deskthority

eBay sucks. But at the same time it's really convenient. Recently I have been trying to sell some stuff, and I keep running into the same problems. An auction or BIN is successful, I wait and wait and the buyer never pays. I send a message and they say they don't want the item anymore. This has happened on at least 4 of the last 10 items I have tried selling (no exaggeration here). Filing an unpaid item claim is a bitch and it takes forever. Back in the day I feel like I remember being really careful about bidding something up if I wasn't sure I wanted it, as I would be stuck paying for the auction. Now a days on the selling side it almost feels like you can place bids with no real expectation of payment.

Anyone have any tips for selling items with more success, and what to do when someone decides they don't want to pay?

you can ban the buyers who did not pay from your future auctions. Might also be worth mentioning it in the auction itself. Not sure if you feel like calling ebay customer service over that but it would not hurt. Ebay has become more strict about this in last year or so. Of course I can only speak about ebay in Germany.

it is a pain in the arse, i sold 2 graphics cards on there and the guy said they did not work ( they clearly did ) and he is asking for a refund but he would not send them back for me to test, i offered to refund his posting costs but he still said no. Ebay did side with me eventually as i had offered a refund if he sent it back in agreement with there terms

This happened to me a couple of weeks ago.

There used to be a condition "Immediate payment required for Buy-It-Now" - but that seems to have disappeared.

I contacted support and they told me that I had to wait a few days to seee if the "buyer" paid - no.
Then I had to do things like ask for the money and wait a week to see if they paid - no.
Finally, I was able to close the case, and I did.
The final fee stayed on my account for another week, until I did something else, which was basically closing the case again.

The changes ebay made, what, 5 years ago? were really bad when you could no longer block buyers with no substantial feedback or leave negative feedback for buyers.

Ebay always screws sellers and strokes buyers, but they know that it is all about supply and demand, and demand is king.

I do hate the buyer centric thing they have going. Its all of this "buyers protection", no negative feedback, and refunds and crap, that mean the sellers are basically guilty until proven innocent. Filing an unpaid item case is such a hassle, and means that it is incredibly annoying when it comes to re-listing items. Especially time sensitive items. If the buyer then magically decides a week later he wants the item, you then get in trouble if you have gone and re-sold it or what ever.

fohat wrote: ↑The changes ebay made, what, 5 years ago? were really bad when you could no longer block buyers with no substantial feedback or leave negative feedback for buyers.

Ebay always screws sellers and strokes buyers, but they know that it is all about supply and demand, and demand is king.

Unfortunately very true. There are a lot of buyers who take advantage of this any way they can. While I have been lucky with my keyboard buys on ebay I have had my fair share of trouble in the past with sales.

http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/buyer-requirements.html

It says on this page that you still can block low feedback scored people. At least that cuts down on some shill accounts people open up to avoid paying...

blighty wrote: ↑
It says on this page that you still can block low feedback scored people.

But the definition of "low feedback score" is -1, -2, -3, -4, or -5

I want to block anybody with a feedback score less than +10, and particularly people with score = zero

eBay is long overdue a successful rival.

I won't have anything to do with eBay — it's the scum of the earth.

I dislike all these global brands who exist because they exist. Network effects make eBay a self fulfilling prophecy. All they had to do was not die while the early competitors did the honour instead. (Granted, that's a triumph. I'm sure they were merciless!) Nowadays all the action's at eBay (could have written this 10 years ago, and sadly it'll still be so in 10 to come). You have to be a principled fool to sell elsewhere. It's where all the buyers are, because it's where all the sellers are, because… because… because…

The same is largely true for Amazon, where it exists — strange they are in so few countries, that's not a healthy way to drive competitors to destruction — because people shop at Amazon because all the stuff's at Amazon. After starting off as an immensely inventive outsider, Google's sitting in much the same place these days with its near monopoly on search and web advertising. Facebook, duh. And also Wikipedia! Even Kickstarter defines its field with its own brandname. I wouldn't want to compete with them either. They don't have to be evil to be impossible to beat. People are there because people are there.

It's interesting to ponder, on these terms, quite why DT exists. Surely everyone should be at GH? Or all keyboard discussion should be stuck in the /directory/someotherdirectory/noonegoesthisfar/youdon'tmatter of Reddit? It helps our "business model" doesn't demand dominance in eyeballs or even making a simple profit from advertisers or venture capitalists. They'd never let us survive! And yet here we are.

