[Closed] Ebay experience

I think he wants to offer you £450 to buy it now.
No idea beyond that....

I had another offer to drive the frame 130 miles to Liverpool for less than the current bid. Ebay is offering me a window into the bizarre world that exists beyond my lockdown.

well:

the other day people were leting it tun n the person who won was just biding ok the bikes for stn to do.

but he/she can..

save ye a lot of stress n but it today for 450.

even though...

anoo it’s still ruing mate.

Pretty clear to me.

I think I might stay in lock down and extend that to locking myself away from Ebay muppetry.

I think a literal translation into English would be

“Hi mate. I know it is still running (mate) but the other day people were letting it run and the person who won was just bidding on the bikes for something to do. I can save you a lot of stress and buy it today for £450”

But what he means is:
"Will you sell it to me for less than I think the auction will end at? Also I am an idiot and will be a pain to deal with"

My experience does seem to tally with other threads on here, that lock down has given more people time to peruse places like Ebay to either by a bike to spend their lock down time on or to speculate on bikes as it is seen as a boom market.

Either way, the whole Ebay thing has become a bit of a turn off.

Yep, ebay is a idiot magnet for sure.

When selling you get constant messages asking what size the large, blue frame is or can I have it for 78p and will you deliver it.

It's almost as trying to buy a bike. Here I have for sale my speshalised bike, its an awesome weapon/rig. Really good condition. Meanwhile the (poorly taken) photos show it to have a rusty chain, paint that looks like it has been used as a target for rifle practice and stored at the bottom of the ocean before and after. All for the price of £300 more than the RRP 4 years ago.

I copy and pasted the message into Google Translator.

There was a gurgling noise then it shut down 😯 😯

I block all potential buyers that contact me using poor grammar and punctuation, or use "text speak" in their request. It's harsh, but life's too short to deal with idiots and it's never done me wrong. I try to make my listings reasonably well described and comprehensive - asking me for stuff that's clearly written in the listing is another way to get yourself blocked 🙂

I have been known to consider offers to end listings early (and I've made a fair few myself too, it must be said!) but I'll take each one on merit and, generally, prefer to run auctions to the end where possible.

One note: remember to only accept Paypal for when you're posting and never accept it for personal collections - it's far too easy for someone to pick something up and then claim you never posted it and get Paypal to reverse the transaction. If they're collecting in person, then it's cash or (more commonly these days) immediate bank transfer while stood on the drive.

My experience, not just on eBay but with any classifieds system and pretty much anything in general, is that anyone who calls me “mate”, “pal”, “chum” or similar is just going to be a monumental pain in the arse, so I either ignore them or fob them off.

So that alone would get him in the sea, never mind the illiterate gobbledegook or the more fundamental fact that eBay is a big dog’s arse full of scammers and ne’er-do-wells at the best of times and that anyone who doesn’t simply follow the correct process of winning the auction and then paying up can **** right off.

It deciphers as:

"Hello. I am one of the many illiterate forms of pond life that exist on eBay and whilst I'm well aware I'm offering you below the price that the auction is currently at, in my tiny mind, I believe this is a good deal for you and therefore you should bite my arm off as I'm actually doing you a favour. Yours sincerely, A N Idiot"

If only there was a mountain bike magazine affiliated forum where one could buy and sell bikes with other serious minded fellow cyclists........

There is, and it works OK most of the time for me

Just let the item run it's course if that is what you want to do and just delete all questions without reading them. In my experience anyone that asks a question never bids on the item so save time by not even reading the questions as 99% of the time they will be stupid and annoying.

ive sold 40 items , half of it bike stuff, in the last few weeks. All completely fuss free.

It’s usually pretty easy to filter the genuine queries from the cheeky / annoying gits who insist on making offers that are pretty much always less than what the item is worth. eBay prices are incredibly good right so 99p auction will likely be the best bet. I sold an amp recently hoping for £600. I rejected an offer of £500 although I considered suggesting £550 - it sold for £820. In the last 2 months everything I’ve sold has gone for more then I expected - all these furloughed people with nothing to spend their 80% salaries on!

I’ve also bought and sold lots on eBay recently without any problems.

As for just deleting questions unanswered - that’s pretty daft unless your description is, without doubt, utterly perfect and informative on every level.

For second hand items, especially those with a poor description, I’ll often ask a question about the item before bidding. You also get another piece of information for free. What kind of seller you’re buying from.

As for just deleting questions unanswered – that’s pretty daft unless your description is, without doubt, utterly perfect and informative on every level.

Not daft at all. Comes from selling on eBay for 17 years (£50,000 of sales). My experience shows me that people that ask questions are 99% of the time, time wasters.
If a question comes in from a genuine bidder and I miss it then so be it. Someone else will buy it.

