My folks won’t let me buy stuff from your shop!

First off, let me say that if you want to buy any of my novels or stories and you’re underage, you shouldn’t even be asking. You know better, so don’t try to fool your folks. Parents: my writing is not for underage people, okay? That said, I do draw cartoons and create games/toys that can be enticing to all ages.

It happens often that parents don’t trust anyone on the internet. So often, in fact, that I want to try and reach out to the folks out there that don’t trust website purchases. They hear lots of horror stories – and bad things do happen, mind you — but air-lobster.com is not a rip-off site. Your child is not wanting to send money off to some shadowy figure on the internet.  I exist and I work as hard as you do.

My name is Michelle Taylor, and I’m a 30-something year old artist that works off of the internet. All of the money I earn is made online because I can’t go outside of the home due to illnesses. Thank goodness I have some skill as an artist! Anyway, I’m not going around encouraging your son or daughter to disobey or question you as a parent. I listened attentively to mine as a kid and I’m always saying younger ones should nowadays, too. But there is no reason why you should be afraid of buying from my shop(s) at all.

You’re not sending money off to some spooky, unknown address where it will go into my bank account and you’ll never see the item(s).

I use verified sites for payments such as Paypal. Paypal’s service allows anyone to pay in any way they prefer, including through credit cards, bank accounts, buyer credit or account balances, without sharing financial information. Paypal has a service where you can contest purchases made as well, so if someone does not send you an item you can report the person. They were founded in 1998 and are one of the the biggest money transfer sites (and surely the most well-known and often-used).

This is the Paypal button the site generated for me to use for “instant payment”.

My T-shirt shop(s) are the same way. I design the artwork, but the shop itself is not run by me. Everything is handled by one of the biggest t-shirt and product design companies on the internet – Printfection.com. Here is their Help Page if you want to read up about the site. Printfection has a 100% satisfaction guarantee where they offer you your money back within a 30-day period. There should be no worries that you’re giving money into my hands because you’re not held to your purchases if you don’t like them. Printfection also charges such a high percent of commissions that I only get perhaps $1 – $5 off each shirt or product. This means I need those sales, every single one counts. I’m not making millions, I’m just getting by here.

If there is anything else you are worried about, I will offer to place the item on eBay or Etsy! And you can always email me direct to talk.

Again, you do not have to buy direct. I will offer to place it up on a buying site where you can send feedback about the item and such. Therefore, people can buy from me direct if they’d like (and the cost will be cheaper since the middleman gets cut out) but if you are nervous you can always buy from a well-known shop or auction center. I have 810+ Positive Feedback on eBay, for starters!

Well, that’s about it. Hopefully I’ve at least gotten you to think about buying online from various places. It’s not a bad thing if you’re careful. Personally the sites that use their own private shopping carts frighten me a little. But Paypal and the site(s) I use are trusted services and there should be no reason to think your child will get “ripped off”.