Selling things on eBay can make you want to bit your keyboard off.
I’m really cheap and I hate clutter, so selling things on eBay or even selling on Amazon seemed like the perfect idea for me. If I get a gift I don’t like, that I have no idea where it came from, this allows me to still profit from the deal. Or, if I have some easily shippable items in my house that I’m trying to get rid of, why not try to make some money, instead of simply donating them?
The reason why I advise you to think twice about selling things on eBay or Amazon is of course the rare looney tune buyer that will be a royal pain in your arse. From my experience, these instances are few and far between, but when one happens to you it leaves its mark.
I’ve only had two negative experiences selling things on eBay, and they’ve both been on sales of one certain brand (to be left unnamed for a number of very good reasons). This is not shocking when I consider the type of people who support this brand, think women who wear tennis shoes with skirts and get super excited about eating cake.
I don’t offer returns when selling things on eBay because I’m not Wal-Mart. I write very clear descriptions of the goods that I’m selling and provide accurate pictures. As a result there is no good reason for a return, unless the buyer is either an idiot or dishonest. That said, I had to break my policy and refund the two eBay sales mentioned above, because if you don’t they buyers will give you awful reviews, sink your seller rating, and as a result no one will ever want to buy from you again.
As far as selling on Amazon goes, I’ve only had to deal with one problem buyer. I was selling a textbook for a friend, and the buyer claimed to have never received the book. Good one buyer, good one. After a few weeks of back-and-forth emails with this lovely buyer, she was eventually forced to give the moron a refund. So she basically had to pay this idiot to steal her book. Where is the fairness in this?!
The moral of this tale is, it is much better to be a buyer on eBay or Amazon than to be a seller. If you sell someone a product that doesn’t live up to the description you wrote on the site, you will (and should) have to refund them. But if the buyer gets their product, realizes it’s ugly and doesn’t want it, they can damage it, claim it came that way and then you have to refund them for damaging your product!! Or in my friend’s experience with selling on Amazon, the buyer can claim they never received your package and demand a refund, even if they did in fact receive it. So you end up paying them to buy your product! SHEER OUTRAGE.
thejerp 