Too much power to the buyer

[fetzerveeble]

No doubt there'd be many posts like this.  Sorry.

So recently I've put up a few items as I begin to clear out a house.  I've been frustrated with selling on eBay before and thought I'll test the water first to see what's changed, for better or worse.

Seems to be just the same; disappointing.  The buyer still has too much immunity.

I sold a set of bedside draws.  Sent a message immediately after the auction end with contact info for local pickup.  Advised of times when I would be at the house for collection and they could select a time to suit them.  Heard nothing back.  I set cash as an option for payment so I didn't send an invoice straight away.  I have found in the past that messages added to the invoice go unnoticed because the invoice is so poorly formatted.  Anyway, I waited 3 days for a reply.  I then sent the invoice and another separate message informing them that in 24 hours I would open a non paying bidder case unless I heard from them.  Nothing.

So the case has since been closed and all is well.  During that whole experience, I kept wondering if they were planning on leaving some negative feedback.  If they had, well from what I've read it's not easy to have that removed, and eBay prefers the buyer to leave a follow up feedback instead.  Can they still leave feedback?  I still have the option, except it can only be positive, and that would be a lie.

So it gets me thinking.  The buyer had 5 items for sale.  Should I outbid on all of them and not pay.  Leave 5 negative feedbacks which would push their score way down.  It might even spell the end for my account but who cares, it'll impact on them and that's the objective.

I've also got an item that was purchased from someone not local and ignored the condition where I said I needed to be provided with a day AND time for collection (they wanted it couriered) so I've requested to cancel the purchase but I have to wait for them to approve.  I'm sorry, it's my item in my possession, I don't need their approval to cancel an auction when they didn't meet the condition of purchase.  But eBay puts the control in their reach.

That item (portable air con) is about to be tossed into a skip I've had delivered to my back yard where I'll be throwing quite a lot of good items into.  Stuff that wouldn't get me more then a few hundred dollars but my need for selling was not to make money, but to pass on useful items cheaply.  I'm not going to waste my time with eBay if they think the buyer experience is more imporant then the seller experience.  One is just as important as the other.

And now, they want to penalize the seller with more fees if performance drops.  Performance that can be manipulated by buyers.

So well done eBay.  You just lost that tiny amount of final value fees from me that you could have gotten easily if you just let me leave negative feedback on a buyer.  After all, a seller will still likely want to sell an item to someone with a small number of negative feedbacks.  Instead, buyers like the first one I mentioned now have a non payer marked against them, and so what .. no one will know about it because they're protected.

Rant over.

[lm-entertainment · Accepted solution]

you're so annoyed that you can't leave the buyer negative feedback? it's been like that for so, so long though. the negative feedback system from sellers -> buyers was removed because people were abusing it.

a non-paying bidder strike is a lot more effective - because you can then set it up so people with x amount of non-paying bids in x amount of months can't bid on or buy your items. sure, it's an inconvenience, but all that's happened is you've wasted some days - you still have the item, it can be relisted. you haven't lost out on any money. 

the simple fact is - no seller reads a buyers feedback before the buyer buys from them anyway. a better indication of what a buyer's personality is like is probably to look at their "feedback left for others" and see what they say about other sellers - if you want to gauge how difficult they're going to be to deal with. 

as frustrating as it is that ebay may be a marketplace aimed at the buyer more than the seller - giving up and leaving is just going to make it more buyer-dominated. 

[fetzerveeble]

Yes I knew of the lack of negative feedback.

"Haven't lost out any money" - true, just time.

I did read their feedback left for others - 11 out of 35 were negative.

Buyer-dominated - that's my whole argument. It already is.

[kopenhagen5 · Accepted solution]

Selling on eBay these days requires research and some dodging n weaving.

Selective with the types of items, selective with which buyers and always covered delivery methods.

I don't sell items conducive to tyre kickers, compulsive buyers or scammers.

The only occasional problems I have are missing mail articles.

In a nutshell, if you know how to work the eBay system, selling here is not all that bad.

But granted, it's far too skewed in favour of buyers.

[chameleon54 · Accepted solution]

Thats why I never offer local pick-ups. There are simply too many people who mess you around. The teenage daughter has been selling a few surplus clothes & electronic items on FB lately, all with local pick-up. At a rough guess I would say half of the people muck her around, not turning up at allocated time or turning up at anytime of the day, wether it suits us or not.

