Local Pickup listing feature is a fail!!!
This is getting extremely frustrating to be honest. I have several items listed for Local Pickup and I get 2-3 orders a day that I HAVE TO cancel because they are from all over the country. I reached out to eBay and their advice was to add LOCAL PICKUP ONLY in caps to my item descriptions but this is making no difference.
I am also afraid this is going to impact my seller's stats because not one of these orders has been fulfilled. They have all been canceled selecting the "Issue with buyer's address" reason. Talking to all of these buyers for no reason is such a waste of time. Someone please explain what is the purpose of showing a Florida Local Pickup listing to someone in Washington State, it makes no sense to me.
26 comments
kensgiftshop
·3 years agoWhy are you doing only local pick up on those items?
If buyers wanted to pick them up, they'll just go to the store.
debvor
·3 years agoEbay is a fail!!!
fern*wood
·3 years agoYour posts make me wonder why you still have over 1400 items for sale here. Some sellers actually set themselves up to fail without ebay's help. I can't imagine someone wanting to buy one bottle of lotion and have to drive to some stranger's house to pick it up. Online selling is based on having items delivered to the buyer.
dqdistribution
·3 years agoLocal pickup only is too easy to miss unless you try to restate it in multiple areas repeatedly.
So many people look at just the picture and price and buy now.
I can't really blame them many services have gone the way of ordering simply from seeing it in the search instead of opening the page like AMZ.
eBay has some good things about LP (I personally like the QR scan to actually have proof the product was handed over to the customer) That's one thing that makes electronic local pickups hard on other marketplaces which is why I do cash-only on them.
However, the amount of traffic from nonlocal pickup customers to local pickup listings is far too high and needs to be addressed IMHO.
You are selling $2 items as oval pickup. You are going to lose more by waiting for people to show up for a pickup than you’ll make on the sale.
tabcu51
·3 years agoSelling "Local pick up" is a waste of time.
I don't understand why ebay even offers it.
adricrist1987
OP3 years agoLikely to prevent people from going other route for their local purchases, the likes of OfferUp, 5mile, FB marketplace etc. They have a large base and if they can cater to them why wouldn’t they, chances are they will end up offering shipping as I am considering after this whole drama and they will collect their share.
The issue I have is if you are going to jump on it do it right. If you are asking for the zip code then also ask how far out you’d like your item to be show to others.
ms.rodriguez*
·3 years agoIt can be good for very big items and customers that can read. Perhaps there should be some prompt that pops up before the bidder agrees that everything is OK. Some red banner warning the buyer that it's LOCAL PICKUP, do you agree to meet with the seller. IF they do not agree, then they do not buy the item. But since this makes too much sense, ebay will not implement it.
wastingtime101
·3 years agoKyle from eBay recently escalated this same suggestion when it came up on a different thread. I think it's a great idea when local pickup is selected.
Key is that it needs to be applied to the app, not just the website.
yuzuha
·3 years agoIt works just fine for items that people actually expect to be local pick up, such as furniture, large and fragile artwork, bikes, etc.
slippinjimmy
·3 years agoI have Local Pickup on all my listings, Of course it's in addition to shipping options. I am located in a densely populated area (millions), when buyers are close to me they often go for the pickup option. In all my years on eBay I've never had a buyer pick the LPU option that didn't actually intend on picking up (or have someone local to me do the pickup for them).
A couple of weeks ago a buyer came to pick up a $20 item (prepaid via eBay) and ended up handing over another $200 for a bunch of other stuff, then he gave my info to a friend who dropped $150.
Local pickup is NOT the problem, the OP's use of Local Pickup ONLY is the cause of most of their problems.
sextons-sweet-deals
·3 years agoYou can put it in the title block if there is enough room left, in the description block, and in the shipping area as we all know, and people still don't read!
I have done 10 refunds so far this year because the buyer did not read that the listing was pick-up only. My guess they are using their cell phone.
It's ridiculous!
adricrist1987
OP3 years agoI am thinking this will be my next step, from what I read it looks like the purchase flow might not make description as prominent as I thought.
