posted on November 1, 2000 01:55:42 PM
During the summer, I started listing some books on half.com. Overall, I'm content with the response. But the feedback is driving me nuts!!! First of all, I only have 7 (out of roughly 50 books). Ok, fine - I can live with that. But three of the seven only gave me a '3'!!!
I deserved the first one. I sent a paperback instead of a hardback. (I had the correct ISBN but half.com's database was wrong and - at that point - I didn't know enough to double-check.) I had enclosed a thank-you note with the book which also gave my e-mail address in case there were any problems. The buyer never let me know about this and left a '3'. I felt bad - it *was* my fault - but there's no way to contact her except via the shipping address I had. (Half.com doesn't give out the e-mail address.) She said she liked the book otherwise so I snail-mailed her a $2.00 refund (book cost: $4.00). Never heard anything.
Ok, I went and double-checked how my books were listed. Caught several errors (but evidently not all). Sure enough, it just happened again. But she e-mailed me. I apologized profusely and said I'd send her a refund. She said no, she liked the book but was just a bit disappointed. I responded that I must not have made myself clear, I wanted her to *keep* the book and I'd refund *all* her money. Geez, how much nicer can I be??? She said no, she didn't want me to. Then she leaves me a '3'.
The third one claims the book wasn't 'As New'. Ok, I thought it was, but I'm not perfect - I can make mistakes. But he never even e-mailed me first.
Geez - what do these people want!!! Of course, mainly the 'unhappy' people leave feedback. So now I have three '3's and four '5's.
And half.com is absolutely no help. There's no way for me to e-mail the buyer and (as far as I can tell), no way for me to respond to feedback. This really pisses me off!!!
posted on November 1, 2000 02:00:53 PM
What I have found is nearly all buyers on Half.com are too cheap to pay for Priority Mail and too impatient to wait for Book Rate shipping to arrive.
It is a no win situation as far as feedback goes. But it also appears to make no difference in sales between the good, the bad, and the ugly. (feedback that is)
posted on November 1, 2000 02:08:42 PM
My "feeling" at half.com is that you are buying from a faceless, nameless book dispensary - much like buying from Amazon.com, you don't really expect them to exchange warm fuzzies in the way of feedback. Hence, even fewer people leave feedback than they do at eBay, and a "3" means "this was an average/okay/nothing remarkable but certainly okay transaction."
I've bought 4 or 5 books there; one of them still hasn't arrived after 6 weeks - a hard back from a seller who wasn't rated when I bought it. To be honest, I'm not sure if I'm supposed to leave "bad" feedback for him now, or later. He's got several of the books up - couldn't he just send me another one??
posted on November 1, 2000 03:03:04 PM
I found it helped somewhat to add the phrase "Please remember to leave feedback for me. Thanks. MrsTee" to my packing slips. I couldn't find anywhere that this was against any Half.com rules.
A bigger problem than feedback on Half.com lately is the number of books that have listings for Like New at one cent. What could the seller possibly be thinking? There is no way a one-cent sale could possibly be worth the work of listing and mailing. Yet the appearance of multitudes of these cheapo listings coincides precisely with my sales dropping like a rock. Every book I go to list has at least one listing under a nickel. I have e-mailed a suggestion to Half.com that these listings are not only undermining serious sellers, they take up server space for a tiny commission, and that they should seriously consider having a minimum price. So far nothing but a canned response.
posted on November 1, 2000 03:24:34 PM
Consider yourself lucky you even got a canned response. I can't even get a "drop dead" message from them.
I got so angry writing without response, that my last e-mail stated, roughly, "I could sure tell that they were affiliated with EBAY, because theirs was the only customer service that was even worse than EBAYs."
posted on November 1, 2000 03:45:17 PM
Oh, don't get me started!
victoria - I love it! eBay is King of the Canned Response - I guess Half.Com will be the Queen.
I don't feel so bad now about my feedback - it is still at 5.0, but only four people have left FB. The last said "the condition was not quite what I expected, but it was okay". She/he left a 5.0 anyway. I can't figure out which book it was - I can only find the last week's sales listed on Half.Com, and the only id with the comment is the user ID, which means nothing to me . . .
