Buying from a zero feedback seller.
I am looking at a pair of speakers from a seller with zero feedback. I have asked repeated questions regarding the speakers, condition, etc. All of my questions have not been answered. I assume this should be a sign not to purchase from this seller. Thoughts?
5 comments
mudshark61369
·2 weeks ago@joehumbert ,
The first reply by eburtonlab is the best one so far. But there is some other things to consider when buying from a (0) seller.
1) most of them do not know about the 21-30 day hold ebay places on their first several payments. so they do not ship or respond to questions about shipping, because the payment status on the listing shows Pending. The info about the hold is not mentioned in the first few paragraphs of the getting started info.
2) New sellers may not have their communication preferences set up to receive emails, and they do not check their ebay messages often enough. Some have problems trying to figure out how to reply to a message, even some experienced buyers and sellers have problems trying to send or reply to them.
3) If they list an item as an auction with a very low starting price as eBay suggests, they are likely to cancel the transaction if they only get a few bids.
4) If they list popular or desirable item as a Buy It Now item at a much lower than trending price. There's a high probability of them being a scammer.
kathiec
·3 weeks agoFailure to answer questions is a clear sign to move on from any seller, not just the zero feedback ones.
msha3839
·3 weeks agoAssuming that the seller is new and fail to respond to potential buyers, he/she will be out of business very soon…run, Forest , run…
shire123
·3 weeks agoMove on. Move on quickly.
eburtonlab
·3 weeks ago@joehumbert
In general, you can avoid a lot of headaches by choosing to purchase only from established sellers that have recent and past positive feedback as a seller for selling items in the same category that you intend to buy. If someone is selling a dozen apple watches, but has no feedback, or only has feedback as a buyer, or only has feedback for selling dress patterns or fishing lures (actual examples I have seen), perhaps wait until they have a track record of positive feedback for selling electronics before you buy from them.
You might miss out on a good deal from a new seller once in a while, and nothing can guarantee that you won't still run into an issue anyway, but you can avoid a lot of potential problems by choosing to do business with established sellers. Anyone can put together a listing that looks nice -- it is not hard at all to simply copy an existing listing -- but it is much harder to create a history of consistent sales and positive feedback.
For more experienced sellers, you can learn a lot about the sort of seller you are dealing with by checking the seller's feedback page to see where the seller is registered and to notice if the seller has any negative feedback. If you see negatives indicated in the table of recent feedback, you can choose to exclusively see each type of comment by clicking on the numbers shown in the table. Reading negative or neutral comments can often tell you if a seller has a pattern of problems with items not matching the descriptions, canceled orders, late deliveries or item location misrepresentation.
If a seller has a pattern of too many serious negatives -- or just not enough positive history -- it is often better to find another seller with a better track record to do business with.