eBay

avidhiker-33 · ‎07-25-2023

Wondering if any of you have received an order from a newer buyer with an unusually high number of buys, and how you've handled it.

Last evening (July 24th) I received an order for bluray which will net a little under $11 after fees & taxes, one I would normally mail with $1.94 postage. Tracking via Expedited Lite is a little over $7.

The customer's account was created July 8, 2023 and the customer has already accumulated 49 ratings from sellers. Given my own ebay customer experience -- that about 20% of ebay sellers in the "Movies & TV" category do not leave feedback -- this customer may have already purchased 60+ items in just 16 days.

That strikes me as unusual given my experience as a newer customer when, despite already having received and left feedback on 3 buys totalling more than $300, I was not allowed to bid on auction items, and was told I had exceeded my buying limit when I tried to place 2 orders totalling $45 on the same day.

ilikehockeyjerseys · ‎07-25-2023

It is unusual, but it could very well be someone who decided to start collecting physical media and got excited about picking up a bunch of cheap movies.

I would just send it. I wouldn't pay for tracking. I don't think it is definitive enough. Also, if a brand new buyer opened 40 INRs, and sellers actually reported them, their account would get nerfed way before they got to getting the refund on your item.

I wouldn't cancel and take the OOS defect. A defect is worth more than the postage, supplies, and whatever your unit cost is. Especially if you don't have a high volume of sales.

You can't avoid the occasional INR. It sucks, but you have to work it into your margins. If this was a $50 DVD, and the marginal cost for Expedited Lite was a few bucks, I would say go for the tracking. I have had years where I have thousands of lettermail orders, and maybe I will have 1 or 2 INRs every few hundred orders. It is very uncommon in media. You tend to notice it more the lower volume you sell, because if you sell 50 items a month and maybe get unlucky once or twice, it feels like such a large number.

Outside of acting in bad faith, there isn't really a way to cancel an order. The only legitimate way around it is that if a buyer has a really bad profile, eBay's customer service will sometimes give you the go-ahead to cancel using the 'Problem With Address'. As in, you contact them and point out that a buyer has a dozen pieces of feedback left for sellers stating their item didn't arrive, you think there must be an issue with their address or with the buyer's conduct and you don't want to proceed. Depending on if the CSR understands the issue, they will usually allow you to cancel, report buyer, and put a note on the order. You can check the buyer's "feedback left for others" to see if they have left a lot of feedback about items not arriving, but I doubt they have. This just sounds like someone getting excited and buying a lot of stuff. DVDs and Blu-rays are cheap, so it would be easy for someone to buy dozens in a month.

reallynicestamps · ‎07-25-2023

If you are uncomfortable the $7 in tracked shipping is cheaper than an OOS defect.

And you will still have a $4 profit.

Never fear upgrading for your own emotional health.

Life is too short to drink bad wine.

ricarmic · ‎07-25-2023

This is exactly why I don't research buyers after they purchase, nor watch tracked packages en route.

It simply creates (probably) unnecessary worry for me.

I do weaken and watch some tracked packages and I don't remember the last time that whatever I saw that was worrisome was actually worrisome, ie the package arrived and all was well, so I try to remember that when I have the urge to watch something on its way....

flipistics · ‎07-25-2023

@ricarmic wrote:
This is exactly why I don't research buyers after they purchase, nor watch tracked packages en route.

It simply creates (probably) unnecessary worry for me.

I do weaken and watch some tracked packages and I don't remember the last time that whatever I saw that was worrisome was actually worrisome, ie the package arrived and all was well, so I try to remember that when I have the urge to watch something on its way....

Yeah, you can go crazy watching it. This is what I saw the other day when I looked at a package that hadn't been delivered to the buyer yet (it's finally moving again as of yesterday).

In regards to @avidhiker-33 , I suspect it's probably a drop shipper. Some may try to pass on costs if they get scammed themselves, but I feel like the chances of them risking their account on a relatively low value item is fairly small.

rocketscollectibles · ‎07-25-2023

Wondering if any of you have received an order from a newer buyer with an unusually high number of buys, and how you've handled it.

I do not analyze buyers profiles and i would have handle it as a normal order. Other than adding tracking i don't see what else you could do anyway. Dishonestly cancel with a false reason? And based on assumptions and overthinking? I'm happy if i see someone buying this much, it's counter productive to discriminate the buyer for it.

People have a tendency to be scared by new buyers, paradoxically from experience most buyers i had trouble with were long-time registered high feedbacks users. They are the ones who know how to exploit the system, and sometimes acting like something their is due because they are eBay experienced users. New buyers buy and you never heard back from them.

reallynicestamps · ‎07-25-2023

And notice those SEVEN!!! aargh aargh AARGH!!! notices from Toronto cover a period of a whole 18 hours between arrival and departure on the 20th.

And remember there is more than one terminal in Toronto, not counting Mississauga/Gateway.

Sometimes too much information is too much information.

ilikehockeyjerseys · ‎07-26-2023

On the topic of adding tracking for peace of mind: If this is some prolific scammer, they can still scam you if you add tracking. They would open a return. The cost of the label is going to exceed the value of a sub 20 dollar item. They know that unless you're very stubborn, you're unlikely to provide a label that loses you additional money and/or takes even more of your time.

This is where the over-thinking of it doesn't make much sense.

I would send it as is. The keeping it simple for your own sanity part is that if they turn out to be a scammer, resolve the INR, block, and move on without wasting too much time over thinking it.

You can find something sketchy about every buyer's account if you look hard enough. It's a new buyer, they must be a scammer's sock puppet. It's a really old buyer, they must know how to play the system. The name on the address is different than the name on the account file. The account says registered in USA, but it is getting delivered to Canada. The buyer hasn't bought anything in a few years, maybe their account was taken over by a scammer. The buy has bought too much stuff this year, maybe they are padding their account with good feedback to make it easier to steal from me. Etc.

In the long run, most of that won't prove to be true. Once or twice, maybe you end up right and it is coincidentally a scammer. In the long run, if you upgraded every cheap order, you'd lose more money than you make. I'm not saying don't cancel if the buyer has a dozen feedbacks stating their item didn't arrive, but once you start looking into anything other than that you could go down a slippery slope of finding reasons why every buyer might be a scammer. INR scams do happen, but they don't happen enough to merit the amount of thought most sellers put to combating them.