The General eBay Rant Thread

[quote name="NoLifeDGenerate" post="12710146" timestamp="1432748774"]Yeah. I ordered something on half.com and paid for expedited shipping. By Half's terms, that's Priority Mail, but the cheap bastard shipped first class, so I negged him.[/quote]

Did it take longer than the expedited shipping time to get to you? A lot of times priority mail and first class have the same expected arrival date. Priority mail is essentially just first class for packages.

If it arrived late then you are in the right, but if it arrived in time you're just an asshole.
 
yourlefthand said:
Did it take longer than the expedited shipping time to get to you? A lot of times priority mail and first class have the same expected arrival date. Priority mail is essentially just first class for packages. If it arrived late then you are in the right, but if it arrived in time you're just an asshole.
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It took longer than 3 days. Either way, first class doesn't cost $5.50. I paid for Priority. I expect to get it. I had another order ship from within the same state as me, First Class, and it still took 5 goddamn days to get 3 hours from where it started.

 
[quote name="NoLifeDGenerate" post="12710953" timestamp="1432769670"]It took longer than 3 days. Either way, first class doesn't cost $5.50. I paid for Priority. I expect to get it. I had another order ship from within the same state as me, First Class, and it still took 5 goddamn days to get 3 hours from where it started.[/quote]

half.com states that expedited shipping often takes 1 to 3 days but can take up to 10. You really didn't get worse service than you paid for.

Where's the thread to rant about entitled asshole buyers?
 
yourlefthand said:
half.com states that expedited shipping often takes 1 to 3 days but can take up to 10. You really didn't get worse service than you paid for. Where's the thread to rant about entitled asshole buyers?
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It also states priority mail. That's 2-3 days, according to USPS. Sorry, I thought I was living in the 21st century. NOTHING should take more than a week to ship in this country. I go apeshit when international orders take more than 2 weeks. That's another thing. I recently had a seller wait an entire week to ship an item ordered through half.com. That pissed me off.

 
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elessar123 said:
I'd have to agree with needler here too. Unless combined shipping shows up as an option on eBay, they'll be individual packages. They either a) paid for two shipping costs, or b) eBay expects two tracking numbers. Doing a partial refund just opens up the potential for trouble.

And I'll admit, I have rated someone poorly because they charged me for priority mail shipping and shipped it parcel post. And I probably would do the same if I paid for two packages to be shipped and got only one without a partial refund from combined shipping.
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I had something similar happen recently. The eBay seller listed shipping as Priority Mail for $6.00. I was fine with that. I paid within 1-2 minutes of the auction ending. The seller waited 6 days and shipped it Parcel Post. Situations like that cause me to rate the shipping charge DSR low.

 
On my items which are always BIN I post that I will ship media but ship it first class because it's cheaper and comes with free tracking at least where I'm from.also it would please the buyer aswell
 
I always list with the cheapest shipping so I don't have to figure out before hand what's cheaper. Then I just ship with anything and it'll be guaranteed to be there sooner.

 
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Can someone give me some advice regarding getting an eBay store relative to my situation? I've got an offer to open a store for $5.95 a month for the first four months with no early termination fee if I cancel the store before the first four months are up. But the offer expires tomorrow. I definitely am not at a "store" level of selling, but I'm trying to figure out if there's any advantage to this deal for that four month period.

I sometimes move a good amount of stuff around Christmas, but it seems like the rest of the year is a really slow trickle. This endeavor, at best, is at a "beer money" level. I didn't sell a single thing this week for example. Over the past three months (February-April) I've sold about 10 items per month with the average price of the item being anywhere between $20 and $35. I'm not particularly in a rush to move this stuff as I'd like to at least break even after what I initially paid, fees and shipping costs. If I were in a rush to move it, I'd just auction it all and let it sell for whatever it might sell for.

It looks like with a store I would save 10% on eBay fees. But I would need to sell enough with that discount to make up the difference of paying the $5.95 for the store. So using my current sales numbers, approximately, if I sell 10 items in a month at $27.50 with a store, I'll save $2.70 on fees. But having paid the $5.95 for a store, that puts me in the hole -$3.25.

