posted on August 2, 2001 12:22:17 PM
I'm not sure how this thread got combative, but such is life here on the AW boards.
ExecutiveGirl, you make good points, and when I see someone with <100 feedback, I figure if they get enough "what's the shipping" emails, eventually they'll put it in. But unless I want the item very much, I'm not going to ask a shooting star that question - they should know better.
Also, with clothes, there are so many! From your posts here, I'm sure I wouldn't hit "back" when I saw your listings. But honestly, not only do a bazillion listings come up when I search "black sweater" (even when I put in "-white-red-purple-----etc.), but the listings I go to often have cursory descriptions that aren't helpful.
But, I also agree with the poster here who says that pleasing the customer is key. So, if the biggest gripe in this thread is about stating shipping, doesn't it make sense for all sellers to address it in some way?
Another thing to note is that while I will email for a shipping rate on something I want, there may not be time if I am searching items ending today. Why would anyone want to lose even one bidder this way?
For me, I avoid sellers with lots of bad feedback that's recent. And I won't bid on "MO ONLY!" auctions unless the item is going for about half of what it should - and I really want it - and I've been searching eBay for months and finally found it. I'm pretty flexible about everything else.
posted on August 2, 2001 12:26:49 PM
No chance of bidding:
- Music on the page.
- Lots of animated GIFs.
- Includes a statement such as "subject to availability."
- Lots of non-item pictures (one or two logos at most, please).
- Lots of font size and/or font color changes.
- No picture on something that needs at least some picture.
- "PayPal (or other online payment system) only."
- TOS on separate page.
- Auctions where I can recognize I'll have to submit my information with a third party.
- Negative FB (I crosscheck and ignore obvious revenge negs) exceeding ~5%.
- A string of recent negative FB.
- High fixed shipping cost for any item, regardless of cost.
Less chance of bidding:
- Negative FB exceeding ~3%.
- Small or very fuzzy picture.
- "Picture says it all."
- Long, complicated TOS.
- "Negative" TOS that goes beyond the understandable, "Please do not bid if you do not intend to honor the contract."
- Having to click off-site to even see an image.
- Unspecified shipping.
May still make bids, but lower amount:
- Minimal or no feedback.
- Negative FB exceeding ~1% on more than 100 FB.
I think I'm missing one or two. I bid less, save myself some money, don't miss the stuff I don't bid on (with one exception), and have yet to be burned.
----
What's being done in the name of direct marketing nowadays is crazy.
The above are all just my opinions, except where I cite facts as such.
Oh, I am not dc9a320 anywhere except AW. Any others are not me.
Is eBay is changing from a world bazaar into a bizarre world?
posted on August 2, 2001 12:29:24 PM
[Duplicate edited out. AW moderators: it might have been transitory, but AW stopped giving a "post successful" response page, so I came back and resubmitted a minute or two later. Apparently, others saw and did the same. ]
[ edited by dc9a320 on Aug 2, 2001 12:34 PM ]
posted on August 2, 2001 12:42:53 PM
Thanks Smitty. I think I'm not the only one who had the problem. I just had two windows open and didn't catch it as quickly - oops.
posted on August 2, 2001 01:07:53 PM
Well, I also think a lot of the stuff in this thread is very petty, but so what? Buyers need to vent once in a while, too.
As a seller, I'm a little disturbed by some of the attitudes displayed here. My favorite is "if I hear music, I click the back button immediately!" I work hard to create my ads, and code them by hand. Occasionally I will use music, animation, if the ad requires it. For example, a while back, I was selling Doom games. The ad included some music from the game soundtrack, and some animations from the game too. And just to make it spooky, I used white text on a black background. Now to listen to some of you guys, that was the ad from hell, but it was perfectly appropriate for the item and in fact sold very well. (If you don't want music and animation, why are you looking at this game anyway?)
So I do tend to get my back up when I see "I would never buy from you if you [insert long list of things I do with my ads]."
As a buyer, there are two things that really prevent me from bidding. One is bad seller attitude. If I see "pay me in 10 days or I'll neg you" right in the ad I will pass that auction by. The other is inflated shipping charges. Like the $4 doll that would have cost me $12 delivered that I passed on recently. Other than that, I don't care how ugly the ad is or how many misspellings there are. If I want it and the seller seems friendly, I will bid.
. Internet Pioneers
posted on August 2, 2001 01:36:29 PM
My, my; I think some of us missed our naps today. Defensiveness or condescending remarks coming from either side are not constructive. I think some folks on each side are taking these comments personally, and they shouldn't.
E-mailing the sellers with questions and assuming that sellers are lazy because of incomplete listing information seem to be two particularly prickly subjects in this thread, as is literacy.
