A method to crack down buyer abusing “item not as described”

[samzhangjoe]

Provide as many pictures as possible, and be open to requests for more pictures, but no description at all. Only write: “Nothing described here, you buy what you see in pictures. If you file Item Not As Described, you fail, as if item not as nothing, then it’s everything”.

When you reply to picture requests, don’t say anything, just send the pictures.

[esclyons]

that will not work, a buyer will just say.. the item they received doesn't look like the photos..

[brettjet38]

...open a Shopify Store and set your own terms and conditions.

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

This is fine if you're a casual seller who sells a few things a year.

If you're selling a lot on eBay, you will lose more money via turning off buyers by not being clear about your item than you will save money through IND claims. Not to mention, a scammer is going to try to scam regardless. By not describing your item, you are setting up the possibility for there to be an issue with an actual honest buyer because they won't understand what they are buying.

My policy with eBay has been that it is very skewed to the buyers. You cannot stop the scammers. It is the cost of doing business. So it is rational to operate in a way where I assume buyers are honest, market to them that way to try and give them the most value with the transaction, and then eat the cost of any IND or INR claims. If you operate where you assume each buyer is a scammer, and you are adversarial to them, you might lose more money than you save with claims.

Granted, I'm fortunate to operate in a category (and a country) where buyers seem to be reasonably honest, so maybe it is easier for me to have this approach. I've only had 3 buyers out of hundreds claim their items were defective (In at least two of these cases, I knew they weren't defective, one was a sealed item). Prior to COVID-19, I'd maybe get 1 percent of items claimed as INR. (Letter mail, no tracking) At that rate, you can see why it wouldn't make sense to penalize 99 percent of my buyers, and risk my sales dropping because of it. Your conclusion of what you should do might vary based on your experience and ratio of claims.

You can do whatever you want to protect yourself, but you have to ask yourself if not describing your items will hurt your sales more than it will help you recover funds lost from IND claims. Even know it is frustrating to lose money when you know you did everything by the book, you should look past that and use the strategy which allows your eBay store to profit/grow the most.

[reallynicestamps]

And Cookie Jar Insurance.

Which just means setting aside a few pennies, rarely more than a dime, from each sale, in a virtual Cookie Jar, as a sort of self-insurance premium against the occasional problem.

Not just Disputes, but real problems like shipments delayed in transit or inadequate packaging that leaves the shipment damaged, or shipper errors that leave the package damaged, or even selling a blue sweater and shipping a red one.

And silly ones like objecting that the sweater was supposed to be navy and it was royal blue.

If there is a problem, return shipping labels are purchased with the money from the Cookie Jar. Or even the entire refund of a disappeared item.

Some sellers boast that they actually make money on CJI, just like a real insurance company, because the "premiums" on an annual basis are greater than the payouts, if any.