If ever there was a need for a study! I recently put a notebook up for sale on eBay. I bought it in March and needed some more power and less heat, so I upgraded. Now I wanted to sell it. I’ve sold lots of other stuff on eBay before, but it’s only recently that I’ve become convinced that most people have entirely stopped reading the listings of items…
I actually had to append a section of text to the auction about six hours after I launched it. Why? People are morons. In the body or the listing it states: If you have any questions please email me before bidding! US CUSTOMERS ONLY! PayPal payment please – shipping costs are paid for by the winner of the auction (USPS is standard; other methods will be extra). Simple, right?
I got eight emails that first six hours, all them asking for shipment to some far off nation – which may or may not be illegal due to WiFi which is why it’s US only in the first place – and for eight different payment methods that are decidedly not PayPal. One of them even offered me a couple of goats and some sand.
Given the foul mood this put me in, I appended to the description:
– As per the auction description above this is for US based customers only which means it must be won and shipped to a US mailing address.
– This item is up for auction which means I will not end the auction early for special prices nor am I willing to bypass PayPal or eBay for cash at a fixed, non-auction set price!
– The reserve price is kept hidden for a reason and asking me will not get me to tell you. For this it’s pretty easy: bid as high as you think this item is worth and what you’re comfortable with to pay for this item – if you don’t meet the reserve than it’s a moot issue (because you wouldn’t win it anyway) and if you do, then you’ll be in the running for this auction.
Since posting that I still get at least two emails a day, asking me if I will ship it overseas for cash, check, charge, western union, or money order. Thankfully no more goats or sand, because I’m certain that’s illegal on many levels. Money order would be OK too, but not if I have to ship the ‘puter to some place that has fewer citizens than it has vowels in the nation’s name.
The kicker is that I can almost garantee everyone that whoever wins the auction will duck my emails and back out of the auction. I’ve already got the feeling that that will happen a couple of times before I successfully sell it. For some reason, technology auctions seem to bring out the “nevermind, I don’t want it” winners 50% of the time. Fuckwits, the lot of them!
561 people have viewed this auction so far and I’ve gotten about 45 emails
by now… How sad.
Update: I just got an email from some idiot from England that BID ON THE AUCTION ALREADY saying “what are the shipping methods?” OMFG people universally idiotic! It’s not just my state or my country – it’s everywhere! AAAAAAH!
Iam an ebay heavy user/buyer ebay has changed the front page when you log in i think that might be a problem for sellers .I have a IBM notebook an have not used it in months.they are boring to use.i feel ppl.like me are bored with the content of the internet ,an would rather read a book.
So how did it end?
I always get a plea or two for ending it early for a fixed amount, but to me, that seems to be in bad character, I’d never do that.
And always, always there is someone overseas who thinks the US Bidders Only does not apply to them and had some clever plan to have a US friend ship it if I let them bid.
By and large, I’ve never had an overseas winner that didn’t have many issues involving sending me payment. It just isn’t worth the hassle.
Under the reserve, actually. I was able to retract the last bid from the idiot frm England, and it never went up again – relisted it at a lower reserve price, which should qualify me for a refund on the first set of fees. Bastards.
Actually, so long as I get the cash and can ship it to a US address, I couldn’t care less where it goes – I’ve shipped some stuff overseas without any problem, actually… I’m just iffy with stuff that might have an export restriction, which some electronics might… bunch of nut jobs either way!
We have been doing some work on auctions of different type ( not of things but of rights, something like the F&O on the Stock Exchange ). And to solve such problems, what we have figured is that istead of a “User” making the actual bid, “User” instructs a “Proxy” ( or an “avatar” if you may… ) to put in a bid. This “UserProxy” or a “UserAvatar” is a software object with properties including locale…
:-)
The rest should be easy to figure out …
Hey, that would be OK too – I mean if I ship it to a US address, I can’t help (or even know) where it goes from there. These people, however, are asking me to ship it to them directly to other countries via DHL and to charge it using my “merchant hardware” whatever that means. Basically, charge it on my own (to bypass PayPal), at a fixed price (bypassing eBay) and shipping it to a non-US address (which I said I wouldn’t do)… it’s just amazing.