It did not turn out as great as it did (My first Etsy job)

I ran into a bit of a snag with last week's 450 tag project.   After I mailed the tags off to the person, he emails me while the tags were in route that he decided not to use them after all, thanked me, and that was it.  No payment at all.   I busted my bottom for this project and I the thanks I received was no monetary payment at all?  I asked him why.   he told me that he had a deadline, and they were not receive as ageed.  I wrote back, explaining that he wanted it in three weeks, which I did do that.  he gave me no date, nothing.   I am sorry but I am a business, and a customer cannot tell me in three weeks with no date attached to it.   Not only that, my supplier's supplier did not do what they were supposed to do, and I also explained that.  He basically told me that it was my problem.  Well, my problem was his problem.  I communicated the best I could with my client, and I was waiting on comunication clues from him.  I would email him through Etsy, and he  would answered me the next day.  he did not give me his cell phone until the day that it shipped.   It also turned out that his job was on the line.   Well it was not my fault this his neck was on the line, so why take it out on me?   For big projects like that, if he wanted the tags so bad, he should have conntacted me the first week of November.   I heard from him two days before Thanksgiving, and he expected me to drop family plans for this, especially since I was waiting on supplies to arrive.

Lessons Learned

My lesson learned is if you are going to advertising that you have items for sale on Etsy, Ebay, or another site like these, please spell out your terms if you are the seller.  I had to change mine after the fact, and I got burned for it since I did not spell them out first place.   My alchemy settings on Etsy read that I will not except no more than 200 peices to work on at a time, because I do not have a staff.   Because I do not have a staff, the person asking for a customize item will have to give me plenty of time to work on the project and ship it, if more than 100 pieces.  Ask questions (and lots of them)  do not expect the client to do all of the communicating.   even though I emailed him a lot, he still did not email me much.   ask for phone numbers in case the person cannot be reached by email.   That was my third mistake.   My last mistake was YOU set what company (USPS, UPS, or FedEX) you will ship through.   I was all prepared to go to the post office with a priorty box, when this client emailed me on how he wanted it sent (UPS) which charges a bundle, and if you use a franchised UPS, they cannot take accounts, which this client gave me.   When I told him the charges, he screamed in the email that the reason why he gave me the account number was he can have it shipped for less than $25 (It was $59 total).  I started to smartly tell him, if he knows of a UPS place that does not franchise in Columbus, Ohio, let me know, but I needed to keep it professional.   Another thing, If you are dealing with a business, make sure you have a contract, and last I looked, an email was concidered a contract in my book.  He told me that he did not contract me out.   I wanted to say it, (and I am saying it in a letter I am sending him if I do not get any money by tomorrow).
So he has the tags (rather he decided to place them in the trash or not, he still has them), and if he does not pay me something, the next step is to notify Etsy or Paypal.

I will have a project next time.  Good night.