w~~_7.JPG "pjcdn2005"){kind=avatar}
"How does cash give a seller better protection?"
Elementary Watson. eBay cannot make you give back the cash in your hands or your bank account.
@mjwl2006 wrote:
On a regular month, I might have four to six unpaid cases per month and about the same number of Cancel Transaction requests.
Hi 'mj' -- The cancellation issues aside, this sounds like quite a lot of unpaid cases monthly to me. Not only is it a hassle and waste of your time, but you have stock in limbo in each instance waiting to be released for re-listing once the case closes.
Honestly, unless you have a large number of cash-on-pickup requests per month, if I were in this situation, I'd stipulate IPR on all listings and indicate that you'll accommodate buyers for cash pickup if they contact you prior to purchasing. Then you won't need to indicate Cash on Pickup in the payment/shipping section of the SYI form, so there would be no conflict between the two on eBay itself.
In very few cases is contact made to tell me within the hour that a buy-it-now was made in error. My grief would be much less if they were.
If you shut down the non-payment problems by using IPR, then you'd have fewer issues with these kinds of cancellations as well. Especially the "kid at the keyboard" type, since the "kid" would need to have the parent's Paypal password in order to process the transaction.
I think perhaps you're causing yourself far too much grief for very little gain in terms of potential customer satisfaction. People are getting used to expecting to pay immediately for their purchases on eBay or lose them to another buyer, primarily I think because IPR is obligatory on .com.
Oh and I am very careful to accept only Cash on Pickup for local pick-ups. I think that if I were a paypal merchant, I could ask them to pay on their mobile device at the door but I don't have that set up and I haven't fully explored it as an option because I simply don't have the time to research its pros and cons. [...] Besides, I think that if a buyer wants to save on postage and I am required to sit around and wait for them to show up (or not) I am entitled to save on paypal fees for my troubles.
You wouldn't need to be set up as a Paypal merchant. Simply have the buyer log onto Paypal using your computer or phone while you stand there and make his/her payment in the usual way. Personally, I'd trade off the Paypal fees for a DC on a cash deal if a scanned DC uploaded by you to eBay messages as seller is acceptable to Paypal. I don't see why this should be any different from a signed DC from some obscure delivery company, but as I said above, I don't know if Paypal has a fixed list of acceptable DC sources.
Are these COP deals recorded in some way on eBay, either by you manually or otherwise? If not, you may not be paying final value fees, but you're also not getting credit for them toward your TRS.
"For posterity, I will note that since the defect system came into effect, one must be very careful around this."
The story you've told (about refunding then being paid in cash and getting a defect) is another good case in point for dropping cash on pickup deals. It simply seems to me that there is potential for trouble of all sorts with cash deals if you're an eBay seller. Then there is the irritation and time wasted sitting around waiting for people to show up (how much is your time worth?), or worse, the risk of some sketchy character showing up at your door.
If these cash deals don't happen every week, why get involved with the risk and bother? As I said above, if you switch to IPR exclusively, the .com buyers you gain by eliminating the cart disconnect messages ("Item Not Available", etc.) may very well make up for the loss of an occasional cash deal. I'd certainly test it for a couple of months if I were in your situation, and see if you can reduce the grief, reduce your wasted time, and increase the sales.
I have to weigh on this post, if for other reason than to share my recent experience with Cancel Transactions. On another account that I manage, I received a BIN transaction from China. Paid instantly. Problem is he somehow overrode ebay's end-of-transaction email and paid shipping to US. First thing I promptly refunded the entire payment and sent first invoice. He responded by only asking why I refunded with no note. (There was, through ebay) explaining the refund. Next day, I thought about his message from the perspective of someone not understanding the TOS in English, so I sent a request to cancel based on address incorrect. He promptly left a negative feedback, stating "weird seller, makes his own rules not ebay's; go play in another room."
I slept on this as the response on the tip of my fingers was not polite.
This morning I called ebay. The first CSR checked out the transaction and communication and said, "no problem, we can cancel that immediately. Go ahead and relist. We will refund your fees within 48 hours. BUT I can't do anything about feedback. He said I can transfer your call to someone who can after I type up the scenario.
Within 2 minutes I was transferred. The young lady read me the riot act on only 1% of all feedback are actually removed. I said no problem, but please investigate. She did and 30 seconds later came back and told me it would be removed within 10 minutes.
It was. I am suitably impressed with their process. I can't believe that my laying it on thick about superior international customer service had anything to do with it. I am a happy camper.
Featured Posts
