Sellers, Will You PLEASE .....

JetpackVelociraptor

I feel attacked lol.

I do provide a thorough description of my old clothes, including make, composition, size label plus my own personal assessment of the size, the length if it's unusual, the waist measurement of trousers, and a good description of the condition including any faults and how much/if it's been worn. Including photos as well, taken in good light. Basically, I won't buy from any listing that's unclear, badly photographed or missing what I feel are key details (as you say, who wants a bobbly jumper?) so I try to make sure the listings I write are the sort of listings I would buy from.

I still get questions that I don't want to take the time answering, like what the precise measurements are of a sleeve length or if I can provide more details about the condition when I've already said everything I feel could be said on the matter.

When I encounter a listing that isn't thorough, like for example its' missing a description of the condition beyond the word "used", or the photos aren't clear, or the size is ambiguous, I just leave it alone and don't buy. There's no point in my contacting the seller,  if they did respond I've no guarantee that their assessment of the item will be a match for mine. I'd much, much rather buy from the person who feels the need to point out that the third button down has a loose thread than buy from the person who just goes "it's secondhand, what do you expect". I'll use my own time to find other information I need, like looking up reviews for the manufacturer to see if they make their arms particularly skinny for example, or to see if that shirt is likely to fit someone with broad shoulders.

To be fair, it's not that I think people are deliberately wasting the sellers time, it's just that if a seller gets a number of questions and each question takes time to answer it and people who ask questions don't usually buy, it's literally not worth their time to answer the questions. I hope that makes sense, it's not an insult to the buyers who ask questions, it's just someone being judicious with their time.

Say I'm selling something for £500 on my work account. If you message me to ask if the colour is more orange or more terracotta, I'll do my best to answer and it might take me ten minutes. I might get six questions about that item that take 10minutes to answer each, and then one buyer buys it, so maybe 1 hour's worth of question answering for a £500 order. That's a really good use of my time, answering those questions! But on the other hand, say I'm clearing something worth £20 on a 99p auction, I might get twelve questions that could take five minutes each to answer. That's another hour spent answering questions, and with the best will in the world the bidding won't go over £10. If I paid myself minimum wage, I just lost money! I could write into the description that I won't answer questions, but that will put off perfectly ordinary people who maybe don't even have any questions, just because it looks unfriendly. I could copy and paste the same polite "Sorry we can't answer this" message to each one of them, but out of twelve people there's going to be at least two who feel the need to be rude and unpleasant in return. Or I could ignore the questions that look like they'd take time to answer, and continue on as if nothing happened. I'm happy, most of the buyers are happy, and the ones who aren't happy maybe think their message just got eaten by the eBay gremlins.

tightauldgit

Pollycat said:

tightauldgit said:

Catsacor said:

tightauldgit said:

Generally do my best to answer messages and questions on Ebay however it often seems more bother than it's worth at times.

I think I can count on the fingers of one thumb the number of times I've answered a message and got a sale from it, and very very rarely even get a 'thanks but that's not what I'm looking for'

The latest spate is people getting shirty about things cleared stated to be collection only, making lowball offers if I'll post it and then getting shirty when I say no. So I've taken to blocking people. 

The clothing items I have sold have generally all sold to people who are quite happy with the label size as listed (the way people buy clothes all the time from shops) and generally when people ask to measure things they never actually follow up with a sale. It's a pain in the butt to run around finding a measuring tape, finding the item, measuring it or photographing it, responding to the message and then it just going off into the void. Not to mention a lot of the things I sell are still sealed, so no I'm not opening it so you can get an accurate measurement of the width of the cuffs. 

99% of the questions i get asked can be easily solved with a Google - which is half the time what I end up doing. 

Not to mention the bloke that argued with me for ages that I should take the back off something so they can check the internals, i finally caved and did it, he responded that it was all as should be, then didn't bid.    

I even had someone give me the classic FB/Gumtree 'is this still available?' the other day - of course it's still available if listed you absolute clownshoe! 

I'm glad my Ebaying career is coming to an end tbh - moving away next week so everything that's not sold is going into storage until further notice. Made some decent money from it but by god it's hard work sometimes. 

To answer you in order -
* I always thank my sellers, i'm as polite to them as i would be anyone else.

* Because they've seen that it is going to be too large or small. 

* So just respond with the figures, i don't expect photos. 

* So state that in the listing - it would save the buyer all the fuss of bothering you. 

* Absolutely not true of some sellers ... i've bought and enquired about things only to be told "oh, sorry, i thought i'd removed that because it's sold".

Your experiences as a seller are about as irritating as a buyers experiences of sellers - it is definitely not one sided.

- then you are unusual
- possibly, or they haven't even seen my message or don't care and went down the pub instead. Or they just asked pointlessly on loads of items and didn't really have any intention of buying. That's the point really if you don't respond you come across as a timewaster
- sometimes people ASK for photos though. And normally just 'do you have better photos?' rather than actually specifying what they want to see
- If the item is photographed sealed in its bag and stated in the listing it's brand new and sealed (and do people even read the descriptions???) do I need to state that I am not going to open it to measure things?
- and when you reply 'yes, it's still available' and then they don't bid or offer or anything??? Were they just asking for a friend?