Thanks for the advice.
ms.rodriguez*
·3 years agoYes, using the cell phone while driving and yelling at their kids in the back seat.
wastingtime101
·3 years ago@adricrist1987, don't be surprised as a new seller with low prices on new product in a category that's seen a rash of theft from brick and mortar locations if eBay puts a hold on your account and requests receipts for every single product you have listed and sold. It's happening a lot these days. eBay has algorithms that pick up certain criteria and they'll place accounts under review - it's not personal. As long as your inventory sourcing is legit and you have receipts you shouldn't have anything to worry about.
adricrist1987
OP3 years agoThanks for the heads up this would be incredibly tedious, I have no concerns about providing receipts, I keep them for tax purposes. But I agree providing all of those receipts would be a pain in the rear and likely the end of my little side hustle/project, which would have no impact to eBay’s bottom line so I guess we will see if it comes to that.
stainlessenginecovers
·3 years agoIt's NOT broken. People don't read descriptions and don't expect those 'little' things to NOT be shipped as eBay is 99.9999999999% items shipped and 99.99999999999% of the people shopping here expect things to get shipped; especially what you are selling.
adricrist1987
OP3 years agoI mean I get that but I would expect a feature called local pick up to have some sort of a filters so that it’s shown based on the ZIP Code where the item was listed at. They do ask for zip code and it does not seem like a huge undertaking from a technology perspective.
wastingtime101
·3 years agoThere is a filter to show local pickup only items and filter it by zip code and distance by miles. It's there for people that want to search items listed with local pickup.
But since local pickup is not the norm (especially on items you can get at any drug/food store), there is no option to filter out local pickup items.
So if you're searching for a jukebox which is rather large, you're more likely to use local pickup filters.
But if you're searching for deodorant, you're not going to use local pickup filters because you expect a stick of deodorant to be shipped.
As I said, this isn't that type of marketplace where "porch pickup" is the norm. Not for the type of products you're selling.
yuzuha
·3 years agoExactly. No one who is searching to buy deodorant or shampoo or razor blades on eBay is going to think to filter out local pickup because no one is going to expect those items to BE local pickup in the first place. We're not talking a dining room table or a three piece luggage set or a large glass aquarium here.
toybrats
·3 years agoWrite it in the title and make it the first line in the description. Towards the end, write something , SORRY BUT I CAN'T SHIP THIS ITEM BECAUSE IT'S TOO BIG or I can't lift it or I don't have a car to transport it to the post office. Many people use phones to bid and they don't see the entire description at once. So make LOCAL PICKUP ONLY the first 3 words. Goodluck.
slippinjimmy
·3 years agoIs there a reason why you are listing as Local Pickup Only?
If it's because it's impossible for you to ship for some reason?
If not, why not add a shipping option, even with a fairly high shipping charge which will discourage non-pickup buyers and make shipped orders very profitable.
The only listings you will find on eBay that are Local Pickup ONLY are large or heavy items (think furniture, tires, appliances, large tv's, bicycles or similar) where shipping is very expensive.
As far as not showing local pickup only outside the local area, eBay only knows a buyers registered address or default shipping address, they have no way of knowing where a buyer is located TODAY, they could be travelling for recreation (holiday), education (away from home at school) or employment.
Local Pickup Only for common everyday goods that can be bought almost anywhere makes no sense, who would buy Laundry Detergent available everywhere if it means they have to travel through Metropolitan Miami traffic to pick it up after passing 10 stores within a couple of minutes of where they live and get the same items.
craft-stash
·3 years agoCaptain Obvious knows that the USPS killed shipping ANYTHING over 2 pounds!!!!!
And the REA L. Question is why is eBay letting sellers LIST stuff Like Laundry Detergent in the 1st place!
Huh!?!
EBay I can get most of what your selling at a BIGGER BIG BOX Store!
Let it go and go back to being eBAY!!!
debvor
·3 years agoI get what your saying but I believe it is the upper managements goal to wreck Ebay not to destroy it but to make it a target for a larger company to buy it and cannibalize it. I really don't have any other explanation for their ineptness. It does seem odd to me that a company abandons the sellers and products that made it what it is.
wastingtime101
·3 years agoAdd it to your listing titles - make it the first words of the title.
LOCAL PICKUP ONLY - Air Wick Essential Mist Starter Kit (Diffuser + Refill)
I get why you're having problems. The items you're selling aren't oversized or heavy. They're items that are almost always shipped.
While local pickup is a valid option, it's not typically used as the only service for "smalls." This site doesn't have the same type of buyer as the local buy/sell/trade marketplaces that's expecting to pickup small items.
adricrist1987
OP3 years agoThanks for your reply I’ll give it a try and add it to the title, the space there is limited but it seems like a worthy effort. I appreciate your time.
Thanks.