Who Are The Buyers Giving Defects? My Experience Only.

[the-fab-gift-shop]

This is only from my own personal experience as a seller and may not be the general rule. Our bad buyers are only around 5%, so it would not matter to us in the greater scheme of things, but it certainly does matter to Ebay, so that is why we now have to BLOCK every BUYER who DEFECTS us,even if they do leave POSITIVE feedback. Why keep buying ... and keep defecting us?

Sad to say, ... these are our problem buyers: 

1. People receiving carer's pensions for looking after someone else who is disabled.

2. Disabled or very ill [not the aged] people who are on pensions.

3. Those on pensions for 'mental illness.' [Ebay staff are known to have particular empathy with these buyers. :)]

4. Unemployed.

5. Buyers 1-4 who take revenge using multiple accounts, usually because we refused to allow them to scam us.

6. Sellers who feel that we may be competing with them and feel annoyed. Usually spend 1.25.

In regards to 1-5, they've got time on their hands. They may or may not end up leaving Neg. or even defecting us, but even if they do not do that, they can still be a nuisance. They will usually spend an average of 1.25 and then whine for days about when the item will be arriving, sending "I Haven't Recieved My Item' emails after a couple of days. They will nearly always try to get a refund outside of the Paypal or Ebay system, so their multiple scams, are not left on record, except through their emails to the seller.

And Ebay supports this activity, because sellers are now defected when cases are opened at Paypal by buyers. Am I correct?

Not much we can do about who shops with us, and we would not want to discriminate against the above buyers either because there are good buyers who are in the 1-4 category. But our BLOCKED list grows longer by the day. My experiemce also shows that DEFECTS don't mean anything to other buyers, since our sales are still doing fine. BUT once Ebay hides our inventory again, the DEFECTS will mean something, because our sales will drop. Sometimes we do make mistakes [which we try to rectify], but mostly DEFECTS have nothing to do with who we are as a seller, and everything to do with our REFUSING liars and scammers.

We also now immediately BLOCK BUYERS who send rude, aggressive or idiotic emails when asking a question about an item.

The GOOD NEWS is that 95% of our BUYERS are AWESOME, but Ebay's SYSTEM, means that the 5% can IMPACT our selling.

[lalala-au]

Ha ha it is like that at the moment isn't it! I have been reading a lot about ESTY lately, I wonder is that where people are going these days?

[mydiyau]

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@lalala-au wrote:

Yes we all have patterns in our sales. But there is a difference in taking precautions because of these actions like you do as you are letting the patteren dicate to you what is best for your business which is what a business person does. You aren't jumping up and down on a forum where your buyers can read a rant and rave that is cruel and inhumane about your buyers and disabled, mentally ill or physically ill people. Also your not hiding behind a belief that portrays the qualitlies of caring and generosity are most important.

This rant and rave is not in the best interest of the business, many people like to deal with people who they feel are good people that they can trust, a rant like this doesn't inspire much faith for a future buyer in the seller. People can understand sellers taking extra steps to protect their business as long as it is not infringing on the buyer's rights, which obviously adding tracking also benefits the buyer and blocking people for not paying is a business decision, and is judging buyers on their business actions, not on their social status. I too have had buyers who like to tell me things in messages about themselves, although I would never disclose what they said in a private message on a public forum. It is just like in a shop some customers like to enage in conversation others don't it is all apart of customer service.

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Agree with your points, but they have driven me into total despair and complete loss of faith... Time and time again I get into messages exchanges with these people, some are longer than 50 messages and abou 20 of these messages are about "how honest they are", the only good thing is they are professional scammers, ie, they dont leave negative feedbacks, they just want your money.

[digital*ghost]

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@lalala-au wrote:

Ha ha it is like that at the moment isn't it! I have been reading a lot about ESTY lately, I wonder is that where people are going these days?

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I opened a store there in March, but it's difficult to compare the two venues because I have a different business model (geared more towards international sales, which I don't offer on eBay) and list around 20% of the stock that I do here (handmade stuff only, haven't expanded with the craft supplies at all, which accounts for about 60% of my sales on ebay at the moment and is the top selling category on the other site AFAIK).

For what it's worth, though, with the lower stock numbers and - on average - higher prices, it has been very much worthwhile, even though I only sell a couple of things a week. The fees are attractive for most things (not as cost effective for low-priced craft supplies due to to the fee structure), and you don't have to accept PayPal (they have a facility to collect credit card payment directly, they collect them on the seller's behalf, then pay out once per fortnight, with the option to arrange an earlier deposit). 

You can't block buyers, but you can refuse service without penalty (i.e. refund and cancel sales without input / agreement from the buyer). 

[lalala-au]

Thank you for sharing!!! After seeing so much about ETSY recently and with the upcoming changes to Ebay and myself heading into another direction inrelation to product, it maybe be the way I move if things don't go well here with the changes here. Your insights and knowledge are valuable.

[ridyruki]

im really scared now does paypal freeze payments for 180 days as well????          I think il block all buyers unless they provide a medical certificate & a note from their mother& a letter from centrlink & a stat Dec & a promise to love every thing i sell them unconditionally for ever

[ajarnjenny]

Good Lord!

[ajarnjenny]

Hypocrite? Pots and kettles.

[ourphonecase]

This does seem to favor high volume sellers alot. I can potentially be a high volume seller, I can cop quite a few cases where I will instantly lose regardless (simply because I do not provide tracking for items since it cost so low).

It does look like eBay is in the culling business to get rid of the small people. I also used to develop apps for Apple and Google and they changed faster than eBay. It was used to be about the small indie app makers, now the big boys are easily getting favorites and Apple have tweaked their search engine on the App store to favor them hardcore.

That being said, eBay, Apple and Google are both good platforms to make good money still if you know how to do it even with all the toughness that comes this way.

Also, I only started selling this year and I've sold over 20,000 units, so its not impossible at all. Although when at the beginning I admit eBay was such a cluster of mess that I had no idea what to do. I didn't know about the DSR, DEFECTS, hidden rating blah blah blah blah it was just everywhere and hardly simple for a new commer. It seems eBay keeps adding new rules every year and I can't imagine how new sellers are able to cope it with extra rules in 5 years.