You know what sort of seller you are buying from by looking at my 1,000s of 100% positive feedback...

But what he means is:
“Will you sell it to me for less than I think the auction will end at? Also I am an idiot and will be a pain to deal with”

This ^^

comes from selling on eBay for 17 years (£50,000 of sales).

You know what sort of seller you are buying from by looking at my 1,000s of 100% positive feedback…

LOL. 😂

Daffy +1.
Many posts don't provide enough information to determine whether or not to bid.
Clearly, kerley's items are always fully and accurately described thus negating the need for any bidder to ask clarification questions.
Yeah, right.

Sold 4 bikes last week, two on ebay two on faceache.

For two I had to deal with dozens of similar op and height related messages daily for a week. Then get charged nearly 15% for the privilege.

The other two were picked up next day and paid in cash for full asking.

Clearly, kerley’s items are always fully and accurately described thus negating the need for any bidder to ask clarification questions.

Again, 17 years of selling and 100% feedback. And yes I do always list with very good photos and very good, honest description

Just giving my experience (and advice based on it) that people that ask question are time wasters. If you don't agree and want to waste time answering all the questions then carry on.

The last question I received was “Hello, if I pay the asking price, could you dispatch today?”

I replied in the affirmative, sold my item within 2 hours of listing and posted it within 2 hours of auction close.

What positive outcome could have come from ignoring the question?

Just because you’ve been on eBay for a time and have VERY polarised opinions doesn’t make you right, nor does your feedback give evidence of a good model. How much more might you have made/sold by being a more tolerant seller?

You don’t have to reply to every question, but deleting them out of hand is silly. It reminds me of my old school managers when I first graduated. “E-mails are a waste of my time, if it’s important enough, they’ll call or find me”. AKA - “I’m more important than you and my time is worth more than yours.”

I was trying to sell some forks on FB the other day. Guy messaged to say he would take them and collect the next evening. He then delayed that by 24 hrs and didnt show, so I went to message him that evening to find out what was going on and he had blocked me.

They were a set of cheap Suntours I was selling for £40

I think some question need to be asked of this

Don't mind answering sensible (and grammatically correct - see above!) questions as they often tell you as much about the buyers as they find out about the seller, but stupid questions can GTFO. Often knowing that the other party properly understands bikes is a good indication that they are not going to rip you off either as buyer or seller.

Once based the decision on whether to buy a road bike from facebook off a single photo of it, because in the background was a load of empty cardboard boxes for Torq gels. Who but a roadie would be bulk-buying gels? 🙂

Slight Hijack... I have a road bike I’m looking to sell, what group on Facebook is worth signing up for?

The last question I received was “Hello, if I pay the asking price, could you dispatch today?”

You don’t have to reply to every question, but deleting them out of hand is silly. It reminds me of my old school managers when I first graduated. “E-mails are a waste of my time, if it’s important enough, they’ll call or find me”. AKA – “I’m more important than you and my time is worth more than yours.”

That's a sample of 1 though. I'd rather miss that 1 opportunity to sell it early than have to deal with 5 numpties timewasters. It's a bit like getting rid of stuff. You'll get rid of 10 items and you can guarantee that you'll need one of the items in a month. BUT the value of freeing up the space of the other 9 is worth the inconvenience. There's a bit of Prospect Theory in there somewhere.

Someone posted on the forum a few weeks ago to say bike parts were selling like hot cakes on ebay at the moment. That weekend I had one of the £1 max fee things so had a big clearout. As usual I took plenty of decent pics and an honest description. Put them all on at buy it now at a price I thought was reasonable for clearing out kit I will probably never use again. Most items were sold before Monday the rest after a few more days.
But..... posting expensive items can leave you open to the PITA people. I have a bit of a rule of thumb anything up to £50 shove it on post it and finger crossed.
Bikes and more expensive items, if I can I do cash on collection type things.
That said I sold a fairly decent carbon hardtail recently and included postage to widen my market. The guy that bought it sends a message in slightly broken English asking me to send it to a forwarding company near the M25 to then have it delivered to Bulgaria! Im think forget it this is a scam I will lose the bike and paypal with have my money back to him in no time.....
Anyway I look at his feedback he seems to buy a fair bit from the UK, I ask for his phone number and get a Bulgarian colleague to give him a call. 5 mins later my colleague says yeah no problem send it.
So I did 6 days later the guy leaves me glowing feedback and is delighted with his new bike.....

Swings and roundabouts..

I hope that when the auction ends I have a positive outcome, there does seem to be a lot more chancers than there used to be, or perhaps it is my imagination.

"I think some question need to be asked of this"

Where do you start ?