I know that we all like to at least window shop eBay. I make very few purchases on there anymore as shipping prices are insane, and make the items I'm looking at unreasonable. However, I have purchased a few pieces of Pyrex on eBay this week. I've made more eBay purchases in the past week than I did all summer. Anyway, I have a little rant that I want to share and get off my chest. One of the things that I am asked to rate a seller on when I give feedback is their communication. If you want to get full stars from me for communication, I expect to actually HEAR FROM YOU! I've had many sellers in the past never update me on when my items ship, or for that matter give me any other kind of communication. When I purchase from you online, I expect the same courtesy that I would get if I bought that item in a shop. I really want to receive a short email from you (not one that is automatically generated by PayPal when you mark the item shipped - although I do appreciate getting shipping notification). I want a seller that sends me a short personalized email saying something to this effect: "Thank you for purchasing ***item name** from me on eBay. I appreciate your business. I will be shipping your item **time frame for item shipment**. I have carefully packed your item to ensure that it arrives safely. If everything is to your satisfaction when your item arrives I would appreciate positive feedback and I will be leaving positive feedback for you as well."
I know that many sellers have many items to ship daily. I know that sending this personal message is a little extra work. Really all that you need to do is keep it saved on your computer, copy and paste the message into an email, fill in the areas that need to be customized, click send, and boom, a nice personal note that is not eBay or PayPal generic. This little note is what makes a good seller a great seller, and keeps me coming back to look at more of your items. It may sound trivial, but when you are selling on eBay you are running a little business, and if you expect friendly customer service from an actual shop that you walk into, the same should be expected from eBay.
Thanks for reading Cul-De-Sac Shack! Have a great Saturday!
Mid Century For Sale!
6 years ago
Unlike you, who seems to have a healthy amount of self-control, I've been buying way too much on eBay recently. Today 4 boxes arrived with the mail lady and unfortunately the husband was here to receive them. Gulp. Anyway, I can tell you that hardly any of the sellers bother to send out a personalized email anymore--some of them have a computer-generated one that at least thanks you for your purchase. Some of them don't even put shipping information in so you don't know when the item is shipped (the notoriously slow sellers are the worst ones for this). On a positive note (and I'm saying this with my fingers crossed since I haven't opened those four boxes yet) I have received only ONE shipment that had broken items. Sellers are taking much more care about packing which is one of the reasons why the shipping & handling charges have increased. I'm not getting many deals any longer on eBay since so many sellers have switched to Buy It Now and oftentimes they're asking for way too much money. And of course they're not selling many of their items, either!
ReplyDeleteLets see, 100+ purchases, maybe two personal emails!
ReplyDeleteI'm not so worried about the time frame, it's stated in just about every auction how many days the seller indicates they will ship in already.
It's alllll the other issues I gripe about on my blog on a regular basis grrr....
When I have a great seller experience, I keep checking their auctions, but they almost never keep selling what I want. just a lot of random stuff. =/
I'm one of those who doesn't usually send out an e-mail anymore unless something is going wrong. :o/
ReplyDeleteI think it's like any business that gets too big for it's britches....they eventually lose interest in customer satisfaction because they are selling/making lots of money.
ReplyDeleteOne way to 'send' them the message is to NOT buy from them again or tell them. They have to 'want' us again...otherwise they don't need us.