You wanted to know why people don't respond to messages on Ebay - and a few people have pointed out why. It's unfortunate that the good buyers like yourself have to pay the price for the behaviour of what seems to be the majority but that's just the way it is unfortunately. As I said, I do my best to answer anything I get but I'm getting increasingly frustrated with people 

The only other thing I would say is just that generally the Ebay message system isn't very good so in many cases it may simply be that sellers aren't even noticing the messages or getting so many that they don't pay attention to them. 

I don't agree that the OP is unusual.
He/she is very similar to me.
You are similar to other posters.
We don't know how many other posters are similar to me and the OP.

Unusual in so much as they seem to be a polite and courteous buyer who responds to people when they answer their questions. I can only talk from my own experience - literally the ONLY answers I have ever had to my responses to questions have been insults/abuse when I've said 'no' or clownshoe responses that made me feel like i wasted my time. I've never had a single person EVER write back and say 'ok thanks but that's too big' or provide any reason why they don't want to make an offer. 

A recent one i had when selling an expensive item around £700...

Buyer: Hey, can you take pictures of X Y Z and check A B C for me on this

Me: Sure, but before I do can you confirm you read it's collection only and also I'm not open to offers on it (had a load of people asking me to post it when I wasn't prepared to) 

Buyer: Yeah sure, can you just check ABC XYZ

Me: Here are the measurements, photos, of ABC and XYZ. 

Buyer: That's good. Will you take [50% of asking price] and can you post it to [backside of Britain]?

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

tightauldgit said:

I even had someone give me the classic FB/Gumtree 'is this still available?' the other day - of course it's still available if listed you absolute clownshoe! 

This is Facebook's doing, they offer suggestions on what to say when making contact so instead of actually typing something you just tap the screen.

I think most people use it as an opener which doesn't bother me, it does however bother me when you send a nice message back which is followed by silence. 

What's the point in asking if you aren't interested? 

Pollycat

tightauldgit said:

Pollycat said:

tightauldgit said:

Catsacor said:

tightauldgit said:

Generally do my best to answer messages and questions on Ebay however it often seems more bother than it's worth at times.

I think I can count on the fingers of one thumb the number of times I've answered a message and got a sale from it, and very very rarely even get a 'thanks but that's not what I'm looking for'

The latest spate is people getting shirty about things cleared stated to be collection only, making lowball offers if I'll post it and then getting shirty when I say no. So I've taken to blocking people. 

The clothing items I have sold have generally all sold to people who are quite happy with the label size as listed (the way people buy clothes all the time from shops) and generally when people ask to measure things they never actually follow up with a sale. It's a pain in the butt to run around finding a measuring tape, finding the item, measuring it or photographing it, responding to the message and then it just going off into the void. Not to mention a lot of the things I sell are still sealed, so no I'm not opening it so you can get an accurate measurement of the width of the cuffs. 

99% of the questions i get asked can be easily solved with a Google - which is half the time what I end up doing. 

Not to mention the bloke that argued with me for ages that I should take the back off something so they can check the internals, i finally caved and did it, he responded that it was all as should be, then didn't bid.    

I even had someone give me the classic FB/Gumtree 'is this still available?' the other day - of course it's still available if listed you absolute clownshoe! 

I'm glad my Ebaying career is coming to an end tbh - moving away next week so everything that's not sold is going into storage until further notice. Made some decent money from it but by god it's hard work sometimes. 

To answer you in order -
* I always thank my sellers, i'm as polite to them as i would be anyone else.

* Because they've seen that it is going to be too large or small. 

* So just respond with the figures, i don't expect photos. 

* So state that in the listing - it would save the buyer all the fuss of bothering you. 

* Absolutely not true of some sellers ... i've bought and enquired about things only to be told "oh, sorry, i thought i'd removed that because it's sold".

Your experiences as a seller are about as irritating as a buyers experiences of sellers - it is definitely not one sided.

- then you are unusual
- possibly, or they haven't even seen my message or don't care and went down the pub instead. Or they just asked pointlessly on loads of items and didn't really have any intention of buying. That's the point really if you don't respond you come across as a timewaster
- sometimes people ASK for photos though. And normally just 'do you have better photos?' rather than actually specifying what they want to see
- If the item is photographed sealed in its bag and stated in the listing it's brand new and sealed (and do people even read the descriptions???) do I need to state that I am not going to open it to measure things?
- and when you reply 'yes, it's still available' and then they don't bid or offer or anything??? Were they just asking for a friend?

You wanted to know why people don't respond to messages on Ebay - and a few people have pointed out why. It's unfortunate that the good buyers like yourself have to pay the price for the behaviour of what seems to be the majority but that's just the way it is unfortunately. As I said, I do my best to answer anything I get but I'm getting increasingly frustrated with people 

The only other thing I would say is just that generally the Ebay message system isn't very good so in many cases it may simply be that sellers aren't even noticing the messages or getting so many that they don't pay attention to them. 