Before I was doing fine with the free 40 fixed price insertions. (I seemed to cycle through 45 listings per months at my highest.) But the drop to 20 free insertions is really going to force me to be selective about what I list. It looks like the additional insertion fees are $0.30 for fixed price listings if you don't have a store. If I were to list 20 items beyond the 20 free, that would cost me $6 in insertion fees alone (and that's assuming those all sold, which they won't, so I might have to pay to re-list the next month too). So there's somewhat of a benefit having store with 100-150 free listings versus no store and paying for 20 extra listings. But of course I could always just not pay for extra listings (or a store) since I'm not in a huge rush to sell these things.

Am I missing anything here? In short I don't sell enough quantity wise or dollar wise to benefit from the reduced eBay fees. And the only real benefit would be having the extra fixed price listings beyond the 20 free ones I get now. Thoughts?

 
I got the same offer as you, and have roughly the same sales stats.

The benefit is the final value fees on some items, like video game consoles. There might be other FVF discounts, but I'm not a pro-seller either, so I'm not sure.

 
elessar123 said:
I got the same offer as you, and have roughly the same sales stats.

The benefit is the final value fees on some items, like video game consoles. There might be other FVF discounts, but I'm not a pro-seller either, so I'm not sure.
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Ah yeah I see it's only 4% on video game consoles. The only things I ever sell are books/video games/DVDs, so it's just the 9% FVF which is just 1% lower than the usual 10%, and I don't think I sell enough to even out in terms of paying $5.95 w/ 9% FVF versus just getting hit with the straight 10% FVF.

I'm thinking I'll probably pass on the offer.

 
The reason to get a store isn't really based on how much you sell, but how much you list. If you list well more than 20 items, it's totally worth it. If you only list 15-25 items each month, sure, you'll only sell about less than half that, if that. I would list more than 100 items per month if I had free listings so I'd jump on that offer in a heartbeat, but if you don't list enough, it's not really worth it.

 
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Can i negative someones feeback if i sent them multiple messages asking for feedback. 

They got the items long long ago and i long ago gotten payment fully clear but I ask the buyers to leave me feedback and they don't respond.

This is for a few people now. Not getting it hurts my future sales because its keeping with a low credibility of feedback.

I want to write something like this.

Payment received item delivered. Contacted buyer over two weeks asking for feedback and no response.

Or I will mark my feedback side as neutral after they positive me.

 
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You can't leave negative feedback for buyers anyways. And you can't leave retaliatory feedback. Just send them a reminder when it's deliver, at most, and don't annoy them about it. It's a courtesy, not an obligation.

 
elessar123 said:
You can't leave negative feedback for buyers anyways. And you can't leave retaliatory feedback. Just send them a reminder when it's deliver, at most, and don't annoy them about it. It's a courtesy, not an obligation.
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I tend to be a little slow on leaving feedback too. I usually wait until all my open orders arrive, so I don't accidentally give the wrong person a positive. Then I run through all my feedback at ebay/amazon at once copy/pasting a happy face. It pisses me off I'm forced to type anything to rate a seller positive. It should be easier. Hell, when you actually want to explain why a seller is a prick, they don't give you enough characters to do it anyway, especially on Ebay. 80 characters? WTF is this? 1995?

 
needler420 said:
Can i negative someones feeback if i sent them multiple messages asking for feedback.

They got the items long long ago and i long ago gotten payment fully clear but I ask the buyers to leave me feedback and they don't respond.

This is for a few people now. Not getting it hurts my future sales because its keeping with a low credibility of feedback.

I want to write something like this.

Payment received item delivered. Contacted buyer over two weeks asking for feedback and no response.

Or I will mark my feedback side as neutral after they positive me.
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I know this was answered, but seriously dude?

"This guy won't say nice things about me...so I want to say mean things about him"

You do not need to leave feedback as a buyer or a seller, it's optional...

 
I always ship within 24 hours with proper packaging (bubble wrap, sturdy boxes, etc.) I always leave feedback but I only get feedback about 10% of the time. Stinks but that is life.
 
RoytheRobot said:
Tip: Never leave feedback first as a seller. Wait for them to do it, then you do.
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In a way, it really doesn't matter for the most part. You can only block "low" feedback buyers under the narrowest of circumstances. So assuming the person is just a buyer on eBay, then it doesn't matter if they have 5 feedback or 500 feedback. They'll still be able to buy nearly anything they want from whomever they want.

