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Who needs 30 minutes for lunch? That’s like a 10 minute process max unless you’re eating something crazy like ribs or lobster. Sounds like she’s padding hours.
I’d be quick to jump in and have a convo about it. When I’ve been in these situations before I’ve thanked the person for the honesty and apologized for whatever it was I messed up or misunderstood. I’ve had people hire me on, then dump a rule packet/etc on me and felt like it was a bit odd and impersonal.
https://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/seller-updates/2020-fall/index.html
My favorite by far is “Automatically set up and send ‘Offers to buyers'”: “The new feature will also help you save time and steps by enabling you to continuously send offers to new and existing buyers.”
Maybe a bit worried about this teaching buyers to wait for deals to come along, but I do get quite a few sales by sending offers.
Looks like UPS might be a new contender for shipping?
Also some stuff re: vacation mode: “The Time Away functionality replaces our vacation settings and is available to all eBay sellers. When you need to take time away from running your eBay business, you can schedule a break using these settings.”
Good stuff all around.
Well, that’s unfortunate!
FWIW, I called eBay before the return went through to try to have the reason changed. It’s really alarming how the CSRs act these days. They first told me to message the buyer a 2nd time (I’d already talked to them once), and then wait 3 days. I asked them to clarify “3 days” and they gave me a date 1 day after the “please respond to the buyer by <x>” date. I pointed this out and they explained that Friday wasn’t a business day. Like, this Friday? Or all Fridays? The guy just repeated himself and said a prompt to have the reason changed would appear then. I said “that’s really hard to believe” and he said, verbatim, “The site is glitched and shows the wrong dates.”
If I had infinite free time, I’d just ask him if the dates being wrong were site-wide. For example, I have a package due out on Friday – does it now roll around to the next week because suddenly Friday isn’t a business day?
Are there no more US reps? The reps I’m talking to act like they don’t have the ability to do anything at all. After talking to them, maybe that’s a good thing. Regardless, I guess it’s still true that the reps are just told to get you off the phone at whatever cost, even if it involves tricking you into taking a defect for not handling a return in time.
Yeah, I always accept the return. Curiously, MP no longer has automated returns. I’ve already received the item back, I’m just wondering what the “disagree with return reason” button does. The buyer said they made a mistake when they selected INAD.
There’s still a warning about “seller protection” when you go to change the address under MP. When you click the link, it just takes you to the index of ALL the rules – not the one about changing address.
I’m unsure how canceling orders under MP works. Refunds now take 3-4 days to clear. Probably depends on payment method, but it’s really annoying. It still “closes” the order/return and lets you relist the item, but it shows up under your active returns until payment completes. Not sure what the buyer sees.
Thanks for the replies everyone!
Since posting I dedicated 100% of my time to sorting the lot. I opted to group them by location. Maine had the most photos, as the obit. I read of the photographer mentioned he loved to spend time there. These were mostly shot in the 70s/80s and were typical vacation photos with a few standouts here and there. I listed them + a few boxes (of 20-30 slides) from other US states as one big lot.
Almasty, you were correct about slides from China. I’d went through maybe 50% of the lot and had enough to completely crowd my photo-taking area with just Shanghai and Beijing photos. These were also from the 70s and 80s. I listed them also.
While sorting, I set aside boxes I felt had the “best” photos. Obviously subjective, but I had a photography kick a few years ago and picked ones I felt most aligned with my taste in photos. To test, I picked 5 slides and created a listing just for them.
So that means 3 listed “test” lots are/were (!) live. Pricing was nearly impossible for me to do. For reference, I’m primarily in electronics and other consumer goods with definite, “objective” resale values via sales histories. Having unique items with no solid price gave me some appreciation for the people who can come up with a price tag on their own. I spent way too much time going on price alone.
Lot 1 of Maine/other states went up for $100. The China lot was tagged for $40-something. The 5 individual photos settled on $30. I would say there was some reasoning behind this, namely that the China slides appeared to not be selling well for people if they were taken in the 70s onward, but it was nothing more than a random guess with a bit of unreliable market research mixed in, as the lot sold in a few hours for full price. I still have boxes from China, so I’ll be lotting them up and doubling the price. I guess I’ll find out then if the original lot going for $40 was a result of being at the right price, or being severely underpriced.
The other 2 lots are currently sitting at <5 views. Maybe this isn’t unusual for this stuff.
To take preview pictures of the slides, I placed them directly on a “light therapy” box/”SAD light”. For each lot I selected roughly 12/18 slides at random for inclusion in the listing photos.
Almasty, you’re right on about the transportation stuff. It’s awesome – there’s a few I set aside for a train/car lot that I should put some priority towards. I also noticed that slides of military stuff goes from $25 – $100/slide.
