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Ebay: Yes, Speedy Shipping Really Is a Thing With Us (cnet.com)
Fast shipping is -- finally -- no longer all about Amazon. From a report on CNET: On Monday, eBay announced it will offer a new guaranteed-delivery program in the US starting this summer, pledging deliveries in three or fewer days for more than 20 million products. For the first time, Ebay's shoppers will be able to filter searches to see only items guaranteed to arrive in one, two or three days. "We know we need to continue to up our game on shipping," Hal Lawton, eBay's senior vice president of North America, said in an interview. [...] It's worth noting, though, that this Ebay announcement doesn't actually speed up deliveries on the site. Many professional sellers on Ebay have already been providing these faster deliveries, in some cases for years. Ebay, which says 63 percent of packages sold through its site arrive in three days or less, has been offering customers more conservative delivery estimates because it doesn't ship directly.
Amazon's same day and even 2 day shipping is rarely on time. Heck even the amazon NOW service here at work is rarely within the 2 hours promised.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
This just seems like an advertising of their new shipping services. I don't see anything that constitutes news.
... but I have a difficult time trusting many of the vendors on EBay. There have been far too many scams on EBay in the past, and I'm not convinced EBay has grown past that phase of their life. Additionally, the emphasis on PayPal with the EBay vendors is not good in my eyes.
It's not really the vendor's fault that they require paypal it's just that they aren't allowed to accept many other payment methods as per ebay policy.
Imho support for things like amazon payments and google wallet is very long overdue but especially since they "split" from paypal but yet paypal is still deeply integrated and used for verification and such.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
Amazon's same day and even 2 day shipping is rarely on time.
I place about 150 orders per year through Amazon Prime and the number that have arrived late I can count on my fingers. Maybe it's different where you live but Amazon is extremely reliable about shipping times to where I live in Michigan. The only times I've had trouble have been when UPS or USPS have dropped the ball.
I'd like Amazon to quit being Ebay. Filter off the crap, stop merging SKUs with third party sellers who often sell old revs, fake items or other problematic inventory. Be more aggressive about knock-off products.
If I want to buy a shitty Chinese clone that's probably been already opened, I'll go to Ebay, thanks, or better yet, skip Ebay and go to Craigslist.
... but I have a difficult time trusting many of the vendors on EBay.
If you pay PayPal and follow eBay's rules and it's largely a non-issue. (yes I know how people feel about PayPal) It's not always convenient but you can almost always get your money back if the deal goes south. I buy stuff like surplus tooling with some regularity on eBay and I rarely have a problem. By and large if you look at things with a skeptical eye and read all the fine print you should have too much trouble.
I used to make my living selling stuff on eBay and I assure you that there are WAY more problem buyers than sellers. I've had people send me countless fake money orders, refuse to pay, complain about every aspect of the auction despite it being clearly stated (they couldn't be bothered to read), and try every scam in the book. I've even had people buy something and "return" it when in fact what they put in the box were literally rocks.
I am not buying anything from them anymore due to the spam they (or their resellers) are sending me.
I have my own domain and have a different mail address per website. e.g. ebay.com@example.net That way I can see if the email is really coming from that company or if the email was given to somebody else.
In the years I use this system, the ONLY company that I have caught is Ebay.
So I killed the account and won't buy from them anymore.
Yes, I know I have probably not deselection a non-opt-in denial of not sending the emails or whatever they wrote. They knew what they where doing. When I deselected it, the resellers already had by email and I started to receive emails from others as well.
If they are unable to keep my Email private, I am not sure how they can do so with the rest, so I voted with my wallet.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Where we buy everything from China and it takes 3-4 months to arrive...
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
...miss ebay from the late 90s? When real people sold real crap from their house.. and it was a deal. Ughhh.. get off my grass.
Don't anthropomorphize computers: they hate that.
I've been doing eBay shopping since 1998.
And if there is ONE thing I've learned, is that the lower you bid, the slower it ships. Doesn't matter if the two promises the same shipping times.
Also, the cheaper you go - the lower quality you'll get at the exact same product range. Because a lot of them will ship the lowest bidders the shittiest quality of the batch (kind of logical, don't ya think?).
