Friends of the Library Welcomes its first Customer from the Middle East
My name is Laura and I operate one of the two Esty sites for the Friends of the Library. I didn’t get this site fully set up until March 1 of this year. I have had a few sales but am always hopeful in seeing this site flourish.
One night several weeks ago while checking my phone for any new Etsy information, I saw a direct request from a potential client, asking me to lower a price. It was accompanied by a picture of a very handsome man. In my excitement, I showed the text to my husband. He immediately said not to answer this email that it was some type of scam. We had recently heard an exposé of a woman who had been totally scammed by a man. I tried to tell my husband Tim that it was an Etsy email that the man was using but Tim was having none of that. He was convinced it was a scam of some type.
Well…this book was listed at $500. It was a rare book and a potential sale! I WAS going to email back. The man lived in Saudi Arabia. He wanted the book for $300 as he had seen another one of these rare books online for that price. The book he had seen, had no dust jacket cover. We sent several emails back and forth for the next several hours. I sent him all of my research on the book justifying a price higher than $300.
Eventually, he told me that it was after midnight his time, and that he had to go to bed. I gave him my final price and told him I would adjust it on Etsy and get his decision the next day.
I very much wanted the money for the library but I didn’t want to go down to $300. The next day, I got an email from our potential buyer. He wanted the book!
When I print out a shipping label, it generates the buyer’s money into our FoL bank account. I checked with Renee, our President, to make sure this process had happened. It had. Our new customer got his book (complete with FoL library bookmarks😊) and we made $400!
The book was Bahrain and The Persian Gulf, 1952, by Maureen Tweedy. It had historical pictures of the Gulf. I believe the buyer’s family to be one of the large middle eastern oil shippers. In retrospect, he probably could have paid the original price, however, it was a long and engaging process that he was willing to go through, to get this book for less. In the end, we were both happy!