@the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth wrote:
Retail arbitrage (buying after the sale) is now against Ebay rules. Precisely because it so often leads to seller cancellations because they don't control their own stock.
I saw a while ago that there is even software to manage this for you. I would much prefer dealing with a hands on seller with skin in the game. It has nothing to do with price here or elsewhere.
I don't understand why the good sellers of this board are standing up for someone who is taking buyers away from you and breaking the rules to do so.
That brings up another issue with those who sell that which they do not own:
Lack of familiarity with the product.
Under my seller account I only sell those products I am familiar with, mostly because deep down inside me there exists that knowledge that if a buyer has a question, the correct answer most likely will help avoid a return.
Worse however, is the frustration I feel as a buyer when a seller can not even answer a simple question!
Case in point I recently ordered a part for a machine, and inside the package there was included a little rubber o-ring... Not knowing what the o-ring went to, I asked the seller.
And worse than them simply saying "I do not know..."
That would have been bad enough, but instead the seller gave me a cockamamie answer!
The seller literally invented something out of thin air hoping I would go away with that answer!
Of course it was the wrong answer, and I may not have known the right answer but I knew that wasn't it.
The same thing will happen one day with this Home Depot seller.
The day will come a buyer has a simple question about the product they purchased.
And no the buyer isn't going to ask Home Depot, they are going to ask the person they bought it from!
Meanwhile most of these sellers all they know is there was profit in it, little do they know about the item itself.
They can't answer the buyer's question.
And that in my book turns into what I call terrible customer service.
We can call it a "bad buyer experience" in ebay's terms.
