I know someone mentioned it before (Borman maybe?) but man what a disaster it is for some douche to file negative ebay feedback for no good reason. My feedback is below 90% now over 2 negative feedbacks and I'm already getting claims about how I clearly can't be trustworthy? Seriously? One dude filed a complaint because his FF7 pc box got dented during shipping, which he paid $3 for shipping on. Was I supposed to ship it in a bubble wrap suitcase for $3? seriously? He also told eBay it was a 'precious collectible', what a turd. Ebay is such a giant scam in general since they shave fees off you while also pocketing paypal fees on the transactions, I wish someone else could overtake them at this point. /rant
You shouldn't have listed the shipping as $3. Only ship in the correct method and price it accordingly - otherwise, these things will happen You listed it as $3, the buyer has every right to expect it to arrive without damage. Buy I agree with your sentiment - ebay is a scam, but your target audience is so large its hard to ignore it when trying to get rid of stuff.
I shipped it for $5, meaning I took a loss, aka I put the box in a basic shipping envelope. Theres no $3 shipping that would fit that entire giant box into some kind of hard container, so I'm not sure where exactly that is my fault if he made no prior effort to encourage me to use higher quality shipping? edit: Also the item sold for $30, he tried to basically scam me on ebay before leaving me negative feedback by telling me if I didn't settle with him for a $15 refund (half the auction price? seriously?) that he was going to file a return. I get that buyers should be protected but it needs better checks and balances
The seller is responsible for the item arriving in good condition. The buyer does not need to contact the seller and make sure it arrives without damage - thats just madness. Do you think you should email each time you buy something online and say "Hi, could you make sure you package this well enough so it doesnt get damaged?" from amazon or anywhere else? - no, thats a given and if it arrived damaged - you would bitch at amazon and get a refund. Its in your interest to charge shipping correctly, as exactly what is happening to you will happen - and the buyer is in the right. Ebay and paypal state its the sellers responsibility until the item arrives in the buyers hands.
You made a mistake. Listed $3 shipping for an item whose size and packaging made it obvious that wasn't sufficient postage. In addition common sense says cardboard boxed games are not to send in envelopes or bubble mailers, particularly Game Boy and Sega 32X.
eBay also has pretty strict rules about overpricing on shipping, which I've also had people file against in the past when I had just listed the 'actual' shipping pricing, mailing items isn't exactly the cheapest thing on earth. Frankly I felt the packaging was more than adequate all things considered *shrug*
True a lot of people are ignorant about postage cost. Rate increases will just make it worse for sellers to try explaining.
I tend to incorporate my shipping fees into the price of the item. People used to leave me 3/4 stars for shipping costs. When I increased the price of the item and had free shipping - I got all 5's (this was before ebay made you unable to give a rating on "free" items). You need to "play the game" unfortunately. Just like everything priced at x.99 is doing.
I'd much rather charge a bit more in shipping then having to loose out on the item and the shipping combined. What I usually do is what you do Bad, just include the shipping price in the item price, this way the buyer can't bitch about it being overcharged. Unless it's an auction, I usually charge $8 for DVD sized games, and usually send N64 games in boxes with bubble wrap stapled to the sides for $10 + $3 for transport.
I know that he should've priced it correctly and packed it better but a $15 partial refund isn't exactly fair, it's not like it arrived on fire. In my experience a good proportion of ebay buyers are selfish little bitches who seem to expect an item to arrive in a gold plated bentley driven by the queen's chauffer in a diamond encrusted box for £2 On ebay you list the method you intend to post it by, if they want a different method it would be easy to send a message and ask, but of course it's much more in their interests to exaggerate some miniscule damage and attempt to extort money from you. To be honest, I tend to blame royal mail when something turns up broken in transit from a personal seller, because I generally feel that clearly the seller has done their best for the price they've charged and I tend to go for the cheapest postage when offered, but if they have overcharged me for the postage to begin with (i once had someone charge £10 for posting 4 dreamcast games and then sent them in a layer of bubble wrap and some brown paper, he paid £3 to send it second class, they would have come special delivery for that! obviously there should be money for time taken, packaging and petrol but £7 is taking the piss!) I took it up with him and quite rightfully got a partial refund when they turned up smashed to hell, he even sent me a free game as an apology. It can be troublesome to be a buyer sometimes too though, I once had a guy send me a couple of games which he described to be "as new" and turned up so scratched that they didn't work. He spent a week telling me "nah mayte u trippin I plaid dat shit fo daiz" Then when I filed a claim and sent them back, he refused to acknowledge that they had arrived even though he had signed for them, so in the end I had to spend almost what the games cost on the phone to paypal convincing them that this guy was a liar. Also I looked his address up on google street view, he lived in a mansion so I don't know why he was typing like a victim of severe head trauma.
Customers will always be customers, there are just a lot of picky ermm could use a number of words for them but i'll not, wether its on ebay or anywhere else. something you gotta expect and live with.
I have to agree with Bad_Ad here. You undercharged for shipping costs. Shipping costs are NOT what the cost of a stamp is - they should incorporate packing, too. When you buy something from an online retailer, they buy new packaging, bubble wrap etc. and that is factored into the cost. OK, you might want to recycle old boxes and not charge for that. If you use bubble wrap, though, I would expect you to reasonably incorporate it into the cost. You have a few options: - Have your listing as a Buy it Now with shipping costs incorporated (or at least packaging costs) - Set your shipping price to cover your costs of shipping INCLUDING decent packaging - Ask local shops if you can have some boxes, used bubble wrap etc. to cut costs. I would ALWAYS wrap an item well, regardless of whether it sold for £1 or £1,000. Likewise, I'd at least get a free certificate of postage... but I might insist on sending it recorded delivery or via courier. You may well have a "middle man" who offers discount courier prices e.g. USA: www.ipsparcel.com UK: www.myhermes.co.uk www.interparcel.com www.parcel2go.com $3 shipping for a game seems stupidly low and it should have been well wrapped, so I'm afraid you only have yourself to blame in this instance. However, I will agree that eBay's modern rules can make things a bit one-sided. Still, it's designed to protect the consumer, so anyone selling should really take steps to ensure that the item arrives with the seller in pristine condition. I know this isn't always possible, but that's where I like to have insurance! If you list all your items with only insured postage options, then maybe some will be put off by the higher price but in the long run, you know those who DO pay it are genuine people wanting their items to get to them in good nick.
Maybe along with the policy overhaul it would benefit eBay to join a large enough team of mods (or etc?). A police force trained for good, not evil. Personally, I've received neg feedback over a disc coming loose inside a factory shrink ps1 game (ntsc-j metal gear solid, so in the double size jewel case). Buyer paid exact s/h for priority usps across the contiguous usa, but that's irrelevant. I would be annoyed in those shoes, of course. The chances of that occurring, in my exp, make it some borderline "freak accident" when the case is factory sealed, AND this specific game had been bought (new, from the retailers stock) at the game shop less than 3 months prior. Not my fault -__-
I'm sorry, but it's your responsability as a seller to ensure that the item they purchase gets to them in satisfactory condition, as described in the auction. If you choose to offer cheap shipping with minimal packaging then you're accepting the likelyhood of the item getting damaged. That's not their fault, that's your fault, there's nothing more to it.
