posted on February 23, 2001 06:01:45 AM
ARRRRRRRGGGGGGGH!
Seller's EOA arrives ... they expect me to go to the auction page (jammed with gaudy, unreadable text), add their posted shipping price (which is somewhere on the page I can't read) to the final bid and initiate a BillPoint payment for them for that amount. Or rummage through the eBay EOA notice to find the shipping price part and then go to billpoint and create a payment transaction for them.
I replied:
"I charge $50 an hour for online arithmetic and data entry, with a 2-hour minimum. Are you willing to send me the item minus my $100 service fee?
If not, please do your own arithmetic and billing and send me an email with the final bid, shipping and total due added up, or send me a BillPoint "payment due" notice."
That loud explosion was probably their head exploding at the nerve of a buyer thinking that they should do their own work.
posted on February 23, 2001 06:05:59 AM
You missed your chance, abacaxi. You could've given yourself a "significant discount" and the guy would probably never have known!
Personally I think you're worth way more than $50 an hour, but that's just MHO.
Sorry for getting off topic, but I've always wanted to thank you for your informative posts here on AW. Your recent explanation on how to reformat floppies properly has saved me oodles of time. Thanks!
posted on February 23, 2001 06:25:19 AM
I would have asked them if the wanted me to come to their house, package up my item and ship it for them too? Maybe you could just handle all their auctions for them, while they just collect the money?
I'm really seeing more and more of this lately. So many sellers just send and EOA email with their address and nothing else. Of course, their TOS in the auction states that they will take your money and keep it if you don't send item #'s, description of item, and ship to address with your emails & payments. They, of course, can't take any time to include their own damn item #'s in their emails etc.
Or better yet, have the buyer go to some page on the internet and enter all the necessary information on a form and then and only then will the buyer receive the exact total due and the seller's address.
Shame on me for trying to make it as simple as I can for my buyers. Personally, I don't think anyone should have to jump through 20 million hoops just to pay ME!
posted on February 23, 2001 06:53:58 AM
I'm with you, anggellene; once I won multiple auctions from a seller who did this:
"Or better yet, have the buyer go to some page on the internet and enter all the necessary information on a form and then and only then will the buyer receive the exact total due and the seller's address."
I loved the items, but never bid on his auctions again.
posted on February 23, 2001 07:32:01 AM
abacaxi
I agree with you 110% !!!!!
I would never bid on any Sellers Auction that
said what this one said.
I am a seller and the only thing I state in my auction is..Check or Money Order is accepted Payment, and Payment to be sent within 10 days of auction end.
I use to state so many other terms,
I also feel if a seller can not take the time to send you a EOA notice with all the details that you need to send payment, then they are not following threw this transaction to it's fullest.
I make things very simple for my buyers and you know what, sometimes that is not even good enough.
Does the seller state this in there auction,
"that the buyer would need to compute the payment" if that is the case I WOULD NOT BID ON THERE AUCTION.
Just how I feel!!!!!!
posted on February 23, 2001 08:25:52 AM
I believe sellers should send a proper "invoice" as their congratulatory notice! Heck, it doesn't take any more time.
I have mine copied in my notebook and just copy and paste it into my EOA notices...just filling the the "blanks", such as amounts, etc. I even include an insurace rate scale! LOL I figure that lots of buyers don't know about the USPS site and it just makes it all easy for them.
Bottom line...I want HAPPY customers and that equals repeat customers!
O.C.
posted on February 23, 2001 08:34:47 AM
Do any of you have problems with Andale sellers? I always bypass any sellers using Andale. I figure Andale cannot possibly figure out the correct shipping charge on multiple lots. Also, I refuse to spend more time to go to another link to enter my name and address. I figure any seller too lazy to do their own invoice and emails, pay someone else to do it, really are not too customer oriented. And I always have this feeling that the start price of the item was hiked up to pay for Andale.
posted on February 23, 2001 10:11:42 AM
The "auction page (jammed with gaudy, unreadable text)" was the tipoff on your transaction. If the page is a nightmare, what would the transaction be like?
posted on February 23, 2001 03:17:17 PM
First rule of thumb when bidding: know what you owe. Second: who it is to.
If you bid on different auctions of mine and plan on a shipping discount, you better let me know. Otherwise, you will NOT get it and you WILL get neg feedback, if you attempt to enforce it "after the fact."