I'm not advocating just blanket leaving positive feedback after the person pays though. Some people feel that's what should happen because they think a seller's obligation ends with payment. But in the world of eBay with difficult buyers and outright scammers, I think the entirety of the business transaction still continues after payment from the buyer. So since you can't leave a negative or a neutral for any problematic buyers, not contributing to their feedback score at all is the best you can do. But like I said above, buyer feedback scores are relatively useless, so it's really just a "moral" stance to take.

The one place it might make a difference is if the buyer is also a seller. That positive feedback for being a buyer boosts their overall feedback score that you'd then have to examine closer and see the breakdown of feedback as a buyer and feedback as a seller. So I can see someone not wanting to leave feedback for someone who turned out to be a crappy buyer because of the overall feedback boost that could help them sell more stuff.

And really, I feel like sellers are probably lucky to get any feedback scores at all on eBay. There's no benefit to the buyer to leave feedback for the seller. It's an entirely optional thing where the buyer is basically doing the seller a favor to boost the seller's reputation on eBay. I don't buy all that often on Amazon Marketplace, but when I do I rarely leave feedback. I usually only leave high scoring feedback when the seller exceeded my expectations in some ways, and most of the time that's for the non-Prime-shipped orders. If Amazon fulfills the shipping, the fact that it was a Marketplace order becomes kind of an afterthought, and I don't usually leave feedback unless the seller really went with the wrong item condition. Or if the seller also shipped it, I'll leave low scoring feedback when the seller screws up and then refuses to fix the problem and I have to involve Amazon. My rambling point is - Amazon Marketplace sellers probably have it much worse in regard to getting any feedback at all.

On eBay I just have my own dumb protocol - if a buyer leaves me positive feedback, that's my signal to know everything went smoothly and we're done with the transaction, so I'll return the positive feedback, even though it's nothing more than a polite gesture at this point. Otherwise I don't bother going out of my way to give buyers positive feedback. And I'll leave sellers positive feedback (regardless of if they give me positive buyer feedback) if the item was accurately described and they shipped it securely in a reasonable time frame. If they don't do all of that, I don't leave feedback, which I consider a favor to them since neutral or negative feedback would be worse for them as a seller. If things rose to the point where I had to file a claim, I still won't leave negative feedback unless the seller is an eggregious asshole.

So we can play these little games and make up our own "moral codes" for feedback, but in the end it doesn't really matter when it comes to buyers. Give them all positive feedback right away or never give them positive feedback no matter what. It's not going to change a thing for their experience as a buyer on eBay.

 
salty tbone said:
I always ship within 24 hours with proper packaging (bubble wrap, sturdy boxes, etc.) I always leave feedback but I only get feedback about 10% of the time. Stinks but that is life.
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10%? I'm more like 50% on eBay, and like 3% on Amazon. I've sold like 30 things on Amazon and have gotten only 2 feedback, both were in my first 5 sales.

 
I know most here don't think feedback doesn't mean squat but it does when you're a new seller. There are tons of people (quite a few here too that have admitted it) that won't go near a seller if it's in the single digits or even under 30 in some cases so I feel buyers should at least attempt to do it if it's a new seller to help them out. I used to care about getting feedback even after mine was out of that "new seller" zone and always made sure to leave it for the buyer in hopes they'd do the same but as most buyers seem to be lazy pricks that don't return the favor I don't even try anymore. If they leave me it then I'll do the same otherwise forget it. As a buyer I will always leave it assuming it was a good transaction just as a courtesy.

 
Seems most of us have the same agreed procedure. As a buyer, leave positive feedback if the transaction went smoothly and you're generally satisfied with the item. As a seller, not really any need to leave the buyer any feedback unless you're happy with their communication/payment time or they've signaled that they're happy with your item. Not rocket science, and I too don't hound people to leave me some, it's optional and a friendly reminder usually suffices if you really want it.

 
Not a big deal but Paypal's digital account on eBay is selling $100 eBay gift cards for $95. 5% is not a big amount of savings but it's worth putting up $95 to buy one and rolling it into your second purchase since the limit is two. Their gift cards never expire so you just keep rolling these everytime they put up an offer like this. Seems like they at least put it up once every couple of months. $95 -> $100 -> $110 - > $120 -> $125 ... you get the idea. Don't go beyond the limit for each individual listing/promotion to avoid bans.
 