I don't agree that the OP is unusual.
He/she is very similar to me.
You are similar to other posters.
We don't know how many other posters are similar to me and the OP.

Unusual in so much as they seem to be a polite and courteous buyer who responds to people when they answer their questions. I can only talk from my own experience - literally the ONLY answers I have ever had to my responses to questions have been insults/abuse when I've said 'no' or clownshoe responses that made me feel like i wasted my time. I've never had a single person EVER write back and say 'ok thanks but that's too big' or provide any reason why they don't want to make an offer. 

A recent one i had when selling an expensive item around £700...

Buyer: Hey, can you take pictures of X Y Z and check A B C for me on this

Me: Sure, but before I do can you confirm you read it's collection only and also I'm not open to offers on it (had a load of people asking me to post it when I wasn't prepared to) 

Buyer: Yeah sure, can you just check ABC XYZ

Me: Here are the measurements, photos, of ABC and XYZ. 

Buyer: That's good. Will you take [50% of asking price] and can you post it to [backside of Britain]?

You seem to have had bad experiences with eBay.
I can only talk from my own experience:
As a buyer, if, after questions, I decide the item is not for me, I always say 'thanks, but no thanks'.
As a seller I answer questions politely - even if the information is already in the listing. I'm quite happy to post additional photos.
I almost always get a response back.

Maybe it's the items I buy or the items I sell that determines that.
I only sell personal things for relatively low amounts, not large, expensive items that need collecting.

I leave feedback and quite often drop the seller a note if I'm particularly pleased with the item.
Most sellers respond to say they are glad the item has gone to a good home.

jeffuk

On receiving a question I always check the "Feedback left for others" in their profile, then make the decision to either answer the question or add them to the Block Bidder List.  

tightauldgit

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

tightauldgit said:

I even had someone give me the classic FB/Gumtree 'is this still available?' the other day - of course it's still available if listed you absolute clownshoe! 

This is Facebook's doing, they offer suggestions on what to say when making contact so instead of actually typing something you just tap the screen.

I think most people use it as an opener which doesn't bother me, it does however bother me when you send a nice message back which is followed by silence. 

What's the point in asking if you aren't interested? 

I think I realised that a lot (or at least some) of the "is this still available" barrage of FB responses is just people with fat fingers pressing the wrong button when scrolling. I had one nice person admit to such the other day 

rollingmoon

If other sellers are anything like me it's not that they don't read their messages, they use the questions asked to identify PITA bidders. I immediately block anyone who asks a question that's answered in the listing, but other things can set alarm bells ringing... a while back I sold a motorcycle on eBay; amongst the usual 'WATS THE LEAST ULL TAKE M8' and 'WILL U DELIVR 2 THE MOON' I got a chap asking whether the previous owner had had any problems with it, had it been recalled, would I guarantee he could ride it 150 miles home without issue (it was 20-odd years old) etc. I didn't reply and blocked him as he seemed a bit high maintenance for me to be bothered with.

[Deleted User]

It's still tarring, all of us, buyers with that same ugly stick though.
In the beginning, here, i said what i buy on there, and when you buy you need a shred of pertinent information before spending your hard earned money, i'm not willing to mine away any more.

jeffuk

[Deleted User] said:

It's still tarring, all of us, buyers with that same ugly stick though.
In the beginning, here, i said what i buy on there, and when you buy you need a shred of pertinent information before spending your hard earned money, i'm not willing to mine away any more.

Sometimes the buyer knows what they are trying to say, it just comes across wrong.

JetpackVelociraptor

Like I said, for myself and for I suspect many other sellers, it isn't a moral judgement and it isn't necessarily poor business practice. They're probably just looking at the time it will take them to answer the question - take extra photos or measurements, for example - and they're thinking that it's not worth it, because the time they'd spend doing that is worth more to them than the potential value of the sale. Either the questions you're asking are the sort of questions that tend not to result in a sale, or the value of the item is low. Either way, it's highly likely this is not personal and nobody is being tarred with any kind of brush. The sellers don't know who you are, they only know what information you give them - the content of the message, the tone, the formatting, your feedback left for others - that's it. Not a lot of information to go off.

I've had customers ask questions using text speak or messages littered with emojis or just plain bad spelling, and then go on to have a smooth and pleasant experience with them wherein they spent quite respectable sums of money. It's not a class or an education thing, at least not for me.

A couple of years ago I made a list of warning signs for interactions with our customers - not just on eBay but universal. I went through every unreasonable complaint, return, or unpleasant interaction (it didn't take that long - we don't get many!) over the past 17 years and I identified several major warning flags that are pretty good indicators that we're going to have a bad time with the customer. Most of them were fairly obvious, but several were to do with the way in which people write, and to this day I don't know why that is. But if I get a message that (for example) uses more than three exclamation points together, or that uses bold, italic or capslock to emphasise a point, or if the buyers' feedback left for others includes the word "disgusting", I'm probably not going to answer that person. That's not a moral judgement either, I honestly don't know what it reveals, I just know that people who write like that tend to be trouble.