I have noticed the really cheap books - ten cents, a nickle, even some FREE! Why do people do that? They have to lose money, even if they do get a little out of the shipping allowance. Why don't they give the books to a thrift shop?
And why does only 100 listings show when you search by seller? And why don't they make it easier to search by seller?
posted on November 1, 2000 03:46:25 PM
I just got 4 books today from Half.com sellers.....none of them had any plastic wrap to waterproof them.....2 were stuffed in brown envelopes with 'some' protection against damamge---and 2 were put into bubble envelopes with nothing else.
There are cheap ways to wrap books to protect against the elements and damage---but with the shipping reimbursement I guess some just don't want to bother.
One nice thing---one seller had the book listed as a hardcover for $2.97---it was a paperback so they included a cash refund in the package
posted on November 1, 2000 04:04:06 PM
Glenda, definitely email Half.com's customer service about the book you haven't received. I received a book in far poorer condition than advertised. When I emailed customer service, I got a canned response telling me how to return the book, but they did indeed refund all of my money plus the additional shipping cost (a month after I returned the book). So they will probably refund your money, too.
Zazzie, yes I have been quite annoyed with the lousy packing jobs *every* half.com seller has done when I have ordered books. I know it can't be 100% of sellers, since *I* sell on half.com, too, and package my books in plastic and boxes! But their crummy shipping reimbursement policy encourages crummy packaging, I think.
posted on November 1, 2000 05:04:24 PM
I am sitting here holding a book that I sold that was returned for a bad address. Half.com has tried to contact the buyer via e-mail to verify the address but, as of yet, they haven't heard from him. I have his book, his money, and so far he hasn't left me any feedback. Half.com did ask me to keep a copy of the correspondence just in case he ever filed a non-receipt of merchandise claim against me.
Regarding the cheap, cheap items on half.com, they are only the books or CDs that you don't need. A group that I am affiliated with is sponsoring two Easter Seals families for Christmas and yesterday I received the "wish list" from the kids. Several of them had CDs on their list, so I'm thinking there have got to be some of those 99 cent or less CDs on the list. Heck no!
posted on November 1, 2000 05:22:00 PM
okay, okay, I'm guilty...
I buy all the time from Half.com and never bother to leave feedback. I should, but it doesn't seem as important, somehow, as it does on eBay. The reason I say that is that i never look at anybody's feedback on Half.com. If they have the book and I want it, I buy it, end of story. I have sold about 20 books in 4 months on Half.com and I don't think any of them have left feedback for me. I don't sweat it.
Re: Packaging.....I wrap 2 or 3 layers of bubble wrap around the book and I put it in a envelope and tape it up tightly. it is just not cost effective or time-effective for me to do more than that. I look upon Half.com as a place to get used stuff cheap and I wrap with that in mind. Obviously some people will disagree but I haven't had any complaints yet, if I get some I may reconsider.
posted on November 1, 2000 05:24:32 PM
I dumped HALF-ASSED.com about 5 weeks ago forever!
I got sick of the idiot feedbacks: $26.00 hardcover book sold as "good" for $2.00 and I lost on the skimpy shipping allowance -- buyer gave me a 3 because the book "wasn't new" duh...
The cheesey shipping allowance -- ya right, I SKIMP on the packing materials to keep the weight down!
The total complete JERKS selling stuff for 1 cent -- why bother?
posted on November 1, 2000 06:27:17 PMbirdwatcher: I did file a complaint or whatever it's called with half.com - tried to do it the day after their outer deadline (3 weeks) but they won't let you file a report until 4 weeks. And I did get a reply from half.com that they would investigate it and get back to me. I trust that they will do that.
I'm just not sure what to do about feedback - frankly, I wonder why the seller, who must know by now that it hasn't arrived, hasn't just taken the initiative to send me another copy. He's got several of the same one listed over there.
"- frankly, I wonder why the seller, who must know by now that it hasn't arrived, hasn't just taken the initiative to send me another copy."
