Sounds like liberal means rule-breaker and conservative means law-abiding! Since so many liberal bankers abused our countries' lending regulations, I think that closing costs on mortgages should be free! Build that charge into the interest rate! Seriously though, I'm not sure the fact that people abuse a policy is good reason for demanding less choices for sellers.
While, I don't agree/disagree about coins under $10 should have free shipping... sorry for the car jacking.. I fail to see the correlation - my scalp is bloody from all the scratching. please elaborate, I am curious as all hey! In your opinion.. Is the free shipping under $10 from a bleeding heart liberal.... uh oh.. touched on a taboo subject. lol
And is it liberals who try to get away with checking out more than 12 items in the Express Lane at the grocery store? I thought political views weren't permitted to be discussed on CT. There's a rule we can follow.
Wowowow..... I am not sure I can explain comprehensively.. Maybe if I bullet the points and keep it simple. The subject is, to free ship coins or not. OK. Regardless if a detailed shipping policy is spelled out or not. I think a lot here are missing a marketing point. A buyer will never complain about shipping charges if the shipping is categorized as free. Agreed? A seller who has no complaints about shipping costs, has one less customer service category to worry about when selling. Agreed? A seller wants to build a customer base. Agreed? A seller loves repeat buyers? Agreed? A buyer may be more inclined to shop a seller who offers free shipping? Agreed? Time is money. Agreed? Less time dealing with complaints is more money made. Agreed? Look - there is nothing wrong with charging for shipping, however when a buyer makes a suggestion, no matter how far off in left field you think it is. You really should listen, because for every one that took the time to write, expressing a backhanded interest in your product, I bet there 10 others who just skipped by you. Everyone's money is green, the whole idea of selling is to get the green regardless of whether the person is a cat lover or not? Agreed? Here again, I think this is a stereotypical problem with intrinsic nature of coin collecting. Think big picture, when you are listing coins for auction/sale, your objective is to get as much as the market will bear. Agreed? If you have a larger customer base wanting your coins, you have increased demand. You have a limited supply. As your demand increases, so will your sales. It really isn't hard to figure out. Check out Great Southern Coin who must sell a 100k a week in raw coins. the number of bidders they attract is huge. So many of those coins go for more than they are worth certified. Not only that, many of these coins IMO will not even grade. I am not saying that it is because they have free shipping, nor should but it is certainly one key aspect of their listing. There is another guy who does really well... vette something or another. Lastly. As far as I know. there is no way to know for sure, for those of you have line item incomes for shipping charges in the thousands, whether changing your policy will actually increase the bottom line. However - I would bet the store, that with a competitive market analysis of your sales against others that there is room for improvement.
EyeEatWheaties: I agree with your points, which is why I changed the items I could to free shipping, mostly to avoid the hassle. But it is irrational, which is the point Jallengomez is making. The shipping charges are spelled out before the sale and can/should be factored into the price, yet as you point out, people see free and get excited. Retail stores have long known 'buy one get one free' sells a lot more then 'half price'. My issue, and I think Jallengomez's, is someone complaining about my shipping charge and essentially calling it unreasonable. The shipping charges I listed where not unreasonable, even by ebay's strict shipping charges only approach. You may think it makes better business sense to offer free shipping, but to complain about, and give negative feedback for, reasonable shipping charges is a completely different issue.
I was just meaning that I think this is an issue that is possible that it follows the party lines more then I would have thought before reading this whole topic. I agree that I dont want to get a political argument going so I will refrain from talking about it more. 1. "OK. Regardless if a detailed shipping policy is spelled out or not. I think a lot here are missing a marketing point." To your first point yes this can be a good marketing point. But that is and should be up to the company/seller to use or not. 2. "A buyer will never complain about shipping charges if the shipping is categorized as free. Agreed?" True but a buyer will never complain about a purchase price if you give it away for free too...should all of ebay be free? 3. "A seller who has no complaints about shipping costs, has one less customer service category to worry about when selling. Agreed?" Agreed. But again a seller who gives their stuff away free has one less customer service catetory to worry about too...so with your argument you can still argue that it should all be free... 4. "A seller wants to build a customer base. Agreed?" Yep agreed too. And again relate that same blanket statement you made to other things like you could give it away free so as to BUILD your customer base. 5. "A seller loves repeat buyers? Agreed?" Agreed again. But same blanket comments that can be transposed to then give it away free. 6. "A buyer may be more inclined to shop a seller who offers free shipping? Agreed?" Yes agreed again!! Your good But you should give it away free as someone else might be selling it cheaper and so free means they would never go somewhere else!! Better save then sorry. 7. "Time is money. Agreed?" Sure is, that's 7 out of 7 Agreed but the question is is that money going up or down in value? It can go both ways and many ebay auctions loose money for sellers. 8. "Less time dealing with complaints is more money made. Agreed?" You bowled a perfect game!! Pitched a no hitter!! You got it!! 8 out of 8 Agreed!! But again less complaints if you give it away free So go on put your stuff on the bay for free with free shipping and I'll click the buy it now all day long and you'll have your "no complaint" "customer base" "repeat buyers" "high satisfaction" ect... But what you wont have is money or your goods. That is what this leads down to is it's the sellers stuff and it's their choice to run it with free shipping or $3 shipping or $20 shipping. And as usual it can be and will be abused but that's what the free market place is for. DONT BUY FROM THEM if you dont like it or this it's too high. Its very easy to do... But it is up to the seller to put up his/her terms not yours. Case in point I hate AT&T's service...they have long term contracts, high costs and lousy service. I'd like them to fix it but they didn't so they loose customers. There are plenty on ebay like this so just don't shop there.
