How to Suck as an Ebay Seller (An Ongoing List) 0

[Pixx_L]

Without boring people on the details of a bad ebay encounter yesterday, I thought I'd make a PSA game out of it. Feel free to add your own line items.

How to Suck as an Ebay Seller (An Ongoing List):

• You're unresponsive to a buyer's question.
• You're responsive but don't follow up with the actual information requested from you.
• You still haven't figured out how to add combined shipping on your item pages so customers get hit with multiple $5 or $10 dollar shipping charges on every item they have from you when they go to check out. (5+1, carry the 2 = Your buyer is now spending more on shipping for your books than your actual books.)
• Someone requests a Gemini Mailer or T-mailer for shipping - not only can you not provide this as an option - you try to sell the buyer on how your bubblegum and scotch tape method of shipping is superior. (Granted some sellers do go out of their way to do a better job than off the shelf solutions like Gemini or T-mailers, here the issue is regarding those that are clearly suggesting inferior options or more typically asking you to 'trust them').
• Someone requests a Gemini Mailer or T-mailer for shipping and you use it as an excuse to take a .50 cent item and milk it into a $4 or $5+ add on. ('You know - weight bro').
• Either of the above two shipping issues happens and you're a large volume "Professional" seller on ebay.
• Someone messages you about a few books to work out a group price on and instead of de-listing the items and submitting a private offer you encourage them to use the 'Submit Offer' button then proceed to deny previously discussed prices and haggle with them there.
• You use Stock photos instead of your own detailed photos that show the condition of the actual item you want to sell and list as NM/M. (You deceitful, shady monkey).
• Someone requests closeup photos of the corners and spine of your book and you refer them to your low quality scan of the front side of the book you want $20 or more + shipping for.
• Someone requests photos on the book you use stock images for and list as NM/M and you tell them. ("Pictures take too long - sorry bro").
• You use low quality pixelated photos with glare or blur to show the condition of your item with the caption "condition: Check photos."
• Your logo or branding covers or obscures the photo of your item's condition. ('What dented corner??').
• You use one overall image to show the condition of your book and instead of using a solid background for contrast you prefer multi-color 'magic eye' wall paper, rugs, or veiny granite countertops. Bonus: You have a white sketch cover of a book and put it in front of a white background thereby eliminating any notion of contrast.
• The concept of a top down photo showing an overall shot of your book doesn't appeal to you as much as the special effect of showing the book laid out at such an extreme angle that the top looks like it's vanishing into a one point perspective. ('It's like the opening Star Wars crawl bro - epic').
• Someone wish-listing your niche item and sending a question changes the item from a 'buy it now' to 'bid' option.

 

(Thankfully I didn't go through with the order yesterday but cough cough keep your distance).

 

 

Edited June 3, 2021 by Pixx_L
typo

[Qalyar]

1 hour ago, Pixx_L said:

 

• You use Stock photos instead of detailed photos that show the condition of the actual item you want to sell and list as NM/M. (You deceitful, shady monkey).

 

You use stock photos that grotesquely misrepresent your item, such as using a late-modern newsstand printing stock photo in place of dollar-box-bait direct market copies. Then, you get defensive when asked for clarification. (You borderline fraudulent monkey, you.)

[theCapraAegagrus]

• You list a 2.0 comic as an 8.0

[Namtak]

Well theres a lot of website if you want to know how to suck dont be descriminating ebay seller can too!

[CHASEnBLUE]

Great topic! I hope there is enough room on their server for this...

[CHASEnBLUE]

A sucky buyer one would definitely be entertaining...

[Cat]

You gloat about scamming an international buyer who you know (at that time) has no recourse to get their money back, as far as you knows. You call them and inexplicably, their whole country, for trusting you (Australians make the best targets), and eBay refuses to even do anything about the abuse. A few months later you accidentally send the product anyway, panic, and ask the buyer you scammed if he'd kindly send back the product he'd scammed you for. Customer says no, of course, but despite months of harassing emails from a man who is clearly deranged, still offers to pay (customer had been refunded because he worked at a bank and knew how to game the system! That's brazenly anti-scammer and shouldn't be allowed). You threaten lawyers in reply. Customer throws up hands at mention of lawyers and replies that okay, it's now out of my hands. I'll await further payment instructions from your lawyer.

During this whole time  your negatives are piling up, and customer imagines eBay took a look because now you're NARUed. Naturally you send out a mass email blaming customers, your enemies. 

[CHASEnBLUE]

I have an ebay store and do buy some things as well. I call sellers on dirty tactics/practices when warranted.

One big irk I have is when it comes to best offers. As a seller, it works good from my experience to not price your item so close to what you really want that the offer level range allowed to be accepted is only within 10-15% - makes no sense to me. For example, if a seller has a book listed for $100 and takes best offers, I'll submit $70 let's say as a starting point for what should be a negotiation and it will get denied. I'll try again at 75 and 80 and still get denied for the offer to get at least accepted for review by the seller. However, sometimes the denials will be even closer than that and I can reach $90 or $95 in this example before it will be submitted, or heck even accepted. When sellers do this it is annoying for buyers.

In this scenario, if I want at least $100 or more for a book, I'll price it around 125 and allow offers to be submitted around 25%. Seems to work out better with the negotiation aspect and sometimes I'll get above my desired final price this way. Others may have different experiences.