A bookseller said a customer returned $800 of books from a sale that made up "a third of our rent."
The customer used the books to decorate their home for the holidays, Rebecca George claimed on Twitter.
Since the tweet went viral, George told Insider they've had "orders from all over the country pour in."
A bookseller said a customer returned $800 of books from a sale that made up "a third of our rent."
The customer used the books to decorate their home for the holidays, Rebecca George claimed on Twitter.
Since the tweet went viral, George told Insider they've had "orders from all over the country pour in."A bookstore owner based in Chicago said a customer returned $800 worth of books after using them to decorate their home for the holidays.
Rebecca George, co-owner of Volumes Bookcafe in Chicago, said in a tweet that a customer who had purchased a large order of books before the holidays ended up returning them afterward.
"Turns out one of our biggest sales last month was for the person to stage their home for the holidays and now they want to return them all. Please don't do this to a small business, people. That one sale was a third of our rent," George said on Twitter.
The tweet has since been viewed over 6.9 million times and garnered thousands of retweets and likes. George told Fox 32 Chicago that the returned merchandise totaled $800, and she was "just venting" but didn't expect her tweet to go viral.
"I don't know who picked it up, but it went actually pretty fast," George told Fox 32.
In a comment to Insider, George said book sales had surged since her tweet went viral, making up for the returned merchandise "and more."
"Humans are so wonderful. We've had orders from all over the country pour in," George told Insider.
"All of them have been leaving notes, like beautiful little notes with their purchase," she added to Fox 32. "Saying like, 'I support you. I think you're great.' Of like, 'Keep going and screw mean people.'"
On Twitter, George said the store normally sees less than 1% returns.
"This person was an unusual case. They were expensive (some wrapped) art and cook books," George said in another tweet. "And yeah, it's not ideal but sometimes as a small business you end up jumping through hoops to please people that don't deserve it to save your self from chaos of another kind. It's rare, but it happens."
George told Insider the customer who made the large return seemed "unaware of the impact" of it.
"I haven't spoken to them since the chaos this week," George told Insider, adding that the store was "super busy" with customers on Saturday.
https://www.insider.com/customer-returned-books-after-using-them-stage-home-bookstore-owner-2023-1
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