buyers clearly think they rule ebay now

sunnysea83

I have several things finish tonight, 1 paid with a note attached, item states 2nd class standard post, buyers note states 'hi, please post sat 1st class thanks' - so now buyers are telling me 1) how to post and 2) when to post!

Another ive just had a message saying 'hi, sorry paypal defaults to my mums address you must not send there, please send to x;

So the first one got a reply stating as per listing item will be sent 2nd class, i can refund and you can pay for 1st and item will likely be sent later this week as im away this weekend or on monday next week.

Second one got a reply stating 'if you want it sent to another address, let me know i will refund payment and you can resend it with correct address'. Its for quite a lot of money so im not sending it to an unconfirmed address thats not on the paypal.

Ive had four awarked buyers in a week now and im getting pretty annoyed now! 2 demending its sent to a different address to paypal, 1 demending the item gets to them pretty much immediately and then another stating i must send on a certain day a certain way!

Sorry thats my little rant of frustration over )

MUMMYTO2BOYS

If you're not making profit through P&P why not offer 1st or 2nd class postage?

soolin

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sunnysea83

MUMMYTO2BOYS wrote: »

If you're not making profit through P&P why not offer 1st or 2nd class postage?

I used to do to that and all the buyers just choose 2nd class, probably cause its cheaper. so i dont bother now, if they ask before paying i wil invoice them for 1st class cost.

itsnotfair_2

Buyers do have the upper hand now but if you make a living on ebay you just smile sweetly and take it.

With buyers who you don't trust with addresses just say you must follow ebay and paypal policy of only sending to confirmed address.

And if it is for a lot of money for goodness sake get a signature on delivery or you are sunk if it is lost and if it's really expensive go for special delivery before listing so the buyer knows what it will cost them.

RFW

cyril82 wrote: »

it's nice how ebay protect those of us who actually pay them to use their site isn't it....:rolleyes:

You really believe that its sellers who should be 'in command'? Without buyers there is no Ebay, an old friend of mine who was an exceptionally successful retailer used to say that "the easiest thing in the world is to buy something, the hardest is to sell it". Ebay provide sellers an easy way to sell, sure some of them will be pains, they are in any sales area any where. I've run auction houses where people expect to return stuff, I've handled catalogue returns where some items are returned for the most ridiculous reasons, there's always annoying customers whatever you do, if you're getting more than 5% who are annoying you're probably doing something wrong though.

I can genuinely say that my annoying customers are less than one in 200. A lot of Ebay's DSRs and feedback changes probably have a few different meanings but a lot of them are to do with buyer satisfaction from surveys they did a couple of years ago to ascertain why buyers were leaving. I've tried to work out what those changes have been trying to tell me as a seller. If your DSRs show you have a low communication rate try and work out why, if your postage is perceived to be too high, work out how you can lower it or communicate to the buyer why it is that price, etc. You won't be right every time and there will always be exceptions, but complaining about customers for the cheek of buying off you is the wrong attitude to have.

OP, my annoyance is buyers wanting to send to a non Paypal address, they usually end up being nice about it. For postal requests I tend to do what I was going to do anyway, I may have a look at the difference in price to bump it up to first class, that way you get a return customer. I've been on Ebay for 7 years and I do my best to retain as many customers as I can, currently have a mailshot of around 3000 subscribers who are all previous and repeat customers, not all regular ones but they can unsubscribe to the mailshot any time and most don't.

StaffsSW

RFW wrote: »

I've been on Ebay for 7 years and I do my best to retain as many customers as I can, currently have a mailshot of around 3000 subscribers who are all previous and repeat customers, not all regular ones but they can unsubscribe to the mailshot any time and most don't.

