Special Ingredients: eBay eDiots

If we take a look back at the last decade and examine how far we, as a species, have come, I’m certain the resulting disbelief would have even the most open-minded thinker scrambling for a bottle of a refreshing beverage. And that’s just looking at the home food preparation industry’s strides. To look at our technologically advancements as a whole would be a trying task for the hardcore thinkers, like Plato, Socrates, and Ross Perot.

Just look at the Internet. In 1995, the Internet was a mysterious, cold, tech-geek dimension where anyone, anytime, could download dirty pictures. Today, the Internet is a well-traveled, user-friendly attraction where anyone, anytime, can download dirty pictures. How far we have come!

Nowhere is this technological advancement more evident than in the world of shopping. In the old days, if you wanted to buy, say, a copy of Jagdrevier der scharfen Gemsen (Has Anybody Seen My Pants?) on video tape, you’d have to manually drive to the store and pay whatever ridiculous price they charged. Thanks to the Internet, you can buy that same video tape for (really) a penny (plus $8.97 for shipping), right from your home, and before you know it (three months later), it’ll be delivered straight to your door. Imagine the feeling of indescribable joy when you rip open that package and discover a copied, cracked tape with the words “Honeymoon 1986” scrawled in blue pen on a worn spine label, featuring clips of the movie followed by private footage that is, frankly, more interesting. This experience could only be possible through the wonders of e-commerce.

No doubt many of you have already purchased a few things on the wildly popular eBay auction sight. I tell you, no where else in the world have I seen such a collection of professional home merchants. Whether it’s charging $39.24 to ship something the size of a stamp or insisting on paying $9.51 worth of seller’s fees to sell an item that isn’t worth the gunk under a garbage can, we can all rest comfortably in the knowledge that if these fine entrepreneurs were in charge of a significant part of our economy, we would be experiencing a sudden and greatly improved sequel to the Dark Ages, this time with nuclear weapons.

The world of e-commerce is definitely a new frontier. It’s managed to indirectly put major retail chains out of business (a moment of silence for the dearly departed Media Play, whose price gouging we will all surely miss). We’ve entered a world where consumers are smarter, savvier, and not willing to pay too much for merchandise. Instead, they prefer to hurl wads of money at greasy geeks across the country, geeks whom they cannot actively strangle should they decide there is no reason to send you a product in exchange for the money.

I’ve had my issues with eBay, and other e-commerce sites, for years. E-commerce requires a good deal of trust, which is the first fatal flaw. If someone tried to rip you off to your face in a conventional business deal, you could refuse to finish the transaction and take your money to another weasel (or strangle them, but it might be against the law). In the world of e-commerce, the weasel usually gets your money before you see the product you paid for, and you can bet they didn’t become weasels by giving refunds.

Sadly, e-commerce sites like eBay aren’t very well regulated. Actually, this is a pretty genius business, especially in eBay’s case, which I’m going to get on for simplicity. You maintain some servers, design the site, handle one customer service complaint a year, and get gobs of money from the efforts of others. If a customer gets ripped off, hey, what’s eBay going to do about it? If they issue a refund, they’re out the money, and they didn’t get to such a position by giving refunds.

As I mentioned before, sellers can usually set their own shipping price, which is usually only 143 times the actual cost of shipping. Since the shipping price is usually not charged a fee, the seller can use shipping fees as a way to get the price they actually want for the item. For example, they’ll set the price of an item (let’s say a CD, which costs less than two dollars to mail) to a penny, but charge eleven dollars for shipping. Instead of getting a percentage of the eleven taken out, they’ll get the full eleven, minus the shipping cost and fixed fees. Another perk for the seller using this technique is that it pulls the wool over the eyes of the customer, especially when they don’t actually state the cost of shipping or tilt the optional shipping calculator in their favor. This can cause a bidding war or get the seller more for the item than it’s actually worth. It’s evil, but effective.

Then you get the sellers who could be described as “less than cunning.” These are the people that set high prices for things no one wants, and keeps listing them over and over, giving free money to eBay. Usually, these dynamic dealers insist on paying extra for more pictures, snazzy layouts, and better listing placements. This is a great idea, for eBay, because the average seller uses these features to make pages with pointless, annoying graphics and layouts less organized than a soccer riot that make finding important information (if they found it necessary to put in there at all, since they do have a cool-looking seller page) harder than if they went with a bare-bones layout plan, all to highlight an item no one wants even if they knew it was there. But hey, I subscribe to the old dinosaur business philosophy of generating profit, so what do I know?

