eBay

bigdeals.etc · ‎10-25-2018

Here I am again with another one of these guys... I don't know if the buyer is being lazy or what. Apparently MV listings just creates more and more problems confusing buyers I guess. Ordering seems pretty simple to me... choose color, choose size, quantity, click add. But then again I might be biased because I've been selling for so long. Here we go.

Buyer buys 2 types of shirts (4 of each type) totaling to almost $200... yes I know, they are expensive (but nice) shirts. One type is Black, size 2XL. The other type is Blue, Size L. They leave me a buyer message that states "I want them in different colors, but not black color size XL adult thanks"

What the heck does that mean? Yes I offer about 10 different colors of the shirts, can't you add them each individually and correctly to avoid confusion? I'm getting quite more and more buyers telling me they want a different color/size when they purchased one nowhere similar to what they wanted. Are more and more buyers getting confused with MV listings, or are they being lazy? And what's up with the last half of their sentence... they don't want black, but half their order is black. Or do they not want Black XL? Or is it they want everything in XL Adult? Everything I have is already Adult sizes in the listings. They never told me to give different sizes, so why did they comment on XL when they didn't even order XL?

Am I that burnt out this late at night that I can't figure this out? I'm this close to just cancelling the purchase and telling them to re-order correctly (knowing that he may never come back and maybe even neg me). Sounds like he wants random colors though. Feel free to call me crazy here from overthinking... it's late, I can take it.

castlemagicmemories · ‎10-27-2018

emerald_door · ‎10-27-2018

I think it would be simpler and clearer for buyers to limit the choices in each listing. Maybe have one listing per style, so the buyer is selecting only the size.

swenson8781 · ‎10-27-2018

Yowza, not to be judgemental, but I agree with lintbrush. Just looking at the screenshot, and based on that, your variation listings are a bit too varied. I'd break that one down into 4 separate variation listings, with only color & size being the variables.

That might save you some confusion issues in the future. Keep it as simple as possible. Variation listings can/and are a struggle for many buyers to begin with, so when I use them, I try to keep the items choices limited to only 2 variables max, typically size & color.

Hope you figured out what your buyer wanted though

sandytexas1961 · ‎10-27-2018

I think I would pull the shirts in various colors (not black) and then take a picture with my phone, send it to him with a message saying that you just want to clarify the order and make sure these colors are ok. (or don't do the photo, but it might be a nice touch). I would just write in a friendly sweet tone and try to make it seem like you're either following orders from the boss (you did tell yourself to do it), or just super careful about big orders. I would thank him for the order, but perhaps even mention that you've been burned before when you didn't check, so now you always check. Once he replies that it is fine, then mail 'em. These don't actually seems like a big scam item. I would definitely try to hold on to the order.

bigdeals.etc · ‎10-28-2018

@lintbrush*

Yea I had this thought too as I was creating the listings. Initially I thought that since all these shirts are in fact variations, they could use a boost in a cumulative sales history. But I do realize that it is a TON of variations (ask me how long it took me to create them all haha). As of right now I think the ability for a buyer to combine purchases for promos within the same listing outweighs the confusion the long list can cause. I will be monitoring this closely and if I see the confusion is just too frequent and apparent, I will obviously have to take your suggestion and just figure out a way to cross promote my listings better. Thanks

On that note, my OP doesn't just happen with listings with long variation lists. I just got another purchase today from a buyer of this listing

361930303782 Yamaha Cap.... it only has one pulldown choice "color" and only 3 colors: Royal Blue, Black, Red. The buyer bought all 4 in Royal Blue, then in the buyer notes told me they want 1 Red, 2 Black, 1 Royal Blue. So I don't know if splitting my variations would solve this problem.

For those of you who are wondering what I'm going to do. I'm going to roll the dice and take a chance here and honor the what the buyer wants (random colors, but no Black, everything XL sized). Things are going well enough that I can take this chance here... But I'll probably be back here complaining about the damage this caused me. I guess I'm a glutton for punishment.

penguins_dont_fly · ‎10-28-2018

@bigdeals.etc

Just don't forget to adjust your stock #s accordingly 🙂

penguins_dont_fly is a Volunteer Community Mentor
Buying and Selling since 2013

bigdeals.etc · ‎10-28-2018

@penguins_dont_fly wrote:
@bigdeals.etc
Just don't forget to adjust your stock #s accordingly 🙂

Yea, tell me about it. Inventory management is hard enough as it is. Thanks for the reminder 🙂

myjunqueyourtreasure · ‎10-28-2018

@bigdeals.etc wrote:
@lintbrush*
Yea I had this thought too as I was creating the listings. Initially I thought that since all these shirts are in fact variations, they could use a boost in a cumulative sales history. But I do realize that it is a TON of variations (ask me how long it took me to create them all haha). As of right now I think the ability for a buyer to combine purchases for promos within the same listing outweighs the confusion the long list can cause. I will be monitoring this closely and if I see the confusion is just too frequent and apparent, I will obviously have to take your suggestion and just figure out a way to cross promote my listings better. Thanks

On that note, my OP doesn't just happen with listings with long variation lists. I just got another purchase today from a buyer of this listing
361930303782 Yamaha Cap.... it only has one pulldown choice "color" and only 3 colors: Royal Blue, Black, Red. The buyer bought all 4 in Royal Blue, then in the buyer notes told me they want 1 Red, 2 Black, 1 Royal Blue. So I don't know if splitting my variations would solve this problem.

