Is it me or are more and more buyers not reading?

[craftycatsattic]

I've posted a few times about buyers not reading my item descriptions and leaving bad feedback. I sell crochet pattern publications to make the items I picture in my auctions but unfortunately every now and then a buyer comes along and thinks they are buying an actual completed item.

I was given the advice on this board to start putting up pictures of my book or pattern covers (jakeangel (sp?) told me this twice) and I followed that advice on all my new listings even though some of my older listings don't have the covers. Unfortunately it hasn't made a difference. I am still running into the same problem book cover or not.

I must admit I have a really good nose for sniffing out the buyers in question and always follow up. In many cases I have avoided a potential problem but not everyone responds to me or remembers the communications...hence my recent neutral and neg.

I am really not venting. I am working full time now and don't have the time, energy or care to worry about things that are beyond my control but I am truly amazed at the increasing amount of buyers who see a picture and click on the buy it now without taking any time whatsoever to read the item descriptions. It used to happen to me only once in a blue moon, now it happens almost weekly. Just in the last hour I had to cancel 26 transactions from a US reseller (of "ethnic" origin - no comment as to which one) because they thought they were buying a finished item. It seems most buyers who are not reading are from countries that don't speak English or are originally from these countries but living in the US.

Is it just me or has the comfort level of buyers relaxed to the point where they don't read...but do buy, and use all the tools eBay puts at their disposition to trash the buyer?

I am so relieved to be working for someone else now and to have one foot out of eBay's door!

[ricarmic]

I have a similar problem, what has been helping for me is to put very large and brightly coloured wording between all my pictures, this helps catch their eye when they are going through the pictures. I self host and use HTML stuff to do this, I don't know if you can do it with what you are using. If you want to see what I mean you can check anything I have up virtually everything I sell is done this way. I still get problem folks from time to time but that helped reduce them a lot.

[ricarmic]

Hi again, actually it is quicker if you check anything I have that has the words "colossal mixture" in it, I see I don't have the caveat wording in many of the all different packets....the colossal mixtures are my dangerous ones that keep me on the borderline of losing my TSR rating.....

[femmefan1946]

crafty

English is my first language, but frankly I think you do have a problem with your pictures.

You are using closeups of the brochures and cutting out the titles and other indications that they are patterns and not actual made items.

Try to look at the Frilly Fashions ad and the following Barbie Flora of Miami. The first is fairly easy to spot as a booklet, the second , not really.

And as you say, if you add in language problems....

Could you scan your brochures to show the interiors with the written patterns (not all obviously, but enough to show what they are0?

Could you retake the pictures from a greater distance to show that they are brochures/patterns?

Start with the 26 cancelled sales, while they are in your Unsold list, you could pull them from stock and redo the pictures.

BTW, I realize this is a lot of work. I started relisting my books from eBaydotcom to eBayCA when they stupid media cap came in. It's been about 18 months and I am still finding books on the wrong site.

[dipmicro]

You can have the neg removed as profane and vulgar

Btw. your pictures are somewhat misleading and you are right about buyers not reading. eBay must be doing a lot of advertising in dyslectic clubs.

[westernstargifts]

Buyers don't read the titles, let alone the descriptions.

[bighillbargains1]

Buyers don't read the titles, let alone the descriptions.

And they don't even check the shipping costs...

[momoftwingles2]

Another suggestion would be to put CROCHET PATTERNS - Whatever the title is!

That way...Crochet Patterns is FIRST!

However, there is no guarantee that the buyers will read.

Glad that your one foot is elsewhere! I've got both feet at home or at the rink and I'm loving it....as are our girls and my husband. We have so much more family time!

Susan

[pjcdn2005]

I have to agree that it would help to show the actual pattern packaging so that the buyer could see that it was a package of patterns. Right now, I can't tell from the picture that it is a picture of a booklet.

A couple of more suggestions..:)
I'm not a fan of all caps in a title but if you want to use all caps, you should cap the word pattern too. The way it is now, the word pattern sort of disappears. Or, cap PATTERN But Cap Only The First Letter In The Other Words.

You could try putting the number of patterns in front of the word pattern so that the number qualifies the number of patterns .....
12 TEDDY BEAR Crochet Pattern Book
could be
TEDDY BEAR 12 CROCHET PATTERNS BOOK
Or?
12 PATTERNS TEDDY BEAR CROCHET

[coxengines]

I can see where your listings might create misunderstandings.

I had a look at your listing that got you the neg and, yeah, if I were looking for a pet bed, I would assume that is what you are selling and were throwing in patterns with the merchandise (the ++ signs). It might make more sense list like this:

CROCHET PATTERN for Dog Cat Pet Beds Sweaters Booties

Capping the merchandise and lower casing what it is for.
Also, don’t crop your pictures to the point that one does not recognize it’s a pattern book.

The neg, I would call and have it removed.

Good luck!
Bernie

[craftycatsattic]

Thanks for the tips. The listing in question where I got the neg is a much older listing and needs to be revised (500+ listings makes for a lot of older listings that will only get revised as time permits) All my newer listings created since last spring show the book or magazine cover...and of the 26 afghan patterns the reseller bought from me more than half of them had full cover pics.

FemmeFan...sorry but the listings you mentioned: Frilly Fashions and and Barbie Flora of Miami both have full cover pics in them with original retail stickers and all so I don't get why these ones would be confusing...the ones without covers pics yes but not those two.

If you look at other crochet pattern sellers, they all have similar unfavorable feedbacks from buyers who thought they were buying a completed item and that is irregardless of what types of pics they use.

I have been selling on ebay this way for over 5 years and I have never been as transparent as I am now and my point is that the amount of buyers that do not read has never been this bad. It used to happen once or twice a year, now it's once or twice a month.

Oh and to update, the neg will not be removed...only the profanity. I asked them to leave it then, but they have to remove it since I mentioned it. DSR -wise this neg doesn't touch me as the buyer is international. This would have really upset me a few months back when eBay was my only income but I'm really not upset so I guess this inevitable neg came at a great time.

Anyhow, I am pulling all my listings today and am closing down my store. I will be attending a trade convention in California in January and can use a break so it's a temporary closing. Will do some revisions when I come back and will start excluding buyers from certain countries.

Happy Holidays everyone!