Post by The Mad Plumber on Oct 10, 2009 0:20:28 GMT -5
I writing this thread to get feedback about other users' experiences with eBay.
My mother, who had sustained severe back injuries due to being overworked at Target, was forced to retire from it and was cheated out of compensation. She became inspired to do handmade crafts and sell them on eBay for a living ... I guess. First, and I suppose by the advice of my sister, she started out by trying to sell immaterial things, gaudy merchandise she bought over the years from Target so that should build a good score on eBay. However, I was thinking to myself, "I don't buy things from eBay, and if I did, why would I buy crap you could buy at Target?"
Anyways, she has me set up her first item, but she starts at a rather low opening price. Her plan is that she would set something called the "reserve price", and if the bids didn't meet the reserve, the item wouldn't sell. Unfortunately, only one bid for 99 cents is made on this item and this sale wasn't aborted despite the reserve price. Furthermore, she still had to pay to ship the item. I chastised her for her plan for being both a little dishonest and for being based on the farcical delusion that there was going to be a bidding war on it. She decided to look at the positive of that at least she got one good review and she didn't lose anything of material. So, she gave it another shot.
This time, she did set the opening bid to her ideal minimum and she did sell the item. I later learned, however, that the user who purchased the item complained to her that he or she was displeased by the item because he or she claimed to smell smoke from it. The user threatened to give my mother a bad review if she didn't recieve a refund. My mother agreed to refund the user's money and shipping cost if the user shipped the item back. The user told her that, because of the "smoke smell", the user threw the item away. So, my mother just simply gave the user his or her money back. I don't know anything about "smoke smell" because I haven't smelled a damned thing for fifteen years, but I invoked Occam's razor and told my mother that she got grifted. She got taken by a user with far more experience who sought to exploit my inexperienced mother. The user didn't really throw the item away and is enjoying the benefit of my mother's free merchandise.
The best I could do for my mother was block that user from any further purchases. I tried to further advise her to no longer accept refunds; whether she took my advice or not is dubious. Ultimately, after failing to get any bids of future items she posted, she became dissuaded from using eBay.
She moved on to trying Etsy, and this was of some interest because I thought I might be interested in trying Etsy as well for selling crafts. She couldn't even get one bid on anything.
Here's where the issue of sites like eBay come into interest to me: it has become of my recent interest to dispose of the Star Wars merchandise I have collected over the years. The idea was first brought to sell them on eBay, and despite my mother's failed experience with it, I thought it wasn't too bad of an idea because I thought that my Star Wars merchandise was far more ideal for the site than her tacky wares. However, she wants me to try to sell them at the flea market she recently rented space from. That idea I don't like. The flea market is rather trashy and I don't want to gamble with taking potentially-valuable merchandise to such a place. I can give it a shot, but I thought I would get better results from eBay.
Other users with eBay experience or experience with similar sites are welcome to express their thoughts. Thanks for visiting.
My mother, who had sustained severe back injuries due to being overworked at Target, was forced to retire from it and was cheated out of compensation. She became inspired to do handmade crafts and sell them on eBay for a living ... I guess. First, and I suppose by the advice of my sister, she started out by trying to sell immaterial things, gaudy merchandise she bought over the years from Target so that should build a good score on eBay. However, I was thinking to myself, "I don't buy things from eBay, and if I did, why would I buy crap you could buy at Target?"
Anyways, she has me set up her first item, but she starts at a rather low opening price. Her plan is that she would set something called the "reserve price", and if the bids didn't meet the reserve, the item wouldn't sell. Unfortunately, only one bid for 99 cents is made on this item and this sale wasn't aborted despite the reserve price. Furthermore, she still had to pay to ship the item. I chastised her for her plan for being both a little dishonest and for being based on the farcical delusion that there was going to be a bidding war on it. She decided to look at the positive of that at least she got one good review and she didn't lose anything of material. So, she gave it another shot.
This time, she did set the opening bid to her ideal minimum and she did sell the item. I later learned, however, that the user who purchased the item complained to her that he or she was displeased by the item because he or she claimed to smell smoke from it. The user threatened to give my mother a bad review if she didn't recieve a refund. My mother agreed to refund the user's money and shipping cost if the user shipped the item back. The user told her that, because of the "smoke smell", the user threw the item away. So, my mother just simply gave the user his or her money back. I don't know anything about "smoke smell" because I haven't smelled a damned thing for fifteen years, but I invoked Occam's razor and told my mother that she got grifted. She got taken by a user with far more experience who sought to exploit my inexperienced mother. The user didn't really throw the item away and is enjoying the benefit of my mother's free merchandise.
The best I could do for my mother was block that user from any further purchases. I tried to further advise her to no longer accept refunds; whether she took my advice or not is dubious. Ultimately, after failing to get any bids of future items she posted, she became dissuaded from using eBay.
She moved on to trying Etsy, and this was of some interest because I thought I might be interested in trying Etsy as well for selling crafts. She couldn't even get one bid on anything.
Here's where the issue of sites like eBay come into interest to me: it has become of my recent interest to dispose of the Star Wars merchandise I have collected over the years. The idea was first brought to sell them on eBay, and despite my mother's failed experience with it, I thought it wasn't too bad of an idea because I thought that my Star Wars merchandise was far more ideal for the site than her tacky wares. However, she wants me to try to sell them at the flea market she recently rented space from. That idea I don't like. The flea market is rather trashy and I don't want to gamble with taking potentially-valuable merchandise to such a place. I can give it a shot, but I thought I would get better results from eBay.
Other users with eBay experience or experience with similar sites are welcome to express their thoughts. Thanks for visiting.
