At What Point Is a Potential Buyer Wasting Your Time?

[wicks-n-suds]

I’m new at selling on eBay Canada and have am starting to get good feedback as a seller. Today someone with zero feedback messaged me asking about shipping rates for multiple items. They also asked about a discount for multiple items. I don’t have a problem giving a discount for 6 items as well as shipping but they kept saying they were new to eBay. They gave me their address and I gave them a quote. I know some sellers consider zero feedback a red flag but I always try to give the benefit of the doubt because we all start out somewhere.

A few minutes later someone with a lot of feedback with a Postal code from the same small town city sent me as message saying “It’s xxxx dollars to send this to xxxx?? as if they were dumbfounded by the price. I use calculated shipping btw so I don’t make up inflated prices.

Back to the original message from zero feedback buyer...I told them I had set it for them to order and could do a flat rate shipping discount. I took the time to edit this option on my listing and didn’t hear anything back.

Hours later still nothing and when I went back to change the shipping options, I get a message immediately saying they want to order and how do they do it? If they know how to send a message on eBay they would know how to buy something here.

At this point I’m getting annoyed and know it’s a time waster. I can’t help but think it could be an experienced buyer/seller just jerking me around for their own amusement. I’ve had great buyers so far without any hassle. They just order.

When I try to block this person it says “invalid user Id” which apparently is an eBay glitch. I’ve told them I took the time to set this up and if I don’t hear back I’m changing my shipping option back to calculated shipping. I’ve already done it. Can they leave me negative feedback if they haven’t bought anything? I’m trying to be professional and answer questions but all the red flags are there.

What would you do? I can’t block them either because of this glitch.

[recped]

What would I do?

I would work with them to overcome their lack of knowledge and help them deal with the issue that eBay put up (especially for combined order) and hope I got good results.

I had one just last week that I had to handhold....was it worth it? Well that time they spent about $50 and they were back this week to spend another $75.

I like money and I don't mind doing a little work for it, after all I'm running a business and in  comparison to all the previous businesses I operated it doesn't get much easier than eBay and even the most difficult buyers here take a lot less effort than many I've experienced over the years.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

@wicks-n-suds 

The thing they may not be building into their fantasy shipping rates is:

a) How much does the stuff weigh

b) Dimensions if it happens to be a larger box

c) What services are available for those weights(Limited services available for heavier items to some locations.

Some have this weird idea it's based on value of item. It's not.

-Lotz

[wicks-n-suds]

Thanks for your replies. I never heard from them again. I figured they weren’t serious. A day later I had a sale from someone else without incident. Just going to take this in stride and be cautious. I have hundreds of great items I can sell and will focus my intentions on the good buyers.

[nostalgicaftertaste]

As a general note in answer to the topic question, it has been my experience that the more questions a buyer asks, the less likely they are to actually purchase the item, paradoxically. Especially once the conversation starts to turn towards "What's the lowest you'll go on it?" or the buyer asks multiple questions that can easily be answered by reading the description or examining the photos, it's time to direct them back to the listing and move on.

[femmefan1946]

When a buyer wants to make a Best Offer on a group of listings, I will make him a Fixed Price/Immediate Payment Required listing for his purchase, with appropriate shipping.

Then I use his name as the title, tell him what to look for and usually give him a deadline of 48 hours at most.

No purchase? I end the listing and add him to my Blocked Bidders List as a timewaster.

If you are doing this with any one of a kind items (OOAK), be careful not to have both the BO and the original running at the same time. If you close the original it will go to your Unsold Items List and can be reopened at any time in the next 60 days.

So that's your newbie.

The experienced member was being rude, perhaps as a ploy to shake your confidence in your pricing. I get more of that sort of ploy with my more feminine -sounding IDs than with my macho IDs. Gosh, I wonder why?

If the member is also a seller, she knows how much shipping costs. If not, or if she is not in Canada, you could send her this link along with the weight and dimensions of the item she is enquiring about.

https://www.canadapost.ca/cpotools/apps/far/business/findARate?execution=e1s1

It's worthwhile bookmarking that if you haven't already.

Can they leave me negative feedback if they haven’t bought anything?

No.