No Sales MKII

[dwtrading2015]

Since the No sales board was abruptly terminated, after 88 pages of contributions, I've tried setting it up again here

[ett1954]

Thanks for the heads-up.

I have just been into my account settings to check it was unticked there for BINs and auctions.  Can no longer see any reference to immediate payments - worrying!  Does anyone have a link?

Individual listings do however still have the box unticked.

[61stephenuk]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/bmgt/buyerrequirements

[ett1954]

Thanks for the link - now saved.  Handy for a quick occasional check.

Everything remains unticked ..... for now.

[theelench]

"Everything remains unticked.....For now"

After last weekends fiasco with an auction listing that, because I didn't know when ebay auto-ticked the box, might or might not have had the buyer requirement on it, I'll be checking before listing anything new and again shortly after the ads. go live.

What's the point of an auction if half the (would be) bidders are disqualified because they either won't or can't give ebay yet more personal details in time to bid?

What this really needs is for ebay to spend a small fraction of the billions it makes from us to do something about the tiny fraction of non-paying bidders.  NOT hit all auctions and the vast majority of bidders and as an inevitable knock-on effect, all sellers who use auction format.

WAKE UP EBAY.

The private sellers who feed your re-sellers with cheap collectables shouldn't be hit (yet again) by changes that will result in even lower prices by (yet again) reducing the pool of buyers.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

I'll be honest, I really don't get the resistance to the payment information when bidding.

If you went to a physical auction, you wouldn't bid, without knowing that you had sufficient funds to buy whatever your bidding on.  And knowing that, you wouldn't bid on more than one auction, if you didn't have the funds to cover both.

It is a real bane, the number of none paying bidders.  At least in the main, I can now filter them out, but I still get them, even with this switched on.  I've currently got two of them.  Both ignoring me.

So surely, if your bidding on something and aim to win that auction, you should be prepared to provide this information.  If you not, then why are you bidding in the first place?  After all, Ebay already holds this kind of information for the vast majority of buyers/sellers.  No different than many other online marketplaces.

[technthread]

I had an auction last week where a bidder from Germany bid 5 times over 2 different days with no problem. I have had Germany set as a location I don't post to because of the German Packaging Act for over a year. 

The same bidder was then automatically blocked from bidding near the auction end because I don't post to Germany. I haven't been tinkering with those settings or doing anything which will have allowed earlier bids to get through. The bidder location didn't change either because I checked their profile after the first bid came in.

As I look at the bidding more closely it is obvious that eBay let them bid up to the point where they were going to outbid another bidder and then blocked them from placing a winning bid. The same pattern happened to them on 2 different days. I think it's really poor of eBay to mess buyers around like that, it benefitted me as they bumped my only other bidder's price up and eBay get more fees but a total joke for that buyer who would never have been allowed to win the auction. 

To relate it back to the topic, things must be bad if eBay need to let buyers I can't sell to bid to help bump auction prices up. Most of my recent auctions have had 1 or 2 bidders, some things sold too cheaply and it seems a bit quiet. It isn't totally dead, I get a fair few watchers if it is something decent and my start bid is a bit too low but it seems like a lot of work and risk that I will lose money to attract very few buyers.

[technthread]

FWIW - I counted my auctions. Out of 27 that sold I had 1 non payer and 1 who sent an immediate cancellation request. I also had 1 other asking me to retract their bid once they realised they might win, which I did and the listing went unsold. 

I can deal with 2 or 3 out of 27 being non payers, by having the payment information box unticked. I worry that if I ticked the box I might have had nowhere near 25 completed sales and I would be cutting my nose off to spite my face. 

[therenewalworkshopltd]

To be honest, I very much doubt it would make that much difference to you.

Since it's been turned on, it's made absolutely no difference, to the number of sales that I'm getting.  At least that I can see anyway.

But the none payers that I get are not actually for auctions.  They are generally for offers being accepted and unpaid.

[ett1954]

@therenewalworkshopltd   The resistance is not so much giving the payment information but the fact that this eliminates the potential any combining of invoices when payment is taken one hour after a successful bid.

