For Those Who Complain About Selling on eBay...

[Indigo Knight]

...try selling on Amazon or craigslist!

Amazon buyers are far worse than eBay buyers. They frequently order the wrong item or don't read descriptions, then demand to return items that were purchased new after they've opened them. Often for items that are under $50 or are impractical to return. And when a sale does goes smoothly, they almost never leave positive feedback. Nowadays, most name brand goods and popular categories are gated, so it's impossible to sell the items I want to list there anyway. And then there's verfication; I recently had to upload a copy of my driver's license and a bank statement to get my selling account reinstated, despite having an account for over 10 years with perfect feedback and no major infractions. It was frozen do to limited activity during the past few months (hello, there's a pandemic going on).

craigslist has become land of the scammers and flakes in my area. Anytime I post anything for sale I get multiple scam texts. In the rare case I get an actual human response, they are a flake who doesn't follow through and/or offers half of what I'm selling the item for.

I agree that eBay has major problems but for most items it's a far superior platform. I've been using eBay for 14 years, craiglist for 13 years, and Amazon for over 10 years so I have some experience to compare them with.

I know a lot of sellers are migrating to Facebook, but that platform has its own complications (it was not designed for ecommerce).

 

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[Tiredman]

I just sell on Amazon and my products no one else can sell unless I offer expanded distribution. I could sell on the other platforms but choose not to do so.

 

[1637]

ive always had good luck buying from e bay ,but never sold anything.
brad

 

[Deleted member 140734]

My experiences buying and selling on Ebay over the past year all have been good (35 transactions). I recently starting selling items in the $500 to $1300 range. Buyers have immediately paid via Paypal, but then Ebay holds my money hostage for two weeks before I can have it. I guess this is the price to pay for their money back guarantee.

 

[Albertaclipper]

Hi all!

Canadian TN lurker here. How important is it to you sellers on Amazon for the buyers to leave feedback after receiving a purchase?
I use Amazon a lot and have never left feedback, I have mostly treated the "Leave Feedback on your Purchase" email as spam email and I trash it.

This might sound kind of harsh, but buying something online to me is the same as me buying something in the store. When I buy something at the store, I do not go and thank the owner and tell him how awesome his products are after my purchase. If its a good store, I just keep going back.

 

[Indigo Knight]

Talk about ironic. I just sold an item on craigslist today for $100. No haggling, easy transaction. Reminds me of the good old days.

I really think everyone who buys on a platform should also try selling on it, and vice versa. Being on the other side of the experience will improve your perspective, and make you a more effective buyer or seller.

Hi all!

Canadian TN lurker here. How important is it to you sellers on Amazon for the buyers to leave feedback after receiving a purchase?
I use Amazon a lot and have never left feedback, I have mostly treated the "Leave Feedback on your Purchase" email as spam email and I trash it.

This might sound kind of harsh, but buying something online to me is the same as me buying something in the store. When I buy something at the store, I do not go and thank the owner and tell him how awesome his products are after my purchase. If its a good store, I just keep going back.

Your opinion seems to be the most common one among Amazon users. Before I started selling online myself, my thought process was the same. Now I leave positive feedback for all transactions, unless something was seriously wrong with the purchase and the seller was completely unreasonable.

For small third party sellers, feedback on Amazon is critical. Because so few buyers leave feedback, a single negative or less than five star review can damage months or even years of reputation for a small seller. Amazon does not allow individuals or businesses to make multiple accounts, and if their sole account is shut down the owner is usually banned for life from selling there. It's happened to other sellers I know!

eBay pushes the "community" aspect more, and buyers get reciprocal feedback which encourages them to leave feedback for sellers. Sellers can also block bad buyers (not possible on Amazon). That said, the community aspect has been dying since at least 2007 if not earlier as eBay tries to be more like Amazon.

Unfortunately, buying something online is not like buying something in a store when it comes to reputation. Brick and mortar stores get complaints every day, but it gets drowned out by a sea of business. With small online shops on Amazon, the complaints are greatly over-weighted because only about one in 10 buyers leave feedback. To give you an example, I have sold over 600 items on Amazon. My feedback is 62.

 

[Tiredman]

Almost 1,500 sales half Amazon, half locations, only around 10 feedbacks. Feedbacks are not important for what I sell. In fact if you can picture selling the same item over and over to different buyers and Museum gift shops. Once we list an item it could sell for decades. Skies the limit. When I did eBay I would list the item and once it sold it was gone forever. Plus eBay involves post office runs, glad I'm done with that.