eBay

anthonydelillo · ‎01-15-2021

Hi,

Most of us are familiar with the "Send Offers" feature. For those who are not, this feature allows sellers to send an offer to buyers that are interested in their item, such as buyers who have the item in their watchlist or cart or have viewed the item multiple times.

I like the "Send Offers" feature but I have a suggestion to improve it.

I offer "free shipping" on the majority of my listings, meaning I pay to ship my items to buyers. Therefore, it is difficult to determine the amount of an offer to send when I don't know how much I am going to have to pay to ship the item to them.

I think there are two ways to make it easier for sellers who offer "free shipping" to use the "Send Offers" feature:

a). Allow the seller to view a list of interested buyers (with anonymous usernames) and the cost of shipping to each of them. Allow the seller to send offers of varying amounts to individual buyers, the amount of which they can determine based on shipping costs.

or,

b). Allow the seller to send an offer to all interested buyers but also allow them to set a limit on the minimum net profit they would gain once the shipping cost is deducted from the offer total. eBay would then automatically calculate the offers based on the limit the seller set.

rebell45 · ‎01-15-2021

Just a quick question out of curiosity. How do you determine your Buy it Now price if you don't know how much the priority mail shipping will be? Do you use flat rate packaging?

Thanks

____________________________________________________________
Never sell anything on eBay that you can't afford to lose.

anthonydelillo · ‎01-16-2021

That is a good question. You are correct, I never know where a potential buyer is located and how much shipping will cost me. However, when I set the price for my "But It Now" listings, I consider the potential shipping costs and increase the price to offset them.

The main reason I wish eBay would consider my suggestion is that I have multiple watchers on the majority of my listings and I am willing to come down in price on most items. However, I want to make sure that the $80 offer I send on an item listed for $100 isn't going to be accepted by a buyer who lives in Alaska, costing me $25-30 to ship.

If I could see the buyer's locations, I would choose to send the $80 offer to a buyer in a neighboring state like Arizona and increase the offer I send to the Alaska buyer to $90.

luckythewinner · ‎01-16-2021

The issue you want eBay to address is a very narrow one to solve an issue for one specific way of doing business. For that reason alone, I sincerely doubt that eBay would bother addressing it (let alone prioritize it).

That aside ...

The fundamental issue you are overlooking is that a buyer's registered address is not necessarily his shipping address.

All of these complicated calculations and adjustments that you are suggesting would fall apart when a buyer in Boston wants to buy and item and have it shipped to his mother in Los Angeles or Honalulu or Anchorage.

There is an incredibly simply solution to your problem of wanting the offer to take the variations in shipping costs into account ... simply stop offering free shipping.

anthonydelillo · ‎01-16-2021

@luckythewinner wrote:
The issue you want eBay to address is a very narrow one, and it focuses on just one specific business model. For that reason alone, I sincerely doubt that eBay would bother.

It isn't a narrow issue at all. In 2020, 71% of all eBay sales were shipped for "free", meaning the seller paid for shipping. Clearly my suggestion would affect the majority of sellers.

@luckythewinner wrote:
The fundamental issue you are overlooking is that a buyer's registered address is not necessarily his shipping address.

I would not ship to any address other than the registered address. Doing so voids seller protection.

@luckythewinner wrote:
All of these complicated calculations and adjustments that you are suggesting will fall apart when a buyer in Boston wants to buy and item and have it shipped to his mother in Los Angeles or Honalulu or Anchorage.

Allowing sellers to view buyers' locations next to their names and/or having eBay automatically calculate an offer based on a limit set by the seller is complicated to you?

@luckythewinner wrote:
However, there is an incredibly simply solution to your problem of wanting the offer to take the variations in shipping costs into account ... simply stop offering free shipping.

Obviously if sellers stopped offering free shipping then they wouldn't have issues with unexpectedly high shipping eating up their profits when they send offers. Your comment was "incredibly" unhelpful.

coastaltechsolution · ‎01-16-2021

I'm sure 70% of the "Free shipping" was just rolled into the price of the item so the buyer does pay for shipping.

pjcdn2005 · ‎01-16-2021

I would not ship to any address other than the registered address. Doing so voids seller protection.

You have probably shipped to an address other than the registered address without knowing it. Sellers protection is not based on a buyer's registered address, it is based on the address that they chose when making payment. The seller sees only the payment address and that is where they are supposed to ship to. The other poster is making the point that your buyer could be registered in New York but is buying the item for their sister in California. If they accept your offer they could then pay indicating that they wanted the item sent to the California address and that would be the only address that you would see.

mtgraves7984 · ‎01-16-2021

"Obviously if sellers stopped offering free shipping then they wouldn't have issues with unexpectedly high shipping eating up their profits when they send offers. Your comment was "incredibly" unhelpful."

@anthonydelillo

Actually, @luckythewinner makes good sense. How about adjusting your shipping on the items you want to send offers on (just to be on the safe side) before shooting the offers? Only a thought... Free Shipping has never meant all that much to me as a buyer, anyway. Heck, I know shipping is not really free.

anthonydelillo · ‎01-16-2021

Yes, I consider the average cost of shipping when I set the price of my "free shipping" listings.