So I guess I'm grumbling about money now… zzz.

Muirium wrote: ↑All they had to do was not die while the early competitors did the honour instead.

I came across a post at Geekhack earlier where I had been pondering on the quandary of which wiki I should contribute to. (Interestingly, the Geekhack wiki was moderated, and my changes there were trapped in moderation limbo and likely never saw the light of day.)

The problem was solved by the death of the Geekhack wiki.

Having three English-language communities for the same comparatively niche subject is a pain, and anyone who needs attention has to cross-post to all three. (That's not counting discussion at places such as OCN — *glares at Capwn*) Reddit is just a mess in general, so I don't waste my time with it — I have no idea why anyone would try to use it as a forum for anything as it's such an inherently dreadful platform.

pyrelink wrote: ↑eBay sucks. But at the same time it's really convenient. Recently I have been trying to sell some stuff, and I keep running into the same problems. An auction or BIN is successful, I wait and wait and the buyer never pays. I send a message and they say they don't want the item anymore. This has happened on at least 4 of the last 10 items I have tried selling (no exaggeration here). Filing an unpaid item claim is a bitch and it takes forever. Back in the day I feel like I remember being really careful about bidding something up if I wasn't sure I wanted it, as I would be stuck paying for the auction. Now a days on the selling side it almost feels like you can place bids with no real expectation of payment.

Anyone have any tips for selling items with more success, and what to do when someone decides they don't want to pay?

I don't sell anything on eBay, but I buy stuff there. I don't go to eBay to bid in order to save money. I always look for *Buy Now" only offers (via the filter). This is a different mentality than a typical bidder -- my goal is to obtain an item that I can't find in local stores (or on Amazon) and I'll pay for it because I need or want it NOW. I'm not interested in *huge* savings that auctions could sometimes provide -- I'm interested only in the item (if it's reasonably priced). I guess, my point is to look at possibly many like myself who don't have much time to participate in multi-day auctions and who are more of a committed buyers than bidders. Have your auction as you usually do but also have that *Buy Now* on every item you try to sell. Put the *Buy Now* price a bit above what you are hoping to get or what the item is worth (especially for some hard to get/high in demand items). The *best offer* option is also a good option for items that are not in high demand or you just want to get rid of.

Daniel Beardsmore wrote:eBay is long overdue a successful rival.

I won't have anything to do with eBay — it's the scum of the earth.

I couldn't agree more, but I keep falling for it![emoji35]

I suggest having less money to waste there. Really does the trick for me! By my count, I've only ever bought keyboards from eBay 3 times, and the last of those was the Access-IS ten-pack I proxied for a bunch of people. I've had a lot better luck, and prices, with Cindy.

zts wrote: ↑
I don't go to eBay to bid in order to save money. I always look for *Buy Now" only offers. This is a different mentality than a typical bidder -- my goal is to obtain an item that I can't find in local stores (or on Amazon) and I'll pay for it because I need or want it NOW.

I guess, my point is to look at possibly many like myself who don't have much time to participate in multi-day auctions and who are more of a committed buyers than bidders.

Put the *Buy Now* price a bit above what you are hoping to get or what the item is worth (especially for some hard to get/high in demand items).

When I sell, I research to find out what a fair price and/or the "going rate" happens to be, and sell "Buy-It-Now" unless it is such an unusual item that I feel that I need to run an auction. These days, with my 15 years' experience, that is rare.

If I am in a hurry to sell, I price my item slightly below the going rate for its condition.

If I want to get top dollar and am willing to be patient, I price my item at the highest price point that I would reasonably hope to get.
Then every few days I drop the price by 5%-10% until it sells.

When I buy, I am impatient and seek "Buy-It-Now" at what I feel to be a fair price.
When I am trolling for a bargain, I put in a lowball snipe and then put the item out of my mind altogether.

Although ebay/Paypal rates are rapacious, they do put your item on the market everywhere. From Atlanta, Georgia, I have sold a keyboard to Tasmania, which is just about as far away as it is possible to get on the surface of this planet.

For a quagmire of TL;DR you can try this: https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=51443.0

^ it seems you know how to do stuff on eBay. That is a good read you posted on GH.

fohat wrote: ↑... https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=51443.0

@foat: Your post is my reference

fohat, that post on GH is 100% true and great advice. How dare you share all this wisdom with the uninitiated plebs?

No, really it helped me a lot, especially the seller's perspective that I didn't have so much myself yet. Thank you!