How to keep your buyers happy (NOT)

soolin

On the basis of several threads recently where all buyers are scammers and sellers are warned to let a buyer know in no uncertain terms that they 'are on to them' I thought I would post a message I received from a shooting star seller:

The background is I sent a polite email on day 9 just letting the seller know I had not received my item, I did not ask for a refund and i merely said that I would give it a few more days and contact them again.

"dear xx, We are sorry your xx has not arrived, it was sent on the xx (which is actually 2 days later than it was marked as dispatched) and hopefully will be with you within a week. Obviously you are disappointed that your goods are delayed but we are not responsible for the post office failings, however we will make enquries with the Post office after 14 working days and keep you informed as to our progress. However, before any claim can be considered we require you to complete a short form for our records , if this form is not received back then we will not be able to assist you further. We are sure you appreciate we have to protect ourselves against that small minority that take advantage of the fact that our goods are not tracked."

The form requires me to confirm that my ebay address is xx, it also requires me to have phoned my local delivery centre and ask about my parcel and the form says they will require the name of the person who I spoke to otherwise the form is invalid.

Luckily before I could get into a real strop my goods did arrive and I have left a positive as my goods are exactly as stated but have left approrpiate stars for both dispatch and communication.

KxMx

What a charmer, had a dvd fail to arrive, had previously let seller know it hadn't but would hang on longer, well it didn't so I got a message with the refund along the lines of
"if it comes pay again i've already lost money on this sale".

No please or thank you, made me feel i'd got RM to lose on purpose, and because of this I never sent the message offering to assist with any RM claim!!

soolin

I do think some sellers would feel better if they weren't bothered by buyers actually wanting to buy things!

porto_bello

Possibly I'm reading too much between the lines here, but the impression I get is that this selller has previously refunded 'lost' items and put in a claim to RM in slower time. I'm guessing RM has rejected the claim(s) on the basis that the buyer(s) (having no incentive to engage) have failed to respond to RM enquiries, thereby leaving the seller with no item, no money and an invalidated claim.

So how, as a seller, do you approach this scenario?

soolin

porto_bello wrote: »

Possibly I'm reading too much between the lines here, but the impression I get is that this selller has previously refunded 'lost' items and put in a claim to RM in slower time. I'm guessing RM has rejected the claim(s) on the basis that the buyer(s) (having no incentive to engage) have failed to respond to RM enquiries, thereby leaving the seller with no item, no money and an invalidated claim.

So how, as a seller, do you approach this scenario?

I refund in a timely manner, I do try to get them to week 2 though. I don't ask buyers to confirm their address , after all what do I do if they say it was wrong? Likewise I don't expect my buyers to fill out useless little forms that serve no purpose at all.

If my goods had not arrived in this case, and luckily they did, I would not have completed the form or supplied them with additional info, but would have just gone for a full PayPal claim. Then I would have left a non positive for making me go to a dispute to get my money.

There is no point at all in making things difficult for a buyer, eBay/PayPal do not care what forms a seller expects completed, if there is no tracking then buyers get a refund. There is no point at all in antagonising buyers as your feedback will suffer. Also suggesting that non completion of the form somehow made me one of the minority of 'scammers' dipped them a further star in their communication stars

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

soolin wrote: »

I don't ask buyers to confirm their address , after all what do I do if they say it was wrong?

At the very least you would be doing the seller community a good deed by altering any customers with incomplete addresses so that they don't keep blindly buying and finding items don't arrive.

You would also be covered by eBay in the event of bad feedback (regardless of how good a seller is at handling an issue, some buyers will simply see non-delivery as a non-positive experience).

The question doesn't have to be accusing, just a simple, "I'm sorry to hear that the parcel hasn't arrived yet, may I kindly confirm your full address please so I may look into this further." will suffice.

soolin

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head wrote: »

At the very least you would be doing the seller community a good deed by altering any customers with incomplete addresses so that they don't keep blindly buying and finding items don't arrive.

You would also be covered by eBay in the event of bad feedback (regardless of how good a seller is at handling an issue, some buyers will simply see non-delivery as a non-positive experience).

The question doesn't have to be accusing, just a simple, "I'm sorry to hear that the parcel hasn't arrived yet, may I kindly confirm your full address please so I may look into this further." will suffice.

It makes no difference to feedback at all, except by suggesting your buyer is an idiot or a scammer is going to be more likely to result in poor feedback. If a buyer leaves poor feedback on non receipt of goods it is not subject to removal under eBay policy.

I agree though that a politer wording may be better, and avoiding suggesting buyer is a scammer is always a good idea.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

soolin wrote: »

If a buyer leaves poor feedback on non receipt of goods it is not subject to removal under eBay policy.
.

It is if they confirm via the eBay messaging service that their address is not that which CS can see on the View Order Details page.

Had 3 negs removed for this reason, without any proof of delivery.

soolin

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head wrote: »

It is if they confirm via the eBay messaging service that their address is not that which CS can see on the View Order Details page.

Had 3 negs removed for this reason, without any proof of delivery.

You must have a huge percentage of wrong addresses to have got 3 negs for lost items. I don't recall having been told about a wrong address for years now, and luckily I haven't had a neg for non receipt either.

It might prove my suggestion that questioning buyers about their addresses is perhaps not a good idea.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

soolin wrote: »

You must have a huge percentage of wrong addresses to have got 3 negs for lost items. I don't recall having been told about a wrong address for years now, and luckily I haven't had a neg for non receipt either.

It might prove my suggestion that questioning buyers about their addresses is perhaps not a good idea.

Out of 150,000 sales it's not much of a % (0.002), the negs were for refusing to refund rather than the question. Every INR (and there's a lot of them) is responded to with the above and not one customer has taken exception.

Just to add, I pro-actively look out for missing house numbers and very carefully check all addresses (to a feasible degree) before printing the labels, the 3 issues come from 1 with a missing flat number (that already had 111 London Street, for example, showing) and 2 with incorrect postcodes. In November and December alone I had to ask around a dozen customers for their house number as it was missing from their address.

A wrong address on one of my parcels won't happen lightly but after covering missing items, "missing" items and returns that don't get returned I'm not very inclined to cover the loss over an incorrect address. Some say all the customer has to do is pay, I disagree with this and feel the customer has a duty to provide an accurate address with their payment, after all they know best where they live.

justlooking2012

I used to love buying on ebay but two bad things have happened to it.

1, im sick of the outlet sellers being constantly thrown in my face, as in emails, look at this seller etc etc

2, As the number of scammers have become more prevalent the number of rude and paranoid sellers seems to have risen as well.
I have purchased over 500 things from ebay and only ever had two go missing, the first one when enquiring if they had sent it and when the reply I received was "I hope your not trying it on" and the second one was we do not consider anything missing for fourteen working days and then you must fill out and sign a lost form". Well actually I do not have to wait and I do not have to fill out a form either.
I opened paypal disputes for both and received full refunds and I then left negs. A civil reply would not have been to much to ask.

Another time I brought a lamp with a porcelain decoration(difficult to explain) anyway it never arrived for 3 weeks but the seller was really lovely and constantly checking if it had arrived and always offering to refund, anyway when it did arrive it was broken but I never had the heart to tell her lol because she was so nice