From the article: The Top 10 eBay Newbie Mistakes, 2012
Have you ever had a bad experience on eBay? Was it something that, looking back, you could have foreseen and avoided? About.com reader share their eBay stories here... tell us your story
Ebay linking
- How is it when I google Black & Decker I have a link to Ebay, but when i google Winston Churchill and I have allready found there are many items for sale on eBAY I am not taken to Ebay. The reason I ask is I have a few items with personal information on such as cups & tankards, which I would get a better responce in Ebay if someone was doing there family tree and googled that name to see if any thing was available.
- —Guest Phil
Feedback Timing analysis of sellers
- When examining a seller's feedback, I feel it is important to compare the timing of feedback received by and given by seller. Ebay suggests sellers should give feedback to buyer on receiving payment. I quit buying after transacting with a seller who NEVER fedback on buyers until AFTER seller had rcvd his feedback. (he insisted on violating a PayPal policy, and was temporarily suspended on my complaint)
- —Guest ex-buyer-on-ebay
Feedback Timing analysis of sellers
- When examining a seller's feedback, I feel it is important to compare the timing of feedback received by and given by seller. Ebay suggests sellers should give feedback to buyer on receiving payment. I quit buying after transacting with a seller who NEVER fedback on buyers until AFTER seller had rcvd his feedback. (he insisted on violating a PayPal policy, and was temporarily suspended on my complaint)
- —Guest ex-buyer-on-ebay
feedback isn't as clear cut as it seems
- I have been selling on Ebay for about 10 years. Not full time, but enough to have over 1900 feedback. I have recieved 3 or 4 negatives in all this time. Ebays new policy of only using the last 12 months worth of feedback skews the rating for a seller like me a lot. I had not recieved a negative in years, but got one from a buyer that refused to return my emails or pay in a timely fashion. Because I hadn't sold much in the last year my rating plummeted to 98.6% just because f this one feedback even though my overall rating would be 99.9%. If a seller has a low rating, look at his feedback. It is possible a seller had 1 bad transaction from a buyer that hastily leaves negatives that brought their rating down.
- —Guest xpressva
E-Bay mistakes
- E-Bay is nuts. I was falsely accused about 10 years ago of supposedly 'selling a telephone for 500 bucks, and not delivering the phone. I have never sold anything on E-Bay, let alone advertised anything. As a result of their lie, my account was suspended, and remains so to this day. The idiots refuse to accept any explanation on my part. Talk about discrimination.
- —Guest Elaine
patiently search for the same item
- Oftentimes it pays off to search for versions of the same item, like "swiss army watch", "swiss wristwatch", "wenger watch". Some discounted items are hidden because the seller chose different keywords, or made spelling errors while listing. Patience and repeated searching pays off with bargain buys!
- —Guest Craig from Cali
Feedback check is a must
- I agree with always checking seller's feedback before any bidding ever takes place but I'd not gat all hung up on "less than 99 percent". There often are valid reasons why seller's feedback is not the perfect 100 percent. Sometimes hasty buyers leave negative feedback because their package failed to arrive in two days (overseas and through customs)! Others rush with the negative without first contacting the seller to resolve the problem. Unfortunately, once the feedback is left, you can't take it back and eBay does not like to get involved either. So, some really good sellers might actually have a feedback of 98 percent, or even lower, but remember to check the total feedback count - the lower the total, the more damaging that single negative will be. I'd just take the time to scan through several pages of feedback and see if any of the negatives were well deserved, or just poor judgment on the buyers' side.
- —jedikitty
I use esnipe.com
- I was such a noob Ebayer until I learned how to snipe auctions. Yeah yeah I would bid and bid and bid like real life auctions, but I learned about sniping at about.com and that made all the difference. I like esnipe.com the most, but there are plenty of other sniper services you can get. Definitely sniping ftw!
- —Guest JC
always check shipping and handling
- I have also been ripped off on shipping and handling costs. I bought some bracelet beads from an ebay seller in asia. The beads were 2 bucks each, but the shipping for 12 of them cost me nearly 40 bucks! It was just a simple enveloped with some bubble wrap. I should have checked with the seller before buying. Now I ALWAYS email the seller before I bid to confirm the shipping and handling.
- —Guest Karin
DO NOT DO BIDDING WARS
- O man this advice is so true! DON'T try to outbid other people repeatedly, it just makes the price go up. Get some good sniping service and do one bid at 3 seconds before the auction ends. Seriously, best advice I've ever gotten. Thanks for the tips, Paul
- —Guest Suresh
Always check shipping costs!
- man, did I ever get fleeced on shipping. I was buying some small figurines for my little brother. They were 1" tall for his board gaming, and I bought 3 of them on eBay for a dollar each. But the !@#$!# seller charged me 19 bucks to ship them in a damn envelope! The auction said "check with seller for S&H fees", and I assumed it was just gonna be us post. But the 'handling" part allows sellers to gouge you. Don't ever buy without checking shipping handling first!
- —Guest Kaveh
