Anyone noticed that people are not reading emails from eBay?

[dipmicro]

When I contact the buyer with some issue via eBay "Contact Buyer", half times they do not respond and later do not know anything about my message.

I think eBay is sending out so much carp, that email requiring attention gets lost in the sea of notifications enabled by default and customers ignore anything that comes from eBay. Then they forget to check their eBay messages and when they go to "Ask seller a question", it does not tell them they have pending email from that seller.

[dipmicro]

Btw. this board is pretty dead with 1 post per day and half of them are mine. Kind of sad, because this was better quality board, the other Canadian boards are full of junk, too hard to find anything useful beside political commentaries and idle discussions.

[zarzuella]

Agreed on both points; eBay notifications are very unreliable (feast or famine, it seems).

when they go to "Ask seller a question", it does not tell them they have pending email from that seller.

Excellent suggestion. Buyers should get a message on their My eBay overview page in the same manner that sellers get a 'you have a question to answer' message on a listing.

Ann

[zarzuella]

Btw. this board is pretty dead with 1 post per day and half of them are mine. Kind of sad, because this was better quality board, the other Canadian boards are full of junk, too hard to find anything useful beside political commentaries and idle discussions.

There ya go, you've poked me out of 'lurk' mode :^O

[coxengines]

For years now, I have gotten into the habit of replying via someone's real email address and then pasting and sending a copy via the eBay messaging system as well.

Although I do get the odd "received your message 2x" comment, I get far more "I did not get a reply, etc".

I would finger junk mail filters and the fact that many eBayers don't look at their eBay messaging system, relying on their mail client instead, whilst allowing their mail settings to filter messages at whim.

Bernie

[dipmicro]

There ya go, you've poked me out of 'lurk' mode :^O

Ann, did not see you here in some time. What made you come out of the lurking ? 🙂

Bernie, I have also considered replying twice, but it's too much extra work plus I would myself get annoyed with too many emails for one sale. I hate those extra emails when you buy say ten items per day and everyone send you thank you email, both eBay and Auctiva send you email, protect your purchase by BuyShield email, follow us on Tweeter email, we also have a website email, and shipping notification. That's too many blo*dy emails for $3.50 transaction. Perhaps it's just me, I receive around 100 legitimate emails per day, so I am pretty alergic to extra ones.

[recped]

Getting people to actually read the emails they receive is difficult and has been since the days when people got excited to receive an email ended (mid 90's).

The other problem is people who have spam filter setting set to whatever default their ISP set them up with.

Used to be a major issue with AOL, thankfully there are not too many of them left.

My personal experience, other than the odd missing payment notification from PayPal I don't think I've "lost" an email from eBay in years. I know eBay has lots of glitches but I'm confident the messages are being sent.

Btw. this board is pretty dead with 1 post per day and half of them are mine. Kind of sad

It is! I still try to pop by at least once a day but with the low activity I don't always. There was a time this board was fairly active, a number of people have migrated to either the Selling On board or the US Powerseller board. The US board has deteriorated as well, lots of the old regulars have moved on to groups due to the high level of button pushing and wacko political OT threads.

[4thlerbrig]

Maybe if you guys/gals gave out more positive vibes more people would join in?

95% of topics and posts are negative towards ebay!

My advice is Don't sell at ebay then. We are all employees of ebay sort of speak. If I was ebay I would start suspending sellers with negative attitudes!

Kelly

[pjcdn2005]

If I was ebay I would start suspending sellers with negative attitudes!


They would probably start with those sellers that wanted to start a revolution. 😉

[dipmicro]

My advice is Don't sell at ebay then. We are all employees of ebay sort of speak. If I was ebay I would start suspending sellers with negative attitudes!

Whenever there is a factual information, workaround etc, the board response is none (e,.g. my thread about eBay not recognizing B.C. as Canada province for tax purpose). Whenever there is a whiner thread, everybody jumps in (e.g. your eBay feedback revolution).

I am not a born businessman like some, and would appreciate place where business is discussed, how to maximize exposure, what kind of listing works, any experiments, how to utilize and make the most of Best Match, etc. I have put lot of listing fees into experimenting, auctions, fixed price, auction duration, etc., but such information is not noticed here. Pierre disappeared, so there is no one to talk about taxes.

