Things that irritate you on eBay

[Allhallowsday]

I am not 100% convinced there isn't some kind of funny business going on behind the scenes. Across my last dozen plus eBay purchases, EVERY one of them went EXACTLY to my maximum bid EVERY time without fail. If I could hit lottery numbers that consistently I'd be one rich individual. 

I hear dat.

[Trevor]

When there's lovely lingerie advertised for sale, someone has already worn it. 

Now, if it were my underpants advertised for sale, that would be a bargain indeed.   

[ghouck]

Something like "antique underpants, never been washed, occasionally worn on head"?

[AndyC]

A lot of my major beefs have already been mentioned. Most of them have to do with shipping

Top of the list, of course, is sellers who list for a low price and pad the shipping. The flipside of that is offering free shipping and padding the price. I've just recently been buying electronic components, and I noticed at least one Chinese seller with listings offering $5 buy-it-now and $5 shipping and listings offering $10 purchase and free shipping on the same product at the same time.

I can appreciate Ghouck's beef about shipping to Alaska. People are just as irritating when it comes to shipping to Canada. Either they don't ship to Canada at all (for no reason I can understand) or they have a shipping price to Canada that is several times the price for shipping within the USA, even though the actual cost is not that different. At least I can use ebay.ca, which filters out vendors who don't ship to Canada, and allows me to search Canadian vendors first.

People who list things under the wrong category. If I'm browsing the category for police scanners, listing from low price to high, I don't want to see page after page of manuals, carrying cases, frequency lists, earphones and other crap listed there in order to grab my attention with a price lower than anything that actually belongs there.

People who bid against me on something when the same seller has several identical items with no bids on them. It's most likely the seller in many cases, because the other bidder sometimes nudges the price up, then gives up.

Anybody else prefer Ebay back in the early days, before people got the hang of it. People would just bid when they saw something. Over the course of a week, you might be outbid several times. It was fun. Now, nobody bids until the last minute. You could be the sole bidder all week, then have it snatched while you're asleep in your bed. I agree with the idea of ending auctions at random times within a certain period.

I generally stay away from auctions if I can buy it now.

I've also noticed that there aren't as many bargains to be had as there used to be. Of the new merchandise, the good stuff is too pricey to be worth buying once shipping is factored in, and the bargain-priced stuff is imported junk, which is flooding ebay like crazy.

[Psycho Circus]

A lot of my major beefs have already been mentioned. Most of them have to do with shipping

Top of the list, of course, is sellers who list for a low price and pad the shipping. The flipside of that is offering free shipping and padding the price. I've just recently been buying electronic components, and I noticed at least one Chinese seller with listings offering $5 buy-it-now and $5 shipping and listings offering $10 purchase and free shipping on the same product at the same time.

I can appreciate Ghouck's beef about shipping to Alaska. People are just as irritating when it comes to shipping to Canada. Either they don't ship to Canada at all (for no reason I can understand) or they have a shipping price to Canada that is several times the price for shipping within the USA, even though the actual cost is not that different. At least I can use ebay.ca, which filters out vendors who don't ship to Canada, and allows me to search Canadian vendors first.

I generally stay away from auctions if I can buy it now.

I can honestly say I never ever go over £2 for shipping (which is about $4). Also, the last item I sold was a Mego Spiderman doll from 1978, shipped to Canada no problems. 

I totally do the same when it comes to buying, if I can find a decent priced "Buy-It-Now" item I will pay for it if I really want it. I only participate in auctions now if it's for rare cd's and LP's I can't get hold of.

[Trevor]

Something like "antique underpants, never been washed, occasionally worn on head"?

 

[Jack]

Anybody else prefer Ebay back in the early days, before people got the hang of it. People would just bid when they saw something. Over the course of a week, you might be outbid several times. It was fun. Now, nobody bids until the last minute. You could be the sole bidder all week, then have it snatched while you're asleep in your bed. I agree with the idea of ending auctions at random times within a certain period.

Yeah, I remember those days.  That seemed like what Ebay was designed for.  Now there's really no point in placing a bid until the last hour of the auction.

I agree with you about the stuff listed in the wrong category as well.  Listing auctions from lowest price to highest just gives you 20 pages of accessories and crap that you're not interested in. 

[Ash]

I've heard that ebay is planning to abandon the auction format and go to direct selling like Amazon.com.  Not sure when that's gonna happen, but everything that irritates you all about ebay will be disappearing soon.

http://www.appscout.com/2008/08/ebay_seeking_to_abandon_auctio_1.php

[AndyC]

I've heard that ebay is planning to abandon the auction format and go to direct selling like Amazon.com.  Not sure when that's gonna happen, but everything that irritates you all about ebay will be disappearing soon.

