eBay

boxersluver · ‎11-18-2020

It's been a rough day so I am probably just wanting to vent a little, but are you guys seeing more returns? I have had a ton of returns lately, ALL are buyer changed their mind, 2 were new and sealed items and I got them back opened(i did do a partial refund), the rest were just didn't like. I wasn't thrilled way back when when we had to offer free returns, but I really didn't see many more and I was like OK, ebay is right. Lately it's getting ridiculous. I get it that to stay competitive we have to do it, but I am not a retail store that can absorb all there free shipping costs. Just frustrated...

jameshen1 · ‎11-19-2020

That is a posting ID. Many sellers have them here, or like me, they post using their buying ID. Although to be transparent, I did close my selling ID sometime back and just buy on here now.

Sellers do this so that people who see something they don't like on the boards don't mess with their listings. Such as buying something just so they can leave negative feedback or file a case trying to give the seller a defect. Again, many sellers use posting id's or post with buying id's for good reasons. You should not assume they don't know what they are talking about.

boxersluver · ‎11-19-2020

I have 3 stores and most of my items have free shipping and free returns. Again I tried it when we had to offer it to maintain top rated and thought if I had a lot I'd quit offering free, but I barely had any. And no doubt it's because they don't have skin, but I know I get many of my sales because of keeping top rated. I will sell something over other people with my price being the higher, but they don't have top rated. So I didn't and don't want to lose that. But you are right.

lamber9347 · ‎11-19-2020

@jameshen1 wrote: @espresso_warehouse
That is a posting ID. Many sellers have them here, or like me, they post using their buying ID. Although to be transparent, I did close my selling ID sometime back and just buy on here now.

Sellers do this so that people who see something they don't like on the boards don't mess with their listings. Such as buying something just so they can leave negative feedback or file a case trying to give the seller a defect. Again, many sellers use posting id's or post with buying id's for good reasons. You should not assume they don't know what they are talking about.

Thank you!!.... 😎

ryanrobyn · ‎11-19-2020

The sad thing is pretty soon your return number will qualify you paying another 5% fees. At times I think this is intentional as all returns - your fault or not even those cancelled by buyer are counted against you. This may be why the buyer is shown identical or similar items as soon as they buy something. Ebay still makes money on returned items through their 30 cent item fee and the listing fees. But being able to add an extra fee charge for returned items really increases Ebay profits because the extra fee is then placed on ALL sales.

portkoop-0 · ‎11-19-2020

@boxersluver wrote:
I will sell something over other people with my price being the higher, but they don't have top rated.

I do the same thing.

Being a power seller helps a little bit too, but TRS more than anything.

portkoop-0 · ‎11-19-2020

@espresso_warehouse wrote:
You've been lucky if you've only had two. If you mean 'legitimate' returns, that is another story entirely but the amount of scammers on this platform is very high.

Sadly I find the amount of buyers unwilling to do their homework is on the rise too, we run into people who never even looked into a part number before ordering something to fix their equipment... Then they return it because it's the wrong part (and the reason they give almost always places the blame on us).

Which isn't really such a big deal in terms of the blame, either way we're taking a return...

But the ignorance in that just burns me some days.

Not only is it not my fault they ordered the wrong part but unless these buyers LEARN something they're just going to keep doing it! Granted, ultimately it's their equipment that's broken.

Also more and more dropshippers are popping up, and I'm not talking people re-selling some warehouse items designed for the purpose... I'm talking sellers who steal your listing(s), copy them to their venue (so if you're on ebay they go to amazon with it) and then when a buyer makes a purchase from them they order it from you with a guest account putting in the buyer's address... The problem here is most of these dropshippers aren't smart enough to really know what they are doing so returns become more frequent and you're the one paying the shipping both ways!
This particular type of dropshipper has nothing to lose, they simply play middleman, put up some listings on another venue with your items (in many cases they simply copy and paste the whole thing with pictures and all) and when a buyer has a return they file that through too... We sellers pay for it all, they have zero skin in the game.

Very irritating that last one.

espresso_warehouse · ‎11-19-2020

This person consistently starts posts by bragging about how long they've been selling, telling all about how much experience they have and habitually going on to minimize whatever issue the active seller is actually having.

It's a way of shutting down actual conversation and it's damaging. It's not constructive.

I had an actual problem earlier this week, even attached a screen grab of the issue. A seller account who is a lot more experienced than me actually weighed in. They didn't need to start out with a bunch of claims, they just commiserated. Of course, none of the usual suspects were to be found.

espresso_warehouse · ‎11-19-2020

I have so many repeating stories at this point. Buyers with zero feedback who don't read the listing, then buy stuff that is listed as pick up only (giant couch) who demand I ship it to them. Ebay's response; 'work it out with the buyer'. The problem is it leaves you open to negative feedback, so you take several days working it out with them, getting them to agree to ask to cancel so you can re list...those dropshippers you mention are always fun to deal with. My issue with them so far hasn't been returns, but the added administration of fending off their 'ship faster' attacks. I already ship same day, they put you on the defensive from the get.