I wonder how many folks actually come here if it's even worth keeping this place alive. Perhaps the few regulars who are left could just move into eBay Canada Seller Club to some uncensored place and the last one turn off the light.

[coxengines]

Roman,

You can always count on me to to post positive, encouraging and, hopefully, helpful responses.

As should be well-known by now, I have little sympathy for whining. Selling, eBay or elsewhere, is mostly an attitude thing.

There are those that struggle with everything that does not meet their approval and there are those that don't join the melee and focus on what they would like to achieve.

Not meaning to pick on you but I receive in excess of 200 email/day and I not only revel in such but encourage more.

Every single email is an opportunity for me to respond and therefore interact with a potential buyer.

An email or a phone call from a potential customer is never an interruption of my workday. Quite the contrary. It is an opportunity to sell.

Let us not forget that that the only reason we are in business is because we have customers.

And, most important of all, there are no stupid questions; only stupid answers by stupid sellers.

I, for one, LOVE emails and, especially, phone calls. Read: $$'s by the time they get off the phone with me ]:)

Bernie

[gifts_of_elegance]

militaryandthings: "We are all employees of ebay sort of speak"

Now, just how do you figure that?

[momoftwingles2]

Hi All,

Remember as well that this board as well as the US Power Seller board is private while other boards on eBay are not. By that I mean, what you post on the other boards may be googled.

So, if you are in the habit of putting buyers down, etc....other potential customers of yours may just google you and see how you conduct yourself on eBay.

Just my 2.5 cents worth for the day!

Susan
momoftwingles2

[4thlerbrig]

lol, about 10 seconds after I hit the reply button, I realized oops, my Revolution was negative. Why is there no edit button?? I would have changed it.

Kelly

[momoftwingles2]

Kelly,

Once you type your message, you may click on Preview. It is in that mode where you may edit your message.

Susan
momoftwingles2

[dipmicro]

Bernie, can you accept the idea that there are people who may think differently and that's still ok? If everyone on earth was Bernie or Roman, the life would be pretty boring. You have your approach, I have mine and while I appreciate all your advices, please do not try to turn me into Bernie.

[dipmicro]

Perhaps I need to add little more not to sound arrogant.

Type A is outgoing liking interraction with customers, emails and phone calls. He likes helping, conversation and socializing. Likes playing golf or squash.

Type B is introvert, likes working in quiet and made his selling as much automated as possible. Work evaluates in amount of code he written or fixed. Likes bicycle and weights.

I met both types at department stores, a guy extremely annoyed when you ask for anything and another extreme is guy you cannot shake when you just wanted to know the isle number.

Also seen both types while working as engineer. While guy type A is generally quite popular with bosses and customers, type B is a workhorse. Type A is sent out when company needs to perform light tasks and babysit the customer, type B is send out when s***t hits the fan.

If we take famous people, the type A and B can be both quite successfull. Steve Jobs of Apple is type A, William Gates of Microsoft is type B.

[coxengines]

Roman,

You have caused me to start my day with a chuckle. What you say is so true, and funny.

I appreciate your candour and, yes, I can accept the fact that others may not think alike.

A world full of nothing but Bernies.... ouch :_|

Bernie

[dipmicro]

Regarding emails, had order from my website to Costa Rica and it was shipped by USPS Express.

Buyer provided billing address in Miami, FL, USA and shipping to Costa Rica.

Received email today that if we shipped this to their forwarder in Miami.

- I replied it was shipped to Costa Rica as per order shipping address and also pasted USPS tracking link. It was showing delivery attempt on 25th.

- The customer responded "where in Costa Rica, you know the Costa Rica is a country?"

- I copied and pasted the address from the order and added that we are aware Costa Rica is a country.

- They replied "But in Costa Rica, which company give me any response?"

- I replied "Shipment would be delivered by Correos De Costa Rica" and also pasted the link to Costa Rican post office website.

- They replied "Please give me tracking number".

Bernie you might enjoy similar exchanges, I am extremely annoyed at this point.

[dipmicro]

I should probably hire CS person of type A. $500/m buys a full-time salesperson in China, but I am uncomfortable opening our internal records to someone I never seen. I would give the job to someone from my family in East Europe, they are only 6hr ahead, unfortunately no-one speaks English well enough :_|