eBay

triber · ‎12-08-2016

I check my buyer requirements activity every few days, I often get buyers trying to purchase from countries to which I don't ship to. I checked yesterday, and found one that was to the US. I have always sold to the US. I checked the listing, and it was correct and had US shipping.

I don't understand why it would come up that I don't ship to the US. The buyer has almost 800 feedbacks.

ypdc_dennis · ‎12-08-2016

@triber wrote:
I check my buyer requirements activity every few days, I often get buyers trying to purchase from countries to which I don't ship to. I checked yesterday, and found one that was to the US. I have always sold to the US. I checked the listing, and it was correct and had US shipping.

I don't understand why it would come up that I don't ship to the US. The buyer has almost 800 feedbacks.

Is the buyer actually located in the US?

There are lots of international buyers who use reshipping companies with a US address, because it is a lot cheaper than shipping directly (especially if they buy a lot of stuff online from the USA).

-..-

triber · ‎12-08-2016

It says that they are US, I have no way of knowing where their actual address is. When I go to their feedback it also say US.

momcqueen · ‎12-08-2016

I found something weird on my Buyer Requirements Activity Log yesterday too.

Two blocked purchases form the same buyer for Unpaid followed by the successful purchase of that item by a buyer that had that exact number of feedback from the same country as the blocked one immediately afterwards. It's as if the buyer tried twice and was blocked but on the third attempt, was able to buy and pay. And I shipped it immediately, directly to the post office last night.

What to make of that?

femmefan1946 · ‎12-08-2016

WAG-- since Blocks are for a year, to the second, she bid twice before the Block expired and once after?

pjcdn2005 · ‎12-08-2016

I've heard of that happening to US sellers too. No one seems to know why that happens.

i.am.vivian · ‎12-09-2016

@femmefan1946 wrote:
WAG-- since Blocks are for a year, to the second, she bid twice before the Block expired and once after?

Are they? I had been wondering about that. I can't find anything in any of the policy pages that says how long a UI strike lasts. There is nothing to indicate they drop off. A seller can BLOCK for 2 or more in the space of a year, but I see nothing that says after 1 year, clean slate for the buyer. I think a strike might be forever.

This is where I started looking. Does anyone else see better? Am I missing an important info page? Unfortunately it is not something I want to play around with to find out. 🙂

http://pages.ebay.ca/help/policies/unpaid-item.html

ypdc_dennis · ‎12-09-2016

@i.am.vivian wrote:
@femmefan1946 wrote:
WAG-- since Blocks are for a year, to the second, she bid twice before the Block expired and once after?
Are they? I had been wondering about that. I can't find anything in any of the policy pages that says how long a UI strike lasts. There is nothing to indicate they drop off. A seller can BLOCK for 2 or more in the space of a year, but I see nothing that says after 1 year, clean slate for the buyer. I think a strike might be forever.

I read femmefan1946's comment as the seller's block is only good for 1 year. She is not saying the buyer's UI strike history disappears after 1 year.

A seller's block is only for the most recent UI strikes. so it does not count against the buyer if they have older UI strikes beyond the blocked time period.

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triber · ‎12-10-2016

I exempted this buyer, and she purchased today. Her address is in New Jersey. Just be aware, I am now checking my buyer requirement activity every day.

momcqueen · ‎12-10-2016

Could this be a technical confusion over the 'primary' shipping address of the buyer? I never quite understood what makes an address primary when it ships to which ever one you pay for it to go to and it's the one you should be using as your Main address when making the purchase to avoid confusion. Like, maybe it's buyer error. Could she have been logged into ebay with the wrong address as Primary? It doesn't set itself properly and fully until you log out and log back in again.

triber · ‎12-10-2016

She has always had the same address. The mistake was eBays. She has almost 800 feedbacks, never had this problem before. I thought I had lost the sale, I had send a message and explained, and I was glad to see that she tried again.

momcqueen · ‎12-10-2016

Do you mean to say that ebay omit the Apartment Number from her Shipping Address?

