Things that went wrong with my first Gmarket order

In this previous post, I wrote about my first order placed at Gmarket. There have been some things that went wrong and I will explain how everything was resolved here.

March 29
I ordered the things that I wanted on Gmarket. After three days, I found out that an item was out of stock and was canceled from my order. The money was directly reimbursed to my PayPal account without me having to do anything. This is really good of Gmarket.

April 1
Since it was the most expensive and heaviest item of my order, I had to be quick and order other items to make the shipping costs worth while, before all the items were collected at the warehouse. Because when everything has arrived and has been packed in one big box already in the warehouse, it is too late to combine shipping with an additional order. Also, this can only be done once per order.

The combined shipping option comes in handy when items that you ordered were canceled or when you want to order more things than the maximum of thirty items per order. The setback is that you pay more advanced international shipping costs as the first kilos costs more to ship than the additional kilos and the overestimated amount of shipping costs can only be returned to you in the form of cash balance in your Gaccount. This kind of forces you to buy something at Gmarket again.

April 4
All the additional things that I have ordered have arrived at the warehouse and got ready to go out for international shipping. I can now track the package by pressing on the tracking button on the shopping list.

April 6
The tracking information shows that the package is handed over to the air carrier in Incheon and awaiting presentation to customs commissioner. This really got me worried, because it seemed to be stuck in Korea.

April 8
The tracking information showed the same message for the past few days. When I got a piece of paper in my mailbox stating that a package for me was delivered at my neighbor, I thought it couldn't be my Gmarket package, because according to the tracking information, it did not even arrive at the Amsterdam airport yet. In the afternoon, the tracking information became totally different. This also scared me a bit, because I saw the words "final delivery" in red letters. Does this mean that the postman was only going to come by once and if I am not home or do not hear the doorbell ring, are they going to send it back to Korea afterwards? Now, I realize that they were just slow in updating the tracking information and my package did arrive in the Netherlands already. It was safely at my neighbor's house. I am surprised that I got the package in only 4 days, because I expected the package to be held at the Dutch customs for at least a week. With final delivery, they meant that the parcel was successfully delivered. So, I worried for nothing.

April 9
This Saturday morning I went to get the package from my neighbor. When I got home, I could not wait and opened the enormous box, which was only filled for a half.


I opened the small packages one by one and it was a lot of fun. It was then that I found out one of the earrings that I ordered was canceled and replaced with another one, which had the same price. It was really sweet of the seller to give me an apology note in English, since most sellers only write in Korean. I also got some extra GWP's. Honestly, I don't really like the gold on the earrings that the seller chose for me as it is a bit too yellow, but I think that the seller already made an effort to send me a good replacement. The earrings really are in my style, because when you look at my order, there were only subtle colored earrings and one pair of crown shaped earrings.

Gmarket product sold out


Gmarket earrings

I am also a bit disappointed with how the crown shaped earrings on the left looks like. But that's why you should look more carefully at the pictures that are provided (some sellers make the earrings look better than they really are), before you make an purchase.

With another earrings order, something went wrong too. I looked closely at one pair of earrings and saw that one drop shaped crystal was missing. 

Gmarket defective product
Crystal missing on the left.
Because it would cost me more to send the item back than what I would get refunded, I contacted the customer service of Gmarket and waited for their response. You can contact them by first signing in on Gmarket, clicking on "help" at the upper right corner, click "Contact us" in the left column, then you see that your name (ID) and email address is already filled in. You then need to select the category that your issue falls under and the related order. This gives the Gmarket representative the information to help you with the problem. You can write in the box underneath what is wrong with the item and possibly what you would want: a refund or a new item.

Some recommendations:
I have found out that it is better to contact them through the online form than through their email, because when I sent an email to the email address of the customer service, my email bounced back. You should also take a picture of the paper label which shows the transaction number, item name, quantity and your name, when something is wrong with your order. The label can be recognized as a small sticker with a bar code on the small packages inside the big box. Therefore, you should not throw any packaging material away, until you are sure everything is OK with your order and you should be careful not to rip the labels, while opening the small packages. And of course, make a clear picture of the defective or wrongly sent item. 

April 25
I got the money that I paid for the defective earrings returned to my PayPal account. It took a while for the seller to respond and for the seller to find out if a new pair of the same earrings could be ordered. In the end, the item is found to be out-of-stock and it cannot be sent to me. That's why I got reimbursed and I also don't have to return the defective item. Now, I can go find a similar drop crystal to fix the earrings myself. But I am glad Gmarket took care of the matter and talked to the seller for me. It can be really difficult to communicate with a seller that may not be that fluent in English or may not believe that the item is not damaged by myself instead of during shipping or before shipping.

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