What's the nicest experience you've had with a buyer?

[csbbct]

We all read horror stories from sellers on these boards of buyer scams, threats, and rudeness.  It can leave us disillusioned and pessimistic about our world.  This is a difficult selling environment, void of personal face-to-face contact and is solely dependent on our ability to communicate through the written word.

In my years of selling here, the majority of buyers have been kind, respectful, and appreciative.  After reading some disturbing posts this week, I thought I would like to have a thread where I could hear some uplifting stories from sellers about their buyers, for a nice change.

So…

A few years back I sold a full set of china to someone in early December.  Christmas morning I got a message from the buyer with photos attached showing her Christmas dinner table all decorated and set with the china she bought from me.  She was so proud of the way her table looked that morning that she wanted to share it with me.  I never had a buyer do anything like that and it made me feel good that she remembered how I packed it carefully and sent it out to her quickly so she took the time to include me in her Christmas morning.    

[lgonzalez28]

I really love this post! 

There have been many kind buyers that have become some of my greatest friends on other platforms. 

My favorite though is from an older lady that was not tech savvy and we spent 2 days making sure she was "setting things up correctly", English was not her first language, but she was very patient. 

I received this message upon delivery and it made my week 

[lgonzalez28]

What a Beautiful person! It is the smallest gestures sometimes

[chapeau-noir]

There have been so many it's hard to choose which one. I'm blessed with wonderful buyers!  When someone writes me and says how great they feel in something they purchase from me, or how they've been looking for XYZ forever and I just happen to have it (and they write to thank me), it makes my day!

I agree, repeat buyers are a high compliment!

[*madison]

I listed an item on auction for 0.99, collection only. I thought I would get a few  bids because the item usually sells for around 200. Anyway, I only got one bid.. The winning bidder said he felt very guilty and offered me 150 when he came to collect the item, but I refused. I told the buyer I appreciated the offer, not many buyers would do that, but he won the auction fair and square, so there was no need to feel guilty at all.

And then I sold him a motorbike for 7k.  Every cloud...

[pvcliff]

Christmas 2017 I sold an ornament, and recognized the address. After I sent the ornament out I sent a note to the customer saying "I see you live in the "old folks home" that we will be moving to when our name comes up to the top of the wait list". She responded back, offering to show us around the next time we were in Carlsbad. We took her to lunch last October and picked her brain, and now know someone which will help ease us into the new community. The fact that she and we are cat people, and that I am a Christmas ornament nut too, helped cement the friendship.

[namele365]

Once I sold an antique box camera to fellow in Japan.  After he received the camera he sent a nice letter about how he liket it, and included a nice picture of Tokyo and a few origami figures.  I sent him back a 1960s baseball card with a famous Japanese player.

One time I got a real nice thank you card from a young girl who's father had purchasd my used iphone as her first phone.  Really warmed my heart.

[jewelbiz]

Me little story takes the cake..

My first year selling here around 1998 or 1999, I sold a diamond platinum Art Deco ring at $750.  It was beautiful.

The man lived in Connecticut.  He asked me to meet him 1/2 way between him & me in Manhattan and he’d pay cash.  I thought it would be fun and agreed to meet him in  Westchester somewhere in a shopping mall about 1 hour from my home and 1 hour from his home.

When I arrived there at the coffee shop in the mall I suddenly felt faint and fell down to the floor.   Mortified I recognized the man walking in the door.  From laying flat on the floor of the coffee shop I called out to this buyer.  It was morning and he spent the entire rest of the day ministering to me.  Finally about 12 hours later the mall was closing and we were kicked out.  This total stranger then drove me in my car 🚙 with me lying down in the back seat home to Manhattan, parked my car and got me safe upstairs.

He then had to take a cab to the NYC railroad station, wait for his train to take him to where the mall was, take another cab to the Westchester mall, pick up his own car and then drive 1 hour back in the night to his own home in Connecticut.

The following day he left me positive feedback!

What a man!

Buyers on Ebay in the early days!

[lex-talon]

I've had more pleasant experiences that negative ones. Recently, I sold a cd to a buyer. This is their response:

This album is such a unique mastpiece and is nearly impossible to find a physical copy anywhere. Thanks for selling it for such a good price!

The amount of appreciative buyers I encounter make selling on eBay worthwhile.

Reply

[bigdeals.etc]

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@jewelbiz wrote:

Me little story takes the cake..

My first year selling here around 1998 or 1999, I sold a diamond platinum Art Deco ring at $750.  It was beautiful.