Another old retail saying - it's easier to retain an existing customer than it is to gain new ones.

cyril82

RFW wrote: »

You really believe that its sellers who should be 'in command'? Without buyers there is no Ebay, an old friend of mine who was an exceptionally successful retailer used to say that "the easiest thing in the world is to buy something, the hardest is to sell it". Ebay provide sellers an easy way to sell, sure some of them will be pains, they are in any sales area any where. I've run auction houses where people expect to return stuff, I've handled catalogue returns where some items are returned for the most ridiculous reasons, there's always annoying customers whatever you do, if you're getting more than 5% who are annoying you're probably doing something wrong though.

I can genuinely say that my annoying customers are less than one in 200. A lot of Ebay's DSRs and feedback changes probably have a few different meanings but a lot of them are to do with buyer satisfaction from surveys they did a couple of years ago to ascertain why buyers were leaving. I've tried to work out what those changes have been trying to tell me as a seller. If your DSRs show you have a low communication rate try and work out why, if your postage is perceived to be too high, work out how you can lower it or communicate to the buyer why it is that price, etc. You won't be right every time and there will always be exceptions, but complaining about customers for the cheek of buying off you is the wrong attitude to have.

OP, my annoyance is buyers wanting to send to a non Paypal address, they usually end up being nice about it. For postal requests I tend to do what I was going to do anyway, I may have a look at the difference in price to bump it up to first class, that way you get a return customer. I've been on Ebay for 7 years and I do my best to retain as many customers as I can, currently have a mailshot of around 3000 subscribers who are all previous and repeat customers, not all regular ones but they can unsubscribe to the mailshot any time and most don't.

not "in command" just not exposed to such manipulation, there is no where in the world where you can go as a buyer and behave the way buyers do on ebay.

Like you say, you worked in an auction house where people expected refunds but they didn't get them did they? of course not as no auction house gives refunds yet if you auction goods on ebay, where the same exemptions apply to online auctions and sellers do not have to offer refunds and furthermore ebay allow buyers to choose the "returns not accepted" option, if a buyer comes back demanding a refund and you politely decline due the fact it was an auction and you stated no returns you get neged, down marked on dsrs and to top it off far from supporting you (having done nothing wrong) ebay and paypal will force you to refund and if the money is not in your paypal account send debt collectors after you for money they have no legal claim to.

Then eBay may also rub some extra salt in the wound by lowering your visibility in search standings for thr low dsr marks you just got and for what? For stating you don’t accept returns on auctioned goods, something no auction in the country does any differently and furthermore something eBay openly allow on the site. And to think you pay to be treated like that, as I say, it’s great being part of the eBay “community” isn’t it.

of course these are simply the in justices we as sellers have to bear in order to make a few quid, doesn't mean we shouldn't feel unjustly treated and doesn't mean we can't have a good old moan about it from time to time...

RFW

cyril82 wrote: »

Like you say, you worked in an auction house where people expected refunds but they didn't get them did they? of course not as no auction house gives refunds yet if you auction goods on ebay, where the same exemptions apply to online auctions and sellers do not have to offer refunds and furthermore ebay allow buyers to choose the "returns not accepted" option, if a buyer comes back demanding a refund and you politely decline due the fact it was an auction and you stated no returns you get neged, down marked on dsrs and to top it off far from supporting you (having done nothing wrong) ebay and paypal will force you to refund and if the money is not in your paypal account send debt collectors after you for money they have no legal claim to.

Then eBay may also rub some extra salt in the wound by lowering your visibility in search standings for thr low dsr marks you just got and for what? For stating you don’t accept returns on auctioned goods, something no auction in the country does any differently and furthermore something eBay openly allow on the site. And to think you pay to be treated like that, as I say, it’s great being part of the eBay “community” isn’t it.

of course these are simply the in justices we as sellers have to bear in order to make a few quid, doesn't mean we shouldn't feel unjustly treated and doesn't mean we can't have a good old moan about it from time to time...