As for ebay. I sell part time as part of our income mix. Our sales have been going very well lately to the point where I should be spending more time on the platform and could go back to full time ebay selling..... BUT.....The focus on buyer protection at the expense of sellers and constant changes to policy and procedures makes the site far to risky to rely on. If it was more stable, I would certianly put more time in, selling more stuff, but I,m simply not game to make the investment at the moment.

[fetzerveeble]

Yeah I'm done with local pickups (though I have to sell a bed yet).

Had an earlier sale where I was asking for a collection date and time (I don't live at the actual house I'm clearing out) and they kept ignoring me, then insisted I give them a phone number. They called like 20 minutes before arriving and expected me to be there even though I had explained I didn't live at the house. Pompous stuck up types .. refused to leave feedback after asking me to mark the sale as payment received so they would stop getting the email reminders.

[springyzone · Accepted solution]

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@fetzerveeblewrote:
Yeah I'm done with local pickups (though I have to sell a bed yet).

Had an earlier sale where I was asking for a collection date and time (I don't live at the actual house I'm clearing out) and they kept ignoring me, then insisted I give them a phone number. They called like 20 minutes before arriving and expected me to be there even though I had explained I didn't live at the house. Pompous stuck up types .. refused to leave feedback after asking me to mark the sale as payment received so they would stop getting the email reminders.

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I feel your pain, been there, done that. Some buyers seem to think your time is nothing and don't take into account that you are not at the property. It can be a problem even when you do live there though. My sister got a call like this from someone who said he was in the area & would collect in 10 minutes. She was out. He never called again.

But here are my views, hope the last is of help.

1. Don't be tempted to bid/not pay/leave bad feedback. You could do it and it would stay there for a few days. But they could get it all removed if they carry through with non paying bidder strike. Once that was finalised, they could get your feedback taken off.

2. When you sell an item as pick up, especially if it is a bigger item, not everyone has a trailer or ute or even the strength to carry big things so quite a few people might like to use a courier. This can work out the same as pick up if that courier can be organised to pick up at one of your scheduled times. I once sold a mattress to someone that way & it worked out okay. But you would have to be very clear with the buyer that the time frame was narrow, you were not prepared for vague instructions such as "Wednesday morning', they would need to hire someone who could give an estimate within the hour. But don't rule out a sale just because there is talk of a courier.

3. Here's your best bet to sell some of your goods instead of dumping them. On gumtree and a few other online sites, you can list a garage sale ad for free. Take a number of photos, make a checklist of the types of items you have and-here's the important bit-have a few items/photos listed as free, perhaps make it those things you were going to dump. On the day of the sale, have those in a separate section. 

People who go to garage sales don't like to pay much so it's not the place to have your antiques or very expensive items, but you'll probably get at least 40 or 50 people through, looking. It's worth a try and means you only have to dedicate a few hours, not an hour here & there on separate days. We found this worked quite well when we were clearing a property, we just set up in the garage and were able to walk out, close the garage door at the end. Had to pack up eventually of course but at our leisure, in our time.

[go-tazz · Accepted solution]

Try an opportunity shop,(maybe they'll come out and pick up the items and you wont have to throw them out).

[clubesquire · Accepted solution]

It's far too easy to get swept up in all the bad of eBay.

The pendulum swings and I well remember the day that eBay was over populated with 'nasty' sellers, not that they don't exist today either, but I think it's harder for them to 'score.' So, the pendulum has shifted.

I was once warned, 'Don't ever get involved in a dispute with the ATO or any level of Govco.' EBay should have been included, but it didn't exist back then.

All you can do is keep yourself 'clean' and as others have already said, find the workarounds and go quietly. You can sell successfully here, especially if you listen to some of the advice on these boards.

I'm truly sorry you've had issues, but we do all know the nature of the beast. The trick is to not enter its cage I think.

i wish you well OP.

Melina.

[fetzerveeble]

Your advice is good.

Here's the air con listing. I explained things fairly well. That might even put a buyer off but I had another item some months ago where the buyer expected me to courier it at my expense and would pay me back. Yeah right .....

Literally everything bulky I've tried to sell in the last couple of months has attracted idiot buyers.

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/132515148264?ssPageName=STRK:MESOX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1559.l2649