Many eBay buyers simply don’t trust eBay sellers
Every now and again one of my staff tells me of a customer that has either emailed, called or written to us demanding their product be sent to them because we have ‘taken their money’ and not delivered a product to us.
Or, maybe more correctly, they don’t trust eBay themselves?
Today my customer service supervisor showed me a letter that a first time eBayer had written to us. They were typical of the user I will describe below :
This person will usually be a new eBay user, it may be their first eBay purchase with anyone. They have won an auction, or bought an item from our webstore and for some reason they either haven’t received their item yet, or we haven’t processed their payment yet. Most of the time they hint at the fact that you have ripped them off, or flat out accuse us of taking their money to dishonestly run off with it.
They may not be aware of the effort that we expend to ensure we have superior customer service to our competitors; we email customers updates at every step of the way, we email the customer atfer auction with all payment options and expected processing and delivery times, we put in thankyou letters, we automatically email tracking numbers for shipments, and we generally deliver products next day.
That customers accuse us of robbing them somewhat astounds me!
My two larger accounts have received 35,000 positive feedbacks in the last 12 months. I find it firstly amazing that these buyers actually think a business of our size would intenionally take their money for a sale and never deliver a product.
The truth of the matter is that:
- We all know most customers don’t pay nearly enough attention to what is happening around them (they just don’t READ!)
- eBay is not a ’simple’ marketplace to transact on (many different sellers, different terms, different standards of supply etc) – tough work for some non-comptuer savvy buyers
- eBay is a marketplace that is very hard to police when it comes to fraud
So what does this mean for eBay sellers? I think it is indicative of the sort of issues that have plagued eBay from day one, and the biggest one is lack buyer trust due to fraud opportunities in the marketplace.
I see a good mix of positive AND negative press about eBay in Australia. The negative press is usually stories about people getting ripped off on eBay when they buy cheap PCs from Botswana or something similar.
What can sellers do about it? Educate users. Highlight your business positives. This might include your ABN, a registered business address, contact phone number, the number of sales you have had on eBay, the fact you are a powerseller etc.
We do all of these things, but you still get the odd paranoid customer that thinks we are going to take their $30 from a fishing reel sale, rub our hands together with glee and hop on a plane to Bali with the proceeds :)
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