Listed a few Pokemon cards for auction last week, normally i list BIN and forget about it. But alas with less and less to do i decided to try something new and list some cards with eBay auction/best offer style listings. At the time i used the eBay bulk listing form with a template i had used for all of my BIN items in the past with free shipping. So after i list all of these items at $0.99+S/H, i get a buyer sending me very low offers on every single one of my items minutes after listing. Keep in mind my listing description about half way down states “free shipping offered on all domestic orders” but item itself shows shipping charge. I declined the offers and at the end of this auction that same buyer who sent me multiple offers ended up winning 6 of my auctions. Now in my listings i did not specify combine shipping price, it didn’t occur to me at the time but looking back i should have put a bit something somewhere about combined shipping. So i sent the guy an invoice and our conversation is below. Guy left a negative review as well for each item…rip 100% seller rating lol.
tl;dr: listing shows shipping charge, description states free shipping.
Does auction listing shipping price supersede description shipping claims?
Can i dispute six negative feedback from a buyer who refused to pay shipping/requested to cancel order?
How would you have handled this scenario?
Anyway, thanks everyone just trying to learn one negative feedback at a time…
Descriptions can sway people into purchasing an item based on the claims by the seller. If that claim is false or not acted upon, then the buyer is in their rights to leave negative feedback based on their experience buying from you.
Was there any way for you to just take the $11.00 shipping charge hit? That would have avoided all of the problems you had here.
Edit: in answer to your questions
No, if you want to provide a positive experience for a buyer - bite the bullet, accept your mistake and learn from it going forwards. If you claim something, you should honour that claim.
If the buyer didn’t pay/cancelled all items, you can dispute that by calling the eBay customer service team
Keeping it real for you, your listing description had “free shipping” and you admitted fault for not removing the description. Surely your time is worth more than $11. Now you have to sort out a bunch of negative reviews and potential returns, where you’ll lose money in having shipped out those cards only to get them back. I’d have taken the $11 hit and if I was salty about it, just blocked him. This just seems like an unnecessary, easily avoidable headache.
The problem there is that you’re still charging the buyer shipping, when you stated on your listings it was free.
Like you say, you live and learn and will probably avoid this sort of error in future listings!
Agree with other posters. Ship for free and take the $11 loss would have been the best course of action since your listing did state free shipping, regardless of what you wanted it to say. Anyway, it’s just not worth it to deal with this kind of stuff over small amounts of money. The buyer has all the power on eBay. I have very few buyer complaints (well under 1%) and when someone does complain over a small amount of money it’s easier to just give free shipping/small partial refund to make it go away then deal with the hassle.
Yeah I would have definitely just taken the hit there. To ship 11 cards your looking at 2.80-3.05 depending on the zone if you buy your shipping label through eBay. Whenever you can tell the buyer is aggressive like that, make sure to try and diffuse the situation because those are the type of people to leave negative feedback.
No one is required to message you when bidding/offering about the shipping if its listed as free. Negative is justified. Next time eat the $11, pay for your mistakes and learn.
Yeah man it sucks to hear it especially because you already get shafted with selling fees and all… but if you purchased from a seller with advertised free shipping would you find it fair to have to pay the seller’s mistake?
Obviously retail is not the same as an eBay store, but I used to work in retail, and if an item was advertised as price X and scanned at price Y at the register, the customer was ready to burst. Even if it was a 25¢ price difference. It was the principle and not the actual monetary value.
For such reason, there are in fact laws in place that enforce “scan guarantee”.
From a quick google search:
“A Price Scan Guarantee allows you to get a product for free if you are overcharged at the register and you have paid the wrong price. … Once they see that you have paid more than the advertised price, they will give you the full money back that you paid for the item and you get to keep it. Yes, your item will be free!”
I know you’re not a Walmart or Target, but just keep in mind that these are billion dollar corporations taking hits every day to make things right for the customer. And if they don’t, well, they get a negative review on google reviews right?
As everyone already mentioned here. It doesn’t seem worth it to ruin your ebay account over $11. Shipping that many cards cost less than $4. (i used to sell full time on ebay and currently do sell part-time). I just eat the cost as a lesson learned because that feedback could be the difference between you getting more sales or not.
This is a big question I hope you answer.
Did you send the buyer an invoice or combined shipping?
If you did, then did you charge them $11 for shipping?
Because if you did that then I believe you were trying to make extra money
simply because you didn’t mention you had to in your listing.