But what really gets my Google is the rampant amount of piracy going on in the world of e-commerce. I’m into anime, which is very expensive because no one, in the grand scheme of things, actually has the astuteness to watch it. So it’s pretty easy to find pirated versions of most shows. This is bad enough, but in the case of more popular shows, the amount of bootlegs outnumbers the selection of legitimate titles. Worst of all, sellers go out of their way to convince you these aren’t illegal, so if you aren’t careful, you’ll end up getting something worthless. Thankfully, since I’m careful, this has only happened to me once..

By the way, I read a recent article from Anime Nation’s excellent Ask John column that revealed eBay, in a roundabout way, supports piracy of anime’. I can vouch for that.

Of course, other e-commerce sites exist, many with a fixed-price structure. Most stores have their own retail site that sell items cheaper than in their actual store, but for the best deals, you can’t beat amateur sellers. Enter Amazon and Half.

A lot of you probably know about Amazon, the mega-site that inspired hundreds of enthusiastic young go-getters to enter the world of e-commerce and go bankrupt immediately. Few know of Half, which is part of eBay, but don’t let that fool you. Both of these sites are fairly well regulated and have fixed shipping fees, so now you can pay a more realistic price for your item. I sell items on both all the time, which brings me to a small culmination of my experience with the idiots of e-commerce.

First of all, I’m not going to divulge any juicy seller tips because a) I don’t want the deal with the competition, and b) I really don’t have any. The fact of the matter is, selling items as a business is really not for those who don’t like to take risk. You have to develop instinct for what’s worth something, find a supplier, and be willing and able to put some time, effort, and money into aquiring goods. Like I said in my article about garage sales, you have to dig through a lot of dirt to find treasure. There is no certainty; others (like one of my co-workers) are simply more insane when it comes to these matters.

And even if you have a way of checking the numbers, there isn’t a guarantee. For example, Amazon displays a popularity ranking for all items, but these aren’t always a reliable gauge for briskness of item sales. Same with the price. If you want a divining rod for e-commerce that’s versatile, you’ll need wireless Internet access. Since you’d look pretty dumb lugging around a laptop, some cell phones have optional Internet features. The downside is they cost extra, there are some compromises to get the whole thing to work on a smaller device, and they work at the rate of star system collapse.

I purchased a Treo mobile phone through Sprint, and I had to drop over $500 on it right away. The Internet wasn’t too pricey, so I figured I could work off the phone with some extra treasure hunting. I simply log on to Amazon while I’m at a used goods store, type in the item information, and after several constellations cease to be, I discover that the item is worth squat.

Even if I find an item that’s worth something, I never check the sales ranking, because I want to get home before I qualify for senior discounts. Even if the rank is good, I find that I have to compete with some of the twitchiest morons on the face of the Earth: Amazon sellers.

Half sellers can be stupid too, but I find I have the biggest problem with Amazon. Most will immediately drop their price if someone out-prices them on anything. I used to buy items and sell them below the lowest price, but this would cause a price war that would drag the value of any given item down a few dollars before the competition would either give up or sell their item. Now, I simply price match and hope my item gets picked. This retains the value of the item and gives other sellers a fair shot as well.

Too bad most other sellers operate at coleslaw-level intelligence. I currently have items posted that continue to fall in price on a daily basis because of the competing seller won’t have someone matching THEIR price. They literally lower the price a single penny, every day, and I simply lower mine to match theirs. Keep in mind this price change doesn’t show up automatically. These people have to go in manually and find that my price (gasp!) matches theirs. This happens every day, and the other seller is apparently unable to comprehend this pattern, firmly believing that everyday his price will be the lowest and returns to silently wondering if the sun will rise tomorrow like it usually does.

The best example of seller paranoia (and an example of how a $500 Internet phone is worth nothing more than the circuit it’s pressed on) occurred a month ago. I was at a local video store when I noticed they were selling their old VHS cartoons. Smelling a profit, I checked out the prices on my phone and found that a Beetlejuice tape was going for $38.99. I immediately grabbed the tape and went home to put it up.