For those of you who are wondering what I'm going to do. I'm going to roll the dice and take a chance here and honor the what the buyer wants (random colors, but no Black, everything XL sized). Things are going well enough that I can take this chance here... But I'll probably be back here complaining about the damage this caused me. I guess I'm a glutton for punishment.

Correct me if I'm wrong (it's been known to happen) but isn't it impossible in a MV listing to actually select more than ONE choice? (hence the buying 4 of one color then telling you what colors they actually want).

I'm not sure how hard it would be to code MV listings to be able to select more than 1 choice in a transaction (and given ebay coders ineptness not sure we want them to even try).

Reality is the leading cause of stress.

bigdeals.etc · ‎10-28-2018

@myjunqueyourtreasure wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong (it's been known to happen) but isn't it impossible in a MV listing to actually select more than ONE choice? (hence the buying 4 of one color then telling you what colors they actually want).

I'm not sure how hard it would be to code MV listings to be able to select more than 1 choice in a transaction (and given ebay coders ineptness not sure we want them to even try).

It was impossible until the addition of the "add to cart" button below the buy it now button awhile back. Make your choices, click add to cart, then do that again for the different variations. Click the shopping cart icon on the top right corner of your page to checkout and pay simultaneously.

myjunqueyourtreasure · ‎10-28-2018

Okay but still perhaps (in the buyer's mind) separate transactions, not all in one go?

Maybe add a short blurb to do that if they want more than one item? (as you just outlined)

Reality is the leading cause of stress.

bigdeals.etc · ‎10-28-2018

@myjunqueyourtreasure wrote:
Okay but still perhaps (in the buyer's mind) separate transactions, not all in one go?

Yea if you're right, then it's something that can't be helped. Chalk it up to "comes with the territory."

The best I was able to do was put "add X to cart" in the photos. Which is questionable TOS wise, but I'm trying to correct an ebay wrong here with that by bending that rule. If I see this becoming a bigger issue, I will take steps to show step by step (which most likely buyers won't read anyways because they don't like all the wordiness).

I try to not add too much info in my descriptions. There's already old wordy text in there I've been meaning to remove.

lintbrush* · ‎10-28-2018

@bigdeals.etc

I thought about it some.

What about an additional variation detail instead of 32 under that dropdown? You can have up to 5

Type

Size

Color

Pattern/Design Placement

Sleeve Length

The Pattern/Design Placement variation detail would substantially reduce that massive Color dropdown and make it clear to the buyer what they are ordering (maybe - fingers crossed)

bigdeals.etc · ‎10-28-2018

@lintbrush* wrote:
@bigdeals.etc

I thought about it some.

What about an additional variation detail instead of 32 under that dropdown? You can have up to 5

Type
Size
Color
Pattern/Design Placement
Sleeve Length

The Pattern/Design Placement variation detail would substantially reduce that massive Color dropdown and make it clear to the buyer what they are ordering (maybe - fingers crossed)

Yea, that's a good idea. I thought of it too when creating the listings. The problem is the MV listings photo correlation limitation. You can only correlate one photo to only 1 dropdown (like color), and not a combination of 2 dropdowns (like color/design). So yea, I blame ebay for not making this funcationality better. I've mentioned this limitation to ebay many many times. Only to fall on deaf ears I guess.

@lintbrush*Thanks for the ideas though, I do appreciate the help

castlemagicmemories · ‎10-28-2018

@bigdeals.etc wrote:
@myjunqueyourtreasure wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong (it's been known to happen) but isn't it impossible in a MV listing to actually select more than ONE choice? (hence the buying 4 of one color then telling you what colors they actually want).

I'm not sure how hard it would be to code MV listings to be able to select more than 1 choice in a transaction (and given ebay coders ineptness not sure we want them to even try).
It was impossible until the addition of the "add to cart" button below the buy it now button awhile back. Make your choices, click add to cart, then do that again for the different variations. Click the shopping cart icon on the top right corner of your page to checkout and pay simultaneously.

Maybe that is the issue. If that buyer has had past issues with the cart, they may not use it again. I have used it twice, with issues each time that took effort to correct; I don't use it anymore. It doesn't like me.

lintbrush* · ‎10-29-2018

@bigdeals.etc

I had no idea about the picture correlation. That's too bad.

It did make me wonder about other websites and how their variations work in relation to pictures, and for the life of me I can't recall any that have a 2 variation correlation. I'll pay more attention now though.