posted on August 23, 2004 12:42:51 PM new
I have filed 14 NPB's in two weeks for non-payment or non-contact and another 4 are about to be added to that figure. Outrageous!!! This new system is stupid too. I file, half of them respond, and maybe 20% who respond actually pay. The rest respond with either, "I made payment" or "I'm going to make payment" and either never paid or never will pay. Ebay should make payment mandatory, or they simply get suspended.
posted on August 23, 2004 12:45:51 PM new
I had less than ten but the total added up to over a grand. I really need the dough too, I am stressing out about my vacation now.
posted on August 23, 2004 12:50:15 PM new
I agree Rusty. It's getting bad. Entirely too many non paying bidders. Ebay should be more forceful with bidders. But the sellers need to get tougher also, instead of being a wuss about slapping a strike on them.
Be kind. Everyone is fighting their own secret battles.
...Author Unknown
posted on August 23, 2004 01:54:25 PM new
If you purchase something from walmart, macys or any other online retailer you put your credit card information in and hit the button and you own it,
My point is when the gavel comes down at the end of the auction the buyers credit card should be charged! no other excuses
99% of the questions asked the awnser is money..........
posted on August 23, 2004 01:56:08 PM new
I agree, Miss J. I can't figure out why someone would make such a statement about sellers "being a wuss" about placing strikes.
posted on August 23, 2004 01:59:41 PM newMy point is when the gavel comes down at the end of the auction the buyers credit card should be charged!
Sing it!
I'll amend your statement only slightly to say "should be charged, or the cash deposit the bidder left on file should be debited and the amount immediately paid to the seller."
Really, when you think about it, it's kind of astounding that sellers have put up with the status quo for so long. Non-payers have driven a lot of good people and businesses, even corporations, away from eBay.
posted on August 23, 2004 02:09:44 PM new
Ok great iam glad someone agrees with me could you imagine going out to eat at a nice resturant eating a meal and then say i will send you a payment next week,
posted on August 23, 2004 02:50:57 PM new
It is really frustrating because you don't get any type of response from ebay regarding this situation. They continue to get us to use their system because... they are the innovators. They were the ones who we chose in the beginning to make successful. The small ebay idea snowballed into an out of control machine that doesn't care about sellers, but rather their stockholders.
I recall a group of rebels who started the Boston Tea Party. Perhaps ebay sellers should do the same thing. If we could get a huge group of ebayers to form a union, and I mean a very large percentage of sellers, there could be a very effective strike against ebay. It would require us to organize and submit demands for their system in order to protect sellers. They have the venue, they now own Paypal. They have made billions, and they could make more if they forced payments when items are bid on. Instead, they choose to make their money on listing fees. If ebay saw past the light, they could easily see even more profits by not having to refund us Final Value Fees and having to provide all of this extra support needed for these problems.
posted on August 23, 2004 03:03:15 PM new
That's a fine idea, rusty, but wasn't that what OTWA was supposed to be about?
All due respect to whoever's keeping that ship afloat right now, but if strength-through-numbers was their mission, it has surely failed. I haven't looked recently (last time I was there everyone's account had vanished), but it is not the industry force that we sellers need.
posted on August 23, 2004 05:29:48 PM new
Rusty ..
You realize that that feature is live in "seller's preferences" where you can block anyone who's had 2 strikes filed during the last 30 days and also anyone with minus feedback?
posted on August 23, 2004 06:41:16 PM new
Rozzr- I don't, but that isn't the problem to begin with. We are talking about people who have feedback, with zero negs. I might have one person with a negative rating every few months who places a bid, and believe it or not, half of those pay.
The problem are with newbies with no feedback, along with the rest of these perfect rating bidders who seem to think it is ok to let one slip every now and then.
To make matters worse, they retaliate like crazy. I've received 4 negatives and two neutrals in the last 30 days. Why??? All 4 negatives were people who retaliated for receiving a neg, one of the neutrals was someone who claimed I sent them a fake NIKE item, which it is real(I live in Nikeville aka Portland Oregon, and buy direct from a Nike wholesaler). the second neutral was from another bidder who shorted me twice on shipping fees. the second time, I told her she still didn't pay me enough and she thought I was rude for even mentioning it because it was 40 cents. My favorite neg I received reads as follows, " Have some problems about payment - sorry for that." Guess what? It is still a negative. People see my rating and won't notice I have over 120 positives during that same period or 4200 positives over 5 years with a 99.2% rating. Instead, they'll see the negatives I received from irresponsible bidders who don't pay.
