Bad business practices

There was a card on eBay I was interested in but had a starting price higher than I was willing to pay so I placed a watch on it to see if it got any action. The card got no bids so I asked the seller if he would sell for lower price (10% less than his starting bid). His response was "non", which is fine and gave a counter offer. This offer was 10% higher than his original price that he asked when he tried to auction it.

Seriously, what are these sellers thinking? That's just a really bad business practice.

Some of these ebay dealers can be incredibly annoying. I am in the middle of my own situation with one of these dealers and when/if the time is right I will post it.

Maybe we could come up with a database of the larger ebay dealers and people could write in on who is good to deal with and who isn't, give details, stories, etc. Then people can comment on their experiences accordingly. That would encourage more accountability on behalf of the dealers.

For the sake of a little simplicity, it would easier to list the poor experiences. They is definately more goods than bad and to sort through the goods to get to the bads would be tough.

I actually was recently wondering about a permanent thread for these bad people that buy and sell. I know that there are some from the past (especially shill bidders that newbies probably have no idea.

If this thread is started you must give a reason why you had a bad experience.

Lee

bowlingshoeguy wrote:
I actually was recently wondering about a permanent thread for these bad people that buy and sell. I know that there are some from the past (especially shill bidders that newbies probably have no idea.

Isn't that what the "helpful information for collectors" section was originally intended for? I could sticky jbonie's new thread and put it there for the sake of visibility/permanence.

Good idea, Ben. You are welcome to move my thread.

Doing that would be against eBay policies. eBay has robots that check the messages for red flags. You may want to try emailing him.

It's not that big a deal. I just added him to my list of sellers I will never buy a card from. It costs him business to act like a jerk. It's not like he was selling something unique. To the contrary, it was very common, so acting the way he did may no sense since there were a number of others dealers offering the same thing.

Before hammering a seller please keep in mind this:

I have to sell to make some $$ to buy with, I do not have unlimited funds to buy whatever I want. I deal in rare vintage stuff. A lot of the stuff I have for sale you may only see once every 10 years. So I place my stuff up at a higher price and accept offers.

But when I have an item up for $5K and I get a $2K offer, I am not going to sell it for that. And yes the bidders can offer whatever they like but it gets a little annoying as a seller to constantly be low balled and battered.

Then I get the gems that quote a book price that is a third of my sticker. So I tell them to go buy the card from the publisher of the book.

My ratings are very high and I like to conduct good business but it does get challenging sometimes as a seller.

Dan, you are one of the good guys out there. It's just bad business though when you you make a very reasonable offer and the seller responds back with a counter offer that is higher than his initial selling price that didn't get a bite the first time around. Why would anyone want to deal with someone like that? I'm one of the rare few in the hobby that doesn't let card trump my ethics. I won't buy from a bad seller no matter badly I may need a card.

Edited because it was a bad idea.

Lee

sabrjay wrote:Dan, you are one of the good guys out there.

BS, everyone knows it's no secret Dan is one of the worst guys out there. He's way over on everything I once offered Dan a penny for his thoughts ended up costing me $17.50!

John

John, you are probably older than Dan so a penny is worth more to you.

I can't tell you how many times this has happened to me. Recently I've been watching two cards that have sold in the past six months in traditional auctions (REA and Goodwin) and the buyer has relisted them on eBay for a tremendous premium. No bids.

I make a standard offer midway between the eBay price and the last sale price and the BIN price once the listing ended.

No response and the BIN price raises.

I want to point out these were specific cards matched through numbers on the slabs, not just the same card with the same grade.

If you want $1000 for a card, I think you now have to list it for $1500, because if you list it for $1000 people will just offer $500.

The economy has made sellers desperate and buyers cheap. Both sides are to blame. It's a real mess out there, from my perspective at least.

The thing that always bothers me is when sellers say "I charge the prices I do because I have to make a living." This is true, but you are dealing a collectibles field where prices fluctuate. When the market goes south like present, you have two options. Close up shop and wait for the market to turn around, or sell at the prevailing rate. Just because you paid a certain amount for a card doesn't mean that you are entitled to make a profit on it. Like any other volatile commodity, you are going to take a loss from time to time.

sabrjay wrote:The thing that always bothers me is when sellers say "I charge the prices I do because I have to make a living." This is true, but you are dealing a collectibles field where prices fluctuate. When the market so goes south like present, you have two options. Close up shop and wait for the market to turn around, or sell at the prevailing rate. Just because you a certain amount for a card doesn't mean that you are entitled to make a profit on it. Like any other volatile commodity, you are going to take a loss from time to time.

I've got a dealer squeezing me for $625 profit on a card that sold earlier this year.

It's listed for more than $1,000 profit.

I offered $300 profit and got the nastiest reply.