I think we need to look past generalizations and recognize that we all need to make allowances for what we perceive to be the shortcomings of others. For example, a new seller certainly needs to be cut some slack, and e-mailing him or her with questions is one way to educate a new seller concerning what he needs to say in his listings.
Conversely, I have often run across high volume, longtime sellers whose listings are presented very elaborately. Their level of selling tells me that they should know better than to leave out key information. Why would such a seller write, "Nice pair of brass candlesticks," which necessitates me e-mailing concerning their height, weight, condition and manufacturer? This happened to me, and the seller had all the information, but she was in a hurry and simply failed to list it. I checked her other auctions and they all contained inadequate information. Why create more work for the buyer AND seller by omitting such information?
I am a buyer only, and I must say that most sellers give me as much as I need to know in their write-ups. However, if they don't, I will e-mail. I have a full-time job and am the landlord at and owner of a four-unit house, and I have the time to e-mail if the item about which I have questions is something in which I am interested.
And I have news for those of you who are critical of the literacy of some write-ups: a lot of people can't put a sentence together properly or spell. I am a magazine editor and I've seen so much of this that it's driven me close to the edge at times. And I deal with lawyers, doctors, CEOs...so-called successful people. It drives me crazy, but I've come to learn that misspelled words have nothing to do with a person's worth or ability. Judge not, folks.
It's only when illiteracy converges with a lack of detail and an extreme amount of negative feedback that I back away from an auction! That, and if I have to struggle to read red text on a pink background, or purple on green!
posted on August 2, 2001 01:56:26 PM
i'm surprised to see the turn this thread took. this is just about what turns various people off from bidding on listings, and why. i think some posts were describing what annoys them, rather than what would prevent them from bidding on something they actually wanted. i mean if you found something you really wanted and you could tell what you needed to know from the photo (if applicable) and description, but it was written in all caps and had a few typos and a powersellers logo, you would still bid, right? even if it had music and animated .gifs? i would.
for those of you who can't put the shipping amount in the auction for obvious reasons (need to know zip code first, etc.), rest easy. explaining that in the listing is just fine. i'm talking about items where that isn't the case, and the seller just didn't include the information at all so i have no idea what to expect to pay. and, i might add, i was one of those sellers not all that long ago! i didn't know any better. thought clicking on the 'buyer pays actual shipping' was sufficient. learned from lurking here that it wasn't.
as far as emailing sellers with questions, if it's something i'm very interested in and info that's very important to me is missing, i will. if i'm less than very interested, i won't bother and will just move on to the next. so sellers who don't have the information i need lose out if it's an item i could go either way on, or if i'm shopping the 'going, going, gone' listings.
posted on August 2, 2001 01:56:55 PM
Hello Executive Girl,
I can't resist responding to this:
"The only lazy ones here, are the ones who flat-out refuse to take the 2 seconds to email a seller to ask a question. Who knows - maybe that seller did not know any better, and thanks to the person who took the time to ask them a question - they will now be more knowledgeable because of it, and will be able to put that valuable info in their future auctions.
I find it ironic that someone who absolutely REFUSES to email a seller to ask a question because they "don't have the time" - are the ones who call sellers lazy because they didn't put certain info in their auctions."
As someone else pointed out here, yes, it takes 2 seconds to email a seller and ask them a questiom. And, I'm sure that we all as sellers learned a thing or two from buyers that asked us questions in our first few auctions.
However, not including heavy or fragile items which require a zip code to determine the shipping, there is no good reason for a seller that specializes in one type of item and has several hundred feedback to not include shipping unless they are padding their pockets.
Also, if I am browsing through auctions ending that day, what is the chance that the seller will both receive my 2 second question and respond back before the auction is over? Highly unlikely from personal experience.
I don't think that the buyers here are referring to a brand new seller, at least I am not. I think anyone would obviously give a new seller a little leeway and ask a few questions so they get the hint as to what needs to be included the next time. It is the padders that I am avoiding. It is usually blatantly obvious who they are.
And as far as asking for further descriptions or information, it is also obvious that a new seller may just not realize what they need to include. There are experienced sellers, however, that appear to deliberately leave out information and make their descriptions as elusive as possible to lure unexperienced buyers. After you have been burnt a few times, you learn what type of wording to avoid, such as "see picture if you have questions" "item sold as is" "email with questions before bidding". This last one is the most ridiculous. If someone knows that a bidder may have questions, then they probably know what the questions are and what the answers are also. They just hope no one asks.
posted on August 2, 2001 02:16:16 PM
As noted by wisegirl, K3 and others lets not let this get personal.
This started out as a rant by me stating a few things that deterred me from bidding on items. For a long time it was just others doing the same, but it seems to have taken on a few personal attacks on peoples opinions. Lots of good info was posted here, certainly not all the answers but some definate well meant opinions on what attracks and detracts from an auction.