The man lived in Connecticut.  He asked me to meet him 1/2 way between him & me in Manhattan and he’d pay cash.  I thought it would be fun and agreed to meet him in  Westchester somewhere in a shopping mall about 1 hour from my home and 1 hour from his home.

When I arrived there at the coffee shop in the mall I suddenly felt faint and fell down to the floor.   Mortified I recognized the man walking in the door.  From laying flat on the floor of the coffee shop I called out to this buyer.  It was morning and he spent the entire rest of the day ministering to me.  Finally about 12 hours later the mall was closing and we were kicked out.  This total stranger then drove me in my car 🚙 with me lying down in the back seat home to Manhattan, parked my car and got me safe upstairs.

He then had to take a cab to the NYC railroad station, wait for his train to take him to where the mall was, take another cab to the Westchester mall, pick up his own car and then drive 1 hour back in the night to his own home in Connecticut.

The following day he left me positive feedback!

What a man!

Buyers on Ebay in the early days!

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Great story. I'd also like to point out that there are still millions of great buyers on ebay these days. Otherwise I still wouldn't be here. You just gotta look thru the muck sometimes.

[galfam]

I have really enjoyed reading all these posts-- I have had so many nice encounters with people I have sold too. Emails telling me about the item to original artwork that went back to the family. And all the people that have forgiven any mistakes that I have made , and there have been a lot over the years. We should all have a list of the memorable sales so that when we have one of those bad day(s) we can remember why most of us keep selling cause for most of us the profits are not like they  to be.  

[hollysfinds]

Wonderful thread @csbbct , thank you for posting this topic.

I've enjoyed reading all the posts.

I too have had many great buyers.

I sell mostly vintage & discontinued china.

I've had so many really nice messages from buyers.

It always makes my day.

Very few bad experiences here & I'm thankful for that.

[nanbosnan]

I've had many nice comments from buyers happy to find the old lab stuff I sell.  One of the best was a woman who bought a set of plastic bottles made from a particular type of plastic or something else that was trademarked about the bottles.  Her father had been on the team to create the product and it hadn't been manufactured or sold in many, many years.  My extra bottles became the center pieces at her Father's upcoming birthday celebration.  It may have been a 90th birthday or something impressive like that.  My items are from my late step-Father's laboratory and stories like this one always make my Mom smile.  

[gracieallen01]

Many years ago, not too long after I started selling on ebay, I listed a book on owls, written many years before by a gentleman in So. Africa. I got a note from the person who bought the book, thanking me for listing it because the author was a distant uncle and when the buyer was still a child and living in the UK, had visited the uncle a couple of times at Christmas. He told me about sitting for hours, just looking at the Christmas tree because it had many small owls - real and alive - hiding in the branches and looking out from between the needles and ornaments. He was very, very pleased to have found the book and I was glad it went to the proper home. Just one of many nice clients from ebay, from times past.

[lgonzalez28]

That is so cool! The world really is small afterall 🙂

[compyguy85]

I don't have near the history or experience as many of you (I've only been selling on eBay for a few months now). The first LP record I ever shipped I totally shipped wrong. I thought I knew what I was doing (it was literally the 3rd item I had every shipped...period). Anyway, I had bought a 25 pack of LP mailers and some bubble wrap (I have 100+ old vinyls to sell, so I figured I would need to stock up on the supplies). Anyway, I figured there was nothing to shipping a record..put it in the box, seal it up, and send it out. I even went the "extra mile" and put bubble wrap on the corners to keep the LP from bouncing around inside it's box, which I thought would be a nice touch. 

Nope. 

The day it arrived to it's destination I got a message from the buyer, telling me that the record had arrived scratched and with seam splits on the sleeve and he proceeded to explain to me that it was a result of faulty packaging and then carefully explained to me the proper way to pack and ship a record (which is now the only way I do ship them, and they are one of my biggest sellers).  He wasn't rude, wasn't upset, and since the record still played and the only damage was on the outside rim and the sleeve, he didn't even demand a refund. He was very polite and had he not taken the time to instruct me on what I should do I can imagine that I would have quite a few return claims and negative feedbacks from my record sales. (I have also now looked up proper ways to ship various items like books, records, glassware, etc and make sure to always go overboard on packing). 

Maybe not as cool or as nice a story as some others on here, but for my meager 3 months of selling on Ebay it's nice that I got lucky enough to get an understanding buyer who took the time to make sure I was sending items out correctly.