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I’m still waiting to be opted in…been on the waiting list forever. I “qualify” but there’s no way to know when they’ll get to me. No way to know whether my non-participation is hurting me or not. Like sonia, I’m inclined to think most of the time my buyers appreciate fast shipping but aren’t necessarily seeking it out. There are always exceptions: people buying gifts, the holidays, people buying parts to repair or make something , people buying props for shows, people going on vacation and want that aloha shirt to arrive before they depart, etc….but for the most part, I don’t think it’s a big factor.
But I know my listings qualify, and it is frustrating to still be waiting. But that’s all I can do, so no point in me worrying about it.
03/19/2018 at 8:53 pm in reply to: Jesse James photograph bought on eBay for just $10 could be worth $2 million! #35618Yeah, but if you’re the ebay seller who sold the photo, it’s like someone handing you the winning lottery ticket and you saying “Nah, I’d rather have ten bucks”
I STILL remember this from years ago , when I was just starting out, (long before you could find pricing info easily online….in fact, before there was an online) I sold a cardboard counter top store display, can’t remember just what the product was, but it had a famous baseball player as part of the graphics. I had paid a dollar or two at a little local antique shop. Took it to a flea market, and sat with it all day….no interest. End of the day, (a lousy sales day), guy sees it, asks how much, I give him a price, he gives me a song and dance about how high my price is, really, it’s worth maybe ten bucks, but he really likes it, so he’ll give me $15. I say OK. A few weeks later, I’m looking at one of the antiques trade papers, an article about one of the big antique shows….there’s a photo of my “rare” display counter, sold quickly for $300.00. Not 2 million, but man, that STILL hurts LOL
But it was a good lesson: research, research, research, but recognize that there will always be someone who knows more than you do—-you can’t win ’em all.
SOme pages are opening fine, some aren’t. I’m going to give it some time and try again later.
How about auctions? Audrey Tracey obviously assumes most of us are heavy auction users—-true for you, or not?
thanks everyone—-keep ’em coming!
OK, thanks, I can work some of that into the answer.
Do you sell used, etc? If so, what selling practices do you use which you would say distinguish you from sellers of new, multi-quantity listings? Or do you feel there’s really no difference?
OK, but the question is not about what does ebay do or not do, it is about the differences in selling practices between those who sell new/multi quantity and used/single items—-so it’s about sellers and their selling practices on ebay. For example, many (though not all) scavenger sellers are likely to “list it and forget it” based on the long tail nature of their items, whereas the sellers of new are more likely to aim for sales velocity due to the nature of their items and the need for volume sales.
That’s the sort of thing I’m talking about.
AdventureE, Sorry for the confusion. I wasn’t planning on passing along names or IDs, I asked permission to pass along the comment….was planning on keeping the source anonymous, just mentioning that I’d asked some friends to add their comments. I figured I’d edit them if there were duplicates etc.
I just think it’s a good opportunity to get some viewpoints in front of ebay.
Do you have any comments you’d like me to include?
thanks T Salt
I sell mostly used stuff, antiques, collectibles, some clothing (mostly mens)…I’d say a fairly typical scavenger assortment. My rate of return is less than 1%. Not a problem means, well, just what it says. My returns did not increase after I went to free return shipping, (just as they hadn’t increased when I went from 14 days to 30 days even more years ago). Because my margins are good, and flexible, I don’t even factor in the return shipping cost when I price stuff. If my margins were tighter and my return rate higher, I probably would. The one place it can be a factor is international: I will sometimes not offer international (I don’t use GSP, maybe I should, but that’s for another day LOL) because of the potential cost of return shipping. But once the new rule goes into effect I will finally be able to limit my free return shipping to domestic, and even that concern will go away.
But again, I stress: your mileage may vary. My post wasn’t designed to push people to do as I do, each seller must decide what will work for him or her. I was just suggesting a few more factors people might want to consider.
1. Free returns will have a filter, just as free shipping has a filter. That will negatively impact you if you are not in the filter, BUT ask yourself: how often will MY potential buyers actually use that filter?
It will not be a factor in Best Match/Cassini, but to some extent, with ebay moving to Product pages, the importance of that will diminish anyway.2. Just want to affirm what someone has said: free return shipping has NOTHING to do with your TRS status. TRS Plus is NOT a seller status, it’s a badge that either appears on a listing or not, depending on whether the LISTING qualifies. If you want the badge and the FVF discount on an item, then going forward you will want to include free return shipping on that item. You can do it for one item, all your items, or ANY percentage of your items. eBay doesn’t look at the percentage of items you have that meet TRS PLus, it only looks to be sure that a particular listing either qualifies or not.
3. A consideration I don’t see being mentioned here, but one that loomed large when I decided to add Free return shipping to all my listings several years ago: this one act will eliminate or drastically reduce the number of false INAD claims you will get on returns, as the incentive to falsify the claim (in order to get free return shipping) is eliminated.
4. Also, keep in mind that on those items for which you offer free return shipping, you will be able to refund a partial (up to 50%) in the event that item is returned in less than original condition. No appeal to ebay, no fighting about it with the buyer. I like to reduce my potential aggravation, and that’s one way to do it. I can’t assign a dollar amount to that, but it has value to me.
5. Given the kind of stuff I sell (and most of us sell, I gather), I think it’s pretty hard to prove the impact on sales of adding free return shipping, since so many factors can be involved in the ups and downs of sales, especially for long tail items.
6. Finally, with the standard “your mileage may vary” disclaimer, I’ve been offering free return shipping for several years now, and it hasn’t been a problem. The addition of the partial refund ability and the fact that I will finally be able to offer it for domestic shipping only (currently, free return shipping means domestic and international)….that just sweetens it for me.
Thanks Malinda, that confirms what Brian Burke told me earlier today, as I mentioned above. My question is: where do we go to set up our policy to either include or exclude the original shipping from our refunds?
And, to reiterate what Brian said, and what maybe should be included in the revised Help pages: If the seller offers free shipping on an item, then the refund must be for that amount, with no deduction made for the shipping cost.
I asked about the need to refund original shipping on Weekly Chat. THis is the answer I received from ebay’s Brian Burke:
“If you offer free shipping then there is no ship cost to withhold from the buyer. So you must refund the full amount.
If you did not offer free shipping, and the buyer paid a separate ship cost, you can withhold the original ship cost for buyer remorse.”I did not have time to ask just what we must do to set this up, nor did I get to point out that this seems to conflict with the new “Help Pages”. Maybe I’ll get a chance next week to explose this further.
One of those pages references restocking fees, so they are current, and will need to be revised when the new policy goes into effect (no restocking fees).
I, too, thought sellers have an option to refund either the item price or the item price plus original shipping. My partner says No, it has always been that seller is supposed to refund both.
I have to do some running around now, but if I get back in time for ebay’s “Weekly Chat”, I’ll ask about it there.
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