Hey guys, some of you may know that I sell used tires on ebay. Ebay is implementing new policies for sellers making it even tougher for us to stay Top Rated sellers on ebay. Because of this I have changed the format of my listing to help combat any buyers complaints about an item not being what they expected. Just asking for some feedback from you guys as to how you feel about my new listing format. I'm trying to make it as easy as possible for the customer to see the condition of the tire and any cosmetic defects that it may have. Let me know what you think and thanks for you help.
BTW: Car is coming out of storage tomorrow!! Cant wait to give another go for 10zzzz!!!

NEW Format http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=261433293192&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT
Old Format http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=271333098866&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT[URL="http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=271333098866&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT"]

 

With the cracking shown in the first groove between the treads personally that would be good for a farm trailer, nothing else. Hope this was just a demonstration of the changes, The DOT states 1201,, without looking is that Dec 01 or Jan 2012.
Actually it will reduce the complaints coming back for you for misrepresentation.

 

Yes it is Dec 01. With used tires it is critical to show every possible detail. Some will use a tire like this, others will not. My whole intention is to reduce the number of complaints for misrepresentation.

 

the new listing is more informative to the buyers.

 

Thanks Shardul!! That's what I'm hoping for. Easy to read and understand?

 

Here in Canada a used tire shop can not sell a tire over 7 years old, by law.

 

problem is people expect a new item when they pay for a used item.

they are used tires they will have some flaws, if you cant live with them go spend some money and buy new ones.

When I buy something used i accept some degree of misrepresentation that i can live it.

 

What about people that want OEM Date code correct tires for points restorations? I have sold Goodyear Eagle VR50 Gatorbacks to customers that were produced in the 80's. They want these tires for GNX's for that specific purpose. Other times a tire may be discontinued and no longer produced but a customer needs only one to match what he has. 255/55R17 Goodyear RS-A's are no longer produced but they were OEM for late 90's Dakota R/T's. I know they are old but I'm trying to make the customer aware of the age, it seems you saw it right away so that is good.

 

EXACTLY!! Ebay just keeps making it tougher for the seller too!! They are completely buyer satisfaction focused, they dont really care about sellers at all. The buyers keep ebay going, so they have to keep them satisfied. I guess they feel there will always be people that want to sell stuff on ebay but if too many buyers are unhappy they may no longer want to buy stuff on ebay.

 

PM sent also..

I think you need to reword this part. I have reworded it for you. I would NOT put anything in the description saying ANYTHING about a repaired tire. This should ONLY be put on a listing that has a tire repaired. All others do not have it. Leads someone to suspect all tire's are repaired in some way. Without seeing it personally, not sure I would want to buy one myself.

Retake all video's or pictures of an actual performance tire being tested. Better to have one for all brands and listing specific. But not show truck tires.

Here is how I would write it up: Could be reworded, but I would list perfect one separately from ones that have been repaired. If someone is willing to buy a repaired tire, a separate listing will not deter them. But someone NOT willing to buy a repaired tire, will likely move on and buy from someone else.

"We put great effort into providing high quality performance tires at a great price. We specialize in the difficult to find, high performance, and name brand tires. All tires are visually inspected for cosmetic defects, (i.e scuffs, uneven wear, weathering, bubbles) and are always shown in the pictures if present, so there are absolutely NO surprises when you receive your actual tire. ALL tires shown in the pictures of the listing are the actual tire you will receive. No repairs or patches were ever made to the sidewalls or to the center of the tire. Tread depth is measured in all major tread grooves and displayed in the photos as well as listed on the tags shown in pictures.

Testing Phase for each tire listed:
All tires are pressure tested for leaks using our TI95 Tire Inspector. If a tire is found to have a leak somewhere in it besides the sidewall, we have specific listings for those. If a tire was shown to have had a plug, or patch sometime before reaching us, or if a tire is found to have a leak during testing phases, those tires will be repaired using Safety Seal Combination Plug/Liquid Patch repair system. These tires can be found in special listings at a slightly lower price mark. The tire in this listing has meet all pre-standard tire testing and was found to have no faults during our testing also.