I keep track as best I can, but if you want bulk shipping (discount) that is YOUR job.
posted on February 23, 2001 03:29:31 PM
Abacaxi, LOL! I always pictured you as an old man, because you're smart. You never cease to amaze me.
On the subject of crazy customers (was that the subject? ) I've got one guy now.... The item is an electronic book distributed under the GNU Public License. I put the book together from various files, and created a setup/install program for it. According to the license, I'm allowed to charge only actual cost, plus a small handling fee.
So the item is listed at $3 (media, packaging, listing fee, etc.), with $6 for shipping and handling. My winning bidder says he'll pay only actual shipping. D'oh! Of course, the fee (along with an explanation) is plainly stated in the ad. My "winner" has no objection to me selling this item for nothing.
posted on February 23, 2001 05:49:39 PMmoparmaniac, the big deal is, I have program that generates all of the mail to sellers. Everything is already there, because it is read from ebay. I don't have to enter the information every time.
I am NOT going to some web page to do the sellers bookkeeping. (Besides, I don't know what the web site will do with my personal informaiton. Most of them have privacy policies for the sellers information, but none for information the buyer enters).
If a seller is going to use one of these forms, then put that information in the auction, so I can bypass your auction.
posted on February 23, 2001 08:15:34 PM
I offer 3 shipping choices in 90% of my auctions. Until the buyer lets me know his choice I can not send final costs. What is your feeling on this. Would you rather only one shipping option is offered so you are not bothered with an extra email.
I really would like opinions on this.
It would be simplier for me if I only offered one choice. I offer multiple shipping options for the buyers benifet and it seems to work very well.
posted on February 23, 2001 08:47:52 PM
Give me a break! The posters who rag on sellers who use Andale just make me mad. We are not all too lazy to do our own bookeeping. I don't know about other Andale sellers, but if someone doesn't want to use Andale, I am more than happy to bypass it and send them an email myself with all the particulars. (even when they're rude about it, which many are) I have had many, many compliments about Andale, some buyers absolutely rave about it. I don't stay awake 24/7, and I have a 40 hour a week job, a 23 mile each way commute, and I take a college class one night a week. I sell on Ebay to make a little extra money to make ends meet, and Andale makes it easier for me AND for my buyers. If they can check out with Andale, I have all their information already so I can send their package right out. Let's say my auction ends 11:00 pm on a Monday night. The buyer stays up to see they won, I'm in bed!! They check out at Andale, pay by Billpoint automatically, and I wake up the next morning and find they've paid me. I already have my packages ready to go usually, so I get a stamps.com postage stuck on, and mail it from work! Without Andale, they'd have to wait for an email from me telling them where to send it, how much, etc, and then wait for me to come home from work to get theirs. Face it, if you wanted PERSONAL service, you wouldn't be buying in cyberspace. I almost always get an email from them directly, and I email back to them. I'm friendly even though I'm automated.
posted on February 23, 2001 08:51:15 PM
Boy do I feel foolish! All that time I spent putting together all of the multiple winning bids, calculating the weight and then listing all of the won items with the item number and final winning bid -individually so they can see if I added it up right- the cost of surface mail or air mail (their choice)and the tally for either or, in seperate colours as well! ( I made it idiot friendly)
I could have just told them to come over to my place and pick the suff up!
posted on February 24, 2001 05:43:34 AM
Then Abacaxi-
I don't see how you call it doing his "bookeeping" for him if the seller asked for you to check the shipping by reviewing the ad, which you already had reviewed and said you READ before bidding.
Presumably, the description was not THAT much of a pain to read in the first place, or you wanted the item THAT much in any case... You know how much you bid (that's easy). You found the shipping TOS once (but you forgot what it was)- believe it or not, the seller MAAY have had a reason for doing this other than the one that is immediately apparent to you- MAYBE they wanted to verify that you saw and read the shipping TOS, and knew how much shipping was, and they wanted this before or in place of sending you an invoice, where MANY bidders dispute the shipping despite clear TOS anyway... I don't do it that way, but I surrrrrrrrre can understand sellers that do, based on the constant indications I get from bidders that they don't bother to read or know TOS BEFORE they bid... I don't know about everyone else, but when I bid on something (and I buy too), I KNOW AND REMEMBER what shipping is, so if I want an item, and I am willing to put up with what I may consider tedious reading to get it, I would KNOW the information that the seller asked you to look for, and i wouldn't have had to look a second time. But that's just me.
posted on February 24, 2001 06:19:53 AM
MOPARMANAC:
Buyer receives e-mail
1. Buyer clicks on link
NO ... buyer is not using their browser to read email with because buyer is sick of those damned HTML-filled emails ... buyer does not click links. Buyer has to open browser, cut and paste link, disable firewall, then go hand over info to a database with unknown security measures.