I had one of those guys demand a refund because USPS did not route the shipment to his liking. These are the reasons I need customer service. I don't know who these sellers are here who don't end up with these problems. It's not like I'm the one making the rules and designing the site. Who knows...

turquoisetulips · ‎11-19-2020

Yes ! I've had two returns just in the past 10 days or so . Today I received a pair of earrings back . The buyer's reason was they didn't look like antiques . However they were never described as antiques . I don't sell antique jewelry . Never have .

dbfolks166mt · ‎11-19-2020

I have noticed a couple of things taking place with regards to returns. First and foremost the scamming is in high gear and they are aware of the shipping delays and how easy it is to file a INR case, get their money back and keep the item when it actually does arrive. If it arrives on time they simply file a INAD request and return the item.

The second is INAD's where the seller gets back a box of rocks or an empty box. Just be glad that your returns actually contained what you sent although the packages had been opened. I list a few low dollar items on eBay but these days I would NEVER list a high dollar item especially any electronics. I have seem posts about the Play Station prices it doesn't take a genius to figure out how one could acquire one of these at little or no cost with a simple scam just read some of the posts on this board.

While I post here I run the same item on local sites where there is not shipping and the buyer has to pickup the item. I end and delete a lot of eBay posts, never one that has a bid on it, if it sells on one of the other sites first. I also don't have to pay any fees on the other sites so I can list the item 10-15% cheaper and there are no shipping costs.

electronics510 · ‎11-19-2020

My personal opinion is Ebay needs to provide us a little more value on the seller side. There have always been and always will be complaints, but providing value to sellers is how the company supposedly makes money. If people see the value trade as coming at an unjustified premium the middle man has a history of being eliminated.

portkoop-0 · ‎11-19-2020

@ryanrobyn wrote:
The sad thing is pretty soon your return number will qualify you paying another 5% fees. At times I think this is intentional as all returns - your fault or not even those cancelled by buyer are counted against you. This may be why the buyer is shown identical or similar items as soon as they buy something. Ebay still makes money on returned items through their 30 cent item fee and the listing fees. But being able to add an extra fee charge for returned items really increases Ebay profits because the extra fee is then placed on ALL sales.

Therein lies the next problem...

My last return the item sells for $14 and it costs me around $3.50 to ship one way so by the time it is returned and I sell it again I have paid a total of $10.50 in shipping fees alone which doesn't just eat all my profit but it actually costs me money to do this and it will take a few to several more sales just to pay for that (keep in mind I haven't discussed the cost of the item, the printing and the envelope/package/tape which isn't exactly free either).

So what do I do, raise the price to $16?

Then what, $18?

I am thinking I should go straight to $20 because that will keep me in TRS+ since it will slow down sales enough so I will also get fewer returns but quite frankly I am really tired of paying for these people to either dropship my items without my permission or buyers playing the internet version of try before you buy.

marie185antiques · ‎11-20-2020

Yes, you are correct. This exact situation happened to me after being a seller on this site for 16 years with 100% feedback and 'top rated' seller status. Now I'm being penalized for the additional 5% fee. Not for long, however,

since my store's yearly subscription ends next month.......and it can't come too soon.....I'm outta here!

portkoop-0 · ‎11-20-2020

Here's another rapidly growing trend I just ran into, buyers too lazy to do any research doing "try before you buy" or trial and error to see if the shoe fits (and if it doesn't they just return it for "pick a reason" since the sellers pay the shipping)... These buyers are either careless or lazy, I've gone so far as to provide specifics in the title itself and still they order because they can't be bothered to look things up on their end, then when it's not what they needed they send it back for reasons of "doesn't work / doesn't fit" and such...
Which is particularly frustrating if we're trying to figure out where we went wrong, I'm not keen on returns so I am trying to figure out how to prevent future ones of its kind... So when someone returns a perfectly good and working product for reasons "defective" I'm assuming it's no good, unfortunately I have learned to test every single return (regardless of reason given, it's that bad, we can't even assume the buyer gave the correct reason) and those labor hours must be paid for also...

Soon that $14 item becomes $16, then $18 and really, I don't want to have to keep changing the price so I'll just make it $20 right now and done. This trend and others like it will soon make online shopping so expensive that Brick and Mortars will be able to make a comeback although presently I've seen their prices have skyrocketed in areas as well...

It's crazy.

retailtechoutlet · ‎11-20-2020

We sell B2B equipment and recently the amount of returns has increased as we are seeing more mom and pops shops purchasing the hardware without doing due diligence and checking compatibility with their software so they return it as "defective" which obviously hurts us when our hardware is fully functional.