Where is eBay in all of this??? They are still collecting listing fees, collecting FVF, gallery fees, etc. I am really ticked at this point.
Past a certain point, I don't know what more I can suggest because I don't know what your ads look like or what your terms are.
But this has come up before in your other posts - perfect feedback buyers who aren't responding.
I suggested initially that you try calling some of them, to try to find out what some of the problems might be. Did you ever try that?
With zero feedback bidders, I've seen a lot of sellers who've put in a requirement that people with feedback of 10 or less email them first before bidding.
It could be friendly: "New eBayers are always welcome to bid, but if you have feedback of 10 or less, please email me first before bidding."
Maybe you should slow down a bit - do fewer listings, so you have more time to watch what goes on with your auctions.
For instance, the conventional wisdom is that Sunday is the best day to close. But I've found that when I go Sunday-Tuesday-Thursday,
Thursday is the strongest night, followed by Tuesday. Sunday is sort of lukewarm. The reason - going by the way the page counters move by day and the number of daytime bids, it's pretty clear that a big chunk of my guys are using their computers at work.
So maybe if you do Sunday-to-Sunday auctions, it would work out better to do some weekday auctions - a better rate of closing. Or the opposite - if you do weekday auctions, add in a Sunday segment and see if you attract a somewhat different crowd.
There's always a lot you can noodle around with. Up your minimum bids - lower your minimum bids. See who's attracted to what at what levels.
Other than that, though, every segment on eBay is different. What works for me in terms of helping to ward off problem bidders might not work for you in your segment.
Do you know if other sellers in your segment are experiencing the same problems?
The first thing I noticed was that one of the recent retaliatory negs came from a guy who also got this neg:
"Did not contact us when he had a problem with his male enlargement pills."
But the ads are very clean and easy to follow.
The one thing I would question is the userID, though I don't know this sports stuff. It's memorable - but maybe it appeals to the wrong crowd?
Rusty - What about running a market test with a another userID that might appeal more to old folks like me?
I think the t-shirt thing is tough. I just bought 2 Mountain tee's from a guy on eBay.
I already own a dozen of them, and he had a decided price advantage. Most Web sites charge $19.95; he was at $14.99. But, from what I see, he wasn't doing a lot of business. At least his overhead was lower - he had most of his t's in an eBay store. And merchants selling the Mountain tees don't hold them in stock. Mountain is a small company in NH where merchants order them one at a time, as needed - takes a couple of days to fill the order. He says that in his ad, and I knew what he was talking about.
posted on August 23, 2004 09:32:12 PM new
I got one of those crazy NPBs that left me retaliatory
feedback recently.
Of course I left THEM this feedback:
"Bidder is completely insane, sniveling idiot out looking for trouble. Avoid!!!"
I get to file for my FVF soon too. Can't wait. Hopefully, that should kick her off for good.
I'm not the best mood right now because I was just diagnosed today with kidney stones and I really, really hurt, even with strong narcotic pain medication.
posted on August 24, 2004 03:32:09 AM newbeatnikera:
I've had approximately 10 k-stones, so I feel yer pain (OUCH!)!
Ask yer Doc for a shot of Toradol -- tis a NSAID that also dilates yer "plumbing"
The amount of relief is amazing -- although not quite as impressive as MORPHINE
Last time I went to the ER for a k-stone, the nurse said I looked like Kermit-the-Frog, I was so green
ALSO: drink CRANBERRY JUICE!
Hang it there fellow & remember:
"This too shall pass..."
“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we! They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.” ~ GWBush White House 8/5/4
posted on August 24, 2004 06:09:30 AM new
cantwin said,
posted on August 23, 2004 02:09:44 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ok great iam glad someone agrees with me could you imagine going out to eat at a nice resturant eating a meal and then say i will send you a payment next week,
Its insaaaannneeeeeeeeee
///////////////////////////////////////////
cantwin,bidding on ebay is not the same as eating in a restaurant.
title of goods has not changed hands.
