on 18-05-202009:01 PM - last edited on 25-05-202001:45 PM by gewens
Netgear Wifi Range Extender
The seller cancelled my order without my permission and I can't seem to find way to leave feedback. I did NOT request to cancel the purchase. I won the auction for $33, and the options were an additional $15.35 for shipping, or free local pickup. I messaged him for local pickup as I was only a short drive away. He refused saying it was not available - that I would have to pay for shipping. I pointed out he was mistaken and offered the local pickup option in the listing. I was flexible and told him I was prepared to wait until a day it was convenient for him. But I said I would not have bid on the item in the first place with that additional postage cost.
I accepted it was possible he did not intend to offer local pickup. But I pointed out that he would still get $33 in the end whether I paid for postage or not, as postage is only supposed to reimburse the seller for shipping costs, not for a profit. The seller was rude and made a smart alec comment saying words to the effect of "if you still want this item, go to JB HI FI (a lot more expensive there)". For some reason I cannot find the option to leave feedback. I am disappointed we could not come to an agreement and he just canned it all, seemingly with no consequence.
Please help I'm fairly new to ebay, so not sure how to proceed. I really just want to leave a reasonable, factually based feedback comment. Something like, "rude seller, and cancelled my order without permission"
A few people have said that the sellers are generally very good - I'm going to go with that and probably just use ebay for buying only. My biggest frustration is really at ebay when I think about it. Last night wasn't that bad when on reflection, at least I was back to the drawing board right away. But when I list an item, ends up going for a decent price, but buyer never pays. Have to wait 8 days before I can relist, by then, the underbidders are long gone, and I'm back to square one. And technology prices can drop quickly sometimes, so they are not worth as much the next time around. I'm going to try Gumtree instead. I guess I could offer cheaper prices there too since no fees.
List on eBay with 'Buy-it-now', require immediate payment, and say goodbye to non-paying bidders forever! Take a couple of decent, well-lit pics, give a few more details beyond "Condition is used", and you're already ahead of 90% of people selling of their 2nd hand gear. Lots of buyers don't want to wait for 7 days for an auction to end, too. I understand that auctions have their place for some items and circumstances, but BIN is the way to go, IMO.
And there's nothing to stop you listing on both Gumtree and eBay, and GT currently have a promo where you convert your GT ad into an eBay one, and if it sells on eBay, you don't pay a FVF. Only valid for two eBay sales a month, but worth doing with higher value items. And Gumtree has its own pitfalls, too. You'll quickly encounter those!
It really depends on the kind of experience you're looking for.
Auctions for various items from various sellers at various selling experience and with various intentions = various results. Unfortunately you can't always pick a winner, get an awesome bargain and a 100% trouble free transaction. One of the reasons why auctions used to work really well here is because as soon as someone places a bid on something, there's a sense of ownership that can arise, like bidding is a form of staking a claim. If instead you try not to feel that way until the transaction is at the paying / postage stage (can be easier said than done), disappointments are likely to be very infrequent.
It works both ways too, so if you sell at auction, you can attract a casual bidder who isn't wholly committed to the item as well as a serious bidder, and these days (by and large) most people who just want to buy, pay, receive etc, will do just that and not hang around for auctions to end. Selling via Buy It Now (with the option of requiring immediate payment) will tend to yield better results for sellers unless they are selling highly desirable / contested items.
I liked watching the price of auctions rise, and ebay always recommended an auction when I was creating the listings.
I honestly don't care now if BIN means just setting a slightly below market price, in the end I just want to get the cash.
My understanding from my research is that the listing stays active until funds in paypal appear, if that's true then great, it might have just changed my mind on giving up. Still not 100% sure though I need to have a think about it first.
It's worth being aware that eBay recommendations are not necessarily (or even mostly) for your benefit, or correct, or useful. For instance, eBay are still (to the best of my knowledge) encouraging sellers to list auction items at low starting prices, and it isn't as clearly explained as I think it could be (in my opinion) that if the seller receives only one bid, at that starting price, the seller is expected to complete the transaction at that price.
It's not that eBay haven't included the information. (It's explained clearly in some of the Help pages.) It's more that this is information that is clearly easy for new-ish sellers to overlook at the time of listing, particularly when the seller is presented with the option of including a Buy Now price. That BIN price on auctions has confused more than one seller who somehow assumes that it functions as a reserve price.
That's why I and many others on these boards have stressed the need for sellers using the auction format to make sure that the starting price is a price which they'd be happy to accept.
eBay also actively interfere with some listings. It is not unknown for sellers to come to the boards fuelled with outrage that a Make an Offer option has suddenly appeared on their listing - and in the first days of that happening, those Offer options also came with an automatic acceptance. I'm not sure whether or not this is still happening, but at least the auto-acceptance appears to have gone (since there haven't been any posts about this for a while).
I wouldn't automatically discount the possibility that your seller did have a pick-up option enabled on their listing without their being aware of it. eBay does have the electronic equivalent of gremlins occasionally... or it could be that, as has been suggested in this thread, the seller didn't notice the pick-up option being enabled when they created their listing (using template, editing a previous listing to generate new listing, etc.).
With regard to your selling on eBay... I'd agree with the previous suggestion that it's a good idea to get used to eBay a little more as a buyer, and perhaps take part in both the buying and selling boards here to see what issues can crop up. Once you're aware of what problems can arise, you can list and sell with an eye to avoiding problems.
Also... (quick edit), just be aware that, as a new seller, upon selling an item your funds will be withheld for 21 days or until you can prove delivery to the buyer. You may want to list a few items that are pick-up only, relatively low value, where you encourage (but can't dictate) cash on pickup. Having enough of these to build up your seller experience could be a good strategy if you are unable to factor in the temporary withholding of funds on selling. Once you are no longer deemed a risk / inexperienced seller, the funds become available much more quickly.
How do I tell if the immediate payment option is enabled? I have turned off best offer and auctions, but could a buyer still click commit to buy without paying?
In the postage and payment section when you create the listing, is a box that you tick for immediate payment required. Once the listing is created, if you look under the postage tab in your listing, under the payment options, it will state "immediate payment of $xx.xx required" Or something to that effect.
Edit: It appears your phone doesn't have immediate payment set up. Also, remove the reference to non payers. It looks tacky.
When you do sell the phone, make sure you send with insurance.