Can we please keep this on a less personal basis??? I would hate to have the thread locked.
posted on August 2, 2001 02:26:53 PM
I just had a "light bulb" moment. Lately my auctions are just not getting bids - I just started using eBay's picture services, connection? I think there is, the pictures are smaller than I would normally use.
posted on August 2, 2001 02:34:18 PM
Well, there are exceptions to every rule, even to the list I made. twinsoft's example may be one. What gets me "prickly" about the music is that 99% of the cases I encountered either startle the heck out of me, aren't really appropriate, significantly delay download of the rest of the page, or do not provide an inline control panel to turn it off if I'm already listening to other music or watching TV. Maybe I should have put that one under "less likely to bid."
I wouldn't have a complaint in the world about the music if I were presented with a control panel and invited to turn it on (I'd accept more times than not, believe it or not ). I understand some may want to set a mood or just feel like demonstrating their taste in music, but to all of a sudden have music blaring out of the speakers with nary a "by your leave" is not something I find polite, despite a great deal of tolerance for lots of other ambient, varying noises.
My complaint about animated GIFs and lots of font size/color changes is that they are usually very distracting and gaudy -- not pleasant to look at or to try ignoring when reading. Not only that, it looks like hype, and the more hype, the more I wonder if there isn't something wrong with the item supposedly being focused on. I simply find it very hard to read such auctions (I am trying to be literate and actually read all of the seller's words, but I'm not going to spend twice as long on a headache-inducing page ), so I simply stopped bothering.
A couple more relate to not liking my information drifting around a lot of third parties, and the rest is about weeding out unreliable sellers as best as I can judge.
I've never been burned in an eBay sale, and only regret not bidding on one occasion, so if anything, my preferences have made eBay bidding more pleasant, even if eBay browsing and eBay itself isn't always so.
Oh, I do understand about not listing a shipping price because of zip differences and weight issues, but I appreciate the TOS simply explaning that fact. Be up front with it, and I'll understand; but if I'm browsing a lot of search results on limited time, and have seen several similar items or am in a hurry, I'm more likely to not bid, or bid on the one that presents more key information or the above explanation up front -- and less likely to bid on the one that presents little or no key information or explanation.
posted on August 2, 2001 02:45:12 PM
BTW, I have seen one very rare exception on my complaint about animated GIFs. One seller was offering a package of several hundred slides, and put together three (3) animated GIFs showing, among them, about 40 or so of the slides. The "slide shows" were also well offset from the description, so I could read the description and TOS, then scroll a little further down and take a look at the aniGIFs of the items. Very slick, and much more useful then having a rotating credit card GIF instead of a static credit card GIF.
I've been shopping for some nice jewelry for the wife in the last week (1st anniversary coming up)......so I've seen a lot of auction listings...hehehe
What I've tried to do, given the vagaries of the search engine, is settle on a few sellers with good reputations and clear descriptions and pictures.
IMO, when it comes to antique jewelry, there isn't such a thing as too good a picture....there's a seller from Belgium who has come close with some of the most amazing jewelry photography I've seen anywhere...
So, in my case, a lousy picture either gets no bid or low bid. I often will e-mail the seller and ask if they have a better picture so that I can better ascertain value. I don't mean to insult them; conversely, I hope to be able to bid higher on an item of which I have a greater understanding.
Weights, sizes, colors, etc.......lack of a detailed description gets a pass from me (or a low bid)...I have purchased some real bargains on instinct and a low bid because other bidders were reluctant to bid. I have often written a good description, taken a couple of nice photographs and turned the item for substantially more than I paid for it. This proves to me the power of clarity and detail in an auction listing.
Pet peeve...auction templates/backrounds/music that take a gazzillion seconds to load on a dial-up connection...I often snipe auctions while on the road and am either on a cell modem or dial-up at a campground or motel....long, slow loading pages, even with the images shut off, get the "back" button from me...
When I list auctions, I take the cue from eBay...plain white background, simple text description and processed, compressed JPG's that are formatted to the page so everything is placed immediately and appears quickly. I've sold everything from videos to jewelry to race car parts and haven't had any trouble following the same simple rules. I am a small (micro might be a better term )seller so I don't have a clear understanding of the limitations on formatting when bulk-loading listings...
Oh, and titles....*G*...the ones with the "L@@K" never get looked at by me....if a properly described item doesn't get my attention, flamethrowers and machine gun blasts aren't likely to help...
That said, most eBay sellers, IME, do a great job....you guys and gals who do this for a living (whole or part) are very good at what you do...
posted on August 2, 2001 03:16:27 PM
>if a properly described item doesn't get my attention, flamethrowers and machine gun blasts aren't likely to help...<
Well put camachinist........
