posted on September 6, 2001 09:00:18 PM new
Some really odd things over on Half. When selling an item I'll see an item that last sold for .74¢. How can that be when the lowest sell price is .75¢? Also, on another item the lowest sell price is $2.95, but when you go to sell, it shows the lowest price at $4.99?I also don't like their sorting. There will be five identical items from the same year with a seperate listing. Why not combine them? If you are selling the 4th printing, your listing is 4th on the pecking order and highly not going to be clicked on. So as a seller it's better not to use the quick list but do a title search and put your item under the first copy then make a note under sellers comments which edition. I mean, it's just crazy.
posted on September 6, 2001 11:38:46 PM new
Books before a certain date were 'grandfathered in' in regards to the price limit and that is why you can still see a lot of 39 cent books on 1/2.com
I find it not worth the trouble to list anything over there.
posted on September 7, 2001 02:35:31 PM new
I second the motion ...you can look forever and keep turning up the same book, same year, etc. Also I have found if I cannot find a book by title, I sometimes find it under author. And yesterday, I found one where the low price was over $40. When I got there, the low price was under $3.
posted on September 7, 2001 08:25:31 PM new
Another thing, today I received three emails for "You've got a sale," unfortunately those were dated from several days ago, and the "Urgent, please confirm" emails also came in today, too late. Half just lost three of my sales. Now I'll have to check my account daily.
posted on September 8, 2001 05:51:27 PM new
Yup. That half.com is really on the ball. I got notices going back to August.
And they are taking far too long with their so called "fast" electronic payments. I used to get their check on the 2nd or 3rd, but just received notice that the payment due last week will be made next week to my account.
Do you suppose they are having a cash flow problem, or is it just plain incompetence to not pay people when you say you are going to?
posted on September 10, 2001 08:37:00 AM new
I check the website regularly throughout the day and watch my inventory # - that'll tell me if I have sales coming in. The emails are notoriously late in coming (and sometimes not at all).
Also, getting questions asked via their system were not being forwarded to me for answering - and possibly my answers not being sent to the buyers!
So I just started checking all the time along with checking my other venues - makes good sense.
yesterday I had 15 items sell in 4 orders, and I was sitting there "refreshing" as soon as they were available for confirmation on the website to get them confirmed and ready to go - if I waited for the email notification I might never know about the sales I make.
posted on September 10, 2001 06:04:32 PM new
The books are listed by ISBN, not year.
They do not update their data in real time. The number of books listed is aslo off. They will say there is 50+, you go in & there are 4 copies listed. Often HC's are lited as PB's.
Do not wait for Half.com to email you. Their Email system goes down often. They will not admit it, but you often go days with out getting an email. They also come out of order sometimes.
posted on September 13, 2001 03:54:03 PM new
perhaps the more serious problem for sellers is the way that sellers of a book are listed -- lowest to highest, but then newest to oldest.
ie, if there are 8 sellers of a given book all selling at $1.00, then the last person to put the book up for sale shows up first on the list.
The longer you have a book up on Half, the less visible it is. It can be worth your while to revisit your inventory and tweak the prices just a little.
posted on September 14, 2001 03:03:52 PM new
Their customer service appears non-existant. As of today (one week wait time) they have not responded to my inquiry, nor have they deleted the 1/5 feedback saying I did not confirm the sale, which was due to Half's late email delivery.
Also, I noticed a book I shipped yesterday costed me $2.23 to ship out media, and Half credited me only $1.78.
The other books, I notice I don't get credit for handling cost which are sent for $1.78.
Luckily I'm just clearing out some books I didn't want to list on ebay so I'll put up with this until the end of September, but I don't know how anyone makes a profit on that site especially since things sell for "HALF" of ebay or even Yahoo.
