What do buyers want, blood?

hermum

I know that I need to sell to try & bump up the stats. I listed some things with free p&p last weekend but nothing's sold so far.
It's interesting what you say about your private-business accounts, I wonder why that has happened.

dktreesea

I have had some interesting discussions with buyers on this very point. The point made to me on several occasions is that we, the sellers, make the decision we want to sell our product to someone who can't come and pick it up. Therefore we should bear the costs of doing so.

My point back to them is that the price of the item is what they pay in total, regardless of how it is split between "price" and "p&p" and that often this split is due to the way the site owner takes fees, not due to the price being anything other than the £15, say, that they paid.

They come back with statements like "Yes, but we paid £12, not £15. the postage cost should be yours to bear," and I respond with "The postage and package costs are clearly mine to bear. I have paid for both prior to you receiving the goods. But the item I am selling is £15, not £12, irrespective of how I have chosen to split up the elements on the website."

So, if ever I become successful enough to have my own site, I will post all prices inclusive of postage and packing, with a surcharge for international sales.

hermum

Surely the buyer has decided to buy something from someone they can't collect from.
They'd all soon complain if they could only buy from people within collecting distance of them.

Crowqueen

The seller is the one who chooses to go into business - they are the ones who want to sell their items, and do it as a main source of income.

If someone ends up yelling on a forum 'What do people paying me for something want? blood?' then I think it's time to stop. It's not providing the reward you want it to provide, and anyone jaded with it, even if they are selling as a business, should pack up and find another job or hobby. It won't work - that attitude will affect your dealings with your customers, and like it or not, in any retail avenue - no, scratch that, in any business environment - they come first.

Listening to customers is therefore very important. I've posted all my recent listings inclusive postage; it makes things look expensive, but at least in doing so I'm effectively buying (by paying extra fees) a perfect P&P score, and I know when buying I actually appreciate seeing one price up front. My book on human rights in Cuba was two pages from the front of a fairly crowded category when I ran a search the other day - with five days of a seven day listing to go, and it has a watcher already. I'm happy.

When I get payment, I always treat the buyer as I like to be treated myself. That's the fundamental thing about eBay. It's amazing how many people forget that they don't just get randomly paid by a mysterious benefactor - that they're actually being paid by a human being who has certain expectations. You can't just discard accounts and start again. If you haven't learned from why you got that poor feedback, you will only accumulate it again.

Some sellers - the ones who, in my experience, seem to do poorly in general - don't see that there are two parties to the transaction, a buyer and a seller. A seller wants money for an item, but a buyer is the one paying for it. Therefore I've always felt that a buyer is there to be respected and listened to, not treated as a thief and told their opinions shouldn't count in favour of a more objective system.

Any seller, any businessperson anywhere depends on reputation. eBay feedback is simply a way of measuring reputation. It's not going to get any better or fairer on sellers - because it has to be explicit, it has to give an accurate reflection of what buyers think of sellers' performance. There is no way in the world I would hand over cash to Joe Bloggs for something if I couldn't see he was going to treat me right. I'd go and spend it with Bloggscorp instead - at least I know they will be relatively honest because their public reputation is good. So if you want, as a private individual, to trade with another private individual, you have to be able to convince that person you're not going to walk off with their money. eBay have certain safeguards in place if that happens, but buyers can be stopped from buying in the first place if that seller looks dodgy and has a bad track record - and I prefer not to make the mistake than spend a month trying to get money back from someone who has mishandled it - and I speak from experience.

As for Bloggscorp --- Remember Gerald Ratner who said his items were rubbish. He went down like a lead balloon - he's since come back up again, but he lost a reputation he'd been building for years with a single utterance. If you watched this year's Apprentice, Alan Sugar said he'd rather not get involved with projects he didn't think ethically sound - because of the reputation issue.

If you can't maintain yours - and as Hermum shows, it's not easy, and I do feel for her whilst in general supporting the DSR system from a buyer's POV; she's the sort of person who would see a problem and then act to fix it promptly, and I hope she manages to find her way out of trouble - then you wouldn't do well anywhere when taking people's money. If you gain a reputation for poor dealings with your buyers, then eBay don't want you. They don't want you putting people off buying from the whole site. They don't want them saying 'I was charged an arm and a leg to send an item and the seller was rude to me when I complained and sent me a snotty message demanding I remove the neg I left - that's what happens on eBay, you better stick with Amazon/Play/such-and-such a website which gives very good service and was helpful when I had a problem'.

I'm sorry, it sounds harsh, but as a buyer I'm very conscious of the importance of feedback and seller attitude when paying over the cash, and I have to say that people on this thread who think it should be all about the seller all the time just simply would not get my money.

The people who show they care and listen to what their buyers are telling them, on the other hand, I'd happily buy from.

DirtPoorGuy

I would counter your post crowqueen, but frankly I can't be bothered with your crap, at least now I remember why I put you on my ignore list, silly me for taking a peep.

Strapped

soolin wrote: »

I am also wondering whether private buyers get worse stars generally than businesses as my private account is looking a lot worse than my business account even though I sell 10 times more on my business account. All my sales are treated exactly the same as well so the accounts should have similar scores, yet I have 3 X 2* ratings on my private account.

I tend to find the opposite. My private account has 5.0 across the board for stars, even though I do exactly the same re. dispatch & comms (or even dispatch a little slower, because the business account takes precedence). I think maybe buyers have lower expectations from private sellers?

Strapped

And in reply to the OP, unfortunately buyers sometimes feel that charging Royal Mail prices is too much! For example, I sell a lot in the 1-2kg range, which has now increased to £5.30 for standard parcels. But there's no way I could get away with more than £5 for postage on a relatively inexpensive item. It just "looks" wrong. And it would stand out among the competition (many of whom are huge sellers who have low courier or RM account prices I can't compete with). So I fiddle about to find a balance between what the customer finds acceptable but doesn't result in me paying an additional 48p (9% of £5.30) to eBay each transaction.

RFW

DirtPoorGuy wrote: »

I would counter your post crowqueen, but frankly I can't be bothered with your crap, at least now I remember why I put you on my ignore list, silly me for taking a peep.

Unfortunately some people can't get to grips with being a seller and what that entails. Choosing between you and Crowqueen, I know which one would be the seller of choice.

If you are a seller, the buyer can choose who they want to buy from, in the vast majority of cases you cannot choose who you sell to, take that simple fact and then see why the rights are with the buyer.

soolin

Strapped wrote: »

I tend to find the opposite. My private account has 5.0 across the board for stars, even though I do exactly the same re. dispatch & comms (or even dispatch a little slower, because the business account takes precedence). I think maybe buyers have lower expectations from private sellers?

My theories never tend to stand close scrutiny

Oliver14

DirtPoorGuy wrote: »

I would counter your post crowqueen, but frankly I can't be bothered with your crap, at least now I remember why I put you on my ignore list, silly me for taking a peep.

Wow so you ask for advice and reasoning which you get. Then because someone gives an opinion you don't agree with your toys hit the ground quicker than you can say dodgy seller.