posted on April 1, 2001 04:47:46 AM
During the past 10 days I have sent questions about shipping costs to 7 different ebay sellers. I live outside the USA and the description asks to contact seller for a shipping quote before bidding.
Without fail, NOT ONE seller has responded!
I have been getting a ton of new "get out of debt fast" and "free university degrees" SPAM though.
ebay can stuff their new system and for you sellers who are too busy to reply to a potential customer I hope your sales are zero
posted on April 1, 2001 05:29:17 AM
jugghead, I am sorry about your bad experience with sellers. when i have auctions running I try to check and answer email at least once an hour when i am on the internet. i work days though so sometimes i can't answer right away. i usually go with a flat fee on shipping though. sometimes i lose money that way but that is my fault. it works out better for the buyer and me with a flat fee, the buyer is able to figure that amount into their max bid price and perhaps bid more because of it.
posted on April 1, 2001 08:25:55 AM
Juggheadd
I for 1 had all kinds of trouble with buyers outside the USA. Overseas buyers wanted me to ship items overseas for $4.00 even though I would clearly state that it would run them more. They would be totally unreasonable and then threaeten to neg. me if I didn't ship them for some low price. I had this happen a bunch of times so I quit answering there Email to avoid a headache. It takes alot of time to get shipping costs calculated, then have nothing but trouble when overseas buyers complain when I was only charging "actual" shipping charges. I told the last buyer that I had trouble with that they were ruining it for ALL overseas buyers because there are alot of good ones out there. They could have cared less.
posted on April 1, 2001 08:34:30 AM
Since most of my sales occur within the US, I usually ask international bidders with that question to please give me 24 hours to wrap the package as it would ship and take it to the PO for an exact amount. But I do answer their emails.
The only time I don't answer bidder questions is if the question is yukky. I sell an occasional adult item, and sometimes just get a weird feeling from the question asked. I know this may cost me a sale, but ....
As to eBay's new system, I've put 3 clickable links in my descriptions for people to email me directly to bypass it.
Sorry to hear that you're not getting responses to your questions. Perhaps the next shakeout won't be due to the increases in fees and postage, but how sellers deal with customer service? If so, I'm optimistic!
[ edited by sadie999 on Apr 1, 2001 08:35 AM ]
I understand. I am willing to pay any reasonable amount for shipping but I would like an idea of how much that is going to be before placing a bid. My problem is wondering why sellers put a statement like "email me for international shipping costs before bidding" then they don't answer their emails. To me, these sellers are losing potential business. I don't sell (can't without a credit card!), but I do a LOT of buying.
