buying item in home town- seller won't respond

before_hollywood

hi guys i'm relatively inexperienced on ebay so wonder if you can help

i've been looking at a second hand vcr (its a temporary thing till i buy a dvd recorder) and saw a nice one in my home town and then i saw the postage £12!!!!!!!

chances are i won't be paying that much for the vcr itself so i sent the seller a polite email asking before i bid if they would consider allowing in person collection as i live in the same home town as them (and my username has the name of the town in it so they know its genuine i am from round here), and they haven't replied

i could buy similar items whenever i want but this is going to be a nicer item and one i could possibly sell when i have had my use out of it but they are being really annoying now, am i expecting too much?

kyleapt342

some people are just against face to face sales of any kind, I've had to pay £9.99 for postage from literally down the road from me, felt quite annoyed at that but nothing i could do as the seller was one of those people. mental

Avoriaz

You can't force someone to either reply to your email or to agree to collection.

Most ebayers are amateurs. They are not running a business and you can’t expect normal levels of service.

Maybe they are away and have not seen your request.

Send a polite reminder.

If you get no response or a refusal to allow collection, then don’t bid or expect to pay postage if you do bid and win.

fuzzgun19

Have you tried looking on http://uk.freecycle.org/ in your area?

There's always loads of VCR's going free in my area...

before_hollywood

i'll give them another day and then a polite note saying if they want postage of £12 on an item that is within walking distance then they can forget it, the whole point of buying from somewhere close to home is i can save hassle for both parties, and have made a point of doing so with previous sellers who have been grateful of it.

i used to buy and sell old computer products as a sideline (mainly 80s and 90s computer consoles) and had a full time job in sales at the same time, both my customers at work and ''my'' customers got the same levels of proffesional service and i could return to selling the computers cos the same people would still buy off me now and i haven't sold in over 2 years

Avoriaz

kyleapt342 wrote: »

some people are just against face to face sales of any kind, I've had to pay £9.99 for postage from literally down the road from me, felt quite annoyed at that but nothing i could do as the seller was one of those people. mental

There is nothing mental about it.

Why should someone agree to collection? There are lots of good reasons not to allow it.

I usually ask to collect if the seller is reasonably local. Most say yes but it does not bother me if they say no. I bid or don’t bid accordingly.

I asked a seller for agreement to collect today. He replied to say he was away at University in Exeter and not at his registered ebay address so collection would not be possible.

That is fair enough. I’ll bid anyway as his postage was reasonable.

Tea3

I dont allow collection of items from my house as I feel its a little too personal to have customers coming to my door, however if someone local buys an item I will normally arrange to meet them somewhere nearby or deliver the item to their address if they are ok with that. Its a shame the seller is not replying to you - even a basic "no, sorry" would be better than ignoring you but they may be hiking up the postage price to increase profit and if you collected they are losing some of their 'guaranteed' profit from postage cost.

before_hollywood

fuzzgun19 wrote: »

Have you tried looking on http://uk.freecycle.org/ in your area?

There's always loads of VCR's going free in my area...

nearest freecycle group is over 10 miles away and i don't know the town its in very well, i know my home town like the back of my hand as have lived there 20 odd years

steviebabes

I suspect the £12 postage is part of the profit!

saveaholic68

Personally I wouldn't agree to a buyer collecting an item in person just for safety reasons. I'm a 23yr old female living alone, and wouldn't want someone I didn't know coming to my home.

before_hollywood

Avoriaz wrote: »

There is nothing mental about it.

Why should someone agree to collection? There are lots of good reasons not to allow it.

I usually ask to collect if the seller is reasonably local. Most say yes but it does not bother me if they say no. I bid or don’t bid accordingly.

I asked a seller for agreement to collect today. He replied to say he was away at University in Exeter and not at his registered ebay address so collection would not be possible.

That is fair enough. I’ll bid anyway as his postage was reasonable.

depends how you look at it, if you look at it that there is someone (me) who wants to buy a reasonably specialist electrical product (if i revealed what kind of vcr it was then it would make sence) and there is one in my home town, the buyer is willing to collect in person to save the seller having to carry it to the post office (they are heavy too btw) and pay cash if requested (cash doesn't take time to clear) and collect at a time convenient to them (as long as its not when i am working), and have sent polite comms asking if this is possible and they don't reply, then that could be described as mental. common sense says if i can't check my pc regularly i don't list or bid, they are going to have enough trouble selling it cos its not the more popular model (if i wanted to pay £12 postage i would buy that one from down south), main reason is cos of what it is i can take bottom money and still get my money back whenever i want cos i know people who would snap my hands off for it lol.

maybe its just me expecting others to treat buyers like i did (i sold in person to trade buyers, it allowed them to test beforehand)