- Posts
- 4,964
- Likes
- 18,412
Am I a bad eBay buyer?
- Posts
- 1,541
- Likes
- 3,350
Engee
·The problem is that eBay in general is a buyers marketplace - the whole business fails if there are no sellers, however the company has made the business decision that buyers are all that matters and that they are free to screw over sellers with impunity. All changes that have been made on ebay have been in favor of buyers - effectively you flagged yourself as a "problem buyer" by emailing him. He is going to see it that you are laying the groundwork for a SNAD (Significantly Not As Described) return which is a good way to get a huge ding against your ebay seller record. It's MUCH easier to cancel the sale and not have to worry about poor feedback or getting a not as described return.
In the end, if he was confident that his watch was OK then there's no reason for him to pull out of the sale. As ebay favours buyers (and I know this as a seller) he's taking the risk that the watch will be sent back even if he had posted pictures of the movement. The fact that without responding to my request first just cancelled the sale tells me one of three things:
1) he knows there's a significant problem (I don't think this is the case because if it were he knows there's going to be trouble for him down the line)
2) He thought he'd get a higher price and took the opportunity to relist it
3) He feared I was going to be a difficult person to deal with and thought it better to take his chances by putting up for auction again. But if this was the case he could have offered it to the second highest bidder or just started again as he had the first time. Instead he relisted it at a massively higher start rice than my winning bid, so I think the truth is more 2) than anything.
Edited:
- Posts
- 1,541
- Likes
- 3,350
Engee
·Also, had the seller included pictures showing the movement was correct and in good condition he would likely have sold the watch for a higher price.
As such, I think your terms were somewhat unreasonable as you likely paid a lower price due to no movement shots but wanted the security that comes with having movement shots.
But he has relisted it at a higher price with exactly the same pictures so he's no longer (if he ever was) saying that because there's no movement shot he's willing to accept a lower price.
I'm not defending my behaviour. I accept that it would have been more honourable to send him a message before bidding and see what he said. I didn't because I thought it might work out in my interests to do it the way I did. That's business. As it turns out my actions may well have been a mistake and I should have taken the risk, but he's not squeaky clean in all this either.
- Posts
- 3,690
- Likes
- 6,264
Vercingetorix
··Spam Riskwhat??
which world do you live in? 😕
if ebay side with the seller, the world would he a better place....😉
ebay would 99.5% side with the buyer.....
read some forum posts about how honest sellers have been shafted.......
- Posts
- 386
- Likes
- 1,411
Pascal S
·As a seller, I always try to make sure my description is as complete as possible and I go for full disclosure. I know that it sometimes lowered my chances to get a great price for the item, but overall my honesty has not backfired too badly.
As a buyer however, I take everything written with a grain of salt the size of a boulder and rely mostly on pictures. But sometimes I will take a gamble and bid on something just based on my gut feeling that a gem might be hiding behind a bad description or sub-standard pictures. I've been mostly lucky so far, but I definitely accept the risk that sometimes I might end up with a piece of junk. To me, eBay is a bit of casino where you can choose your odds somewhat.
As a buyer however, I take everything written with a grain of salt the size of a boulder and rely mostly on pictures. But sometimes I will take a gamble and bid on something just based on my gut feeling that a gem might be hiding behind a bad description or sub-standard pictures. I've been mostly lucky so far, but I definitely accept the risk that sometimes I might end up with a piece of junk. To me, eBay is a bit of casino where you can choose your odds somewhat.
- Posts
- 21,736
- Likes
- 49,333
Dan S
·Thank you OP for the information about your buying habits. Noted. 👍
- Posts
- 1,101
- Likes
- 13,204
Fish70
·what??
which world do you live in? 😕
if ebay side with the seller, the world would he a better place....😉
ebay would 99.5% side with the buyer.....
read some forum posts about how honest sellers have been shafted.......
Yep, eBay almost never sides with sellers because buyers is where they make their money.
- Posts
- 6,542
- Likes
- 26,516
Scarecrow Boat
··Burt Macklin, FBIbuyers is where they make their money
- Posts
- 307
- Likes
- 444
bombaywalla
·Buyers aren’t the ones paying the fees. Sellers are
if no one buys, the seller is not going to pay a fee.
Once a buyer buys, Ebay makes their money by shafting the seller....
- Posts
- 21,736
- Likes
- 49,333
Dan S
·We can argue about whether eBay needs buyers or sellers, but obviously they need both. At the moment, sellers are lacking IMO, and it's not even worth my time to go through my usual daily search results. The vintage watch market on eBay has stagnated. 99.9% of the listings are crappy watches in auctions and slightly-less-crappy watches with outrageous BIN asking prices. Sellers put their decent watches elsewhere, and any watch put in an eBay auction is implicitly assumed to have something wrong with it.
There are many problems, but fees are the least of them. All sales platforms have fees and eBay's aren't out of line. Sellers are reluctant to put a good watch in an auction because of time-wasting sketchy bidders (the topic of this thread) but also because eBay permits sniping. Years ago, almost all of the listings were auctions. Now it's probably 10% or less.
Most of the better auction websites have an automatic extension option on their auctions, where the auction is extended by a short time interval if a bid is placed within the last few minutes. This leads to much more consistent hammer prices, and as a result you will find that most of the listings are posted in auction format.
However, it's clear that eBay doesn't care. They would prefer to be Alibaba than a true peer-to-peer auction website. eBay was founded on the back of the collectibles market, but at this point it's probably a huge pain in the ass for them - they are too big to care about it. I just wish that a good alternative would really emerge.
There are many problems, but fees are the least of them. All sales platforms have fees and eBay's aren't out of line. Sellers are reluctant to put a good watch in an auction because of time-wasting sketchy bidders (the topic of this thread) but also because eBay permits sniping. Years ago, almost all of the listings were auctions. Now it's probably 10% or less.
Most of the better auction websites have an automatic extension option on their auctions, where the auction is extended by a short time interval if a bid is placed within the last few minutes. This leads to much more consistent hammer prices, and as a result you will find that most of the listings are posted in auction format.
However, it's clear that eBay doesn't care. They would prefer to be Alibaba than a true peer-to-peer auction website. eBay was founded on the back of the collectibles market, but at this point it's probably a huge pain in the ass for them - they are too big to care about it. I just wish that a good alternative would really emerge.
Edited:
