The pointless behaviour of eBay sellers

[Attila]

I used to sell a lot of bits on eBay before it became a buyers' market; it was easier back in the USA because you had a much wider base to sell to than in the UK (I don't faff with international sales). I sold a lot of handspun yarn that I'd made and had a pretty regular set of customers, especially re-enactors. I also sold a lot of 50s and 60s clothing that I sussed out of charity shops and that.

I'll occasionally clear out my closets here in the UK and sell on stuff I've bought from high street shops (usually second hand purchases myself) -- unless it's a named brand lik Karen Millen and that, I find clothing can be really hard to shift. And anymore if you're not a full-time business you don't get much money for what you list.

While I still buy off eBay (usually records; I'm rebuying my Beatles' LPs at the moment, grabbing up original mono Parlophones -- to me they're cheap as chips compared to when I spent about a year sussing out and collecting Kinks mono Pyes, holy cow did a couple of those set me back.)

My alternative these days is Etsy -- I've found some really cool vintage clothing at good prices, plus it's been a good place to suss out crafty things. Not the pre-made craft tat, but the equipement I need to make my own craft tat -- a lot of quilting/sewing shops sell through Etsy, so I've bought good quality knitting wool, a new set of wooden knitting needles. You can also find antique lace and glass beads (I like to make the occassional crazy quilt square).

It's a crapshoot with clothing, of course -- the shops I stick with are the ones who actually know how to measure clothing, as I've received stuff that was nowhere near the size it was claimed to be. For the most part, though, it's been all right. A couple of annoying, but reparable issues over the past few months:

*fabulous long leather skirt that needs a good dry clean (as one would do with any second hand), but had to block the seller as she kept nagging me to take a photo of myself wearing the skirt for her social media.

*a silk Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress, probably £500 or £600 new, bought for 1/10 of that from a seller in London who took 6 weeks to get it to me down here on the south coast. When I finally asked for my money back, she assured me that she had my dress all 'beautifully packed' and waiting til she got to the post office. Dress arrived wadded up in a ball, wrapped in a dirt piece of crumpled tissue paper, all gaffer-taped into a worn store carrier bag. The dress reeked so badly of stale cigarette smoke we couldn't keep it in the house -- had to hang it out in the sun and wind for about a week. Dry-cleaned up well, tho.

*Etsy alllows people to 'follow' you which is annoying, because they are usually sellers who attempt to look at your watch/wish list and then try to hustle junk to you. I've set my lists to private anyway, and just block anyone who tries to follow me.

During lockdown, it's been Amazon (mainly books), a little bit on eBay, and a lot on Etsy for me.

[Buelligan]

Does everyone still leave internet 1.0 feedback?

"FAST SELLER GOOD ITEM AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA++++++++++"

I remember my dad showing me a part he'd bought for the front suspension on his MG, then I watched him leave feedback by applying caps lock and holding down the A key on his knackered old second hand keyboard (which, coincidentally, he bought off eBay). A heartwarming bit of old school internet use.

I think eBay is solely populated by old men selling each other bits of old shed and things they found in the loft. I'm amazed it is still going to be honest.

That's because you're not poor enough yet Ferris.  Ebay's the posh end of things, we have the Boncoin here which used to be amazingly inexpensive but even that's gone capitalist now.

[holyzombiejesus]

*fabulous long leather skirt that needs a good dry clean (as one would do with any second hand), but had to block the seller as she kept nagging me to take a photo of myself wearing the skirt for her social media.

What?! Had she made the skirt herself or was it just a dodgy bloke wanting a perv?

[holyzombiejesus]

I sold loads of stuff on ebay over the weekend. Weekend before that it was 'pay no more than £1 a listing' so used that to sell a load of FM3 Buddha machines for over £200. Books are hard to shift but I'll reduce next week. There doesn't seem to be any middle ground with unavailable books, they're either £50 on Amazon or some 2nd hand bookshop will literally offer pennies.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I sold loads of stuff on ebay over the weekend. Weekend before that it was 'pay no more than £1 a listing' so used that to sell a load of FM3 Buddha machines for over £200. Books are hard to shift but I'll reduce next week. There doesn't seem to be any middle ground with unavailable books, they're either £50 on Amazon or some 2nd hand bookshop will literally offer pennies.

It's the same with records. The mate I mentioned upthread has gotten the best part of a tenner for really common and popular lp's like Off the Wall. If you look at discogs they're cheap as fuck as loads were pressed and not so long ago charity shops would've been creaking with them taking up space. But there's still a market for them to people who don't know any better. Of course even worse are the record companies tying up pressing plants and harming the environment making more pressings of something so ubiquitous, they're probably rushed out and mastered poorly compared to the originals.

[Buelligan]

I was tidying my "barn" recently, lifting up boxes of old tiles left by whoever was here before, a thousand years ago, and found a naked Phil Collins vinyl with rude words scratched on it underneath.  Should I list it?

[Fr.Bigley]

I was tidying my "barn" recently, lifting up boxes of old tiles left by whoever was here before, a thousand years ago, and found a naked Phil Collins vinyl with rude words scratched on it underneath.  Should I list it?

Was that the album he did for Disney's Tarzan?

[Buelligan]

What's it worth?

[Sebastian Cobb]

I was tidying my "barn" recently, lifting up boxes of old tiles left by whoever was here before, a thousand years ago, and found a naked Phil Collins vinyl with rude words scratched on it underneath.  Should I list it?

I think you should burn it.

[Fr.Bigley]

What's it worth?

Jesus knows, me, I'd hazard a guess at 4 million pounds sterling.

[Blumf]

... found a naked Phil Collins vinyl with rude words scratched on it underneath.

Do you mean the vinyl is naked, without cover or slip, or that it's an audio recording of a naked Phil Collins?

"Aaargh! Just scraped me bellend on the floor tom bracket!!"

[Buelligan]

Do you mean the vinyl is naked, without cover or slip, or that it's an audio recording of a naked Phil Collins?

"Aaargh! Just scraped me bellend on the floor tom bracket!!"

Be careful when replying to this, this poster almost exclusively posts about Phil Collins and may be looking for wanking stories.

[Fr.Bigley]

I heard when he was doing se acting, they couldn't actually get through one take without Collins whipping it out and having a tug. Buster..nut.

[jobotic]

I'll buy it but can you fax it to me?

[Replies From View]

Don't complain to the seller.  Simply package up every single turd you do from now on and post it to them.  Without affixing any stamps, though, so they're paying for the privilege of receiving your shit.  They'll get the message.

and more importantly, they will get your shit.


So it's a win-win really.  When you think about it.

[Buelligan]

I'll buy it but can you fax it to me?

Bit heartless.

[Replies From View]

Crap in a box.  You know it makes sense.

Vary the packaging so they don't get too suspicious of the same kind of box each time.  Jiffy bags, loot crates, tarnish their anticipation of everything they love.

[Buelligan]

What if they love to be surprised by shit?  That's your problem, I think you'll find, with this particular theory.

[Replies From View]

I'll buy it but can you fax it to me?

Speaking of faxes, it would be quite funny if you could send a covid-19 to someone's 3D printer.


COP A LOAD OF THIS ONE!



and they would be all "aaaaaaaaarrrggh"

[Blumf]

Speaking of faxes, it would be quite funny if you could send a covid-19 to someone's 3D printer.


COP A LOAD OF THIS ONE!



and they would be all "aaaaaaaaarrrggh"

COP A LOAD OF THIS ONE!

[pancreas]

I sold my old Viscount Classic 4500 organ on ebay. Some cunt picked it up and stuck a shipping label on it to send it off to fucking Poland.

Fucking POLAND.

Fuck off.

[Replies From View]

COP A LOAD OF THIS ONE!

