Where Are Your Manners? Rudeness and Lack of Communications on eBay

[mandy]

Seven years ago, when I began selling on eBay, many seller auction presentations, rather than being friendly and welcoming, were combative. It seemed every other sale contained a list of rules, regulations and warnings - sometimes threatening dire consequences just short of frontier justice to any and all who dared defy the sellers terms: "Those with less than 10 feedbacks WILL HAVE THEIR BIDS REMOVED!," "Renegers will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law!," Do not even THINK of bidding if you live outside the US!," and the like, were fairly commonplace. It seemed the seller attitude was more 'shoot first, ask questions later.'

Simultaneously, there was little, to no, patience for high maintenance buyers who needed reassurance throughout the auction process - from bidding to receiving their purchases. Feedback wars abounded, with negative feedbacks sent out at the first glitch in any sale...

full article: http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/essential...hp/3576551

[Nat]

Conversely, many buyers who send snail-mail payments do not identify the item they are paying for beyond the item number, if that. While this provides a trace point, it can be annoying rooting through dozens or more completed transactions - matching the check to the buyer, particularly when a few words solves the riddle instantly.

I just hate that.  I don't many snail mail payments anymore and most of my prefer to use Paypal but I remember a few years back when most of my payment were either a money or a check and it was so frustrating when people didn't identify at least the item.

I had one in particular that a lady sent a check, didn't write the item number it so I had to go into my records and search by the name on the check - normally that's not too difficult.  But this time I couldn't find it because the name on the check was her husbands' and she went by her maiden name.  It was trick trying to figure out which item that person bought but I eventually figured it out - a few days later.  It's bad enough to not mark which item the check is for but to send the check in someone else's name?  Zeesh!  People just don't think.

[Nat]

This was a really good article - one of the better ones I read.  I definitely agree about communication.  When I first came to eBay communication between buyer and seller was very good (at least from what I experienced).  Now here it is years later and I find when I buy things, I'm lucky if the seller sends any message after they send the invoice.  It would be nice to receive a message at least saying 'thanks, your item was mailed' so many don't and the buyer waits and wonders.  This must be why most of my feedbacks mention 'great communication' or 'fast and friendly' because I keep my buyers posted every step of the way.  But then I'm not a high volume seller so I have the time (but on the flip side the sellers I buy from are not usually high volume sellers so not communicate more?).

I especially liked this part of the article about the word 'Rare'.  It always amazes me how many people state their item is 'Rare' - it's definitely used wrong in many cases. There was one particular book I wanted and found quite a few sellers selling that book on eBay and searching the web I had no problem finding it on other sites, yet most of those sellers on eBay were saying it was Rare.  Maybe it wasn't on the shelves of their local bookshop so they think it's rare?  If that book really was "Rare" then I would have had a problem trying to locate it and it would have probably cost a lot more than the $10 I paid.  There was one book that took me about 7 years to find and I finally found it one day on Abebooks - now that book if it was on eBay definitely could have been listed as rare because I could not find it anywhere in 7 years.

At the time of this writing over 377,000 items were listed on eBay as "Rare," some with starting prices of $1.72, 85 cents, on down to a penny. If an item is not scarce or rare, it is foolish to say it is. Not only does it insult the intelligence of the viewer, but announces to buyers that your own intelligence is suspect, that you are, at best, inexperienced; more likely, a clown.

[sneakymagenta]

it was so frustrating when people didn't identify at least the item.

I had a buyer send a blank money order with no name or item number.  It took forever to match it with the right item.