V auctions shipping?

I won a couple in the last auction, paid and haven't heard anything since. Anybody know how long they take, whether they send an email or in general, what's up?

 

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Triskeles take about 2 weeks to ship. They will send you an email when the item is shipped.

 

Thanks, I went to the site, logged on and all it said was that there was no current auctions. "My account " didn't say anything relevant either.

 

Thanks for he reminder. I had forgotten I won a coin in the last sale. Every time I say that will be the last time but I always bid again. It is a shame that eBay service is universally better than average but VAuctions can't handle it. It is not that we have a right to expect better but more the fact that when you get things from China faster than from Georgia, you wonder.

 

I suppose I feel a need to chime in here and give my opinion as a dealer. Please keep in mind that the auction closed less than a week ago. Triskeles is a one person operation. I can tell you it is a lot of work even when you have just a simple VCoins store with a few sales per day and not several hundred in one day. There is a lot going on with an auction. Consignors, buyers, various e-mails all vying for ones time and attention. Add to this of course that everything needs to be packed and shipped. And of course its not just a simple matter that we get an e-mail which appears to say that a payment has been received. All payments have to be verified. Simply put its a lot of work. Even CNG with their big staff has delays. It has taken several weeks from payment to shipment in my experience (on occasion, not consistently). I always know i will get what I paid for.

I guess one of the reasons why I have commented is that I will be running an auction soon at Agora. I hope I dont get dinged if it takes a week or two to ship. My schedule in the past has always been that the first payer gets shipped first, the last payer the last.

 

The offense here is when you set yourself up as a big deal auction, charge a buyer's premium and take more for shipping than will appear on the postal label, some of us expect service commensurate with the fluff. The reason some of us are willing to pay places like CNG more for what we buy there is because they are adding value, answering the phone even when the owner is out of town, able to handle various methods of payment efficiently and treat us like valued customers rather than trouble in their busy day. We recently had posts about a European auction whose next sale had closed before they shipped the last ones. These days, we are expected to pay instantly and are considered unreasonable when we expect similar service in return. The standard for service now seems to be set by eBay. That may be too high to hold everyone to but business practices once considered normal are no longer impressive.

 

Wow. Must have touched a nerve here, but I'll see if I can play Devils Advocate.

Just is a 'big deal auction'? I have no idea, everyone runs auctions these days and I highly suspect that they will replace fixed prices within another decade.

Shipping. We all know there are various methods and costs involved. Me, I have for years offered worldwide free shipping. I put the coin in a safe-t-mailer, then inside a bubble mailer, then inside a plain white paper envelope (avoids attention). On top of those expenses there is the actual postage. I can tell you now that the average cost (WITHOUT insurance) is about $5 per package as I do it. When I start running auctions I wont be able to absorb this cost anymore and buyers will have to pay (the profits at auction are razor thin on average).

I am not sure what other 'fluff' there is, but I can imagine. There are plenty of outfits who advertise their awesomeness but cant seem to deliver.

The bottom line is that while there are many auction houses out there now, they simply wont be around in a few years unless they respond to the needs and demands of their clients. I've been in this business for many years. I have seen many come and go. Big names, and big dollars too. Some of these guys funneled many millions through the hobby (collectively billions) but they are no longer around. Why? They lost touch with their customers (of course there are many other reasons, there has been much fraud, theft, divorce, health, etc).

I have no intentions of making those mistakes. When I start my auctions my intention is to ship packages within 24 hours of payment. I think that is fair and to be expected (and of course easily within reality even with just myself as the employee).

Bottom line, yes, some people are listening and they will respond to the needs of the buyers. But there are so many factors....

 

Wow, 2 weeks? First time I heard an online business taking that long to ship purchases out. I'm not familiar with places like VAuctions, CNG, and others. But that is a long time. I understand its a one man show and all but as Doug said, if you're charging buyers premium then you shouldn't be making your customers wait that long.

Personally I never understood sellers charging a buyer extra just because the seller is taking a hit getting the money. Its all part of business. Why should a buyer pay extra for an item just because the seller can't handle the loss which almost every business is taking?

 

The reason I asked was that this is my first experience with V-auctions. I'm not dinging him yet, just not familiar with his process. I didn't realize it's a one man operation and know that I'm hard pressed to get 5 things shipped in one day on those rare occasions that I have success on eBay. That said, I paid within minutes of getting the invoice and it's been radio silence since.

 

The buyers' premium charged by auction houses is much more than the 3% or whatever charged by sellers to recoup payment fees. CNG for instance charges 15%. I will be paying 19% for an auction win from this morning.

 

And yet, Agora always seems to send out their items within a day or two of receiving payment, at least in my experience with them.

 

If they didnt charge they would not be in business. Its how they make their money. If there was no buyer or seller premium the dealer would go out of business and they would have no method for making money. Ebay is the same, they just charge the seller not the buyer. In the old days the premium cost was borne by the seller only, to the tune of about 40%. Now its split (and lower overall) to buyers and sellers. This has made the cost of coins go down.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think what icerain is questioning is why sellers should charge buyers extra for paying with PayPal.

 

Oh. If that is the case I dont agree with the practice. It should be considered part of the cost of doing business, not an add-on fee. In fact, VCoins forbids its dealers from doing this, but I think there are some that do anyway. I never have nor will.

 

Really? A dealer charged me a fee for paying with PayPal via Vcoins recently. It was added on as part of the usual checkout process. I ended up getting a full refund after arguing that the coin had an undisclosed alteration, so I'm not too torn up about it, but I had no idea it wasn't allowed.

 

It would seem much ado about nothing but sellers discovered that more bidders forget to bid lower to offset the buyer's premium than do consigners forgive that they only got 40% of hammer on their coins. People complain about eBay constantly on this point.

Agora dose not charge extra for Paypal. They just offer a discount if you pay by check (like we are too stupid to figure out that is the same thing). A few sales ago I took the check option and the coin was much delayed. I was told they had to inquire of the previous management how to handle a check payment. Apparently I was the first one to take that option???

VCoins has rules but who enforces them? I was told by one dealer that she got an email telling her that a coin was fake and she should delist it but that was when it was being run by a previous administration. I love VCoins and buy many coins from dealers there that I know but the time has past that we get a notice of a new dealer and feel like we can accept them as an equal to the ones we know. The same goes for eBay except they have some outright crooks which for me is offset by having coins sold by other collectors (like me) who are not dealers but just have coins to sell. That is where I got the old Sear certificate coin. That is where most coins on eBay came from when I joined before they went to terms favoring dealers listing things for more than they were worth whether they were real or fake. If it cost money to list a $10 coin for $100 but not have it sell, we would not have those thousands of ridiculous listings by the dealers we love to hate.

 

It is a violation of the terms of service with Paypal to do this-- though it happens.

 

It is true, adding a fee is strictly against the rules and in the past dealers were booted off for the practice (and for other infractions). But with VCoins as a general site there is a single owner and one employee. Its not enough for them to police the site daily, thus they rely on input from users and other dealers. If there is an issue they need to be notified, otherwise they will never be aware of a problem. Dont use the "Contact Us" on the individual dealers site as only they will be the only one to see the e-mail. Use the contact from the main page, that will go directly to management and it will get the proper attention. The problem simply cant be fixed if they aren't aware of it.

 

The same things applies with credit card companies. The agreements all say one cant add a fee for a charge card. But as Doug pointed out it's not unusual to see a 'cash' discount. Many gas stations still display two prices, one cash and one credit.

 

You were not the first one to try that option. I tried to pay by check a long time ago and the check never arrived, so I ended up paying by credit card. You were merely the first one to have a check successfully delivered to them.