Generally if you sell hundreds of cards 98-99% of transactions are fine
But of course there are the minority
Will you take $[WAY UNDERMARKET]
I’m cancelling this auction or BIN you just bought because I know I can get more
My kids bought your card, can you cancel it (and risk a fee if I don’t accept the cancellation request)
I want a refund because this Hidden Fates pack looks resealed/weighed (because I am totally unaware that 90% of them come out of the factory like this and that they cannot be weighed)
My item hasn’t turned up, I want a refund *provides tracking details showing as delivered and then they proceed to go quiet*
You might want to give Mercari a try, you will still get offers but Mercari caps it at 75% of the listed price I think. You will still get people that message you for a lower but you have the ability to just block them.
Also Mercari only has a 3 day rate or return policy vs eBay’s 30 day. Once the buyer rates you on Mercari, they can’t ask to return or get a full refund on the item.
I sell on both eBay and Mercari and so far things have been smooth on both sites. In addition if you are getting harassed by the same buyers/low ballers on eBay you can block them as well via eBay’s site map.
I would just be aware on Mercari though, since the insurance limits using their service is $200 maximum and like ebay, there are plenty of scammers on there who can open an issue or claim it wasnt received correctly and mercari will only reimburse you $200. Most of the time its fine, but there are some risks to it.
Just the usual really but more novice people buying asking if this is a good card to invest in lol. The low baller thing and knit picky buyers have always been there.
Yes 100%. I love this hobby but all the new scammers and low-ballers turn me off. I’m done with Virbank and FB Mkt. Selling XY Evolutions is the worst, most offers I get on eBay are from 0 - 10 feedback buyers who created their account a month ago so I get all nervous and cancel their order (I know I shouldn’t do it but I get scared).
I had only 1 item not received this year, gone lost in the destination country, and Ebay forced me to payout the buyer. Maybe I’m just unlucky or maybe the Ebay’ seller protection is a coin toss.
I disagree with the subject title, eBay has always had these flaws so I don’t think we’ve entered any new territory. Given we have no control over eBay’s policies, as sellers there is an onus on us to understand that we will have to put up with occasional BS from buyers. The BS will ebb and flow and we’ll go through streaks of good clean sales, and sometimes we’ll go through bad experiences. It’s just part of the trade-off we make for the convenience and speed of selling on the platform. If you’re not willing to expend any effort in how you design your listings to combat, as far as is within your control, annoying buyer practices then it’s really on you to either up your game or change platforms. You’ll never stop them completely but there are things you can do to reduce those frustrating interactions. I don’t like how eBay treats its sellers, but I accept the cons of using the platform for the benefits I otherwise receive.
Don’t do best offers - this is a waste of time for both you and the serious buyer. As a seller you need to know exact price that you are willing to accept and as a buyer you need to know your budget that you are willing to spend, there’s no need in the best offer. Don’t do auctions unless you are ok that 50% of the time people won’t pay and you will have to relist. As someone mentioned try mercari - in some ways it is better than ebay (buyer can’t return item if it’s over 3 days) and in some case it is worse (less people, no way to turn off best offer option, more low-ballers).
I’ve had some non-paying buyers, loss of cards, here and there, but it tends to be minimal. I’m Wildblastoise921 on eBay, been doing this for over 5 years selling and learning along the way (Hence the 99.7% feedback, thanks to a buyer not rewading the terms!). The things I’ve had more issues with are:
Low-Ballers: Good thing I have auto-decline on. People really would offer $1 on $10 or more cards. How do they expect me to even ship?
Back pictures: Constantly, potential buyers don’t have much of a grasp on condition. I tend to sell my cards as EX+, which firmly believe is a PSA5. When I do oblige with a back picture, I get ghosted about 90% of the time. Maybe they were expecting to snag a NM/M card?
Listing Terms Ignored: The times I get “Do you combine shipping?”, “Is the card MINT?”, etc. is INSANE! I know eBay makes it difficult even access the description, but it does matter. I even try to keep it less than 300 words!