If I had the extra money I'd do it but I really don't feel like waiting all those months building it up before reaping the reward as low as it is.

 
Every single established and big time seller leaves feedback immediately after receiving payment from the buyer. You can argue all you want but it makes no sense to wait to leave feedback as you can't leave false positive for a buyer---it's against the T&C anyways.

I swear people try and fight every single thing that eBay advocates as if it doesn't apply to them.

Also if you have a new selling account and your concerned about having a low feedback score just buy a bunch of $1 HDMI cables from random sellers. Buying boosts your feedback to you know, and most people aren't spending time to check a sellers feedback to see how much of it is from buying and how much of it is from selling.

 
GBAstar said:
Every single established and big time seller leaves feedback immediately after receiving payment from the buyer. You can argue all you want but it makes no sense to wait to leave feedback as you can't leave false positive for a buyer---it's against the T&C anyways.
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You "can't" but I still do. I don't care very much about my account and always make it a point to leave a false positive for a buyer if they screw me over.

 
[quote name="Narukami" post="12730257" timestamp="1433653195"]You "can't" but I still do. I don't care very much about my account and always make it a point to leave a false positive for a buyer if they screw me over.[/quote]

I think you need to look at your own practices if you're getting "screwed over" that much.
 
Ferrari Racer said:
I was planning on selling something for $150 on eBay soon. At that price should I include signature confirmation?
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You are only required to on purchases with a payment totaling $750 or more (new last year; up from $250). It adds no extra protection as anyone can sign for the package and in most instances is an inconvenience for the buyer since they may have to pick the item up at the post office if they miss the delivery.

If you're really worried add insurance or ship it USPS Priority which has $50 of insurance built in for everyone and $100 built in for Top Rated Sellers.

Narukami said:
You "can't" but I still do. I don't care very much about my account and always make it a point to leave a false positive for a buyer if they screw me over.
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Yep you're right; there are lots of things you "can't" do on eBay like list "as-is" and "no returns" (buyer's can always open a return via a NAD request) and those who are resistant to the change are the same ones who are getting purged from selling on eBay.

Next someone will chime in on how it's smart to empty your PayPal account after every sale... lol

 
I miss selling on eBay, but after my first negative feedback last year I've felt discouraged. I had a brief argument with a buyer that complained about the price after his purchase of a LE. So I suggested a partial refund from the $300, which was not sufficient. I later cancelled the transaction, though the buyer put bad feedback AND I got hit with the final fee or whatever it's called. In the feedback he wrote that I damaged the stuff, which doesn't look good on me either.
 
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elessar123 said:
You don't sell much with Buy It Now with instant payments, I assume.

Yes, auctions have that option.
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brian_fin said:
Right..but the link explains using Selling Manager to combine.
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I think the confusion stems from how to use Selling manager to combine invoices if you (as the seller) use BIN w/ Instant Payment required, and then the help link says that you can't combine invoices if some of those items are already paid for.

I am actually curious about this, because I use my 20 free listings to list auctions that have the BIN option as well.

 
Milliardo said:
I miss selling on eBay, but after my first negative feedback last year I've felt discouraged. I had a brief argument with a buyer that complained about the price after his purchase of a LE. So I suggested a partial refund from the $300, which was not sufficient. I later cancelled the transaction, though the buyer put bad feedback AND I got hit with the final fee or whatever it's called. In the feedback he wrote that I damaged the stuff, which doesn't look good on me either.
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If he lied in the feedback you can ask eBay to remove it, and provided your messages do not indicate you damaged it at all they should be fine with doing this.

 
GBAstar said:
Every single established and big time seller leaves feedback immediately after receiving payment from the buyer. You can argue all you want but it makes no sense to wait to leave feedback as you can't leave false positive for a buyer---it's against the T&C anyways.

I swear people try and fight every single thing that eBay advocates as if it doesn't apply to them.