I was then that I noticed the $38.99 was for a new, sealed tape, but that was also the cheapest price, so I set my price at $36 and hoped for the best. Well, the other seller apparently decided to check the price manually and was outraged to find that someone was underselling him. He viciously slashed his price down to $29 dollars. I was shocked, but lowered it to $25. He saw this and was pissed off AGAIN, so he cut to price down to $15. I matched him, but he still didn’t understand, so he cut it down more. He cut a $39 tape down over fifty percent in less than a month. Moron.

Oddly enough, I checked Half’s pricing, and it turns out that tape was only worth about four bucks, meaning everyone involved was artificially inflating the price. I returned the videos to the store and used the credit for other endeavors.

What also gets me is how idiots use description space. I’ve already talked about eBay eDiots and their insistence on purchasing a page with all the bells and whistles, but decide not to put any useful or relevant information on it. This isn’t an option on Half or Amazon; you just get a sentence or two, which is all you need, since everything you’re allowed to sell is cataloged. I use this limited space to state the item condition, make notes about potential inconsistencies with the listing, point out that I’m not selling evil bootlegs, and stick in a little blurb about getting in touch with me for information. Simple, right?

I guess not. Millions of other sellers use this space to state other vital bits of information (if they choose to put down anything at all), like “We sell 85, 256,921 items a second!” “Don’t buy from the other guys, they’re stupid and are just pretending to have stuff for sale!” and “Free upgrade to First Class!”

That last one is completely real. If there’s one tip I’m sure of, it’s that sending a single CD or DVD any other way but First Class makes as much finical sense as most acts of Congress. Sellers are supposed to send these types of things via Media Mail speed, which is the US Postal Service’s favorite, because it takes so long that they can claim the package is still on its way, when in fact they’ve already burned it for heat. It’s also more expensive for smaller items. I can only imagine what an e-mail conversation between a Media Mail-sending seller and a disgruntled buyer would sound like:

Buyer: I ordered a CD from you three years ago and I just got it today. The problem is, half of it is burned away. The remaining half has a “Media Mail” stamp on it. Why didn’t you send it First Class?

Seller: it told me 2 sent meda male so i did

Buyer: But it’s more expensive and takes longer, and I suspect the Post Office doesn't respect the packages quite as much, apparently. Anyway, since the product is clearly defective, could I have a refund?

Seller: no refuds

Buyer: Look, it took three years for my item to get here and it was damaged, all because you sent it the slow and expensive way. If you don’t refund my money, I’ll report you to Half.

Seller: fck u man fck u im giving u negtive fb fck u

Not that the descriptions are necessarily read. Most buyers, having the brains of office furniture, tend to ignore pictures and descriptions and simply buy the item as listed. I’ve given more refunds for mistakes on the buyer’s part than I should have. I’ve created a sales policy around not refunding for buyer’s mistakes, but I usually never follow it, since I’m just that great of a guy.

One of the things I hate the most about buyers and sellers is how they develop an acute form of e-mail amnesia, wherein they forget how to use e-mail when you’re asking them questions about a particular item. This disease is especially severe if your money is directly involved. The only known cure for this is if something enrages the afflicted, such as not receiving an item/payment at all, then they remember how to use e-mail immediately.

Seriously, this just bugs me. I’ll contact a buyer to let them know something may be amiss with the item they’re buying, such as it doesn’t exist, or I’ll try to ask a seller a question about their item, such as if it’s illegal, and I’ll never hear back from them for eternity. I can only assume that they’re really stupid or hiding something. I never factor in that they don’t check their e-mail, which is stupidity on a level all its own. Think about it: if you’re buying or selling an item online, you might want to check your e-mail once in a while. And if you can’t set an e-mail filter to not filter out important messages, how did you figure out how to get on the Internet, anyway? You probably wouldn’t get that much e-mail, really.

In the end, the only form of retribution either the seller or the buyer can receive for poor performance is feedback. How this works is both the buyer and the seller are asked to evaluate the performance of the other and award them positive, neutral, or negative feedback. The reward for good feedback is that it looks good for you, and the punishment for bad feedback is that it looks bad for you. Considering potential buyers don’t have time to read about the item they’re paying for, it’s doubtful that they’ll check up on a seller’s street cred.