How would the seller know the book has not arrived? Unless you left a message in the feedback and put your email address in the message and asked them to contact you about it, and then hope that the seller might read the feedback and see your message there.
posted on November 1, 2000 07:35:12 PM
I have good luck getting feedback removed from half.com. But the was before eBay. The buyers address did not include a zip, so I looked it up on the USPS site. It came back invalid address. I emailed half.com as to what I should do. They replied within 24 hours that they had no zip on file for the buyer either and to cancel the sale. I canceled and left a reason to the buyer in the space provided and she had the nerve to leave me a 1 and said 'don't know why it was canceled.' I notified half.com and they removed the fb within 2 days. And again, BEFORE eBay.
posted on November 1, 2000 07:38:04 PMjema: Half.com contacts the seller, tells them the buyer says the item hasn't arrived, and gives them 2 days to respond back to them as to whether they sent it or not, and when and how it was shipped.
posted on November 1, 2000 07:49:44 PM
I'm not too happy with Half.com myself. I recently sent a book at Book Rate instead of Priority. This happened right after I added Priority and I just forgot to look. Anyway I e-mailed Half.com because I wanted them to let the buyer know and to return some of her money. I waited several days and got no response. I e-mailed again. This time I did get a response. They said that it would take at least 32 hours for them to get back to me with an answer and they asked me not to send any more e-mails about this problem. Well, if they had answered my first e-mail I wouldn't have had to send another one. They have very poor customer service IMHO!
posted on November 1, 2000 08:01:34 PM
I went to half com once. Registered and went through listing a book. I looked at the clock and after I saw how long it took and what I could get for the book I figured it was a loser and I would be better off donating books that could not sell on eBay rather than try on half.com. However they did send me a kit with nice bubble envelopes so I made out for my time to register with free packing materials.
posted on November 1, 2000 08:12:24 PM
I bought a box of 'kitchen catcher' plastic bags---200 for $5.00 at Costco. I cut them to fit the book and tape it in place. I have a load of pre-cut cardboard/ slightly larger than various sizes of books--two pieces--one on each side of book--securely taped so the book doesn't slip around. Wrap it in a few sheeps of newspaper---then wrap in brown freezer paper--securely tape shut. Cost is pennies---and I can wrap a paperback in less than 3 minutes--and it gets there dry and in the same shape as it left me. Even most hardcovers get wrapped this way too--unless they are really big---and it works just as well. I don't care if the book sold for $1.00 --it's going to be wrapped in a way that I would like to receive.
I checked the feedback of all the sellers that sent the books--all of them have loads of glowing comments--so should I be the rotter and leave them a 3 for lousy packing.
posted on November 2, 2000 04:23:02 AM
What an eye-opening thread. : - /
Glenda - 6 weeks is a long time, even for book rate. I hope it still shows up.
I think I've only purchased a few things on half.com but I've been delighted with each of them (and with the price). I keep about 70 books listed and sell maybe 5 per week. I give them the same treatment as ebay books in terms of packaging, even though the shipping allowance really hurts at times. But my FB number is still a small fraction of my sales...guess it's just something to live with.
I wish more people would choose the Priority, but not even my ebay buyers do. At least with them I can warn up front that book-rate is taking several weeks lately.
posted on November 2, 2000 05:27:33 AM
I had a customer leave me a 1 because "I sent the wrong book" I'm 99.9% sure I did not. If I sent the wrong book then it would seem that the buyer would have contacted half.com and half.com would have contacted me. They didn't. I also only sell this book on half.com and the book is gone. The book was listed correctly at half.com as well. I sent them an email and asked for the 1 to be removed and they told me they couldn't change it but would email the buyer and ask if they would change it since it appeared he had mixed me up with the other part of his order. Of course he never did.
When I first started listing books over there, I notified half.com that about 30% of the books I listed had something wrong with their records on file. Either it was listed as a paperback and it was a hardcover, wrong picture etc. That was in August and nothing has been corrected. Whenever I sell a book that has a listing error on half.com's part I just write a note to the buyer and say "I have contacted Half.com and requested that they update their database to reflect the book as a paperback instead of a hardback. But they have yet to do so. If you are unhappy please contact Half.com". So far I have not had one customer leave me negative feedback regarding listing errors. One customer left me a 5 and said "buyer sent me a handwritten note notifying me that I deserved a shipping refund since the book was a paperback and not a hardcover as described and said Thank you too". I guess I just feel that if it's half.com's fault let them take the heat otherwise the customer automatically think's its the sellers fault and until the customer's start to complain, half.com won't do anything to clean up their act.
