Mana Pool has an easy process to help when you are unable to fulfill an order you receive, either entirely or in part. 

In this process, you are encouraged to propose substitutions when you have a different version of the same card, especially for low value items (more on that below).

You are also encouraged to report issues rather than poorly fulfill orders (in part, to avoid negative ratings from buyers). It’s better to report, for example, that you accidentally listed a damaged card as NM, or listed the wrong printing of a card, than to just send it out. We can help make sure the buyer is satisfied and you have a strong reputation on Mana Pool.

You can view all current and past reports about your orders on the reports section of the seller dashboard.

How to Report Fulfillment Issues 

From the Order Page, click the Report a fulfillment problem button.

From there, the workflow lets you mark which of the items in the order you can’t fill. Reasons might include:

• The item is not in stock, due to an inventory error
• The item isn’t in the condition, finish, or printing as listed, due. to a cataloging error
• Note: you must fulfill all orders that you are capable of filling. If you decline to fill an order when you are able, your seller account may be deactivated. Price volatility is not a valid reason to decline an order.

Options for handling fulfillment issues

The workflow gives you these options:

• Refund or replace from Mana Pool
• Substitute
• Substitute with partial refund
• Multiple

Refund or replace from Mana Pool

If you find you don’t have a card the customer ordered and you don’t have a suitable substitution to propose, choose this option. We’ll either refund the item, or have it sent from another source. Your payout will be docked for the price of the missing items, but Mana Pool will cover any additional shipping or price difference costs if we replace the item.

Substitutions

The best options to choose are often Substitute, or Substitute with partial refund. That way, the buyer can get their complete order quickly, and you can get paid out the maximum for the order.

If you choose substitution, we’ll reply to your report and let you know whether to go ahead. We may ask the buyer if they are happy with the substitution if we aren’t confident, but that’s often not necessary because many times buyers aren’t specifically choosing a given card, they are just using the Cart Optimizer to find the low price option.

If you aren’t sure if it’s a welcome substitution, go ahead and propose it - we’ll look at the order and/or contact the customer to evaluate it.

Substitutes (no partial refund)

When proposing a substitution without any refund, the substitute should be equivalent or better in value than the ordered item, and the condition should be the same or better.

Here are examples of substitutions that make sense

• Everything is the same about the card except for the set (same art/border/finish/etc)
• The substitute is a different finish (foil vs. non-foil), and the order includes a mix of foils and non-foils
• The ordered item is a worth less than 50 cents and the substitute has different art or other characteristics
• The substitute is of higher value than the ordered item

Here are examples of substitutes that may not be good, but you can still propose them:

• The ordered item is worth $10 or more 
• The card ordered was an original printing, and the substitute is not (though this still may be fine for low value commons, when we can deduce the buyer didn’t choose that particular printing)
• The substitute has a different finish (foil vs. non-foil) and the rest of the order is all one finish (but often the buyer has made a multi-seller order, so we can look at the overall order and check the finishes to see if it makes sense)

Substitutes with partial refund

If the substitute you are proposing is less in value than the original item, then you should propose a Substitute with partial refund. You can tell us what the refund should be, or leave it to us to determine the market value difference, and we’ll look up the price on multiple markets to determine it.

Here are examples of substitutions with partial refunds that make sense:

• The substitute is at most one condition grade lower than the ordered item (e.g. an LP for a NM, or an MP for an LP)
• The substitute is a marginally lower-valued printing

Substitutions with partial refund usually don’t make sense when the condition or value of the cards are a lot different - for those, we’re inclined to refund or replace the item for the buyer.

Multiple

Occasionally, you might choose this option if multiple items in the order are unfulfillable, but the issue can be addressed differently per item. Choose this option if, for example, you want to substitute for one card, but have another card refunded/replaced.

After You Submit Your Report 

After you submit your report, Mana Pool will work to resolve the issue. We’ll either follow up with you if we have questions, or we’ll resolve the issue.

Once resolved, you and the buyer will both receive emails about the report and resolution, and the report+resolution will show on the order pages on manapool.com.