I like the sound of that. Nothing but 30-day buy-it-now listings, and payments strictly by credit card or Paypal. Suits exactly what I use Ebay for.

I will admit the auctions do have their place, however, especially for the rare/vintage merchandise and the more unusual items that are hard to put a price on. Still, most people have a pretty definite idea of what they'll take for something, which is why anything of real value is listed with a reserve or a very high starting bid. Sellers will just have to put their expectations out there and see what happens. Combined with the "make an offer" option, I think that will work very well.

That brings me to another annoyance. People who provide an option to make an offer, but don't accept offers more than a couple of bucks below the asking price anyway. Kind of a waste of time.

Personally, I'm a believer in things costing what they cost, and buyers can pay it or not. I don't like fluctuating prices, I don't like haggling, and if I participate in an auction, I at least want some fun and the chance of getting a bargain. Ebay auctions haven't been offering much of either lately.

[Allhallowsday]

I've heard that ebay is planning to abandon the auction format and go to direct selling like Amazon.com.  Not sure when that's gonna happen, but everything that irritates you all about ebay will be disappearing soon.

http://www.appscout.com/2008/08/ebay_seeking_to_abandon_auctio_1.php

If ebay does that, then ebay will no longer exist as what it was originally intended: the online auction site.  My complaints have little to do with the auction format.  The best way to get great buys on ebay is at auction.  It's also the way I've gotten the best yield (I love it when I list something and it sells for much more than it should...  )   
I'm still hating ebay anyway.   

[ghouck]

Allhallowsday is right I believe, The auction format is great, it makes everyone compromise to some degree, and in the end, everyone should win to some degree. If they abandon the auction format, I see many sellers abandoning eBay altogether, because when they want $200 for something, they're not going to know that it isn't selling because the market for it is only $120. With the current format, they know that after the first auction where it fails. I think the current format works well for the casual seller: Put it up, and the demand will set the ending price. If you're at a position where you'd rather sell it to a friend for $50 than to a stranger for $75, then set your minimum at $75 and let it go.

[ToyMan]

i'm sick of looking at auctions that show a stock photo of the item, and not a picture of the exact item you're bidding on. i haven't been burned on that, personally, but it's frustrating to have to wade through inconsistent item listing info to figure your way around it.

[Ash]

i'm sick of looking at auctions that show a stock photo of the item, and not a picture of the exact item you're bidding on. i haven't been burned on that, personally, but it's frustrating to have to wade through inconsistent item listing info to figure your way around it.

That's funny because I've had two auctions taken down by ebay for showing stock photos.
Technically, stock photos are copyright protected and owned by the brand/company of the item you're selling.  And you can't use them without permission.
Those two times, I used stock photos because the items I was selling were Sony items still in the unopened box.  I didn't want to open the boxes because that would immediately lower their value. 
What am I gonna do, show a picture of just the box?
According to ebay, yes.

What really irked me was that both auctions had only hours left when ebay took them down.  Nearly seven days on the auction block and they yank them with 6 hours to go.  I about went through the roof when they did that.  
Eventually, I did end up showing only a couple pictures of the box and explained in the item description that because of copyright issues, I could show only the box and directed them to Google images to see pics of the actual product.
It worked and I was able to sell both items for a handsome profit.  

[CheezeFlixz]

This summer I sold 2 Jet Ski's on ONE trailer on ebay ... ebay required me to sell them separately on 2 auctions. I argued with them they're on one trailer, what happens if one person buys one and one another? What are they going to do? Ride it home?

Frankly I think it's because they wanted 2 listing fees, so I listed it as buy one get one free, I had the auction taken down a 4 times, but by them I had enough interest and questions that I sold it to a buyer off line and ebay got NOTHING! Listing and final value fees would have been about $200 and the Paypal deposit fee would have been another $40.


I do prefer the auction aspect of it for some items, I listed a few things that I thought was worthless junk and it ended up selling for a few hundred dollars to some collector. Sometimes I like BIN but at times I like being a bargain hunter, earlier this year I got 33 Troma DVD's box lot for $21.55 all because they only posted photos of the titles and spelled Troma "Toma" not to mention their auction ended at 2AM on a Tuesday.   

[ToyMan]

I used stock photos because the items I was selling were Sony items still in the unopened box.  I didn't want to open the boxes because that would immediately lower their value. 
What am I gonna do, show a picture of just the box?

i can see your point, there. i guess, in that situation, i'd just "borrow" some pictures from, like you mentioned, google images.