What's with buyers who don't read?

[movieman630]

2 times in the last 24 hours I've had potential buyers email me with questions asking me things that I clearly state in the listing descriptions.  There's no confusion about it either, my descriptions are clear and concise. 

I'm starting to wonder if maybe there's something wrong with our listing description blocks not being clearly shown to buyers. 

Is anyone noticing this trend?  Does anyone know why a person might not see the description and ask such obvious questions?  Does it have to do with people seeing things on the mobile app?  Did they change something again?

[soh.maryl]

So many possible reasons, mobile app, lack of reading comprehension, just wanting to reassure themselves.  

Personally, had a recent experience with shoe shopping on eBay where the size and width in the title were different from the description.  And, I'm sure that, as an experienced seller, you are always patient and gracious with buyers who ask questions about your listings.  

[jg.mason]

Some people can't or won't (lazy?) try to figure things out for themselves. They have a question about the item and instead of looking at all the pictures and reading the description and item specifics they just fire off the question.

[luckythewinner]

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@movieman630 wrote:

Does anyone know why a person might not see the description and ask such obvious questions?  Does it have to do with people seeing things on the mobile app? 

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IMHO it sometimes has to do with the mobile app requiring the user to click a button to see the full description. It sometimes has to do with lazy people not bothering to read. It sometimes has to do with normal people simply overlooking something that is clearly in the description.  (I have done that.)  

It is hard to draw conclusions from a sample size of two. 

All that aside ... 

Your listing template forces me to scroll a scroll bar within the listing to see the entire description, rather than just scrolling the screen. That is a definitely not the case with 99% of the listings I look at and I found it irritating. 

[movieman630]

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@luckythewinner wrote:

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@movieman630 wrote:

Does anyone know why a person might not see the description and ask such obvious questions?  Does it have to do with people seeing things on the mobile app? 

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IMHO it sometimes has to do with the mobile app requiring the user to click a button to see the full description. It sometimes has to do with lazy people not bothering to read. It sometimes has to do with normal people simply overlooking something that is clearly in the description.  (I have done that.)  

It is hard to draw conclusions from a sample size of two. 

All that aside ... 

Your listing template forces me to scroll a scroll bar within the listing to see the entire description, rather than just scrolling the screen. That is a definitely not the case with 99% of the listings I look at and I found it irritating. 

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I wonder why ebay did that.  It never used to work like that.  I've seen peoples descriptions that were chapters long and I never had to scroll in their description block.  It usually just displays.  Did they recently change this?

[movieman630]

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@soh.maryl wrote:

So many possible reasons, mobile app, lack of reading comprehension, just wanting to reassure themselves.  

Personally, had a recent experience with shoe shopping on eBay where the size and width in the title were different from the description.  And, I'm sure that, as an experienced seller, you are always patient and gracious with buyers who ask questions about your listings.  

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I can understand if there's a difference between the title and the description.  I've seen that too and always confirm with the seller, at the very least I usually inform them there's a discrepancy just to be nice.  But in the 2 cases I mentioned there was no difference.  My title and description were 100% accurate.

[buybuy42]

Block this User ID and this will no longer be an issue for you.

[chevymontecarlo88]

Yes, it appears that this occurs more frequently.  Some buyers may be uncertain about the seller, not the listings.

[soh.maryl]

In a climate where buyers are in short supply, why would a smart seller block a potential buyer simply for asking a question even though the answer to the question is contained in the listing? 

[dhbookds]

Agree about the scroll bar........had it not been mentioned, not sure I would have seen it,  just because I don't normally see one in descriptions.......

But my pet theory is that some buyers just want to "make contact" with a seller before buying.......to make sure he is  ???  alive? responsive? easy to work with?  whatever. 

[chevymontecarlo88]

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@soh.maryl wrote:

In a climate where buyers are in short supply, why would a smart seller block a potential buyer simply for asking a question even though the answer to the question is contained in the listing? 

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I concur and am unable to comprehend the rationale behind the adoption of this philosophy by numerous sellers.

[fbusoni]

Post-COVID, many people like to be spoon fed.

But eBay's listing page design could certainly use some improvements.   Both desktop and app.

[bennotbill]

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@movieman630 wrote:

2 times in the last 24 hours I've had potential buyers email me with questions asking me things that I clearly state in the listing descriptions.

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I've had several. It just takes me a few seconds to reply with........

Hi, from the item description "pasted here".  Regards

It's all a necessary part of working with ebay's flaws.

[timzbiz]

I call them bouncers. They message people (including ebay seller) all day long and hope for a bounce back reply. As soon as they get you to respond they will send another question and hope you bounce back and a conversation starts.

[kath.layn]

Yep, I get them every so often.  Just this week I had an ad up for 4 dinner plates.  Title says 4 plates, Main photo shows 4 plates, all descriptions say 4 plates.  Buyer asks “Is this for 4 plates?”.  I replied “Yes”.  They bought the plates.  What I wanted to reply was something snarky like “Hmmm, excellent question…what do YOU think?”  But I opted for nice.