..and most sellers do a great job!
(I just wish THEY had the junk that I tend to bid on.........)
posted on August 2, 2001 04:26:16 PM
Well, just to get back to the topic. I just realized there are some things that indeed make me less likely or not bid.
One of the things is when it is shipping to the US only. I know it is everyone's good right to say.. sorry, I don't ship out of the US. But for international buyers, that is really a problem. You finally see something you always wanted and can't get it.
I can't tell you the number of times that I see something that I like and then have to click it away because it's US Only. Pity.
Another thing I find annoying is when sellers list their items in HTML with lots of bright colors and font sizes, making it hard to find what I am looking for. If I want it, it won't stop me from bidding. But it sure is a turn-off.
However, as far as I am concerned, if I want it enough, I will bid on it. Even if I am annoyed by anything.
posted on August 2, 2001 04:50:06 PM
As a buyer, I want to see well put-together auctions. Yes, literacy counts. How many b&m stores stay in business if their shop is not well put-together?
Information also counts. One of the problems with ebay is that so many people think it is a "pot of gold." Slap up a fuzzy picture (maybe), no feedback, minimal description, etc.
Nope, it is not my job to figure out the seller's auction. A seller wants a profit so it is the seller's "job" to learn to do a decent auction.
Another peeve, Paypal's end of auction automated notices. It is not my "job" to go back to the auction and figure out shipping costs. Sometimes, I feel like just using paypal to send the winning bid amount because that's all it says.
posted on August 2, 2001 07:54:43 PM
Soldat2 > what kind of junk are you looking for. ( have a warehouse full )
Linda_K > I have also returned money when I have overcharged a buyer, shipping.
The vast majority of buyers are happy I over-pack fragile items.
One big complaint is:
that they have bought from other sellers and it arrives in pieces.
This has been an interesting thread.
I am seriously thinking of not making my listings
any fancier than they already are.
The Marketing 101 was an interesting comment.
What I have learned from experience is that most of that is bunk.
No rhyme or reason to customers buying.
When I do outdoor Antique Shows everything is perfect.
Nice tent, well displayed, spotless items,
good selection, with prices and descriptions.
I was rather ill the week before a weekend Antique show.
( should of been in bed that weekend)
Backed my trailer up to my spot and basically dumped it on the ground.
Very few prices, unorganized and displayed badly.
It was my best show ever.( record breaker )
To this day, I have only come close, but not broken the record.
Go figure
Sellers, if you are doing well now don't change anything.
A bid is not a buy.
The one bid over the reserve is the important one.
I know, buyers don't like reserves.
But 90% of my Auctions have a reserve and so far, so good.
It only makes sense to me ( my opinion ) not to sell a
$90.00 item for $40.00.
Just my old math, I guess.
posted on August 2, 2001 09:49:43 PM
A little note in defense of international sellers: I cannot list shipping prices for every country in the world. I sell from Canada and obviously a bidder in Japan is going to pay a lot more for shipping than someone within Canada. Listing 20 to 30 unique items with an average of 4 pics each is already a significant of work. Shipping to the States varies by ZIP. As no one everseems to consider this problem, I thought I might mention it. Perhaps I should include the items weight (I already include dimensions)
posted on August 2, 2001 10:40:51 PM
You know as much as I hate some combinations of sellers technique or lack thereof, I have purchased from dancing angel gifs, moonriver music, hacked english language descriptions, missing measurements, missing images, missing shipping, words that follow the mouse, green mottled text over black, dancing puppies, pictures that take 8 years to download etc.
Sometimes, you just find the one and only widget, the boxlot with that lens hood, or the old bead or the artisan's work is too amazing....
and you bid anyhow
So as much as I wail at the wall with the rest of you, I have sinned the sin...I bid and was happy as a hoot owl when the lemmings are out to get it!!!
Just wanted to say thanks for starting this thread. It has helped me see as a seller what others want out of an auction description. This has been an invaluable experience.
posted on August 3, 2001 04:51:23 AM
>Soldat2 > what kind of junk are you looking for. ( have a warehouse full )<
Oldapostle
We have bought everything from Frito Banditos to bullet holes!
naru
The weight of an item is a big help when the exact shipping amount cannot be quoted.
Capriole
I have also 'sinned' and bid on auctions that were not appealing to me. It's just that some things make me less likely to bid or continue the fight to the end.
amwell68
Thank all the posters for making this thread.
I just started out on a rant and it took off from there!
truelighth
I am removing my US only statement from our future listings.
What a nut I am.......starting a thread on this subject and I have US only in our auctions.
Sometimes you can pull the cord but the light doesn't come on.
Thanks for tapping on my bulb 'till it did.
