Why I prefer not to allow pickups.

[jvdv]

 This is a gripe!

Some people really don't get it - sometimes when I sell an item I'll get a message from the buyer telling me that as they live nearby can they pickup the item and generally I agree and arrange a convenient time. Often they will either turn up late or I get another message saying they can't make it and asking if they can arrange another time.

So last week I did a sale for which there were several bidders but after 3 days I still hadn't been paid. So I send a reminder and get a message the following day asking if he can pickup the item on Saturday. Well Saturday isn't all that convenient but as I wanted to get paid I suggested a time late in the afternoon when I could arrange to be home. We agreed on a time and I came home to be here when he arrived and guess what - no show - and no message - no nothing. And this is someone with several hundred possitive feedbacks.

I would like to now offer the item to the second highest bidder but of course can't do so until I see if the winning bidder will eventually pay or if I will have to cancel the order. Pity you can't just do a "second chance offer" after 3 or 4 days regardless - and then leave a negative feedback for the person who messed you around.

[collect247]

Facebook sales are all pick up or deliver and the sales through facebook are enormous and there is no other way.

You need to trust people lol and stop being scared of your own shadow lol boo.

Homes are going to be robbed no matter what and selling on ebay isn't a reason,sure it's bad luck but it doesn't

happen often especially when you have 2 of your kids that have large sharp teeth greeting people at the front gate lol.

[englishrosegardens]

I don't know where you get the idea that facebook sales are all pick-up or delivery.  I'm in a group that posts an awful lot of stuff.  Facebook even has policies on the sort of postage you can use.

When I used to type police interview tapes it was reasonably common for thieves to ring about vehicles and find out when people wouldn't be home, then go and rob them.  It became so bad that the police advised being very careful when advertising things for sale, especially having cars parked outside your house with a for sale sign on them and the phone number.  Far better to meet in a neutral place and never give out your home address.

I've had a couple of people come here - one wanted something urgently so she drove about 300 kms round trip.  She stayed about half an hour, which was bad enough, but someone else came and ended up being almost two hours.  I've done drop-offs and picked up things myself but I'm always there for 5 minutes max.  I no longer allow pick-ups, and I never allow anyone to come and check things before they buy (or see what else I sell) because I don't want anyone to know just how much stock I've got here, or to waste my time wanting to look at everything and not buy anything.

[collect247]

Not all people are criminals and the way some of you are carrying on about it makes me laugh.

If I sell an item that needs to be picked up then come and pick it up and if you decide to later come a rob me then you 

will be in for a surprise when you don't make it through the front gate and you might even have your head rammed into the letter box lol.

What the hell,can't even sell your car from your home come on,next you're going to say that you need to meet at a neutral place

to sell your house haha.

[digital*ghost]

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@didawaywith wrote:

Not all people are criminals and the way some of you are carrying on about it makes me laugh.

If I sell an item that needs to be picked up then come and pick it up and if you decide to later come a rob me then you 

will be in for a surprise when you don't make it through the front gate and you might even have your head rammed into the letter box lol.

What the hell,can't even sell your car from your home come on,next you're going to say that you need to meet at a neutral place

to sell your house haha.

---

Yar, but something not being probable isn't always enough to sway someone from what's possible, and possibility still means there's risk.

Or, in other words, unless people are taking extreme measures to guard against known possibilities (and by extreme, I mean showing up to a pick-up destination with full body armour, masks, trained guard dogs and a SWAT team on standby  ), taking precautions against possibilities is fairly well recommended. (A further example, sending all items by trackable post - it doesn't mean a seller thinks every customer is going to steal from them, it just means they know some people try and there's some things they can do to guard against it, while other people feel that the risk of selling on ebay is too high to even list something in the first place). 

I don't do pick up for a variety of reasons (not really a safety concern, it's just not viable), but I've had some choice responses after telling people (very politely mind you), it can't be done. Some people seem to think that if they want something (that isn't even offered), a seller is obliged to find a way to provide it. 

[englishrosegardens]

Well, there is a good reason that estate agents won't let anyone come into your house without having their details!  I would say at the very least they'd get a car number plate, but some insist on a name and address as well.

I notice you mock us while you yourself have a couple of large dogs to protect you (or so it appears), so would you be as trusting without them?

