A few years ago, in the European Union, the law governing returns and warranties was amended to include private sellers.
The law states that every buyer has one month, from the date an item is received, to rescind the purchase and get a full refund.
Furthermore, the seller is obligated to carry a 2 year warranty on every new product they sell (I am not making this up!).
I was monitoring the buzz on eBay.de back then and it was predicted that eBay would cease to exist in the EU (like, who wants to sell something and have it sent back after a month or to get a warranty claim 2 years down the road?).
Today, eBay.de alone has 25 million users and is a growing business. I don’t have the stats for the entire EU but will assume that eBay has over 100 million users in the EU.
Although genuine private sellers have, for the most part, found a way around the law, these remain sellers that list only very few items in a given month.
The others, like us (PS are usually considered commercial sellers), continue to sell on eBay in the EU, despite this heavy-handed law being in place. One must almost be a lawyer to comprehend their “terms and conditions” which are usually only found in the “about me” page, as they are too long to fit into the listing page itself.
To recap: Every new item a PS sells on European sites has to have a 2-year warranty for the buyer and the buyer can, up to 1 month after receipt, decide he/she does not want the item, with no need to explain why.
So, if you think not being able to leave (negative) buyer FB is bad, see above.
And if you think these changes will bring eBay to its knees, think again.
Our perceived problems pale in comparison to what other sellers have to deal with – yet they survive, some very well despite (or should I say, because?) the obstacles thrown in their way.
Xena