I owned my own auction house and despite what most people think a lot give refunds if asked. I know I have to regular customers and some who may have had a valid point, there are obvious chancers as I mentioned, the pain customers who we all like to moan about! For every situation you weigh up the pros and cons for giving a refund, a lot of the time doing just that can lead to a happy customer who comes back time and again with no complaints ever again. I like to make all my bad customers into good happy repeat ones. There's a few that fall by the way side but as I said they are few and far between.

I've never been forced by Paypal or Ebay to give a refund, I would never let it get that far and when it did it was because I was right and the customer lost. I can recall only two occasions when this happened (out of 50,000 plus transactions). One when a customer complained that they had bought something in an auction that had turned up cheaper in Tesco, then complained to Paypal that it was below standard. My argument (which won) was how could an item the buyer clearly stated was available in Tesco not be to standard.

cyril82

RFW wrote: »

I owned my own auction house and despite what most people think a lot give refunds if asked. I know I have to regular customers and some who may have had a valid point, there are obvious chancers as I mentioned, the pain customers who we all like to moan about! For every situation you weigh up the pros and cons for giving a refund, a lot of the time doing just that can lead to a happy customer who comes back time and again with no complaints ever again. I like to make all my bad customers into good happy repeat ones. There's a few that fall by the way side but as I said they are few and far between.

I've never been forced by Paypal or Ebay to give a refund, I would never let it get that far and when it did it was because I was right and the customer lost. I can recall only two occasions when this happened (out of 50,000 plus transactions). One when a customer complained that they had bought something in an auction that had turned up cheaper in Tesco, then complained to Paypal that it was below standard. My argument (which won) was how could an item the buyer clearly stated was available in Tesco not be to standard.

it's not really a case of letting it get that far, i have been forced to refund buyers by paypal albeit not in the scenario of my previous post, that was a generic example not a personal experience.

i have had a few paypal claims that should not have gone the buyers way but did, examples include, the time i sold an mp3 player to a woman who pestered me for it because she was going on holiday then returned it the day after she got home claiming not as described, i would usually just let it go and refund but she returned without the charger or usb, just the device and headphones in the box, with sand in it dirty fingerprints all over it and in full working order with 2000 songs on, seems she tried it out for a good two weeks on holiday before deciding it wasn't what i said it was, another time i had a claim go against me where the seller had not returned my goods, i claimed that loss back off paypal in the county court.

i could probably list about 5 other times that i was forced to refund where i shouldn't have been but that is out of thousands of sales so is a tiny percentage but there are times as a seller that you have to stand up and say, no, sorry you can not have a refund such as sellers sending back items they broke trying it on and that’s when you'll get railroaded into refunding by paypal, doesn't mean you did anything wrong as a seller or "let things get too far"

i get what your saying about trying to please all customers and your philosophy of trying to turn difficult buyers in repeat customers is admirable but i've been in business now long enough to know that the chances of a customer who goes out of their way to difficult coming back to buy again as a changed person are a million to one and i choose not to expand anymore time than is absolutely necessary on dealing with difficult customers if it may be at the detriment to the service and attention i would usually pay my regular non-difficult customers.

and for the record, difficult doesn't mean anyone asking for a refund, returns and refunds are just part of retailing in ebay terms i class difficult customers as feedback blackmailers, people demanding refunds because they changed their minds, that’s fine within 14 days (the law only requires 7) but after 30 days i'm sorry the answer is no and i just will not waste my time on these people at the detriment of service provided to other customers.

foxy-roxy

I am a buyer, have never sold and am not tempted to either. But as a buyer, i always pay straight away and would like to recieve my items no longer than 5 days, which i think is reasonable, although if something took longer to arrive i wouldn't leave a neg, 3 days is fine, although i think alot of buyers now expect next day delivery because alot of online shops do this now, but you only have to look at the p&p of them and see why.
Ebay has changed alot now, people still think it is 'bargain heaven' when in fact it's not really, too many shops etc. i find it handy for getting stuff that is hard to find, or saves me from walking around the shops.