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Came here for help but instead I get jokes and people flagging my listings that have nothing to do with the issue. Not going to respond to this anymore. What a great community.
28 comments
Came here for help but instead I get jokes and people flagging my listings that have nothing to do with the issue. Not going to respond to this anymore. What a great community.
christworks
·1 year agoOn the OP's topic, your choices are to fulfill the order, or cancel and risk the account ding. You could message the buyer, thank them for the order, and let them know you want to make sure they are aware the product is past the best buy date. Let them know if they did not realize that and impacts their decision to buy, you would be happy to cancel for them and to let you know.
The other thing you could do is respond to the message you ignore. If it was just yesterday, you could say something like, "Hi, I apologize that I am only now getting back to you. I saw your message and set out to research how much of a deal I could give you, but some other things came up and I didn't get back to you. I am so sorry to tell you, but in the meantime someone came along and bought all 8 packages before I could respond to you. For the record, I would have been happy to do the deal you suggested. Please accept my apologies that I didn't get back in time."
By suggesting you would have done the deal, you may get this buyer to admit that they bought them under the other account. They probably won't say it was them, they will probably it was their wife who made an account and got them or something. At that point, they will probably want that deal and you may then get them to ask you to cancel so they can rebuy under the new deal. Of course, once you cancelled, you could just block both user names and for heaven's sake, leave the product down for a while so they can't make another account and rebuy.
By the way, the policy does not go into this much detail about this on eBay's website, but as someone who used to sell mostly health supplements and some food products, I can tell you that not only are you not supposed to list expired/best buy products, eBay considers the expiration date to be at the start of the month listed on the package, not the end. For instance, I have Keto supplements that will expire in August 2025. I will pull the remaining stock on July 31st.
There are exceptions to the expiration date policy. If you are listing a food product that is clearly a collectible item, rather than meant to be consumed, the expiration date rule does not apply as long as you list it in an appropriate category that does not imply it is meant to be consumed. You also should clearly state it is not meant to be consumed.
kensgiftshop
·1 year agoThat makes no difference, you can't list food if it's expired, no matter what category you list it in.
Sellers have tried that and wonder why their 50 year old gum listing was removed.
tobaccocardyahoo
·1 year agoI buy my coffee by the case on Amazon. Even subscribe to a shipment every three months..
Not out of the ordinary.
I would not buy coffee which has past its best by date. I would not sell it either.
I would not buy products which are approaching their best by date.
I have sold shelf pulls in the past, they are products which are nearing expiration. Always included the date in the listing and deleted and donated anything which was going to expire before it could be consumed.
We all draw lines at different points. So do Internet marketplaces. You cannot sell expired items on Ebay, and you cannot sell items which are close to expiration on Amazon.
oryanstar
OP1 year agoThat really depends on the item, Coffee grounds can last well past their best by date(not expired). Kept in a cool dry place they can last potentially a year after and they only lose flavor boldness they dont even go bad.
Ive worked in 2nd hand grocery stores before and you would be surprised on what is still edible and/or useable past its best by/sell by dates.
Expiration dates though are definitely toss outs.
In regards to ebay, if were able to sell it then were able to sell it. Ebays system should take down any listing automatically if it goes against their policy. If the listing is still up then its good to go.
soh.maryl
·1 year agoThe last sentence of your message makes it seem like you believe that an eBay employee reviews each and every listing to make sure it doesn't violate policy. That isn't the case. And if a listing that violates the rules is still up, it doesn't necessarily mean "its good to go".
kensgiftshop
·1 year agoSince they removed the listing, I don't think they agree with you.
oryanstar
OP1 year agoGuess I know who took it upon themselves to flag my stuff. Appreciate your unneccessary "help".
Looks like I got new product for the swap meet stall now.
kensgiftshop
·1 year agoI just went to look at the listing and it was gone.
tobaccocardyahoo
·1 year agoAs I said, we all draw the line in different places, and we put up with buyers who do not like where we drew the line.
