking fee, but they seem to think otherwise.[/QUOTE]

Dont pay it. Its their error, not you “changing your mind.”

[trubandloki]

[QUOTE=MissAriel;8888383]
For most things it is a deterrent to people bringing back high ticket items that may or may not require additional hassle to put back into inventory. For some items, they may be required to sell at a discounted “open box” price, which the restocking fee helps to cover.

In this day and age it is also to deter the buyer who uses the brick and mortar store’s inventory to size up their purchases, but then buys the same item at lower cost online. (not saying you were doing this, just why some stores implement the policy)

In the case of a saddle or other types of items you wouldn’t stock lots of the exact model, it might be to compensate for the “opportunity cost” of that saddle being out if another prospective buyer comes looking for that same saddle, but doesn’t buy anything because the one they want is out.

In your situation, I think they would be prudent to waive the restocking fee, since the tree was mismarked, as part of good customer relations.[/QUOTE]

Great post.

It also deters people from ‘buying’ more than one (of such a high priced item) to try several at once and then just returning all those that they decided they did not like, which would leave the tack store lacking for inventory while the buyer tried out all their stock.

I agree that in this case, since the saddle was not correctly marked there should be no restocking fee.