And a above 90% seller success rate sounds nice, right? Wrong! You'd be amazed how many problems you'll have with sellers under 96% even at 97% good feedback. The trick is to look at their negative feedback, or / and their neutral feedback and see what happens for each individual product. The product is important here, because the same seller could earn a 100% feedback reputation on selling socks, but sell shoddy factory rejected production Arduinos with a feedback of 20% and less - and still earn a pretty penny. Many of the Chinese sellers just sells these by the thousands because it sells - they have NO clue what they're actually selling besides fake shoe brands etc.
The thing you need to watch out for - is the sellers that will tell you "please wait 40+ days because of your customs" etc... You know as well as I do that your customs don't give a hoot about your 2 dollar arduino, so if it takes 40+ days, and the seller says, please be patient, it's because the nickel-and-dime croock only wants to hoist good feedback while your complaint expires. Never accept this. Complain immediately. Down the bad sellers now, do not delay!
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
I mean, if a delivery service can sell same day shipping or 1-day shipping (and it actually does it), then you too can. But if the delivery services are just a 2-day shipping, then there is little you can effectively do.
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
This is all great for American customers, but everywhere else they've been foisting the Global Shipping Program scam on us. Rather than let the seller use something economical like USPS to ship to, say, Canada, they pressure sellers to use the Global Shipping Program which gouges the buyers, sometimes by doubling the shipping costs. But, they say, we handle all the import fees and duties. Except that for many products that we typically buy in Canada, there are no duties. USPS packages come right to my door with no additional charges. Because of this problem, I hardly use Ebay anymore. Sometimes I can contact the seller and get them to switch shipping methods, but only if there are no bids from anyone on the item. Also the GSP claims they will package multiple items from the same vendor into one package, saving money. But that's apparently untrue.
It's not really the vendor's fault that they require paypal
I didn't say it was. Indeed, the rest of your message confirms what I see about EBay's apparent emphasis of PayPal.
The cost is dictated by size and weight. I've shipped many five-six pound items that were bulky and cost $50 to ship. No matter if using USPS, Fedex, UPS, whatever, the cost was expensive. Thankfully I take this cost into account for my auctions. And I eat the cost of the box I have to supply (these are anywhere from $2 to $8 each!) and packing materials (bubble wrap is fucking expensive).
So I not only don't make money on shipping, I lose money. And then some doofus demands a refund because the USPS is late with delivery. The only way the eBay process could be more abusive to sellers is if they outright just took the merchandise and stole it. Oh wait, they fucking do that too when a buyer says they didn't get the item or it was a fake or some other BS. They take back what the person paid and let them keep the merchandise. So the seller is out the merchandise, the postage, the money to pay for those things and still has to pay eBay for the sale fees.
It's a fucking scam at this point.
Sig for hire.
People think that the cost of shipping something is in some way based on the cost of the item, rather than the weight and the distance. They also assume that the shipping cost per pound will be less for small packages than for big ones. Some people say, "Why can't you ship around the world for free?" People are funny.
An even bigger problem with shipping cost complaints is due to the way the USPS, eBay, and the Chinese government worked out the e-packet deal, so that shipping from China to the U.S. can be done for far far less than shipping a small package across town domestically. They think that since the Chinese can ship for "free" (not realizing that they roll their government subsidized shipping cost into their price), then domestic sellers must be ripping them off.
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I disagree. I sold something. The recipient said there was nothing in the box when he received it. Payment is taken back and I no longer have the item.
That happens sometimes but I'm talking about how buyers protect themselves, not sellers. You are basically backing up what I'm saying that there are more buyers who are crooks than sellers.
Best advice I can give for a seller is to document, document, document. Take pictures of the product going into the box and have witnesses. Make sure you have evidence of the weight of the package and the item. Only ship via traceable services. Use an escrow service if you are really worried or if the item is especially valuable (eBay offers one). Don't sell anything on eBay you cannot afford to lose. There is no way to perfectly keep all crooks from trying to scam you but I've sold probably 15000 items on eBay over the years and over 99% of the buyers are perfectly fine. We had trouble with about 1% of buyers (mostly hard to please people) and about 0.1% were people actually trying to rip us off.
The problem with the 'buyer is always 200% correct' mentality at ebay can screw small sellers. Or if you only sell something once or twice a year. You're better off using craigslist.
Speaking from personal experience I would agree. Selling on eBay can be a risky pain in the butt. Never sell anything you can't afford to lose. You might have to take it back even if you do nothing wrong and the item is perfect so take that into account too.
I was a pretty big seller at one point and I can assure you that eBay isn't friendly with big sellers either. But being a small seller is definitely risky. One or two bad bits of feedback can really screw you hard.