I made it through roughly 40% of the lot before I decided to tag what I had sorted into boxes and set aside the rest for sorting in the future. One thing I didn’t have during the COVID lockdown was a backlog to pick through, so maybe this would be a good candidate for it if we end up in Le Coof Pt. 2.
Until the China lot sold, I thought I made a huge mistake. Now that those are gone I’m feeling a bit better about the investment. I’ve got plans to get slides from Germany and Japan up next. As more sell I’ll hopefully get a better idea of what the lot is worth in its entirety. If I can manage $40/lot it’ll be worth it IMO.
Terapeak says the highest sold was $100 w/ original power adapter, but it looks like a fluke. A dozen+ have sold for under $75. Parts and repairs listings are at $45.
I would price at $75 w/ best offer.
Weirdly enough, I think I found one of these and tossed it. Hmm.
Starting sourcing the moment it was possible. I had to travel out of my county to a neighboring one that had looser restrictions, as mine had delayed reopening by 2 weeks. My first day back was May 8th, I think. I’ve been sourcing 5 days a week for 1-2 hours a day at the Outlet (“bins”) since then. I’ll admit it’s a dangerous place to be if you’re sensitive health-wise, but I knew this going in and outright told at-risk family I’d see them in 2021. I’m in my 20s and know the risk is lesser for my age group, but I still try to be mindful and take precautions.
As for inventory, it goes into my office and sits there on the shelf with everything else. I clean only if things are dirty. According to my inventory system, items sit roughly 33 days before selling, so I assume by that time they’re good to go. I also assume that anyone getting this stuff is cleaning it, given that I have no control over what the delivery person might be carrying on them/what other packages mine might get mingled with.
As scavengers we’re in a really good position to come out of this ahead. We’re “scrappy”, and there’s never been a better time for it.
Bought out a gaming center – something like 30 Xbox 360s complete with power supplies and controllers. Bought them thinking it would take a few months for them to sell. A few sold over the course of a week or so, then someone bought a ton of them all at once.
So I packed them all up in this huge box. Ended up weighing like 60 or 80 pounds. Couldn’t lift it myself due to how big it was.
Maybe this will force out a lot of the bad blood within the USPS. There’s enough information out there to realize that the percentage of people within the org who are acting in good faith are less than the majority that’s just there to collect checks and shift blame around when someone is found to have been doing mail fraud for 10 years.
I feel for the carriers who are overworked. One of them was killed here after the local PO refused to change her route following weeks of death threats – someone shot and killed her because she left a “mail undeliverable – loose dog” notice after the 2nd or 3rd dog attack.
Funny to think that eBay has been bothering us for months about getting ready for MP, yet they failed at reaching out and working with their partners to make sure crucial bookkeeping information was passed down via the API.
I’d love to believe MP is a positive move for all of us, but stuff like this just suggests it was a self-serving move by eBay and nothing more. Delayed access to funds, lack of FVF in the API, having to open up a new bank account – what’s not to love?
Can’t wait until 2040 when eBay splits off MP into its own company and has to start this process over again.
So eBay said it wasn’t feedback extortion? Or you’re asking us if we still think it is? Just contact eBay. If the first rep doesn’t agree, hang up and try another. It’s up to you how far you want to take this.
Not entirely sure what the details are of this particular case, but I’d suggest adopting a “standard operating procedure” and sticking to it in cases like this. Going back and forth with a buyer is almost never worth it. They’ll get what they want regardless of whether you’re on board with it. I use “I’m happy to cancel the order if you’re unhappy, just let me know” and “Sorry to hear you’re having trouble. Please open a return and you’ll get your return shipping label automatically.” The only case in which I’d work with a buyer in a return situation is if they could prove there was some kind of damage that was worthy of a partial refund, otherwise it’s “Open a return.” Remember that all the conditions of the sale (shipping, return policy, etc) were known at the time of purchase. Stick to those and ignore any craziness.
In your case I think you could argue for removal via feedback extortion if it were to happen.
File a bug report with them. They’re really helpful. One of their developers actually called me last year after I filed one, and the most recent case was handled via an email conversation.
If I were in charge, I’d just ban letters marked with “Current Resident”, effectively ending junk mail and lowering the USPS’ volume by about 99.9%. Thinking back, I’ve received maybe (and I’m being generous here) 10 letters that were actually relevant to me in the last year. The hundreds of other things I’ve received have gone right into the recycling.
Possibly related: USPS has lost 2 of my packages recently. The 1st package was headed to NY – instead it ended up at an “undeliverable address” in IND. On the 2nd case, the buyer told me they opened up a missing mail case only to have it closed a day later, citing that the package couldn’t be recovered. Awfully fast, right? I asked for details and got the search ID – didn’t confirm with USPS that it was real, but tracking certainly implied it was lost.
