u/MinaSandell

I have a small shop where I make handmade items and I keep running into the same frustrating situation. A buyer reaches out asking for a custom order, we go back and forth in messages figuring out all the details, I spend time putting together a custom listing just for them, and then they ghost me. No response, no payment, nothing.

It feels like a huge waste of time, and honestly it is starting to make me hesitant to even offer custom work anymore. That is a shame because it is one of my favorite parts of running the shop.

I do not have a deposit system set up right now and I am wondering if that is the mistake. Do most sellers here require a deposit upfront before doing any custom work? How do you structure that without making buyers feel like you do not trust them?

Also curious if anyone has figured out good messaging to set expectations early in the conversation so people understand this is real work going into their request before any money changes hands.

Would love to hear how other sellers handle this. I feel like I am definitely not the only one dealing with it and I do not want to quit offering customs altogether. Any advice or systems that have worked for you would be really appreciated.

So I've spent the last few months slowly building out automations in Home Assistant. Nothing crazy, just lights that gradually brighten in the morning, coffee maker that kicks on automatically, and door locks that arm themselves at night. To me this is incredible. To my wife, the lights coming on by themselves at 6am is apparently a personal attack.

I've read a lot about WAF (wife acceptance factor) on here and I get the concept, but I'm struggling to find automations she would actually appreciate rather than tolerate. The coffee one got a positive reaction, which gives me hope.

The biggest friction point is that she doesn't want to feel like she has to learn a new system just to turn off a lamp. Which honestly is fair. I broke the cardinal rule and made the smart switch nonobvious to use manually, and I paid for it.

For those of you who have successfully brought a skeptical partner around, what was the automation that actually clicked for them? Was it convenience, energy savings, or something fun? How do you handle the balance between adding complexity on the backend while keeping things dead simple on the front end for everyone else in the house?

Would love to hear what actually worked versus what sounded great in theory.