This is significant when international bidders are bidding over several days or even weeks (by agreement) as they obviously don't want to be paying, for example £60 postage, for 4 items when they could be consolidated into one package for £20.  This is particularly significant for those orders where eBay have collected any tax as the buyer will also be paying an increased tax which of course then also results in the seller paying increased fees on both postage and tax.  Once tax has been collected by eBay it is not possible to combine an order and reconcile the correct customs data for shipping, well certainly not by Royal Mail, my primary carrier.

A large part of my international business, which account for around 50% of my total, is through combining orders.  

[therenewalworkshopltd]

I get that.  But I would imagine that the majority of people aren't making those kind of sales.  And you do have the option to switch it off anyway.  But as with anything, there are always going to be exceptions to the norm.

And it does help to reduce the none payment of bidders.  

[ett1954]

"And it does help to reduce the none payment of bidders."  I would suggest it also reduces the total number of bidders.

I do have it switched off.  My percentage of non-payers is less than 1% and has been that way since I started selling in 2008.  The very few I do get are easy to deal with; block and move on - quick and easy, much better than dealing with a return request (remorse or manufactured), to which they are entitled to from a business seller.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

I guess that it really depends on what your selling as to how often this kind of thing happens.

It's less now than it used to be, but it's still happening and my percentage is higher than that.

But it's not quick and easy to deal with at all.  They are sat there waiting for 4 days, instead of selling to someone else.  Yes, you could relist, but then if they decide to actually pay and you have sold said item, you have a problem.  And yes once that period is up, it is quick and easy to deal with, but you have to wait!

It wouldn't be so bad, if they just responded and said, "Sorry I've changed my mind".....

But in all the times this has happened, I have never once got a response from one that has gone on to not pay.

[dwtrading2015]

I thought there was a setting in the policies that alows the combing of orders for one postage.  Or is that another useful function removed?

[the_book_seekers]

It's still there under postage preferences.

[ett1954]

This only used to work if the buyer was logged into the UK site, however international buyers were often confronted with a message "this buyer does not allow combined invoices", or words to that effect.  This has been well documented on past threads on these boards.

Whether it still works on the UK or not I don't know (I have auto-payments turned off so that is not impacting me).  If you read Marco's response on the thread I started on this topic:  The Death of Auctions? - UK eBay Community  you will note the eBay response is "Regarding combining shipping, yes, you still can combine shipping. However, it is true that your buyer might be charged individually for each item. If this happens, for the moment we recommend refunding any excess charged in postage." As I mentioned earlier this will not work if you try to combine individual international payments where tax has been taken.  Royal Mail, for one, do not allow the merging of individual orders.

[dwtrading2015]

Wow, spanner listing now 12 views, that is a huge increase.  I think there is a 100% conclusion, Cassini likes videos.  Busy week ahead!  Yabadabadooo.

[sedwear]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news dwtrading2015, I clicked through to your spanner listing to see what your video was like, and I'm sure others did too from these boards. So maybe not all 12 views were potential new customers.

Still, it's worth a try. I'm trying to decide if it's worth me trying something similar, for some listings at least. I take it the video creating process took a while?

[dwtrading2015]

Thanks sedwear, possibly but nobody has mentioned seeing it, I suspect maybe at least half are not people looking in on this board  I have just put up another on a zero view listing, won't say which one.  Will see what happens.

[dwtrading2015]

I will put a little tutoral next week, it was very simple.

[messier44000]

Mentioned it here a few times.

I would guess around 30 - 40% of my website sales come from videos on you-tube.

With the remainder organic searches and the encouraging start with PPC (website not here).

Yes video editing, adding graphics, text, music , video and photos within videos takes time , 

but most get high in on Google page 1. Unlike here the vids are usually 5-7 minutes.

Just to prove a point that videos do work, look at my google reviews or other social media customer reviews

"Was drawn to purchasing from here after watching video review of products"

 "I saw a few of their YouTube videos and then emailed them for further advice and received a reply almost immediately. These guys offer quality products and excellent service. I received my order within 24 hours!"

"Excellent customer service and YouTube channel."

"Fantastic videos helped me make the right purchase"

 "I purchased from you because of your, YOUTUBE video despite multiple other sellers, may you prosper, you deserve it, regards"