Endless cancellation of collection only items...

[daviddchb]

I'm trying to sell more of my stuff as collection only. But about 50% of what I sell I have to cancel the transaction because the buyer says 'Oh dear, I didn't realise it was collection only' or 'surely you can post it'. Is there something I'm doing wrong. I just cancelled one which was very predictable because their postcode was a long way away; I tried to message them to confirm before accepting their offer but ebay barred that. I always stress in the description that it's collection only. Help, it's really p'ing me off. 

[dancewithadingo]

Good Afternoon David

Try ,if space allows, to put the words COLLECTION ONLY in the title.  I am currently selling a print that is collection only,have a look at the listing and try and incorporate some of what I have said into your listing.

[dancewithadingo]

David

As a follow up,if you want to contact your possible buyer before accepting their offer see if they are selling anything and contact them via their  listing.

[daviddchb]

Many thanks for the suggestion. I sometimes check this and most of my buyers don’t have listings. And I’d suspect those who do are unlikely to buy something without checking postage costs. On the latest cancellation example I tried messaging them related to the product and not related to a product, both blocked.

[daviddchb]

I don't want to shout collection only in the title, because I want to try to engage the customer with the product  .... here's the latest listing for the customer not to realise it's collection only which doesn't seem too different from your example. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/357826949599

[sml192]

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@daviddchb wrote:

I don't want to shout collection only in the title, because I want to try to engage the customer with the product  .... 

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I don't see what harm there would be in putting 'Collection only' in the title.  Not much point in engaging the customer with the product if they are not able to collect it.

Thr other thing you could try is putting 'Collection only' as the first line of the item description so that it is visible to those using a mobile without them having to actually click on the item description

Neither of those things should be necessary of course as it slready states quite clearly that it is collection only just below the price.

[dancewithadingo]

Good Evening David

I couldn't put COLLECTION ONLY in that/my listing as I had run out of characters. Generally I do incorporate it into the title.  You would be well advised to do just that.

I disagree entirely with you,on the one hand you want to discourage 'time wasters' ie people who have not picked up on the fact that your item is collection only but you won't help yourself by making a small, but vital addition to the listing to bring it to their attention. It is for your benefit as well and would reduce your frustration and help these people who don't read the listing fully.

I haven't got a clue what you mean by 'to try and engage the customer with the product'.  That's gobbledegook.  You simply want to stop people buying and expecting you to post out.  In order to do that you have to help yourself. I have given you my best advice if you chose not to use it then you will continue to have this problem.

[daviddchb]

Sorry my response to your comment sounded terse and ungrateful which it wasn’t meant to be, and I deserved this response. Apologies.

[daviddchb]

Yeah maybe this is related to customers who look at listings on their mobiles. I'm old school and do my ebay stuff, both buying and selling, on my laptop where shipping options are very obvious. I'll experiment with my phone! 

[xyz307xyz]

As mentioned put it in the title - you can also use e.g. a bigger font, underlined in bold and red in the description.

[daviddchb]

Many thanks. I'm  still reticent about including it in the title. I've done a bit of market research with younger members of the family about how they'd read an ebay listing on their phones and I'm going to experiment with a possible solution which I've now included in the listing linked above. Will see how it goes 🙂

[5216elisabeth]

I now put COLLECTION ONLY in the title and make it really clear in the listing however it doesn't always help. I had the same item bought and cancelled twice on the same weekend in spite of this.  I think some people actually just look at the picture and the price and assume it includes postage.  Especially on the app where they have to click to see the description rather than it just being displayed.  I've had the same thing happen before the app existed though. I also had 2 buyers ask the price to send it with a courier, once I told them they were no longer interested.  I did however have 2 buyers read the information, buy and turn up to collect one.  

I don't think there is a completely foolproof solution to the problem I'm afraid as if people don't read the information it doesn't matter what you write or where you write it.

[daviddchb]

Yes, I hadn't thought just how much customers only look at pics and price and in this day and age assume postage is included. So my idea above is to include the info actually in the pics. 

[5216elisabeth]

Now that just might work if you write it across the first photo they see, good thinking.  If you do try it I would be interested to know if it works, so would a lot of other people I think.

[suelel1968]

Hi, I had a look at your items (great stuff by the way) I agree that collection only should be at the start of the description, but you might want to say why as well "due to large piece of glass" etc. I had a picture delivered from Scotland to B'ham and it was totally destroyed when it got here. Who wants that. Also the Collection only listings only state that they are over 60 miles away (From B'ham) which always makes me think it will be between 60 & 70 miles away which is obviously not the case. 

[daviddchb]

That's a good idea about explaining why. As an aside, I used to happily send glazed  pictures via Royal Mail/Parcelforce and never ever had an issue. But then I tried sending one by another company and it arrived at the customer smashed to smithereens.  As far as I can see the new 'simple delivery' imposed by ebay on private sellers means that the customer can always choose Evri  rather than RM and, with the greatest respect to Evri, I wouldn't feel happy sending a glazed item with anyone but RM. 

[daviddchb]

I guess the real solution would be if ebay presented the 'local marketplace' business in a clearer and more compelling way.

[c_of_e84]

You get the same problem on bumtree as well, also owned by ebay!

[ed_58611]

No longer, since 2020.

[insidethe93]

If buyers have a problem as they didn't realise the item's collect-only, they'd probably not blame themselves but blame the seller! and that's a potential repeat buyer lost, quite apart from the initial sale you hoped for.

It's pointless trying to get a buyer to engage with an item if they expect delivery. They'll feel annoyed if they spend time "engaging" with the product only to realise later that it's collect-only.

I'm an experienced buyer (1.3K purchases) yet occassionally even I get caught out and land on a listing where it's collection-only. I make sure to read where the seller is and delivery option (which is where it'd say if it was collect-only) but occasionally I later realise I read but can't remmber what I read so obviously I didn't take it in - I doubt I'm unusual there.

I support the advice given on this thread so far, to make "COLLECTION ONLY" more prominent. The "ONLY" is the vital part of that. Make it screamingly obvious to the buyer. It's a shame it's not possible to wire the words up to flashing lights and a klaxon, and even then some buyers would miss it!

What's unmissable to you as seller (as you know your own listings) could unfortunately be missed when you have buyers who're in a hurry or being distracted e.g. having lots of tabs or windows open at a time or young children demanding attention. Yep it'd be great if every buyer concentrates 100% on every single listing they look at, but realistically it doesn't happen.

I hope you find a suitable solution.