There are lines which are pretty much standard for mainstream retailers, and there are different standard used by off-price, close-out or liquidation outlets.
IMO online buyers are often totally unaware of how to characterize sellers on an online marketplace. I rarely think of any Ebay seller as a mainstream retailer, many Ebay buyers have no clue that there are other than mainstream retailer, which is why Ebay has always had a reputational problem.
redmodelt
·1 year agoI keep coffee like that in the freezer and have more than a few of the larger cans in my pantry. So yes, people do buy more than one at a time if the price is good and they like the brand.
catjewels9876
·1 year agoI only see one coffee product sold today unless you have another account. Maybe double check your sale. I also suppose you could have cancelled the sale since I am not sure how that would appear on my end.
toysaver
·1 year agoThere was a quantity of 8 sold.
catjewels9876
·1 year ago@toysaver
Is that weird or I am just not looking at this right? Or seller could have cancelled. I'm not sure. Thank you.
oryanstar
OP1 year ago6 was sold at once 2 were from another buyer a week ago
oryanstar
OP1 year agoYea idk why its only showing up as 1 for you, maybe since it was all bought at once it shows as one sale?
kensgiftshop
·1 year agoYou can't sell expired food items.
toysaver
·1 year agoWhat I do in instances like this is document all you can as Add/edit note. Did you block the other buyer?
oryanstar
OP1 year agoDidnt block the original message, just ignored him.
reallynicestamps
·1 year agoI sell Canadian discounted postage and occasionally get a US buyer.
Since most Americans have no use for foreign postage, it is my practice to send a polite Message reminding the buyer than their purchase is packaged as postage not as collectible stamps and that the pictures are random samples not necessarily what will arrive.
So far, my US customers have thanked me, let me know that they understood the listing, and have left positve feedback.
Communication.
Tell the customer about the expiry date and ask if they want the product or to cancel.
caldreamer
·1 year agoYou are probably correct that it is the same person (because they are purchasing all 8 packages). You have to decide if you want to deal with this potential scammer or just cancel order due to "out of stock". Of course, if you do that, you will get a defect against your account and the customer can leave negative feedback even though transaction was cancelled.
pickapaper
·1 year agoActually, eBay's policies state that food products that have a past "best by" or "expired" date are not supposed to be sold on eBay. (I realize that "best by" dates do not mean the product is still not good; it's just that for clarification purposes, eBay lumps it in with expired dates.)
What is the policy?
The following and similar food items are not allowed:
inhawaii
·1 year agoYou deal with this sale just like any other sale.
They pay, you ship.
youn2240
·1 year agoYou're going to have to message the buyer and do an enhanced interrogation of them. First things first Google map their address and scope it out so you know the location before sending it. Then screen shot the house and send that pic to the guy from yesterday. Let him know you got your guys in his town if he's going to pull any funny business. Then to the buyer just start sending them a bunch of questions about why they would ever purchase the coffee. The key is to shoot so many questions to both accounts that the potential scammer slips up and you start being able to recognize nuances in how they type. I get these guys all the time and have yet to find one that won't cancel after I confront them about why they would ever think they were going to get over on me. Don't let this slide.
inhawaii
·1 year agoRidiculous.
youn2240
·1 year agoMight be but at the end of the day. Alright tactic 2: message the buyer let me know you're not sending the whole order. Tell them you'll ship out one package of coffee and in another week you'll send another until you're sure they aren't playing games on your eBay. I'd ask them how many coffee makers they own and if it's not more than one they are playing games on your eBay. That's a lot of coffee for one dude and that alone makes this highly suspicious to me.
kensgiftshop
·1 year agoNot if you go through a couple pots a day, like me sometimes.
aeparts1
·1 year agoBought & paid for, ship it.
I would have put expired March 5 2025 in the title, & multiple times in the description. Did your buyer see that this item is expired? Hard to say, probably 50-50.
I would not use the cheesy AI generated description.
oryanstar
OP1 year agoYea best by date was in the description.