EBAY 1000: COLLECTORS AND VENDORS PAY THE PRICE, THE CREDIT CRUNCH, DUELS WITH TURBO DELISTER AND THE IMAGES FROM HELL
Now that my eBay feedback rating has passed the nice round figure of 1,000 – dare I say it with no negative or neutral ratings -- it seems like a good time to do another eBay commentary. One reason for taking the time to do this is that I received several positive and appreciate comments about my eBay 500 article and it seems people are interested in commentary somewhere in between the official eBay line and the rantings of those with a vendetta against the super cyber salespeople.
Of course I realise 1,000 is a highly modest number, which some people seem to manage in a busy afternoon, but it’s not bad considering that I rarely list more than about 10 lots a week, as I have no wish to be chained to a computer once more after a career as a newspaper editor. My first 500 took almost exactly five years, with only sporadic buying and no selling for the first few years, while the second 500 took 16 months. Of course changes in feedback rules that took into account repeat sales speeded this up.
One unfortunate trend that seems to be more prevalent now is taking a photo of postcards (but, thankfully, usually not better postal history, first-day covers and the like) rather than scanning them. The result at the worst is a crooked, out-of-perspective image with a flash area and looking like it’s six inches under water. The best is still far inferior to a half-decent scan. I’m sure I’m not alone in seeing postcards that simply cannot be viewed well enough to make an informed decision, especially when the vendor does not bother to tackle the thorny issue of condition. Time to hit the X button and move on.
Of course scanning is not without its pitfalls. Some vendors think nothing of trimming the faults off a scan to make a card look better – although one claimed to me this was not intentional but was the way his scanner worked. To this I replied that vendors are responsible for the accuracy of what they post, and what sort of vendor puts things on eBay without checking it first? I feel quite justified to send a card back that has been misrepresented this way.
Meanwhile, I’m not alone in feeling uneasy about the lengths eBay seems to be prepared to go to in pushing PayPal. PayPal is a very convenient way to send and receive money, especially across national boundaries, but hardly without faults and it can be quite slow in the case of eCheques. I am happy to offer PayPal as an option but I do resent attempts to make it the only way to pay. I firmly believe that cheques, money order and -- gasp! -- even cash have roles to play, even in today’s high-tech society. My eBay US listings are going in with the cheque and money order option deleted by eBay, but my statements still make it clear that I accept these options and others by mutual agreement, and so vendors generally realise they can indeed pay with a cheque or the euros they brought home from Spain. PayPal’s splutterings about the mortal danger to anyone who touches a cheque or banknote are entirely self-serving. It’s interesting to see how the new-economy and cyber firms are all for freedom of expression and unfettered economic movements – until it looks like it might cost them a few pennies. I think this is a highly dangerous game in today’s credit crunch economic times and given the volatility of the international on-line economy. One long-time stamp friend and eBay dealer told me recently: "They [eBay] have really soured me on their system, due to the heavy handed way they shoved PayPal down our throats. Seems they would like all of us ‘small’ dealers to just go away." Today’s big player can easily turn out to be tomorrow’s bit player.
On the subject of inflexibility, for the first time I’ve had bids on the US site rejected simply because I don’t live in the States. While some vendors – a bit foolishly, in my opinion – say they don’t accept bids from overseas (if you’re stung by a bad buyer from Pennsylvania, do you stop taking bids from that state?), almost all will accept them once I explain I can pay any way they choose and can even offer a US delivery address. However my bids for interesting flood postcards from Abilene, Kansas (I was born during a flood in that historic town) were rejected, and it was only through last-minute arrangements with my brother that I was able to bid on and win the cards. I think the problem was that the vendor didn’t accept PayPal (but presumably he has "seen the light" or defected to one of eBay’s competitors in the meantime) and he wasn’t allowed to accept other forms of payments from abroad. In the end I paid him with a dollar cheque from a US-based account.
Of course everyone is watching the economic winds uneasily. I found that the autumn listing season started well, but quickly went off the boil and then all but collapsed when the worst news of the credit crunch hit. Strangely postcards seem to be less affected than postal history. Now people seem to be drifting back, but a small loss of bidders can make a big difference in realisations. As in a room auction, the loss of 5 per cent of serious bidders can easily cause prices to fall by 25 per cent or more.