I don't recall seeing negative feed back mentioned, but the star system. I still agree that free gets five and reasonable gets 4. Take it another step with "Seller Communication". From one seller I get nothing but the ebay notice - now you being the excellent seller your are, provided me an invoice and a communication that item is shipped. Should I also rate them the same? Sorry I can't. I have guidelines for each of the stars. The same for shipping - the good seller ships the next business day and those that wait get a lower rating. Even if it is spelled out in the auction you only ship once a week - you won't get a 5. Plus I never thought you shipping was excessive, bad or otherwise - just trying to support eyeeatwheaties on star system. At no point is negative feed back left. You met stated agreement of the auction. But I just have to reserve 5's to those that go above and beyond. LOL - just like performance appraisals at work 5's are exceeds expectation and 4's are exceeds some and 3 are meets, and 2 are needs improvement. PS - Not arguing just stating my humble opinion.
I knew where you were going early on in your post having performed many a review on employees. But just remember that when an employer is doing a review they want lower ratings overall as to give them better grounds to fight a lawsuit later on. But with these ebayers it's most people expect perfect scores so 5's are more common. I mean just read these posts people will even complain that someone is asking foe 3 bucks to ship an item that you can voluntarily submit to purchase knowing the cost. So if they see your rating as less it will hurt sellers a lot. But it is your rating and not mine it's totally up to you just like it's totally up to the seller with what they want to charge for shipping
I have a confession: I have 4 different form letters that I send sellers in reply when ever I get an auto message begging for stars or feedback. Every once in a while when I am feeling ornery, I will send messages to sellers who put flyers in with the package begging for feedback. no.... I did not send that email that started this whole thread. lol that message was a little harsh. I am a lot more sarcastic. More eBay shipping.... I used to ask sellers frequently for their combined shipping policy, when not posted, but I have grown tired of unreasonable sellers. So I don't enter into dialogues with sellers begging them to be reasonable any more. For example:: I got one guy right now who charges 60 cents per coin. Very Reasonable. Yes? I have been asking him over the last week or so, if it was all right if I paid all together when I am done bidding. He said yes just request an invoice when done. He keeps listing new coins, I keep entering bids. Recently, In a reply to another message letting him know that he still has coins that I have a bid in on - He mentioned that shipping would be $7.75 I am up now up to 14 coins won.. Now with that said.. Fun and games time. Would it be unreasonable... since apparently he won't combine ship to at least a flat rate small box , to tell him to ship each coin individually as per the listing? I don't think so. What says Coin Talk about this? This should be good.
YAY!!!! someone who gets it. Thank you! If all eBay buyers would do this, we might actually be able to tell who are the "best" sellers.
If the person wont combine the shipping cost i would back out... The way i see it is if the seller does not comply with ebay policy's then it "voids" any contract you have with the seller
I'm no ebay expert and I've never even sold one item on ebay but where are the ebay rules that state that you must combine shipping. Espically if you did not ask first before you bid or won the auctions?
There is not such eBay policy and if the buyer refuses to pay, he has just violated eBay's policy, will probably get dinged for non-payment, and could be sued and lose a breach of contract law suit
People have a reasonable expatiation of reasonable shipping cost and sometimes one may not have time if a auction is ending in seconds to read the shipping or they might not be experienced enough with Ebay. Many sellers take advanage of people who see the shipping as a after thought.. Look at this deal im sure someone will bid without even reading the shipping http://cgi.ebay.com/2006-PCGS-SILVER-AMERICAN-EAGLE-MS69-FIRST-STRIKE-/230519900555?pt=Coins_US_Individual&hash=item35ac0e898b
Omg!! What people don,t understand here it,s not only shipping but handling as well Plus supplies and additional costs when you get to the post office but people rarely Take this in to account and call you a crook!!
you cant sue ever $50 dollars worth of coins and if you tried to make me buy them by sticking me with a non-payment i would stick you with a Negative feed back for each item i won witch could destroy a sellers account fast
The argument about the cost to go to the post office is BS, who does not go to the post office at least 3 times a week anyway and an envelope cost almost nothing even padded ones cost only $1.00
You get the non-payment sticker and my guess is that means your negative goes away via eBay. BTW, I could sue you for this retort. I would not win, but I could sue you. However, if you do not pay, the seller wins. PERIOD. Read the eBay policies next time you bid. It is a contract binding you to pay. If you do not pay, that is a breach of contract. End of story.