You and she should report that to ebay Customer Service as a technical glitch. That's a big problem. You printed the shipping label via paypal? Or just took it to the post office with ebay's buyer data on it as your ship-to information?

triber · ‎12-10-2016

You are not understanding my first message. Buyer tried to purchase and couldn't. I got the message that "buyer trying to purchase from location to which I don't ship". She was from the US, to which I certainly do ship.

momcqueen · ‎12-10-2016

No, what I did was reply to the incorrect topic.

triber · ‎02-06-2017

Last week this happened again, buyer tried to purchase several times, but the message "buyer from country to which I don't ship" came up, I checked, and they were in the US, I have been shipping to the US for 17 years.

This time I called eBay and they lady said it was probably a coincidence that it had happened to me twice. She forwarded it to technical support. She checked mine and the buyers stats, and everything was fine.

Well, today, I got another one the same. I called again, and was told not to worry, it was probably a glitch. I was told to email the buyer and tell them to log on as a visitor. I explained that each time I have sent a message, they never reply, probably just purchase from someone else. Once again it's being forwarded to technical support.

Just a heads-up to check you Buyer requirement activity.

momcqueen · ‎02-06-2017

Good to know.

I check my Buyer Requirements Activity Log daily out of a sense of self-torture because it only ever tells me one thing and that is that I am the only seller who still uses a block of too many unpaid item case strikes since the person at the top arrived on my log with 122 feedback count and has been steadily shopping without difficulty since then.

So then, I ask once more, in the day and age of Immediate Payment Required, what is the point of an Unpaid Item Strike block? I don't run auctions. I do offer Cash on Pickup and they are mutually exclusive. To offer Pay on Pickup, I cannot enable IPR.

triber · ‎02-06-2017

Yes, I get quite a few with too many unpaid items, it is blocking US buyers that is causing me the problems.

ricarmic · ‎02-06-2017

This is why I have no blocks of any kind.

So far it hasn't seemed to cause many problems, see my "2016 cookie jar/self insurance" results separate thread.

However one must keep in mind I'm selling to a very long time established "mail order" industry (stamp collectors).

i.am.vivian · ‎02-06-2017

mjwl2006 wrote:
I am the only seller who still uses a block of too many unpaid item case strikes since the person at the top arrived on my log with 122 feedback count and has been steadily shopping without difficulty since then.

A lot of sellers don't block for UIs, that's true. Those mega-seller-drop-shippers don't bother, they just have the automatic UI thing set up and if no payment comes the buyer gets a strike but all their listings have "more than 10 available" anyway. Also, since everything on eBay is "to the second", it could be that the 122 (167) buyer received a strike on Dec 29 2015, which would result in an inability to buy from you on Dec 28, but since then has been able to buy on eBay because more than a year has passed since that Dec 2015 strike.

Grasping at straws, I know, but it's a possibility. 🙂

mjwl2006 wrote:

what is the point of an Unpaid Item Strike block? I don't run auctions. I do offer Cash on Pickup and they are mutually exclusive. To offer Pay on Pickup, I cannot enable IPR.

It could be that there is not much point to it at all. Even so, I wouldn't want to see eBay delete it. There will always be 'thrill bidders' who don't pay and the only way to get it through to them is if they find themselves blocked. When they can't buy because of too many UIs, Good.

I don't see the UI strike block as being a means for any sellers to permanently punish what they believer are wrongdoers. If a buyer can't buy from seller, that should be enough for that seller. It is not for that seller to bar the deadbeat everywhere. Each seller looks after their own.

Since people who buy and don't pay, click to "commit" then keep shopping for a better deal tend to keep doing it, the point of the UI strike is 1) that sellers can block these time-wasters, and 2) the time-wasters learn that not paying is a bad idea.

If you are wondering if it would make any difference to your listings, try taking the block off. It might depend on how patient you are with nonpayers. You're bound to get one.

If you wanted to add IPR you could always say in your listings something about people who want to do a pick up can send a msg so you can make arrangements (take the listing out of IPR). I'm just thinking out loud right now. I don't think there is a perfect system of all payments, all prompt, all the time. We just have to decide what bugs us the most and work with that.

ricarmic · ‎02-06-2017

Buyers do catch on. I had a buyer who got a UID a long time ago from me (and that is pretty rare, I maybe have 5 a year) contact me asking if I could rescind it so they can buy stuff because they were being blocked....they were even so kind as to describe the whole process I would have to follow to rescind it.... I didn't rescind of course....

That was the long version of me saying that UIDs can have the proper impact, that buyer now knows they need to pay for stuff....