This is a sort of conveyance of my experiences recently and a change of perspective about my business and the eBay community over the past couple of years.
I've been a member for around 12 years, buying and selling music related items, as music is my biggest love.
For many years here on eBay starting out, I harbored an almost bitter view of eBay policies and tended to look at every transaction with suspicion and be very weary of my customers. I have been had a few times by some crafty buyers which seemed to justify my feelings.
And it seemed as though eBay constantly put the pressure on us as sellers regardless of what it cost us.
I hated the idea of returns, I hated the idea of SNAD, and I lived in fear of both.
On another note, I buy extensively here as well, and I've noticed an upswing of dishonest sellers in general misrepresenting their products, and on top of that, responding in a very uncivil manner completely out of proportion with my inquiry when communicated to.
Some sellers basically only care about getting the money from that item and don't care if you never buy from them again. Whenever I've had an issue and sent a message to give it a chance to be worked out, I hit a wall of either denial of a problem, or a serious attitude and some times flat out insults and harassment. Before you crucify me, I know how many people are on these forums, you have some issues throw em on your block list lol, but hear me out. I buy hundreds of items a year. I am not picky. The upswing in problems I'm having has been items that are completely defective or not genuine, with sellers who are frankly it seems, insane.
And I have always tried very hard to work things out because I would want the same courtesy from my own buyers.
As an example, I bought tubes from a guy who sold something that was a total clone of what he represented it as, and he called me a thief and said I switched them out in 8 harassing messages. The guy had only a few negatives in the last year, but somehow he got mine removed, which I'm assuming he has done many times which is why I was not forewarned. He also tried to forward the returned item to another address to manipulate the return system. I mean really unstable guy. I was nothing but civil to him. I have no idea why people purposefully lie about items and treat people so poorly when they are trying to run a business.
It's given me some things to think about from both sides of the fence, and a realization that if you run your business honestly you do not need to fear returns or SNAD as a seller. Since accepting returns for 30 days, I have seen a substantial decrease in overall returns, and only one SNAD case out of several hundred sales. No need for SNAD when you accept returns. Customers begin the relationship without suspicion of your products. They are also more willing to communicate if there is a problem. But so far 99.9% of my sales resulted in positive feedback or just no feedback, which you all know is just as good as positive lol(no news is good news).
I've learned how to take care of my customers especially when they take the time to communicate their issues to me and have a desire to work it out and give me a chance to provide good customer service and have a positive experience.
This has resulted in steady business and REPEAT business, even if there was an initial problem. That is the way to do business.
It's so easy to be friendly and treat people with respect, and it really works. My sales have increased 250% over the past two years, and I'm finding I'm enjoying the experiences here instead of dreading them. Anyway that has been my thoughts, good day folks!
