Have people stopped buying?

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head · 3 August 2018 at 10:50AM

MidlandsGlory wrote: »

I would feel more confident if the feedback system meant anything.

I left a neutral the other day for something, something I rarely do but the item had a possible safety issue and the sellers chosen courier was lousy causing me a lot of hassle.
Comment was polite and not too scathing.

But its a top rated seller so it was soon erased, !!!!!!! as if it never existed.

Looking at the very few that made it through against the seller over the year, it seems your only chance is something like 'Don't like the chair, its feels really uncomfortable' which would be hard to contest I suppose, no doubt the seller would still try and claim 500 people didn't complain so it must be comfortable.

That kind of feedback about the chair being uncomfortable would be a product review which is something eBay should really remove (they don't as their feedback policies come in to place before reviews were added but amazon for example don't allow product reviews in seller feedback for sensible reasons).

I've dealt with the majority of couriers over the years, they are all lousy and most of the time it comes down to whether the driver at your end is good at their job, random and difficult to over come. If an issue arises and you contact the seller then how they respond and help would be what to judge them on.

Possible safety issue, possible product review? Hard to say without details.

However being top rated doesn't get feedback removed easily by eBay, especially a neutral, either the comment was against eBay policy or the seller got lucky, either that or if a not received case was open but the tracking eventually showed delivered and was closed for the seller than any feedback would be removed.

chippy2u · 3 August 2018 at 11:10AM

Tried selling my 'dogging' gear on ebay. Had no bids but loads of watchers!!
Sorry. I'll get my coat!

RFW · 3 August 2018 at 4:16PM

chippy2u wrote: »

Sorry. I'll get my coat!

I bet I can guess the style of it

perfect10 · 6 August 2018 at 7:38PM

ebay have had 2 free listing months for 100 items per day! so ebay is flooded with everything you never wanted!
I have a few things listed but struggling to sell anything.
I do watch items though - but rarely things I want to buy, I usually watch items that I already have and want to sell myself!

soolin · 6 August 2018 at 8:40PM

perfect10 wrote: »

ebay have had 2 free listing months for 100 items per day! so ebay is flooded with everything you never wanted!
I have a few things listed but struggling to sell anything.
I do watch items though - but rarely things I want to buy, I usually watch items that I already have and want to sell myself!

Not just two months, many of us have had 100 free listings a day now on private accounts for a couple of years. However in the past couple of months eBay have started changing the terms of the free listings and they are not always easy to take advantage of, depending on what version you get offered, so the listings may start to dimish.

Oli.s · 6 August 2018 at 9:23PM

Ebay used to be my first port of call for most things but nowadays its just flooded with cheap junk from china that takes up the first few hundred search result spots with identical listings, trying to buy car parts is a nightmare for this very reason.

I used to buy alot of scuba diving kit as second hand kit is often little used and a significant saving but specialist facebook selling and interest groups have taken over for all that.

I also get fed up of narrowing the search results to UK sellers only to find its a chinese seller claiming to be based in the UK, and then get a barrage of begging emails to change the negative feedback when items dont turn up for weeks despite claiming to be in the next county.

The_Snow_Queen · 6 August 2018 at 10:20PM

I use Facebay rather than ebay to sell things, as they appear to be local and cheaper

soolin · 7 August 2018 at 7:49AM

The_Snow_Queen wrote: »

I use Facebay rather than ebay to sell things, as they appear to be local and cheaper

Facebay is a local selling site, so is a different sort of venue to ebay and wouldn't have the same market, I don't just want the local people to see my goods, I want the ability to sell worldwide. I use Shpock and marketplace and whilst Shpock is very good for me it is nowhere near the same sort of volume as ebay and much more time consuming.

MrsStepford · 18 August 2018 at 8:16PM

I will only buy on eBay from people I know on Twitter.

Most of my unwanted stuff goes to charity shops - books, DVDs, textiles, clothes. WEEE waste goes to the tip.

I have my own website and I could list stuff on that, linked to my Paypal account. I want to check out tax implications though as I'm not a dealer.

Amazon Marketplace suffers from cheap Chinese rubbish being sold from a UK address and a return address in China. Iam a Prime customer since 2012 and won't buy anything not fulfilled by Amazon now. I alo buy from Amazon in US and France but only if fulfilled by \Amazon.

victoriavictorious · 19 August 2018 at 4:12PM

RFW wrote: »

Do you only buy from places where you can sell from?

While at first glance that seems like a fair comment, Usefulmale does actually have a point,
Ebay has indeed lost a lot of buyers since straying such a long way from its original roots and seemingly doing everything possible to push out small private sellers - who anecdotally would plough their Paypal proceeds straight back into buying stuff on ebay.
Private sellers offering the unique, the quirky and the genuine vintage are becoming as rare as hens teeth now, with ebay no longer the go-to venue for them that it once was - one of the many reasons sales are suffering generally.

Have people stopped buying?

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