Also if you have a new selling account and your concerned about having a low feedback score just buy a bunch of $1 HDMI cables from random sellers. Buying boosts your feedback to you know, and most people aren't spending time to check a sellers feedback to see how much of it is from buying and how much of it is from selling.
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Not true. Plenty of sellers in the tens of thousands I've purchased from waited until I left them a positive to give me one. One time I was on vacation and had someone back home get an item I ordered for me. When I got back a week later, I left a positive. 5 minutes later, the seller left me one. It's kind of petty, to be honest. I should have been given a positive for completing my end of the transaction. Happens all the time for me as a buyer. I'd say at least 50/50.

 
Well, I had another Half.com seller try to screw me over. Listed a 360 game as Like New with this description: "Mint condition disc in original packaging with booklet. Sharpest copy around--buy from a trusted seller!" It was a scratched up disc from Gamestop with the goddamn Gamestop stickers still on the case. I'm still waiting for a response from the asshole.

 
[quote name="NoLifeDGenerate" post="12733815" timestamp="1433845984"]Well, I had another Half.com seller try to screw me over. Listed a 360 game as Like New with this description: "Mint condition disc in original packaging with booklet. Sharpest copy around--buy from a trusted seller!" It was a scratched up disc from Gamestop with the goddamn Gamestop stickers still on the case. I'm still waiting for a response from the asshole.[/quote]

You must be mistaken. By reading this thread you should know that all eBay sellers are honest and angelic. It is always the evil buyer's fault.

Just kidding. I hope that works out for you.
 
Do you get any discounts if you use the priority flat rate boxes you can pick up at the post office? My auction is gonna end tonight and as I work overnight was thinking of just taking it with me to work and dropping by the office in the morning and just make my own label instead of a printed one at home if I won't get any discounts. Asking because it's a flat rate and always cost what it does as it's one of those "if it fits, it ships" boxes so I don't see why eBay would give you any discounts if you used a label from them.

 
You get priority mail discounts if you print labels through Paypal, yes. I think the discount is the same as if you bought it through USPS online, which is a little bit cheaper than in a physical location.

 
Alright, thanks and yeah, I see. Nice discount too, 2 bucks off. One more question since I'm still new to shipping and don't want to deal with any crap...USPS Media Mail - do they actually check your package at some point in the transition process to see if your package contents falls under the criteria or not? I actually sold an amiibo (swear I'm not a scalper, bought it online then next day found it by luck so I sold it back to recoup most money back) this way and I don't see how it qualified by their standards but it was shipped without a hassle.

 
Navex said:
Alright, thanks and yeah, I see. Nice discount too, 2 bucks off. One more question since I'm still new to shipping and don't want to deal with any crap...USPS Media Mail - do they actually check your package at some point in the transition process to see if your package contents falls under the criteria or not? I actually sold an amiibo (swear I'm not a scalper, bought it online then next day found it by luck so I sold it back to recoup most money back) this way and I don't see how it qualified by their standards but it was shipped without a hassle.
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Dude. It's 2015. Stop using that slow shit. First class is cheaper or nearly the same price most times anyway.

 
I rarely sell anything and I just started shipping shit myself instead of going through eBay so I've been doing it first class albeit at slightly higher prices since I went through USPS for the longest time. In fact, the things I'm going through now are the last of the stuff hanging around the house that I intended to sell and after that I won't have anything left to ever go through. And regardless of how I'm buying my postage, I will always go the cheapest route for anything 10 bucks or lower unless we are talking cents difference below a quarter as that shit adds up with the fees.

 
Navex said:
Alright, thanks and yeah, I see. Nice discount too, 2 bucks off. One more question since I'm still new to shipping and don't want to deal with any crap...USPS Media Mail - do they actually check your package at some point in the transition process to see if your package contents falls under the criteria or not? I actually sold an amiibo (swear I'm not a scalper, bought it online then next day found it by luck so I sold it back to recoup most money back) this way and I don't see how it qualified by their standards but it was shipped without a hassle.
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Yes they can inspect packages. Stop abusing Media Mail. There are a variety of other inexpensive shipping options out there for non-media/video game material.

 
For an Amiibo you could toss it in a box with some padding and still only be 10 or 11 oz, so no need to try and cheat with media mail.

 
What happens if you don't have the funds to pay ebay fees in your paypal or bank account when they collect fees once a month. Do they charge you a fee for waiting for their payment?

 
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