Finally, I would like to fill up a bit more space on the expensive failure I experienced with Turbo Lister. This is a helpful tool, although it’s not suited for beginners for various reasons. However it has a serious flaw: When you start to hit roughly 1,000 lots, it can freeze up. I’d been warned by an experienced dealer about this, but expected to have some sort of foreshadowing. Instead, one afternoon I simply couldn’t get into Turbo Lister anymore.
Unfortunately, as it was a cheap listings day and I’d done a lot of listings for once, I over-reacted. I started deleting other versions of my listings that had been inadvertently created when I had trouble switching over to Turbo Lister II. When this didn’t work I reverted to the old "sell your item" form, and managed to get everything listed before the midnight deadline.
However, worse was to come. A few days later I decided to re-import all my eBay listings to build a new data base on which to expand for future lots. I also, unfortunately, hit the "synchronise" button, which I assumed would make this process more complete. Instead, every one of my active lots was taken off eBay and the bids tossed out. If someone looked at the newly deleted listing, they saw a notice to the effect that the vendor had withdrawn the lot and the item was no longer available, neither of which was true.
Of course I immediately complained to eBay and asked them to look into the matter, restore my lots and so forth, but they asked for lots of documentation first. However, because I had deleted so much material to try to free up Turbo Lister, or Turbo Delister as I was calling it at the time, I had somehow deleted information from the crucial period. This was despite the fact that I regularly back up my Turbo Lister files as recommended. eBay of course washed its hands of the matter, and I was out all the fees I had paid to list the lots, and didn’t get the usual refund when on lots that sold when I relisted them. What’s more, probably because of the confusion understandable suspicions by buyers about possible hanky-panky (although there wasn’t any), the ones with bids didn’t sell for as much the second time.
I don’t know if eBay would ever have provided satisfaction over the debacle, but the fact is my haste had made any chance of that impossible. So if your Turbo Lister files are approaching 1,000, weed them out or, as my dealer friend recommends, clear them out completely and re-import your current listings and unsold lots. I would not, however, recommend hitting the "synchronise" button.
PS: When I spell checked this article, the stupid thing's alternative for "PayPal" was "payola".
Of course I realise 1,000 is a highly modest number, which some people seem to manage in a busy afternoon, but it’s not bad considering that I rarely list more than about 10 lots a week, as I have no wish to be chained to a computer once more after a career as a newspaper editor. My first 500 took almost exactly five years, with only sporadic buying and no selling for the first few years, while the second 500 took 16 months. Of course changes in feedback rules that took into account repeat sales speeded this up.
One unfortunate trend that seems to be more prevalent now is taking a photo of postcards (but, thankfully, usually not better postal history, first-day covers and the like) rather than scanning them. The result at the worst is a crooked, out-of-perspective image with a flash area and looking like it’s six inches under water. The best is still far inferior to a half-decent scan. I’m sure I’m not alone in seeing postcards that simply cannot be viewed well enough to make an informed decision, especially when the vendor does not bother to tackle the thorny issue of condition. Time to hit the X button and move on.
Of course scanning is not without its pitfalls. Some vendors think nothing of trimming the faults off a scan to make a card look better – although one claimed to me this was not intentional but was the way his scanner worked. To this I replied that vendors are responsible for the accuracy of what they post, and what sort of vendor puts things on eBay without checking it first? I feel quite justified to send a card back that has been misrepresented this way.
