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I’ll be interested to hear what people have to say. The Android version went through a rough period late last year and I transitioned to the desktop for listing. I briefly checked it out just now – didn’t see an option for business policies or SKU. You can upload multiple pictures at a time, though, which was missing last time I used it for listing.
Hmm, I remember reading this back when it was announced. I still find it vague, though. I just can’t figure out what the difference is between the return I handled last week and this one. My guess is that they must be changing the policy around and auto-accepting returns under Fast-‘n-Free. I would hope eBay recognizes that free shipping still costs us money.
At least half of my question is answered: You can tweak return policies to allow exchange/replacements. I wonder if enabling that will accomplish the same thing? I just want the option to refund people in cases where something might be irreparable or cost prohibitive to ship back.
Been a while since I set them up – looks like there’s a “replacement or exchange available” option for domestic/international now. Perhaps they’ve been there from the start and I just missed them.
Still, I see no option to stop automatically accepting them. I had a return last week for the same reason where I was able to refund in full, the only difference was that it was not first class.
Cool find. This is definitely some kind of prototype given the hacky construction and detail of the schematics. My limited searches don’t reveal anything except someone with the same last name who works adjacent to the video games industry – could possibly be the son of the inventor given the age.
I would go with the initial date you found on the schematics since this predates traditional (video) arcade games by a few years. The later date doesn’t make much sense since video games were taking off in a big way around then.
I don’t know of anyone you can reach out to, unfortunately. There’s likely some private collectors who would be interested given how much documentation it has.
Hopefully someone else can give more insight.
Let’s be clear that some sellers are responsible for teaching buyers behaviors like this.
I’ve been buying a ton of stuff from sellers recently and it’s insane how bad most of them are at giving buyers any kind of confidence. Look at how nearly any large seller of consumer electronics handles descriptions – 1 or 2 lines about the item, then a whole bunch of disclaimers (“WILL NOT SHIP TO PO BOXES!!!! NO RETURNS!!!!!”) wrapped in a Web 1.0 graphic design nightmare promoting all their other listings. On more times than I can count I’ve had to Control-F for the item name just to figure out where they discuss the actual thing I’m looking at. Now imagine trying to get to that on the phone – not happening.
Why sort through potentially paragraphs worth of nonsense when “Contact Seller” is right there? If 9 times out of 10 a description just serves as an advertisement for something else, why would I keep clicking it? If every seller on eBay cared just as much about quality as every seller who browsed this forum, we wouldn’t have buyers like this. However, it’s clear we’re outnumbered – well, at least to me it is.
I’d say it’s maybe a 50/50 split on whether someone who messages me actually ends up buying the item, and just about every question is answered by either looking at pictures or the description, but I think it’s a bit presumptuous to assume everyone knows they can swipe to view more pictures, or click a relatively obscure button to learn more.
eBay’s UX is terrible. The entire listing page needs reworked IMO. You can see them experimenting a bit by putting snippits from the description under the title of some listings in search, but that rarely comes up.
Given their weight, I’d part them out. Just make sure you’ve ran them through some tests at a decent volume first. A quick search for Sansui tweeter/woofers reveals some nice results. I’d save the crossover, too. Most speakers have an individual model number which can also be added to the title in the case that they were used in another speaker model.
If a quick and easy local sale is possible, go for that.
They really expect me to click a drop-down with 14 categories and couldn’t even do me the service of showing “Consumer Electronics (2 returns)” or something? I really gotta click each one?
What is a peer? All sellers who sold in that category over the last 12 month/3 month period? Is it segmented via Feedback amount? Seller level? TRS vs. non-TRS? Why would I be compared against someone who has just sold 1 item ever? And if the page as I see it right now can be believed, I have NO peers regardless of having dozens of sales in some of the listed categories.
Worth noting is that this page shows all of my returns as “item arrived damaged”, whereas the return reason I was given for my last batch of returns was “not working or defective”, another metric on the page.
I like giving eBay a chance with stuff like this, but with higher fees on the line I’m not going to settle with weak, half-baked features that aren’t actually functioning as intended.
Didn’t call. Morning-of issues with 1-day shipping and under the 24-hour gun. Easier to take existing routes towards making the problems go away (#1 = cancel, #2 = rework shipping to fit USPS guidelines.) Maybe this will push me towards 2-day shipping.
