WOW are there some bad sellers on Ebay

[fergua3]

So i'm looking for a somewhat hard to find toy for Christmas.  The only sellers that have it are from China.  I've had both good and bad experiences from China based sellers in the past so i am proceeding with a bit of caution.

I emailed the 5 sellers with the most reasonable price for my item, asking each of them to confirm they actually have the item in stock, because all of them have not great feedback which includes negs and neutrals for canceling orders after purchase because they were out of stock.

Of the 5 sellers i emailed, only 2 responded and both of those only after i contacted them a second time, with my title beginning with PLEASE RESPOND.  In both cases the sellers confirmed they had the item in stock.  Great.  But in both cases i went to purchase the item and they price had gone way up........one seller jacked the shipping cost up by over $35 and the other raised the BIN price  and went from being the least expensive item on Ebay to the second most expensive.

Needless to say i am still searching for this item.  Wow.

[femmefan1946]

The lesson I would take from this is : Never ask a seller if they have the item in stock.

An honest seller would be insulted that you thought they would advertise something they didn't have to sell. You were ignored. You may also be Blocked by the seller as a potential problem buyer.

A dishonest seller will lie.

And.

I had a conversation with a potential buyer this week, who was pointing out an egregious error I had made on a listing. Very helpful and polite on both sides, but it also led to me raising the price of the item since it was much more valuable (and saleable) when properly described.

Did you draw the attention of the responding sellers to an item they thought little about and let them know they have errors in their listing in their shipping cost or pricing?

[fergua3]

well, sellers from China are a bit different.   They often source their product from the factory and don't have what they have listed in stock.  If what they have listed sells, they just stroll down the road to the factory and pick one up.  Problem is the item could have gone out of production and they can't get it.  This is why so many sellers from China have negs and neutrals for canceling sales after purchase.

When i contacted them i simply asked if they had the item in hand, becasue if you don't, you probably can't get it from the factory any more.  Nothing terribly offensive about that, that i can see.

Normally i wouldn't bother, but i have a 20% off coupon from Ebay for toys.  If i buy the item and the seller cancels the sale, i've lost the coupon.  And since the item i am trying to get is $200-ish, that is $40 lost if the seller cancels on me.  So i want to be sure before i purchase.

A sixth seller i contacted just messaged me back.  Very quickly and with a picture of the item he has.  He also didn't jack up the price.  So now he has a nice sale.