Deposits & Payment Terms That Protect Personal Shoppers

Personal shoppers take a 50% deposit before purchasing anything — 100% for auctions, pre-orders, and orders under about $150 — because the shopper fronts capital for goods that are often final-sale. The balance is due once the item is secured, before international shipping. The terms live in writing on every quote and invoice, not in chat memory.

Why deposits before purchase are standard

A deposit is standard because you are the one fronting capital: you spend your own money first, on items that frequently cannot be returned, for a client who could simply stop replying. Without a deposit, every order is an interest-free loan to a stranger, secured by nothing.

Consider what actually happens when a no-deposit order dies. You've bought a ¥45,000 jacket from a Japanese secondhand shop — final sale, like most secondhand and auction purchases. The client ghosts. You are now an involuntary reseller, listing the jacket at a loss and waiting weeks to recover most of your money. A 50% deposit converts "I want it" into a commitment that survives the client's mood, and it filters out window-shoppers before you spend a single yen.

The 50% figure is the norm across the industry because it splits risk roughly evenly: the client trusts you with half before seeing the item, and you carry the other half until proof photos are sent. It also fits how personal-shopping pricing works — your fee is a percentage of a known landed cost, so half of it is easy for everyone to calculate and verify.

For small orders, skip the arithmetic. Under about $150, collect 100% up front — two invoices and two payment-chasing conversations aren't worth it for a $12 margin.

How much deposit for each order type?

Deposit size follows risk: the harder the item is to return or resell, and the longer your money is locked up, the larger the deposit. Here is the sizing that experienced shoppers converge on.

Two notes on the edge cases. For auctions, the deposit is 100% of the approved maximum bid, agreed in writing before you bid; if you win lower, refund the difference against the final invoice. For hunts, some shoppers add a small non-refundable sourcing fee — $10-25 — on top of the refundable deposit when the search itself takes hours; if you do, say so before you start, and fold it into your service-fee structure rather than surprising anyone at invoice time.

When is the balance due?

The balance is due after the item is secured and photographed, and before it ships internationally — that ordering is the entire discipline. The balance covers the remaining landed cost: the rest of the item price, actual shipping (quoted precisely once the parcel is weighed), your remaining fee, and any adjustments from the estimate in your landed-cost quote.

Never ship on a promise. Once a box is with EMS or a courier, you have zero leverage — the client has the tracking number and you have an unpaid invoice. Holding shipment until the balance clears costs the client nothing but a day or two, and every professional proxy service on earth works the same way, so no reasonable client will push back.

Send the balance invoice the same day the item arrives, together with the proof photos. The photos are what make paying feel safe, and the invoice landing in the same message keeps momentum — a balance requested while the client is excited gets paid in hours; one requested a week later gets "sorry, payday is Friday."

One boundary worth stating explicitly in your terms: import duties and taxes at the destination are the client's responsibility, charged by their government, not by you. Buyers in the UK, for instance, can check what they'll owe on gov.uk's guidance for goods sent from abroad. Estimate duties honestly in the quote, but make clear the carrier or customs authority bills them.

What refund policy is fair to both sides?

A fair refund policy follows one principle: whoever caused the dead end absorbs the cost of it. That gives you five standard patterns, and clients accept all of them when they're written down in advance.

• Item not found or sold out: full refund of the deposit, promptly and without being asked. Any pre-agreed sourcing fee is the only exception, and only if you disclosed it up front.
• Client cancels before you purchase: full refund. You've lost a little time, not money.
• Client cancels after you purchase: the deposit is forfeited, or — the friendlier version — held while you resell the item, with the client refunded whatever you recover minus fees and any resale loss. Either way, your spent capital is not your problem alone.
• Auction won below the approved maximum: refund the difference. Pocketing it quietly is how shoppers lose repeat clients.
• Wrong item or damage caused by your error: full refund or replacement at your cost. Eating your own mistakes is what separates a business from a hustle.

Repeat clients can earn softer terms — some shoppers drop to 30% deposits, or invoice trusted regulars in a single payment, after five or six clean orders. Make any relaxation explicit and personal ("for you, since we've done this a dozen times") so a privilege granted to one client never hardens into an expectation for all.

Issue refunds back through the original payment method, always. Refunding a PayPal payment to "a different account, it's easier" is a classic overpayment-scam pattern, and staying inside the original rail keeps PayPal's dispute records consistent if anyone ever contests the transaction.

Put the terms in writing on every quote and invoice

Terms only protect you if they're attached to the transaction — a policy that lives in your head, or three months back in a DM thread, does not exist when a dispute starts. Every quote and every invoice should carry a short terms block. Three sentences is enough:

50% deposit due before purchase; balance due before shipping. Deposit fully refunded if the item cannot be sourced. Cancellations after purchase: deposit is forfeited or refunded from resale, minus costs. Import duties are the buyer's responsibility.

That paragraph, repeated on every document, does three jobs: it sets expectations before money moves, it's your evidence if a payment platform dispute ever happens, and it makes you look like a business — which is exactly the standard practice guidance the SBA's business guide pushes for any service business putting agreements in writing. If you're formalizing further, the licensing and legal-basics guide covers when terms should graduate into a real service agreement.

Repetition is the failure point when you're assembling documents by hand. This is one of the places Shopperquest quietly earns its keep: your payment terms ride on every quote and invoice it generates, in English or Japanese, so the version the client approved is always the version on the paperwork — see the invoicing guide for what the rest of the document should contain.

Scripts for the awkward conversations

The deposit conversation only feels awkward until you have language for it. These scripts are polite, firm, and reusable verbatim.

"Can I pay after it arrives?"

"I don't offer payment on arrival — once a package is shipped I have no way to protect either of us if something goes wrong. What I do instead: 50% deposit now, I send you photos of the item in hand, and the balance is due before it ships. You never pay the second half without seeing exactly what you're getting."

"Can you just buy it now? I'll send the money Friday."

"I can't front purchases, even on tight timing — it's the one rule that keeps this business running. If you can send the deposit today I'll buy the moment it lands. If Friday's the earliest, I'll check availability again then."

"A deposit? How do I know you won't disappear?"

"Completely fair question. That's why I take deposits through a payment method with buyer protection, so you have recourse if I don't deliver — and why you get proof photos before the balance. Here's my storefront and past order reviews so you can see the track record."

"I need to cancel." (after you've purchased)

"I understand — here's where we stand. The item's already bought and it's final-sale, which is what the deposit covers per the terms on your invoice. I'll list it for resale and refund whatever it recovers, minus fees. If it sells near cost you'll get most of the deposit back."

Notice the pattern: every script pairs the "no" with a reason and an alternative. Clients don't resent boundaries; they resent surprises. Deposits set in advance, terms on every document, and balances collected before shipping — paired with the right payment rails — remove nearly every way a personal shopper loses money to a client.