Usually feedback becomes a game. The seller should leave feedback first, since they're part is usually over with once the product goes out. I wait for a week or two to make sure there aren’t any problems. If I don’t leave feedback, I usually never see any for me, since most buyer/seller feedback relations work not based on performance, but on whatever feedback the other guy left. Personally, I think the e-commerce site should hold off feedback for both parties until both have left feedback, just to maintain balance. But I’m sure this would crimp the fun of the company techs that read the hilarious banter that is the feedback.

So which of the three e-commerce sites I covered the best? eBay, of course, is the best know, but I, personally, haven’t had as much success with it. I sell some pretty obscure things, and I’m not fond of the time limit eBay poses. It’s also a little hard to find a specific item, thanks to a somewhat-daunting category listing structure and the sheer amount of stuff out there. It’s not too expensive, though, and the auction format causes potential buyers to jack up the price in a bidding frenzy.

I like the fixed price structure and unlimited posting time of Amazon and Half, and it’s definitely a plus that you don’t get charged unless the item sells. Amazon has more traffic, is more streamlined in some areas (but not as user-friendly, especially their horrid feedback forum), and has a better item catalog, but their seller fees are borderline extortion. They charge a dollar, then a certain percent of the final sale cost, then another random fee, ultimately taking a good chunk out of the total revenue, especially for cheaper items. Yes, there are idiots who sell items for a penny, which doesn’t make a who lot of sense, but, again, I’m in it to make a profit and not give my money away in the process, so what do I know?

Half, by contrast, is a little bulkier, has a limited catalog, and isn’t as well known, but they only charge a fifteen percent fee and are more organized and easier to use than Amazon. Both sites are fairly well monitored, let me tell you. I’ve had run-ins with both.

Half wasn’t so bad. I had them contact me on a few occasions to inform me my items weren’t listed with the right condition rating based on my description. I had a few squabbles with them, essentially because most everyone rates there items incorrectly, meaning I’m at a disadvantage because my items appear to be inferior quality. For example, I’m selling a game, cartridge only, but the game is in mint condition. I can’t list it “Like New,” though, because it’s missing the box and instructions, so I have to list it as “Acceptable.” Meanwhile, other sellers, blissfully unaware of the real rules or just being defiant, are selling items in worse condition, but in a higher condition category. Let’s say another seller is selling the same game, but the cartridge looks like it subbed in for a baseball at a Little League game, the label is missing, and you can only get halfway through the game before it freezes. The seller will list this as “Very Good,” because it still bares some resemblance to a video game cartridge, and tends to stay in one piece most of the time.

But this isn’t nearly as bad as the vigilance demonstrated by Amazon. In my sales description, I mention a personal sales policy, which lays down my rules for returns, statements of quality, and the like. Keep in mind Amazon encourages sellers to have a shipping policy, and even e-mails it to customers after a sale. This is precisely what I had set aside, and I wanted to let potential buyers know it was there.

Well, Amazon didn’t see it that way. They sent me an e-mail informing me that I was in violation of my user agreement because I was enacting a separate policy from Amazon’s and, for the good of the community, they graciously removed ALL OF MY LISTINGS so I could correct this. This was around Christmas, so there was no telling how much in sales I lost. All because of two words to which the meaning escaped them, so they clung to an assumption and never let go. I sent them an e-mail back stating, in a more diplomatic fashion, that they were irrational, gun-jumping buffoons and I hate them. I spent the next hour putting all my stuff back on, thanks to their vigilance.

If I had to pick a site to sell on, I would pick Half, just because they have better customer service and better seller rates. Amazon consists of hardcore money-grubbing corporate suits, but at least there’s a better chance of selling through them. Red pill or blue pill.

So that’s the sum of my experience in the world of e-commerce. I bet you can’t wait to get started! Be sure to check out eBay eDiots: The Feature for true tales of e-commerce horror. With winners like these and more out there, you can expect nothing but good times ahead. This is assuming you like a comedy of errors. Stay tuned for future stories of eBay eDiots! Happy shopping!

Ironic Update: While I was working on the first run of this article, my eBay account was hacked into. In their defense, eBay handled this wonderfully and quickly, well before I knew there was a problem. So I take back the part of that customer service rant, but everything else stands. As for the hacker: you iz dumb. Really, this idiot listed a bunch of really obvious items, like big screen plasma TVs, but didn’t do anything else. Feel free to stop by and get your listing cancelled, if you catch my drift.