ebay sellers: answering questions = increased profit

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by I Only Smoke 4 the Cards

Sounds like you are upset that you misses out on a deal. It happens. Keep your head up.

I'm upset because my decision on whether or not to bid hinged on the answer to the question I asked and I fully expected to have that answer within nine hours - it sucked watching the auctions end, and not having the necessary information to make an informed decision.

The items in question were quite rare and come along once in a blue moon, so this was more frustrating than usual.

Yes, I should have asked the question earlier, but I had made an assumption, and then realized this morning that my assumption was really quite naive.

[hangman62]

Yea Run, keep a stiff upper lip....sometimes its just a matter of time and patience and the cards come around again

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by hangman62

Yea Run, keep a stiff upper lip....sometimes its just a matter of time and patience and the cards come around again

It wasn't cards.

Oh well. At some point the seller will contact me and probably apologize. He was probably very busy, missed the message, or something very reasonable. I was just frustrated and needed to blow off steam

[Ronnie73]

Scott, I feel your pain. Before I had a Paypal account, I would ask if it was ok to send a postal money order. A seller had six Sovereign 460's graded SGC 50. It was right before the Sovereign 460's jumped in price in the mid/high grades. He had Buy It Nows and Best Offers on all of them. All were listed at $60 each. I stated that I was interested in all of them at the $60 price. He finally got back to me and said ok thats fine. A couple minues after that I went to buy each one and he accepted best offers at $50 each for all of them. I was so confused that I emailed him again and asked if somehow he ended them for me but he said no, he accepted another offer. Not too long after that, I opened a Paypal account.

When I was an Ebay seller, I followed all my auctions and responded to all questions as quickly as I could because it usually meant possibly more money for me.

[freakhappy]

I feel your pain, Scott and I agree with you on this. However, eBay does state that the seller usually will respond within 24-48 hours after the question is submitted. Another red flag is that this is a consigner. In my experience, and I may be wrong here, but it seems like they have several auctions going on at once and aren't always available to answer questions quickly. I guess it would have been ok to vent about your feelings, but to state that they should've gotten back to you within nine hours is just a coin toss at best. We have no idea what people are doing and I'm sure a decent amount of them aren't waiting by their computers for their auctions to end. I do believe the decriptions could be better so the customers are better informed...sure would have helped you out here

Me on the other hand, would probably answer your question within 30 minutes because I'm always checking my email, but I think since I'm a small fry, I'm in the minority here.

[Runscott]

Obviously no one violated any rules. Quite honestly, I have no business buying what I was prepared to buy , but you know that how goes.

Tony - Yes, I'm aware that stuff comes up and sellers can't respond. However, if you are consigning items, you owe it to your consignors to be prepared to respond to customer questions, (even on the last day of the auction) and if you can't, having someone else available to at least say "I can't respond at the moment, but will get back with you....". I think ebay even has an automated feature that will handle that for you. If you can't do these things, then you aren't giving your consignors the best bang for their buck.

And if it is planned, shutting things down 9+ hours prior to auction end is not a good thing for your consignors. I hope you are not telling us that you do that.

[Craig M]

Frustrating!

I ask at least a dozen questions per day to eBay sellers and may get one or two responses so this gives you an idea of guys responding to questions.

My question is always a simple one.

Do you have a pic or scan of the reverse?

Why in the heck would you go through the effort in selling a card on eBay and have just one pic and it is that of the front of the card?

Would a person not get more interest in their card if a possible buyer saw a pic or scan of the reverse to see what brand it is, what series it is, what factory number, any missing paper, etc?

Yet the seller will list a ten page description on how cards are graded.

Frustrating to say the least.

Craig

[quinnsryche]

Originally Posted by Runscott

Obviously no one violated any rules. Quite honestly, I have no business buying what I was prepared to buy , but you know that how goes.

Tony - Yes, I'm aware that stuff comes up and sellers can't respond. However, if you are consigning items, you owe it to your consignors to be prepared to respond to customer questions, (even on the last day of the auction) and if you can't, having someone else available to at least say "I can't respond at the moment, but will get back with you....". I think ebay even has an automated feature that will handle that for you. If you can't do these things, then you aren't giving your consignors the best bang for their buck.

And if it is planned, shutting things down 9+ hours prior to auction end is not a good thing for your consignors. I hope you are not telling us that you do that.

Scott, absolutely not. I did not realize he was one who takes in consignments. Knowing this now, I would say he needs to be available for his consigners' sake.
With this info I would tend to lean your way now. I was taking it as he was just another guy selling his stuff.

[deebro041]

I would agree with Scott that as a seller they should be responsible to make a potential buyer happy.
If he is a consignor and has to check with his client for the answer, then at least have the decency to reply and explain the situation.

[thehoodedcoder]

Life is not cut and dry. People have kids and wives and stuff goes wrong all day..every day.

I'm in the iT field. I get up every day to a never ending army of people whose sole purpose In life is to steal from me and ruin my day by hacking my computers to never ending line of people that need me to explain stuff to them at random middle of the night hours.

In fact when was the last time you had something go 100 percent your way on eve a semi frequent basis.

If it's not work it's the car or the lawn or the pets.

I never expect some else's life to be in better shape or better managed then my own.