Yeah but it would need to be able to jump out and get the person who had unwittingly printed it, though.

Like a real covid would do.

[Replies From View]

I sold my old Viscount Classic 4500 organ on ebay. Some cunt picked it up and stuck a shipping label on it to send it off to fucking Poland.

Fucking POLAND.

Fuck off.

The joke is on them because all their brick workers - and therefore the entire ability for your Viscount Classic 4500 to function as needed - are over here.

[El Unicornio, mang]

I usually only buy on ebay but I listed a laptop on there last week and got bombarded with messages by people offering me insultingly low prices for it (even though it wasn't listed as "Best Offer"). I wouldn't have minded but every one of these people I said no to kept messaging me back over and over again explaining why I should sell to them at their price, until I just started ignoring them altogether. One of them in Israel, apparently not even bothering to check that I specified UK delivery only.

Then it finally sold and the buyer decided he didn't want to buy it after all so I have to re-list and lost my 1 quid fee promotional thing. And you can't even give them negative feedback. Definitely a buyer's market.

[Ferris]

I used to buy and sell guitars on there, but now it seems to be mostly big normal shops selling their stuff on there as noted on the previous page.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I sold my old Viscount Classic 4500 organ on ebay. Some cunt picked it up and stuck a shipping label on it to send it off to fucking Poland.

Fucking POLAND.

Fuck off.

lol u sold ur organ on the internet

[Small Man Big Horse]

I used to do a lot of this, but it became too much of a pain in the arse. It's a buyer's market now. If you don't mind listing a lot of stuff and making a quid on each item it's ok; or if you get reduced postage rates that gives you better margins. But it's just not worth the candle. I sell the odd pair of trainers but that's it- rather give my stuff to Scope. Similar situation with amazon books.

It's a shame, 'cos I used to love selling stuff- things I found, or bought at jumble sales/ car boots.

I used to do the same thing and between 2004 - 2009 it was fairly easy to make money by going around the charity shops two days a week and then a couple of car boots at the weekend, but then more and more people started doing it and it became a right pain in the arse, plus some charity shops cottoned on and started massively overpricing things. Every so often I pop in to a charity shop and if I see something cheap I'll buy it to put on ebay, but I imagine it must be bloody difficult to make a living these days and I'm glad I no longer do it.

I usually only buy on ebay but I listed a laptop on there last week and got bombarded with messages by people offering me insultingly low prices for it (even though it wasn't listed as "Best Offer"). I wouldn't have minded but every one of these people I said no to kept messaging me back over and over again explaining why I should sell to them at their price, until I just started ignoring them altogether. One of them in Israel, apparently not even bothering to check that I specified UK delivery only.

I used to get loads of them too, and some of them were of the quite ridiculous "It's my son's birthday next week and he's dying of cancer and I've just lost my job and my wife's having an affair with a mass murderer" variety, which were obviously fake as they repeatedly sent them to me for different items over the course of a couple of years.

[peanutbutter]

I like ebay as a buyer, I pretty much always assume everything's weighted hugely in my favour.

Electronics are a fucking minefield though, RE: the dual shock example in the opening post. Most sellers just won't have a clue what kind of controller they're selling (see also New 3DS/New 2DS confusion. The autocomplete thing is a disaster in a lot of cases (check out how many Kindles contain the wrong product info, so many of the 3G ones are mislabelled it's crazy)

[poodlefaker]

See, I would say it was a buyers' market in the early days when sellers were amateurs an unaware of value. I seemed to be able to pick up anything I wanted (which was admittedly usually books and CDs) for a quid or two. These days everything's highly priced by professional sellers.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I'm inclined to agree with poodle.

Amazon is better for this now, as bigger companies use bots to list their overstocks on there, eg. musicmagpie sell under zoverstocks and use robots to list their items lower than anything just to get rid of them, leaving some books and dvd's as low as 1p (plus postage), the same happens with books and also on abe books.