2. Buyer enters Name/Address/Type of payment
What does the site do with the information? What is to prevent them from deciding (like e-toys, Verisign, SPamzon, etc.) that the information is an asset they can sell when their dot.com turns into a dot.bomb?
What are their security precautions? How hackable are they?
tentwentytwo -
"I don't see how you call it doing his "bookeeping" for him if the seller asked for you to check the shipping by reviewing the ad, which you already had reviewed and said you READ before bidding."
Seller told me to go to auction, get final bid, find stated shipping amount, add the two together, and send them a BILLPOINT PAYMENT for that amount.
posted on February 24, 2001 06:38:14 AM
Whatever... If your problem was AS YOU STATED IN YOUR FIRST POST that the seller was making you "do his bookkeeping," I think you don't have much of a case... Asking you to look at his item description IF he was trying to ensure that you actually read it is not such an onerous burden on a poor bidder... As I stated and as every seller knows, MANY bidders can't be bothered to do that at any point, and it causes MAJOR problems for both seller AND bidder on many occasions... IF your prooblem was that the seller was trying to make you pay using Billpoint when you didn't want to, and that was NOT the seller's TOS to begin with, this is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT ISSUE THAT HAS ZERO TO DO WITH BOOKKEEPING.
posted on February 24, 2001 08:00:56 AM
tentwentytwo -
I thought the shipping was reasonable the first time I checked the auction, set a nice snipe and didn't have any reason to revisit the page. Also, the TOS said nothing about this being a self-serve auction with the buyer having to add up the charges and create the bill themselves.
Major rule of selling: make it as EASY as possible for the prospect to buy from you.
posted on February 24, 2001 03:13:05 PM
Hopefully, now that the auction is over, you'll get what you bought. It wasn't a layaway auction was it? Where the sellers decides to lay on it for three weeks then maybe ship it? I think sellers are confused in layways, auctions and simple ordering over ebay. Some sellers sell from ebay then ship from other countries, many weeks delayed! Why the hell don't they just get a web site instead. (Fed up with sellers that can't produce the item without some dang excuse as to why it's shipping late!) Maybe from India through Canada or otherwise.
posted on February 24, 2001 09:41:13 PM
Folks lets face it. This is indeed cyberspace. Your dealing with sellers who may be grandma or a brain surgeon. Try running say 1200 auctions a month and see why its helpful if a bidder knows what he's paying for and what to expect shipping to be.
Now myself I give a detailed report including sales tax scales and totals of each using an auction software program.
But trust me it helps if bidder and seller work TOGETHER to get what they want. Sellers should be courteous and bidders the same. It helps to have an item number or description.
Would you order from SEARS CATALOG and send them your check for $100 and say send me my "knife" yet bidder do just this now matter how you help them with info in the auction or on the EOA emails. We sell hundreds of styles and kinds of knives every month.
So as one poster said if you want it all laid out and wrapped up with a bow, go to MACYS they are trained and have all the right equipment to kiss your behind properly.
But then it cost you a bit more....
Read the auction if you dont like the way it looks or the terms... DONT BID... the seller will never know he lost a sale!
It was once said.... HELP US HELP YOU. We want a successful ending to an auction same as you do. Just some sellers are better equipped and more user friendly than others.
Can't we all just get along...
posted on February 24, 2001 11:58:25 PM
At first I was compelled to agree with you because the seller is making it hard on you the buyer. Then I realized the seller was attempting to simplify the process by eliminating some steps. Not very sure in this situation though.
Anyway, I once put my name/address/shipping in the TOS and said for the winner just to send the money, and no need to email me or for me to email them. Sounded great until not one buyer did that. They all emailed me asking for my address and such. Oh well, it was worth a shot.
