True Tales

True Tales: Sometimes Your Refund Policy Is No Match for the Waterworks

A spurned Christmas gift puts the store owner in a difficult position.

Published

6 months ago

November 28, 2022

INSTORE Staff Instore December 2022 Issue

True Tales: Sometimes Your Refund Policy Is No Match for the Waterworks

A gentleman bought a nice bracelet for a woman he’d been seeing the past few months. He was proud of what he picked out and was excited to give it to her as a token of his love. A few days after Christmas, he called asking about our return policy, which is store credit only. The cost of the bracelet was $3,000 and he really wanted a full refund returned to his credit card, which I (the store manager) could not authorize, so I encouraged him to come in person to appeal to our owner. When the gentleman came in, an employee asked how they could help him, and he started crying in the middle of the store, saying he bought this bracelet for the wrong girl who broke up with him and said she couldn’t accept his gift. The owner refused, but the man starts crying harder, saying, “Well, who else am I going to buy any jewelry for? I don’t have anyone else to give this bracelet to!” The owner felt so bad, she refunded the full amount to his credit card and gave him a box of tissues along with suggestions of some good dating sites. — Rebecca Larson, Barry Peterson Jewelers, Ketchum, ID

Time for More “Me Time”? Time to Call Wilkerson

Rick White, owner of White’s & Co. Jewelry in Rogers, Ark., knew it was time to retire. Since the age of 18, jewelry had been his life. Now it was time to get that “me time” every retailer dreams about. So, he chose Wilkerson to manage his going-out-of-business sale. White says he’d done plenty of sales on his own, but this was different. “Wilkerson has been a very, very good experience. I’ve had the best salespeople in the history of jewelry,” he says. “I recommend Wilkerson because they are really the icon of the jewelry business and going-out-of-business sales. They’ve been doing it for decades. I just think they’re the best.”