It still would be very helpful and very easily accomplished for eBay to allow sellers to either see the potential shipping costs or set a limit on the minimum profit received after the shipping costs are deducted.

anthonydelillo · ‎01-16-2021

Fair enough, but I would bet that the vast majority of sales are shipped to a buyers' primary, registered address.

If I was purchasing a gift, I would not want the item directly shipped to the gift receiver. I would like to inspect the item myself before sending it since I am the one who purchased it and know exactly how the listing described the item.

coastaltechsolution · ‎01-16-2021

ok can you explain more please?

When you list an item you weigh and figure the shipping cost, select the shipping option then can select "Free shipping"

Now you know what shipping will cost and can adjust your selling price before listing

pburn · ‎01-16-2021

@anthonydelillo wrote:
Fair enough, but I would bet that the vast majority of sales are shipped to a buyers' primary, registered address.

If I was purchasing a gift, I would not want the item directly shipped to the gift receiver. I would like to inspect the item myself before sending it since I am the one who purchased it and know exactly how the listing described the item.

I ship to gift recipients all the time on any number of different platforms. Why would I want to pay a seller for shipping and then turn around any pay again to ship it to my gift recipient?

I just don't really think you've thought this through to its logical conclusion.

stephenmorgan · ‎01-16-2021

@anthonydelillo wrote:
If I was purchasing a gift, I would not want the item directly shipped to the gift receiver. I would like to inspect the item myself before sending it since I am the one who purchased it and know exactly how the listing described the item.

That makes absolutely perfect sense. Many of people would do this. There are a number of reasons to do this and as you stated one reason is to inspecting the item you purchase to make sure it is what you paid for.

My spouse and I purchased several Gifts locally from a company that does Packaging and Shipping of their products if you choose. Their shipping Fees were way less then I could get so I thought sure, lets do that. My spouse wanted to take the Gifts home so that they could be individually wrapped with decorative paper and add a Greeting Card to the packages.

With all the Scams talked about on this site could a buyer even make a claim if the seller sent a empty box to the Gift Recipient and not the Buyer? I do not know if they could or not, just a thought.

I do not know why anyone would think it is appropriate to put you down for doing this.

anthonydelillo · ‎01-16-2021

@coastaltechsolution wrote:
ok can you explain more please?
When you list an item you weigh and figure the shipping cost, select the shipping option then can select "Free shipping"

Now you know what shipping will cost and can adjust your selling price before listing

I have already explained this several times. Yes, I adjust the price of "Buy It Now" listings based on the average cost of shipping.

But I would like to be able to send specific offers to the interested buyers. Instead of simply guessing how much shipping will cost based on the average cost, I would be able to see exactly how much it will cost for a specific buyer and taking this into consideration, I can send them a much more accurate offer.

Essentially, buyers who live closer or in areas for which shipping is cheaper will be able to get offers that reflect this, instead of having to to pay more when they purchase the item at the Buy It Now price, which is based on the average cost of shipping.

@pburn wrote:
I ship to gift recipients all the time on any number of different platforms. Why would I want to pay a seller for shipping and then turn around any pay again to ship it to my gift recipient?

I just don't really think you've thought this through to its logical conclusion.

I have already explained my reasoning for not wanting to send gifts directly to the recipient without inspecting it first. I'll do it again.

The gift recipient may not KNOW that the item that they received does not match the description: it could be missing parts or pieces, it could be the wrong color, wrong size, wrong quantity, wrong model etc.

It's unlikely that the gift recipient would call the gift giver and complain because a.) they are unaware of what the listing actually advertised that they would receive or b.) they are too polite to complain about a gift that they received.

But let's say that the gift recipient DID realize that the item that they were gifted is the wrong size and they contact the gift giver. Now it become a hassle. The gift giver must open "Item Not As Described" case which will require photo proof that the item is not as described described item. Since they don't have the item they ordered in hand, they are forced to further inconvenience the recipient by asking them to send the photos. Once the case is approved, the incorrect item needs to be returned. Once again, the gift giver does not have the item in hand so they must send the recipient the return label and ask them to return it. What if the recipient does not have a printer to print the return label? And even if they do, it's inconvenient that they have to deal with the return process at all.

Personally, I would rather confirm the gift is as described and send it myself rather than potentially inconvenience the gift recipient. If you are fine taking that risk, that is great.

Finally, my point still stands. The vast majority of my sales are shipped directly to the person who purchased the item rather than as a gift to an alternate address.

pburn · ‎01-16-2021

@anthonydelillo wrote:
Personally, I would rather confirm the gift is as described and send it myself rather than potentially inconvenience the gift recipient. If you are fine taking that risk, that is great.

Well, that would appear to be one of the many differences between you and me.

@anthonydelillo wrote:
Finally, my point still stands. The vast majority of my sales are shipped directly to the person who purchased the item rather than as a gift to an alternate address.

How would you know what your buyers are doing with their purchases after they receive them? Do they message you and say, "This is really a gift, but I want you to send it to me first. Then I'll inspect it, pay for postage again, and send it on to my recipient myself."

I find that difficult to believe.

You do realize an item sent directly to a gift recipient has the same buyer protection under the MBG, right?