I’ve just spent £240.00 for an item from eBay to be greeted with the message on the invoice “We will not be held responsible for any items lost or damaged in the post if you have not requested and paid for courier delivery. All goods leave us signed for and checked“. Needless to say I hadn’t requested or paid for courier delivery, although it’s likely due to the value that’s how my order will be delivered.
Why do sellers do this? Of course they’re responsible for lost and damaged items and what’s more they’ve also got a perfectly legal returns policy on their eBay listings. In this case they are also a highly reputable company with a quarter of a million feedback spread over more than a decade of eBay trading.
Whilst their disclaimer certainly wasn’t legal back in 2000, it was more the norm but not what one would expect of professional sellers today. The chances are that this company simply hasn’t checked their eBay default messages for many a year. In fact they’ve probably forgotten they ever set them up in the first place. They’ve updated their terms and conditions and many other parts of their eBay listings and shop over the years so updating messages is probably an oversight.
Do you know what you’re telling every customer that makes a purchase from you on eBay? When was the last time you reviewed the text going out from eBay to all of your customers? Did you even know that you could add a message to the standard text that eBay sends?
Get yourself set up ready for the New Year by casting an eye over your returns policy, business seller information and of course don’t forget to check your to ensure they’re up to date.
Don’t forget to check on other marketplaces and your own website too. It might not yet be Christmas, but Spring cleaning doesn’t have to happen in the New Year.
5 Responses
Very good point Chris, in my opinion the back-end maintenance pages of eBay shops are not the easiest to navigate through so it’s easy to overlook certain sections that don’t need regular attention.
I’m off to find out what I decided to tell my customers back in 2006!
makes no difference what message you send to most ebay buyers ,they either dont read them, or use them as a weapon against you or twist the meaning to suit their purpose
No out of date messages (I had feared an old “shipping delay because of snow” message) but a quick question.
Is the “please leave feedback” message automatically sent to buyers who have a closed case against them for non payment?
Knowing ebay as we do and its little quirks that we all live with I’m guessing the answer is it is sent regardless even though this class of “buyer” (can we call them that?) is not, in theory, permitted to leave feedback.
Is there a way to amend anything in the “communications with buyers” section if you are a stabdard seller? would like to change the “If your buyer hasn’t left Feedback after about a month” section