Perhaps you think I should invite my neighbour over for a cup of tea and show him around my house - he's only been caught with a sawn-off shotgun and a large quantity of ICE, so he should be quite trustworthy.  The local milk bar owner got caught in a sexual act that caused him such embarrassment he hasn't shown his face in town since it happened, and he sold up without so much as setting foot inside the shop again.  He's been here 7 years and nobody ever had any suspicions.  I don't know whether what he did was illegal but I suspect it was close to it (no, I won't give details).  

I live in a very quiet small country town but YOU JUST DON'T KNOW WHO PEOPLE ARE!!!

[*tippy*toes*]

My main reason for not allowing pick up is I don't want people seeing my house. It sometimes looks like something out of hoarders, especially if I've recently aquired new stock and it's strewn all across the floor. Another reason is, I don't want to be waiting around, not knowing if someone is actually going to turn up or not. If they do turn up I don't want to spend hours at the front door talking to them.

I don't know who people are that buy my stuff, therefore I don't want them coming to my house. I am a private person. Most people who buy my stuff are genuine, rather than someone coming to buy a phone or car who can be dodgy, but either way, I don't want them here. At least meeting in a public place there are other people around (although one time it did look a bit suspect when I handed over an antique locket in a little zip lock baggie, which they then handed over money for. It looked like a drug deal!)

I used to belong to the local Freecycle group and I'd listed a heap of coat hangers that I no longer needed. Someone replied and wanted them, so I got his address and said I'd deliver. I looked on the map where his house was and started to choke. Smack bang in the bad area of town.

I knocked on his door and waited. A few minutes later he answered, all glassy eyed, with his elbow bent up and a mark around his arm where he'd put a tourniquet. He was pleasant enough, but was totally off his face on I don't know what. He thanked me profusely for the coat hangers and said his daughter had moved out of home while he was in jail recently and took all the coat hangers with her. I couldn't get out of there quick enough!

It's people like that I don't want coming to my door.

[springyzone]

I'd be turned off too if anyone came to pick up an item and hung around for 2 hours.

When my sister & I used to sell, she stored the goods but after a while said she was thinking we should stop pick up as she was having to commit to times/evenings and didn't really always know in advance if it was convenient. So had we gone on selling, that option may have been removed from our listings.

But I do think some of this could depend on what the item is that is being sold. I would not want to buy a car, for example, without seeing it.

And once I saw a wedding dress advertised on ebay. The asking price was about $2000-$3000 (said it had cost her about $4500). To me, $2000-$3000 is still fair bit of money, but the woman said in her listing people could view it prior but under no circumstances try it on.

I understand where she was coming from as it had been dry cleaned but I would have thought if someone was interested in spending that amount of money, they would at least want to try it on to see what the style looked like on them. The obvious answer is for the buyer to go to a proper shop, where there is a lot in that price range, but if a seller really expects top dollar on some items, they may have to think about exactly how & where they plan to sell them.

[englishrosegardens]

Who in their right mind would pay that amount of money for a dress without trying it on to see whether it fitted? I know I wouldn't! It's like having a lucky dip for $3K instead of $1 or $2. If it was too big you MAY be able to alter it, but if it was too small you couldn't.

Practicality has to come into it. My products generally don't need viewing beforehand but some do, and some items are too big to take with you to meet the buyer in a neutral place. I've got some really nice furniture that I bought on ebay when I first moved here and I bought it sight unseen, but I had to go into people's houses to collect it. I had to do three five-hour round trips to the other side of Melbourne to pick it all up but it was so cheap it was well worth the effort.

[springyzone]

Yes, I've done a few trips to pick up items where it has been well worth it.

I think the key is for a seller to pick the right selling platform. For example, in the case of that bigger ticket wedding dress I mentioned, the woman could have handed it over on consignment to one of those second hand bridal stores, where they get a commission on the sale. Ebay is great for a lot of things but maybe not for that.

We had to sell up a lot of furniture a while back when clearing my parents' house. Pick up became an unavoidable chore because no one was living there so it meant one of us had to go over especially to wait. We sold on both ebay & gumtree.

I was constantly amazed at (what i see as ) the stupidity or rudeness of people.

People who made appointments to view or pick up & were no shows, yet didn't even have the decency to text to cancel.

People who 'won' on ebay but then no contact at all afterwards, let alone any payment.

And people who turned up on time (broad daylight) but didn't walk to the front door to knock, but sent messages via gumtree website (not even to a phone) and sat down the street waiting in their van. Messages it was impossible for me to see as I had no way to be online in an empty house.