I almost always search/ask here on the forums first before I call about something, but maybe it’s time to take one for the team and get clarifications on shipping location bans vs. business policies. I’d be surprised if the reps even knew about business policies.
I price below solds with the goal of moving all items priced $50+ in a month. I want to be the lowest price available when someone is scrolling through search. With what we know now about listings getting stale, it’s even more important to get items gone and out the door in the first 30 days.
“Fast nickel” approach is the best IMO. Even if I had unlimited storage space I’d still go for it because I’ve found it allows me to jump into investments easier knowing they won’t sit around. E.g., if I’ve got a $50 item that sells for $250, I’m probably going to sit it at $200 and get it off the shelf within the week. Priced at $250 with 10+ other listings means I’ll be waiting a while for another $50, which isn’t a whole lot when the $150 sale from under-pricing can quickly be invested to purchase other items that beat out that extra $50.
I do run sales, but usually only 10% or 20% if I’m feeling generous. The 14 day rule that excludes items from sales is handy because I’ll sometimes feel like I’ve under-priced an item correctly only for it to sell the very first day it’s eligible for the markdown. That tells me I’ve not been right on my pricing, or someone came in and cut just under me. If items still aren’t selling even with the sale, then I get to start figuring out whether it needs to be blown out, or just left alone for the right buyer. This is problematic as my buying habits have changed from all-around seller to bringing in larger lots of specific items; if I’ve got 20 units of something that were supposed to sell at $65 but are still there at day 30, alarms start going off. After that the chances of selling an item seem to go down dramatically. If there were sales within that time, then it’s worth waiting them out – maybe they’re just slow sellers.
I take offers on most things that aren’t quantity listings. In my experience, offers work best for vintage items where the price is questionable or just a rough approximation based on the most similar sold listing.
I haven’t had a major summer slump yet, but I think my shift in inventory will likely mean slower sales in the winter months.
I wonder if this applies to “item is defective” also? That would be a real game-changer for vintage electronics or anything that is prone to damage in the mail.
If the reps say they’re going to do something anytime other than right there on the phone, they aren’t going to actually do it. The only exception I can find to this is when they ask if it’s okay to send you an email detailing their plans to handle the issue, after which you’ll get a case number via email that can be referenced in future calls with reps. If you don’t get a case number, they’re lying. Two times I’ve been told that “we need to wait until just before the return window closes to rule in your favor. Don’t accept the return.” When I asked for clarification, they said it was just normal operating procedure and that I didn’t need to worry because they had it on their schedule to come in and close the return. Again, when pressed to explain why it couldn’t happen right away, they said they needed to “review evidence.” What evidence? They agree the return is fraudulent, so what is there to look into?
The first time it occurred I waited until mere hours before the window closed and nothing happened. I ended up just going through with the return. eBay never contacted me with further info on the case.
The case system is definitely a thing and it’s weird that the reps have a way of saying they’re going to open up a case but not actually do it. I’d like to think they weren’t being dishonest, but it definitely comes across like they just want to get you off the phone.
I checked prices on a few items, but not the one I ended up purchasing. The implication here is that I got from a search page that was showing ONLY completed listings to an active, in stock item that I then purchased.
I think I owe a bit of a clarification that I didn’t intend this to be an accusation of eBay purchasing things on my behalf, but perspective for sellers who might think “Oh, THIS excuse again” when a buyer asks to cancel an order for the same reason I ran into. If anything, I thought people would get a chuckle out of it. I should have made that clear in the OP, sorry.
Thought it was a hack at first also, but the shipping address was unchanged. Pretty ineffective hack unless their plan was to come to my doorstep and steal it upon delivery 🙂
It was a power supply designed for ham/CB radio usage. I was at a ham radio convention when it happened, too.
It must have been a pocket buy, but how I actually navigated to that specific item is beyond me. All this had to happen in my pocket:
1) Navigate to search screen
2) Execute a search for completed listings
3) Select a completed listing
4) Scroll down to show similar in-stock items, click one
5) Click buy, go through the purchasing process (never done it on a phone so no idea how many steps this adds.)This is the only logical answer, but it’s extraordinary. At least I’ll have a bit more perspective next time a buyer claims the same thing happened to them.
