Lawson's Price Guide to Old Fishing Reels-3rd Edition

Visit My eBay Store: Golden Witch

Please read this letter, most recently up-dated in 2010.  The contents of this letter take precedence over all previous versions of this letter which may still be posted on other auction items or store items.

First, thanks for a great year in 2009! Here’s looking forward to another good year in ’10, for all of you, and for both of us at GW. After flirting with expansion, Erica & I have come down firmly on the side of running a literal mom & pop operation and we downsized back in 2005. It’s still just us, with no additional staffers. This means you’ll get first-hand, personalized attention from the owners of the company. It also means that, on occasion, we’ll have to ask for your patience. We try to respond to eBay related inquiries and send out a round of new and/or up-dated invoices once each business day. If you don’t hear from us within one business day, please check out our NEW Golden Witch website or our new, 2010 downloadable PDF catalog (available on the front page of our website) for our vacation schedule. We do take a few long weekends and a couple full weeks off during the year and we do our best to pre-post these dates. If ever you write and don’t get a response from us when we are in the shop, please consider that either a) we didn’t receive your message for some reason or b) our response to your message was bounced by your server or routed into your spam file; in other words, we try very hard to respond to every single email that comes in. If your email refers to non-eBay items or contains tech questions, we will ask you to post your question to our regular company email address at info@goldenwitch.com. Please work with us to keep the eBay forum dedicated to eBay matters.

Before reading on, please keep in mind the dictum that your mother whispered in your ear: if the shoe fits, wear it. And of course, if it doesn’t, then our blunt words aren’t meant for you and only our kind and appreciative words are. Thanks to everyone for making eBay a success for us!

Items MUST be paid for within SEVEN DAYS or we will file an “unpaid” claim with eBay.  If you’re buying items over longer periods for reduced shipping, please just pay for the accumulating items once a week and keep reminding us to hold your stash until you’re ready for us to ship.

 Please, if you have a concern about any item you receive from us (or if it hasn’t been delivered), give us a fair chance to solve the issue before you file claims against us.  We do a very, very good job of keeping our clients happy.  If you file a claim against us without allowing us a chance to resolve the issue, please expect that we will block you as a bidder and we will write a personal letter to eBay alerting them to your less than friendly methods.  We are active members in the eBay community and we strive to encourage kind reciprocity among the good folks who do business here…and by extension we work with eBay to remove the rare individuals who can’t maintain proper composure.

Having fielded dozens of private inquiries regarding three particular topics, we would like to explain our shipping policy, our combined Golden Witch retail/eBay order policy, and our eBay ‘code of ethics,’ for lack of a better term, to all of our valued eBay clients.  Erica & I want you to understand where we stand. 

Shipping Fees:  Our U.S. shipping fee covers either First Class Mail, UPS or Priority Mail depending on the item. All auctions are up front about the shipping method. We do allow, and encourage, folks to combine wins or store items over any SEVEN DAY PERIOD which usually will result in a much lower shipping fee (nickel silver bar stock, rod blanks, raw bamboo culms, and a few other heavy or long items are exceptions).

The preferred International (this means you too Canada) shipping method will be by Priority Mail International Flat Rate Envelope or Box(small items only; non-insurable!).  PMI Flat Rate  mail cannot be insured but it is fast, trackable and generally reliable. For small, low value items I am happy to First Class Mail International. This is affordable but if the package goes missing there is nothing I can do– choose this option at your own risk. Ask us to quote Priority Mail International Insured for high value packages– safe, but the price goes up dramatically.  Shipping fees are non-negotiable; if you have questions regarding overseas or Canadian packages, please get an estimate prior to bidding. This is your responsibility.

GW Retail/EBay Combined Orders:  Please understand that Golden Witch and our eBay operation are separate entities.  All eBay auctions are listed from the computer that is distant from the GW inventory.  From this computer, Erica & I have little access to the GW retail shop inventory so we cannot answer shop-oriented emails here and will always refer GW inventory and/or technical questions back to the GW shop email address.  Furthermore, we have no interest in violating eBay’s policies regarding the use of their venue to sell products outside their venue.  While we are more than happy to combine shop orders with eBay orders, it must be done through the shop, not through eBay/Paypal.  To combine orders, please DO NOT pay by Paypal because we will package and ship these purchases almost immediately and cannot go back and add them to a shop order even if that is placed the same day.  Instead, place your shop order and let us know at that time which item(s) you have won on eBay.  It is your responsibility to let us know your eBay username, the item description, and the lot (or item) number for items you’d like combined with your retail order. If there is something from our regular shop inventory you’d like us to add to the eBay store, please let us know and we’ll do our best to accommodate you.

EBay Ethics:  First and foremost, please do not ask us to violate eBay policies – we will not do it, nor will we respond to questions of this sort any longer.  We will not, ever, close auctions early unless we discover that the item we’re listing has been broken (cracked agate, snapped blank, etc.) since it was originally listed.  We will not mis-label parcels, regarding either contents or value, when shipping overseas.  We will not tell you what we’re going to list next on eBay; All eBay auction transactions are a gamble for us and we generally choose to take this gamble only on overstock or close-out merchandise, all of which has been formally removed from the GW shop inventory.  If you need a specific product, please call the GW Shop – or visit our new eBay store -  and expect to pay retail; only by charging retail on most goods can we afford to operate a small, service oriented shop, the benefits of which accrue in heaps to all of our valued clients.  If you read our feedback, you’ll see quite a few kind words about our packing and shipping – that’s a tribute to our concern for your components and tools. 

In the end, we want you, our Buyers, to be happy with us as your Seller.  We work very, very hard to constantly earn our good reputation and insofar as you extend to us your business, we will remain in business to extend to you good products and good service.

With kind regards always,

Erica Gooding

Russ Gooding