I just take non-paying bidders as a loss, block away, and move on. There is always another buyer out there who will snag it.
I know there’s a flood of new collectors/investors, but they need to be more informed and educated on things, RESEARCH!. Heck, even multiple pictures some times is not the same as having the card in your hands.
@ill3will , The 90% ghosting is so true and that is why I rarely respond to those requests unless I have dealt with them before. My listing conditions are fairly straight forward. It really comes down to someone wanting a card in better condition than advertised or maybe a PSA 10 card listed as NM. To spend 5-10 minutes finding a $5 card and taking a picture of the back hardly seems worth it. If it is a valuable card that is another story. The mail delays lately have been my biggest struggle especially with items sent without tracking <$20 per my policy. If they “never show up” they go on the block list. I have been getting super fed up with individuals taking advantage of these delays lately. I actually received some negative feedback today stating their package was damaged and card arrived bent. Didn’t ask for a refund or return just bad feedback. I always work with buyers/sellers so it is annoying when they wont work with you. My block list on eBay has been growing daily. If you have accept best offers on your listings auto decline is a must as @brendantheclayboy stated you go back and look at your high priced items and will see these people offer $1, $2 etc…what a waste of time. Maybe they win 1 in a million of them due to errors. eBay rant over…
Sorry to hear about your bad feeedback @cardstockpile . Bullshit. I looked out of curiosity–can’t believe my eyes. A big ebayer with 1000+ feedback. Shameful. But dude… what is this??
@brendantheclayboy, Another example of how the feedback system is screwed up lol. Trust me I tried to get that removed but eBay would not and the buyer never responded to me. Not much you can do unfortunately.
For sure it’s not worth the hassle for a card that low. USPS has been definitely having issues quite a bit. Luckily on my side not many have wrote to me about it. Some packages don’t seem to be scanned until they reach their destination either, so this also messes up with eBay’s Guaranteed delivery. Stamped letter “not arriving” is the worse, especially when one 2 months AFTER the refund
I had a card end up in the same situation, though luckily the buyer contacted me directly. It sucks when USPS plays Football with your packages…
Negative feedback really sucks especially if it was something that could be avoided and it takes a whole year to go away
I had a guy haggle ona price than settled on what we both thought was fair and he bought it. He decided not to pay and asked for more pictures. After all that he decided not to pay, when I asked him why he didn’t request pictures to begin with he didn’t have an answer. I opened a unpaid item case and closed in my favor.
Aside from that I stopped doing best offer, I just price the cards to what I want to sell for.
When I start getting that 50% off question and “market is dropping, looking to do you a favor” message I up the price to the second lowest seller.
Much easier to just include photos of the back in the original listing. Takes almost zero extra time to flip a card over and take a photo of the back, and it avoids having to deal with lots of photo requests (which I agree are annoying).
And EX+ is going to vary a LOT from seller to seller. The cards I list as EX+ are minimum PSA 7s, sometimes 8s (in fact I have a former PSA 8 listed as EX+ on eBay right now). The reality is that condition assessments in this hobby are inconsistent and loose. Coming from MTG, I would straight up return a PSA 7-quality card if it was advertised as NM. In MTG, PSA 7/8 condition is called EX, SP, or LP. Because of the inconsistency within this hobby and across different hobbies, I think it’s entirely reasonable to ask for clarification on the condition of a card labeled EX+.
I know what you mean. It definitely is a matter of perspective and opinion to say the least. I tend to add a pic of the back pretty much on the last one because I know someone will like what they see and snag it. Sometimes it can get time consuming adding more pics to a 100+ inventory xD. Though, not all is bad, business has been rising.
The prices of now are so crazy compared to 5 years ago. Masaki Gengar at $300+ when they barely scraped $70 half a year back.
Though I do feel I tend to under-sell on condition, just to not get some crazy messages lol.
