But don't some buyers become unreasonable (perhaps even fraudulent) after receiving the item? The deal isn't really "done" until the buyer is satisfied with his purchase and will not be contesting issues with seller, right?
I am professional international ebay seller. Problems are horrible fees and US dollar belly up. Btw, shooting star is close if I will not stop selling. Btw, buyer protection is that high that buyer can steel from sellers freely. You simple write that you never received item or it is not as described and make a Paypal clam. And you have both item and money. Feedback was important - in principe sellers of more expensive items like me had the only chance - not accept paypal payment if there was such problem mentioned in past. Now buer can steal and even use same user ID freely. There are more problems with fraudulent buyers like sellers - because rarely are purchased items from sellers with low feedback but buyers with few feedback are very common.
Good point - my naivete (I"m only 55 probably didn't have me considering that - I don't really know how much of a problem buyers may have become but my guess is not enough to warrant the mindset that sellers developed to not give a rating until the buyer did - that really prevented some buyers from giving any sort of negative feedback to the seller, which is also not a good thing. Am imperfect system no matter what - as a buyer now, I look for LOTS of sales from a seller with a feedback of 99+.
The same argument can be made for every other professional vendor on the net. Look at Zappos, for example. You want shoes, you go online and buy it. They ship it to you with a tracking service (UPS). You don't receive it, they can find where it went. If you did receive it and try to claim otherwise for a refund, the proof is more on vendors side. They have the tracking. (UPS requires signature) Too many vendors use the USPS system for delivery either 1st class or Priority delivery, neither of which require signature receipt. Easy to claim"Well I never received it!" Trying to say a little money at the same time charging you a markup for delivery. There are so many ways a vendor can protect themselves from fraudulent buyers the same way Zappos or any other vendor does. The only problem is that so many sellers are so small minded trying to make it rich that they shoot themselves in the foot. Seriously, who takes a personal check for an item any more? Oh yeah, some idiot seller crap on ebay, that's who. Even my landlord doesn't take a check for the office rent - direct deposit only baby!
Back around 1990, when I had some debt I wanted to pay off as quickly as possible, I sold almost my entire CD collection (400 or so) via a usenet news group, collecting nothing but checks from scores of people - nothing ever bounced and people sent me checks before receiving the CD's. I think it might be different now.
I agree completely. Powersellers with 4 or 5 digits feedback ratings can basically do whatever they hell they want and they know if that if the buyer gives them negative feedback for whatever reason (slow shipping, doesn't answer email, etc) then they can retaliate against the buyer by returning the favor with a neg. Buyers with low feedback ratings are hurt much more with a single negative feedback and thus are a loathe to risk it against a powerseller for whom a single negative only affects their rating by 0.01% Sellers shouldn't leave negative feedback if their only complaint is that the buyers left negative feedback - that is retaliatory. They can always leave a response to the negative feedback left against them. I agree with the other posters - if I as a buyer paid promptly then the seller should give positive feedback since I have completed my end of the transaction. Sellers that wait to leave feedback until the buyer do so first are gaming the system. There are so many different things on ebay I don't want to pass judgment but for the things that I search for there, I rarely see brand new items that actually sell for anything close 60% off. Sometimes I see auctions for new items end with a price higher then what the buyer could have paid at a regular internet store (when you factor in shipping) Bidders frenzy I guess. If you see anyone selling 1TB hard drives new (any brand) at 60% off please let me know...I wont hold my breath.
If you ship tracked and insured (UPS has free insurance up to $100) the only bad things a buyer can do are not pay or pay fraudulently. And it's pretty easy to protect against most of that. I've seen many fraudulent sellers on eBay, even wrote to eBay a few times. eBay didn't do squat. I've even seen sellers go bad. And there is no way you can predict that. Nice feedback, lots of items, regular sales then something happens - they flip out, go bankrupt, get divorced, discover crack or who knows, but all of a sudden the negative feedbacks start coming. Thanks to eBay's resolution process, you are supposed to wait a month or more before posting bad feedback - so the auctions continue to run and the fraud rakes in the dough for a while. I buy and sell on eBay, although not nearly as much as I used too. The vast majority of fraud on eBay is on the seller side. Most of the buyer fraud is easy for the seller to stop.
Hardware is the worst on eBay. Too many people have no idea about pricewatch.com and end up bidding the price on a used item to higher than it would be to buy a brand spankin' new one.
Not correct. I am selling used optical items and 90% of problems start when the buyer received the item: 1. Do not know how the item work - blame seller. 2. Expect same precision from 80 years camera like one manufactured today 3. Do not read description. You will not believe how many buyer try return item, and often force me to do, although there was stated that I am selling it like collectible, that item does not work and I am selling it as is with no return? 4. Do not know standard used by description. 5. They told that item in principe works but for example has not something like they expected so they do not need it. They return item but get refund including item price, and can you for example imagine how much costs packet in weight 20 kg shipped from EU to USA? etc