-sig file -------we eat to live,not live to eat.
Benjamin Franklin
What about trying the "immediate payment required" BIN option for some of these t-shirts?
eBay has been pushing that for a while as a means of cutting down on the number of NPBs.
Someone has to pay with PayPal first before the BIN is executed.
I think eBay is right in promoting that option for things in the "merchandise" category. Usually, when you shop online, you buy on the spot with a credit card before the order goes through.
What about setting up an eBay store for the fall? eBay has been pushing the stores, too, so apparently, the listing fees are much lower, though other people would know more about that. I think it's a monthly subscription of $9.95 plus 2 cents for each listing plus 1 cent for each gallery photo.
It would be less of a treadmill vs. running everything as a 7-day auction.
I would be more concerned about the sell-through rate vs. all of the fees you're paying to run 7-day auctions.
The other t-shirt sellers I've looked at run some auctions but keep a larger inventory in a store and emphasize combined shipping on multiple items.
Maybe you could run just a few auctions every night of the week as an attraction to a store?
posted on August 24, 2004 08:26:08 AM new
I agree with Rozz..open a store & run auctions to attract people to your store - those listing fees must be killing you! (sorry but I couldn't help looking at your listings via teach's link)
...and then your feedback...
I have to say that your feedback score is impressive considering the type of buyers you are dealing with and the fact that you give negs to your nonpayers. I don't think your negatives will dissuade anyone from buying from you - all can see that the negs are retaliatory!
posted on August 24, 2004 01:11:42 PM new
I am surprised that rustygumbo's seller ID was revealed in this thread by another poster with a link to his auction. Is that a regular practice here?
posted on August 26, 2004 01:31:31 PM new
thanks hellen. I am suprised as well that someone put my account info on this as well. as for my screenname, I used my vendio name for awhile. My sales actually went up after I changed to the current one though. Go figure. I was concerned about that as well early on.
so this weeks update is I just filed another 5 NPBs, all of them people who confirmed during the first week, but payment has yet to arrive 10 days later... I am working to open a store because yes, the fees are a bit much especially since the rate of NPB have shot up lately.
posted on August 26, 2004 04:52:42 PM new
roz- to answer your questions. i know each and every segement is different. i would say my audience isn't very mature. my items mainly appeal to 18-40 year old guys. most are good, honest people. a handful want everything fed to them on a silver platter and at that...free. they don't take responsibility for themselves, and retaliate when they're the ones at fault. They haven't accepted the fact that they control their own destiny. Here are some responses I get from bidders, "Dude, I won the widget, but I don't get paid until next Friday," or "Wazzup Boi! I got to pay you fo the shirt I buht frum u." Not that they are all this way, but I get a fair shake of them.
as for your last post - you're allowed to have more than one account. i have two, one for my business and one for myself.
the problem with putting someone elses ebay info on here is the chance of auction interference. i'm not sure whether it is against vendio policy or not, but some people do not respect other people's identity and truth be known, most people don't want their identities revealed. it is a matter of mutual respect towards others.
there have been a few cases of people having their auctions tampered with either by placing fake bids, or emailing bidders on a sellers account and harrassing them.
[ edited by rustygumbo on Aug 26, 2004 04:57 PM ]
posted on August 26, 2004 05:08:55 PM newI am suprised as well that someone put my account info on this as well.
Oh, don't make me go pull up the thread where you claimed your eBay t-shirt selling ID was public knowledge and you weren't hiding anything.
Because I will. It'll take me a while to locate it again, but I will.
You can't have it both ways. You publicly proclaimed your eBay seller id here some months ago. Did you think no one was paying attention?
And in the current thread where you have this laughable delusion that a piece of mid-20th century hardware can be considered "Art Deco", you post more than enough information for anyone to easily figure out what your other eBay selling ID is.
Yeah, I can see where your segment is going to draw a lot of bidders who aren't exactly "mature."
eBay is now allowing people to create eBay stores that look more like Web sites. I'm not sure how you do that, but they've been running banner promotions about the "best of" their stores. You click on that banner, and some examples will come up.
So, apparently, it's now possible to do more than just have pages that are full of listings - more graphics and more design.
Some of those are a little too graphic-intensive - long download times.
