Lack of FVF Offers?!

soolin

foxy78 said:

Nothing for me again, I assume it’s because I’ve sold a couple of items without it for a few months now

I often list without it being an offer day and although I don't get the 80% off FVFs offers I do still get 70% off. 

subjecttocontract

I see it as a war of attrition. Ebay stop providing FVF offers & I stop selling my stuff on their platform.....there are plenty of other sale platforms that work well for me. Now I only use EBay to purchase.

soolin

subjecttocontract said:

I see it as a war of attrition. Ebay stop providing FVF offers & I stop selling my stuff on their platform.....there are plenty of other sale platforms that work well for me. Now I only use EBay to purchase.

I find very few other platforms do half as well as ebay, and of course some of the better ones like Amazon  still have fees, out of interest what platforms are you finding useful?

I do use Vinted, but of course sellers are very limited to what can be sold there and it really only works for me alongside ebay.

subjecttocontract

I've found sales generally have been down for the past year or more. I've had to lower prices more than I would like just to attract any interest, I've attributed it to the increases in the cost of living. EBay sales seem to be the most affected, at least for me, with Gumtree proving to be the best for sales. Ebay fees take around 14% and their apparent favouring of buyers over sellers is particularly annoying.

I've recently listed an item on EBay that was buy it now, collect only. We had a buyer buy, pay for and then change his mind and ask us to post it. We refused, he lived locally and could easily collect. But no, he raised a dispute and EBay clawed the money back and refunded him. I did nothing wrong but then was charged an additional fee by EBay for investigating and refunding the buyer. That leaves a bad smell. 

soolin

subjecttocontract said:

I've found sales generally have been down for the past year or more. I've had to lower prices more than I would like just to attract any interest, I've attributed it to the increases in the cost of living. EBay sales seem to be the most affected, at least for me, with Gumtree proving to be the best for sales. Ebay fees take around 14% and their apparent favouring of buyers over sellers is particularly annoying.

I've recently listed an item on EBay that was buy it now, collect only. We had a buyer buy, pay for and then change his mind and ask us to post it. We refused, he lived locally and could easily collect. But no, he raised a dispute and EBay clawed the money back and refunded him. I did nothing wrong but then was charged an additional fee by EBay for investigating and refunding the buyer. That leaves a bad smell. 

There should not have been any dispute fee at all if you had refunded on the basis that buyer changed their mind. You would have got your FVFs back and buyer would have been prevented from leaving feedback.

tightauldgit

soolin said:

subjecttocontract said:

I've found sales generally have been down for the past year or more. I've had to lower prices more than I would like just to attract any interest, I've attributed it to the increases in the cost of living. EBay sales seem to be the most affected, at least for me, with Gumtree proving to be the best for sales. Ebay fees take around 14% and their apparent favouring of buyers over sellers is particularly annoying.

I've recently listed an item on EBay that was buy it now, collect only. We had a buyer buy, pay for and then change his mind and ask us to post it. We refused, he lived locally and could easily collect. But no, he raised a dispute and EBay clawed the money back and refunded him. I did nothing wrong but then was charged an additional fee by EBay for investigating and refunding the buyer. That leaves a bad smell. 

There should not have been any dispute fee at all if you had refunded on the basis that buyer changed their mind. You would have got your FVFs back and buyer would have been prevented from leaving feedback.

Why should a buyer be able to change their mind like that though? If it's from a private seller and you buy a collection only item then you collect it - don't ask to post it after the fact. How Ebay could have found against the seller in that case (assuming the story is true) baffles me

soolin

tightauldgit said:

soolin said:

subjecttocontract said:

I've found sales generally have been down for the past year or more. I've had to lower prices more than I would like just to attract any interest, I've attributed it to the increases in the cost of living. EBay sales seem to be the most affected, at least for me, with Gumtree proving to be the best for sales. Ebay fees take around 14% and their apparent favouring of buyers over sellers is particularly annoying.

I've recently listed an item on EBay that was buy it now, collect only. We had a buyer buy, pay for and then change his mind and ask us to post it. We refused, he lived locally and could easily collect. But no, he raised a dispute and EBay clawed the money back and refunded him. I did nothing wrong but then was charged an additional fee by EBay for investigating and refunding the buyer. That leaves a bad smell. 

There should not have been any dispute fee at all if you had refunded on the basis that buyer changed their mind. You would have got your FVFs back and buyer would have been prevented from leaving feedback.

Why should a buyer be able to change their mind like that though? If it's from a private seller and you buy a collection only item then you collect it - don't ask to post it after the fact. How Ebay could have found against the seller in that case (assuming the story is true) baffles me

If buyer didn't have their item then ebay were never going to tell the seller to keep both the item and the money! If buyer paid and won't collect I don't believe it is correct to just keep the money, private seller or not, if buyer hadn't paid then there was always the possibility of going for a NPB. 

subjecttocontract

.....and therein lies my problem with Ebay. It's their platform, their business and they are entitled to set whatever rules (within law) they deem to be approriate. I just happen to disagree with their execution of those rules.

My take is that if a buyer buys and pays for an item that has been clearly listed then, that item belongs to that buyer. The seller is merely looking after the buyers item until they arrange to collect it. 

tightauldgit

soolin said:

tightauldgit said:

soolin said:

subjecttocontract said:

I've found sales generally have been down for the past year or more. I've had to lower prices more than I would like just to attract any interest, I've attributed it to the increases in the cost of living. EBay sales seem to be the most affected, at least for me, with Gumtree proving to be the best for sales. Ebay fees take around 14% and their apparent favouring of buyers over sellers is particularly annoying.

I've recently listed an item on EBay that was buy it now, collect only. We had a buyer buy, pay for and then change his mind and ask us to post it. We refused, he lived locally and could easily collect. But no, he raised a dispute and EBay clawed the money back and refunded him. I did nothing wrong but then was charged an additional fee by EBay for investigating and refunding the buyer. That leaves a bad smell. 

There should not have been any dispute fee at all if you had refunded on the basis that buyer changed their mind. You would have got your FVFs back and buyer would have been prevented from leaving feedback.

Why should a buyer be able to change their mind like that though? If it's from a private seller and you buy a collection only item then you collect it - don't ask to post it after the fact. How Ebay could have found against the seller in that case (assuming the story is true) baffles me

If buyer didn't have their item then ebay were never going to tell the seller to keep both the item and the money! If buyer paid and won't collect I don't believe it is correct to just keep the money, private seller or not, if buyer hadn't paid then there was always the possibility of going for a NPB. 

But what dispute has buyer raised? Item not received? YOU DIDN'T COLLECT IT! So I don't see how the seller should take any hit for that

Fair enough you can file a NPB which does exactly the square root of zero to the buyer and doesn't gain you anything except avoiding further punishment from Ebay. 

And then we just get back to the same discussion about Ebay simply allowing people to change their minds after placing bids in supposedly binding auctions again. 

tightauldgit

subjecttocontract said:

.....and therein lies my problem with Ebay. It's their platform, their business and they are entitled to set whatever rules (within law) they deem to be approriate. I just happen to disagree with their execution of those rules.

My take is that if a buyer buys and pays for an item that has been clearly listed then, that item belongs to that buyer. The seller is merely looking after the buyers item until they arrange to collect it. 

Well clearly not. It doesn't belong to the buyer until they receive it and even then they can return it if it's not as described or faulty or whatever. I just object to Ebay allowing changes of mind for no reason on supposedly binding auctions.