Annoying Customers

[2nd-time-around-jewelry]

I have been selling on eBay for a long time.  Have been noticing lately that more people are asking lots of questions about the items I sell without ever buying.  Some ask dumb questions that are clearly answered in my descriptions & pictures.  People don't read anymore.  Had offers made that I have accepted, only to never hear back from them.  Some items I sell are in lots & I have had people ask if I would break up the lots to sell individual items.  I accepted a few & made up new listings just for them.  Then never heard back from them after repeated messages.  And a lot of these persons are not newbies but long time buyers & sellers.  What a waste of my time in dealing with these persons. I have been blocking any people now who ask constant questions, want special orders, never reply back or just make me feel uneasy. Anyone else notice this annoying trend?

[ricarmic]

As long as it turns out to be "buyer changed their mind" it doesn't cost us $$ aside from our time. (maybe, I'm not sure about full refunds and if the new PAYPAL doesn't give us our fees back applies in that situation on .COM)

I too have had evolving excuses the odd time as to the reason. (Which really I don't care, I really only care that they ask for it to be cancelled).

Whilst folks like this are a pain to us, if mathematically a buyer "only" complains in 5% of their purchases, whilst they are a pain to those 5% they complained about and ebay, although the majority of the ebay process is automated, they are still likely presenting a significantly positive overall financial impact. By this I mean to ebay and the 95% of the sellers transactions they didn't complain about they were financially beneficial, and overall the net balance is significantly positive. I'm not sure at what point the overall positive impact outweighs the negative, too late in the day for that kind of math, but it is the reason that buyers have a long leash.

I do know that the odd time I've checked a buyers "feedback left" after I've shipped stuff to them and there is some bad, nasty stuff in there. Almost always I hear nothing or get positive from them, and if I hadn't gone to look in their left feedback I'd have never known. (crossing my fingers I haven't cursed myself now).

Often when I do get neutrals or negatives, I find myself the first or in a very very small number of negs/neutrals having been left. Fortunately often it is a result of actual issues in the material sent or a misunderstanding of what was purchased (I sell dangerous mixed lots) and with communication with the buyer it can be positively resolved.

I am likely quite fortunate though that I sell to the stamp folks as opposed to other stuff, I can't imagine my processes working with my children's generation.

[ricarmic]

I'm in procrastination mode so I'm going to share another story.

In the days long ago before the internet, lists were maintained of bad, non-paying customers.

I had a customer purchase from me who was on the "doesn't pay" list as a very high risk.

It turns out this fellow always did pay, but one had to be patient. Usually a few weeks, sometimes as long as 6 months, in extreme cases a year. 

Because I took the time to learn and accept this particular buyers behaviour/style, and adopt strategies to manage my risk, I sold likely over $30,000 worth of stamps to him over about a decade.

The online world makes it much harder for this kind of thing to work, although I do have buyers that often have their material sit/accumulate for weeks at a time, some of them have been with me and doing this for over a decade now.

It is important to remember that risk management is a big aspect of this, but I'm glad I took the risk with the fellow long ago, and my regular "accumulating" customers are very appreciated now too...

[2nd-time-around-jewelry]

Just finished dealing with another loser customer.  She was a newbie. She asked lots of questions which were answered in my description, but I answered them anyway.  Asked if she could get it a little cheaper which I obliged.  Mentioned my listings were all in Canadian dollars so with the exchange rate, it is a great deal for US buyers. Asked her to let me know if she wanted to buy the item & I would change the price for her. She messaged me a few times that she would like to do that. So I changed the listing for her & told her it was ready for her to buy. That was Saturday. No reply or messages from her at all since then.  So today went back into my listing & changed the price back to original & placed her on my blocked list. What a waste of time.