Re-selling on E-bay - utter cheek!!

Mr_Squiddy

RadoJo wrote:

why should he earn money for doing nothing? That is the same logic as those who buy gig tickets and then sell them at several times the face value

There are many of us who believe that there is nothing wrong in buying tickets and reselling them - there is nothing morally wrong in that. The reseller is not 'doing nothing.' He has identified a market and is selling into it. The fact that your company seems unable to do the same seems to be the source of your angst on the subject. It is very hypocritical of you to take the profit from your sales to him but then cry foul when he turns a further profit.

If you don't want him to resell your products then don't sell them to him. But if you have any sense you will analyse what he is doing - it is not impossible that you are undervaluing your own products.

Kaminari_2

Don't you ship to his confirmed address? I would state that you only ship to his confirmed address. It probably won't stop him but it will throw a spanner in the works in the short term until you get everything else sorted out.

I don't see what his is doing as wrong, he has researched a market and found an area to profit, this is what business is all about. You might have to thank him in the future for showing you a new area to market to.

If you are worried about protecting the brand i would do as suggested and VERO the product/s. That will give you more control over reselling.

Tojo_Ralph

RadoJo wrote:

I have just discovered that there is a seller on Ebay who is selling products bought from the company for which I work, with a far higher 'Buy it Now' price than we would sell for.

And you want to stop them making sales and thus lose sales yourself?

IMHO that is not very smart, smart is opening up an EBay account, undercutting the seller in question, taking their sales and thus resolving the matter without losing sales yourself.

RadoJo

Well, I do personally believe that there is an inherent problem with making money from other people's hard work without contributing any value yourself. As somone who has worked hard every day to ensure that we offer our customers good value for money, it is galling to see someone abusing the 'good value' stance that we have taken.
If you consider it to be a ligitimate business then you are entitled to that opinion, but my angst on the subject has more to do with the belief that this is morally wrong rather than concern that we are not ripping off our customers with higher margins. I do not think it is hypocritical to be concerned that people who are essentialy 'our' customers are being mislead into paying a higher price than they need to for goods which we have sourced.

I do understand the basis of what people are saying on here, but I really thought the ethos of money-saving was for consumers to get a good deal, not for people to rip each other off.

Clearly the mystery e-bayer agrees on some level as he has now contacted me to ask if he can become an authorised seller of our experiences - does that sound like the actions of someone who thought they were acting completely scrupulously, or the actions of someone who has been contacted by the same disgruntled customer and realised he has over-stepped the mark?

RadoJo

Duplicate post-arama!!

Tojo_Ralph

RadoJo wrote:

Clearly the mystery e-bayer agrees on some level as he has now contacted me to ask if he can become an authorised seller of our experiences

Any idea what prompted that coincidence?

smartie1976

Is this person the only seller then?

Why don't you send them a message stating they are breaching not only the brand rights, but the copyright on your item (in terms of using the description and/or pictures without permisson). This is a VERO issue and should be taken seriously by Ebay.

Edit/ Damn other people type fast...

spinning_hamster_wheel

If it bothers you that much why don't you convince your company to open up an ebay shop selling the product at its RRP?

RadoJo

Tojo Ralph - I appreciate what you are saying, but we would rather lose sales than have people ripped off when buying products with our branding. Despite being a company in a competitive market, we consider our customers worth our loyalty, and would certainly rather they were not misled in this way.

It saddens me a bit that money saving has become synonymous with (what I consider) cheating to some people - I am all for a bargain, but there are limits to my comfort zone. Just because this is a business doesn't mean we can't consider our customers - the economic element is not as important to us as the fairness of the situation.

greeneye

I think that everything that needs to said on this subject has been stated. You've come to the wrong place if your looking for moral support about flaming an ebayer turning a profit! :+)

But something you might want to consider is the fact that many people will not give their credit card details to small online businesses - no matter how professional your website may look.
Ebay has Paypal a system that buyers feel confident in using.
And for many items particularily those perceived as scarce ebay is their first and only destination. Many buyers wont even bother with a google.

I was buying from a company who hated me a while ago - I was selling their stock for anything up a 1000% mark up on open auction.
But I was buying so much off them online and from their retail outlets ( I was using Big Issue sellers to phone me whenever they got a delivery in) they eventually just let me get on with it.

It was a fashion item and a fad thing that only lasted a few months.
I even talked to their MD a couple of times on the phone and he couldn't understand why he was getting so few sales through his website despite the fact they were a pretty well established website and UK retail outlet and had sponsered links on google etc.
I explained to him about paypal etc and pointed out the fact his website wouldn't ship abroad and much of my custom was from Europe.
I offered to sell for him if he would give me first refusal on any new stock. But he never got his head round the concept of opening an ebay outlet and it was soon too late and the Fad had passed.
The best their company could come up with was to sell a link for a pound to their own website - which wasn't very sucessful.
His loss my gain.