Meanwhile, I’m not alone in feeling uneasy about the lengths eBay seems to be prepared to go to in pushing PayPal. PayPal is a very convenient way to send and receive money, especially across national boundaries, but hardly without faults and it can be quite slow in the case of eCheques. I am happy to offer PayPal as an option but I do resent attempts to make it the only way to pay. I firmly believe that cheques, money order and -- gasp! -- even cash have roles to play, even in today’s high-tech society. My eBay US listings are going in with the cheque and money order option deleted by eBay, but my statements still make it clear that I accept these options and others by mutual agreement, and so vendors generally realise they can indeed pay with a cheque or the euros they brought home from Spain. PayPal’s splutterings about the mortal danger to anyone who touches a cheque or banknote are entirely self-serving. It’s interesting to see how the new-economy and cyber firms are all for freedom of expression and unfettered economic movements – until it looks like it might cost them a few pennies. I think this is a highly dangerous game in today’s credit crunch economic times and given the volatility of the international on-line economy. One long-time stamp friend and eBay dealer told me recently: "They [eBay] have really soured me on their system, due to the heavy handed way they shoved PayPal down our throats. Seems they would like all of us ‘small’ dealers to just go away." Today’s big player can easily turn out to be tomorrow’s bit player.
On the subject of inflexibility, for the first time I’ve had bids on the US site rejected simply because I don’t live in the States. While some vendors – a bit foolishly, in my opinion – say they don’t accept bids from overseas (if you’re stung by a bad buyer from Pennsylvania, do you stop taking bids from that state?), almost all will accept them once I explain I can pay any way they choose and can even offer a US delivery address. However my bids for interesting flood postcards from Abilene, Kansas (I was born during a flood in that historic town) were rejected, and it was only through last-minute arrangements with my brother that I was able to bid on and win the cards. I think the problem was that the vendor didn’t accept PayPal (but presumably he has "seen the light" or defected to one of eBay’s competitors in the meantime) and he wasn’t allowed to accept other forms of payments from abroad. In the end I paid him with a dollar cheque from a US-based account.
Of course everyone is watching the economic winds uneasily. I found that the autumn listing season started well, but quickly went off the boil and then all but collapsed when the worst news of the credit crunch hit. Strangely postcards seem to be less affected than postal history. Now people seem to be drifting back, but a small loss of bidders can make a big difference in realisations. As in a room auction, the loss of 5 per cent of serious bidders can easily cause prices to fall by 25 per cent or more.
Finally, I would like to fill up a bit more space on the expensive failure I experienced with Turbo Lister. This is a helpful tool, although it’s not suited for beginners for various reasons. However it has a serious flaw: When you start to hit roughly 1,000 lots, it can freeze up. I’d been warned by an experienced dealer about this, but expected to have some sort of foreshadowing. Instead, one afternoon I simply couldn’t get into Turbo Lister anymore.
Unfortunately, as it was a cheap listings day and I’d done a lot of listings for once, I over-reacted. I started deleting other versions of my listings that had been inadvertently created when I had trouble switching over to Turbo Lister II. When this didn’t work I reverted to the old "sell your item" form, and managed to get everything listed before the midnight deadline.
However, worse was to come. A few days later I decided to re-import all my eBay listings to build a new data base on which to expand for future lots. I also, unfortunately, hit the "synchronise" button, which I assumed would make this process more complete. Instead, every one of my active lots was taken off eBay and the bids tossed out. If someone looked at the newly deleted listing, they saw a notice to the effect that the vendor had withdrawn the lot and the item was no longer available, neither of which was true.
Of course I immediately complained to eBay and asked them to look into the matter, restore my lots and so forth, but they asked for lots of documentation first. However, because I had deleted so much material to try to free up Turbo Lister, or Turbo Delister as I was calling it at the time, I had somehow deleted information from the crucial period. This was despite the fact that I regularly back up my Turbo Lister files as recommended. eBay of course washed its hands of the matter, and I was out all the fees I had paid to list the lots, and didn’t get the usual refund when on lots that sold when I relisted them. What’s more, probably because of the confusion understandable suspicions by buyers about possible hanky-panky (although there wasn’t any), the ones with bids didn’t sell for as much the second time.
I don’t know if eBay would ever have provided satisfaction over the debacle, but the fact is my haste had made any chance of that impossible. So if your Turbo Lister files are approaching 1,000, weed them out or, as my dealer friend recommends, clear them out completely and re-import your current listings and unsold lots. I would not, however, recommend hitting the "synchronise" button.
PS: When I spell checked this article, the stupid thing's alternative for "PayPal" was "payola".
posted by Chad Neighbor at
19.11.08
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