 

I prefer the new listing with the picture of the tire inspector from the old listing

 

New format is very good. EBay is so bias toward the buyer, I never count a sale as cash in the bank until 90 after sale.

 

Agreed!! Thanks for your opinion

Thanks want to make it pretty easy for the customer to see the condition.
I do understand what your saying. I actaully wanted to have a standardized description below to get away from editing each listings' description below. It seems easy to change for each listing but when dealing with 100's of listings a week it also allows room for error. Kind of like playing phone tag. The more times you have to transfer info about each tire to another format the more chance there is to mess something up. That is why I put all pertinent info on the label in the picture. Right there a customer can see if the tire has any repairs and where they are located. Sometimes the picture is all the customer even looks.

 

1. Get a template for each type that says all the in general things. Then just allow for one or two lines right at the top of the description for that exact tire. When you list them, all you have to do is state that exact tire description. That is what I do for my listings. A specific listing for the specific item is what buyers want to see. Especially dealing with used items.

Ebay is buyer focused, period. You will lose a lot of the time. I get 6-8 neg a month, one recently bought an item, paid for first class international mail, and then 3 days later left neg and said he did not receive the item. 3 DAYS, wow. What a moron. However Ebay took it off. If you do enough business, Wbay will take off some each month, but regardless you WILL get some pending the volume you do. I do about 1k items a month, so I expect it.

Brand new item, with tags, I get people say its used, not authentic, wrong description etc.... . Its none of those things, most of the time, they have buyers remorse, want their money back, or ordered somewhere else and got that one first or cheaper. Ebay will side with them each time.

I sold a rare not in production anymore, never worn BNIB item. The customer said they did not like the color, and it didn't fit them right. (sunglasses). They said it didn't meet description and wanted their money back including shipping both ways. ( the item was likely worn, due to them saying it didn't fit right, so NO return). Issue is when returned I cannot list as BNIB anymore, due to them trying it on. Now I have a LNIB rare item that doesn't command as much money. Ebay sided with them, but took their neg feedback off for me. Neg because it didn't fit right. Part of doing business on Ebay, gotta roll with the punches. Streamline your items so hardly anything is not described. But, regardless the customers will still likely continue what they do.

 

I agree that most of the time it is buyers remorse, or sometimes just a scammer. Some people know exactly how the system works and that most sellers will issue some kind of refund just to avoid the low DSR's and feedback. I sell about 500 items a month and do get my fair share of problems. Just wondering if you have seen the new Spring Seller update? Starting on August 1st ebay is changing the way they rate their sellers. Now any "item not as described case" will count negatively against a seller even if it is resolved by the seller. Any canceled transaction will also count against us if we cancel it due to no longer having it in stock, ie sold locally or maybe we realized there was a mistake in the listing before shipping. They will count against us for 1,2,3 star ratings in item as described and 1 star ratings in shipping time. Also negative and neutral feedback will count against us regardless of if we get the buyer to revise. All of these things are now being called defects in the transaction. Top Rated can have 2% defect rate in all completed transactions and 5% to be considered standard. Anyhting above that and you will be permently kicked off ebay, that's for LIFE!! For our volume this will remain a 3 month rolling average so starting May 1st these defects will start being counted. Ebay tries to make it sound better for us too, but it most definitely is not IMO. Due to all ebays Buyer Protection Marketing crap, buyers think the first thing they should do is open a case in the resolution center. REALLY??? Did you buy this product from ebay??? Shouldn't they contact me first?? Now ebay is counting all item not as described cases against me regardless of if I resolve the problem??? Also the canceled transaction is another thing that is just BS!! Anyway pardon me for my rant, but watch out as ebay is changing things up yet again and it is getting to be quite a headache!!. If it wasn't such a powerful marketplace I would just say goodbye to ebay.

 

Ahhhhhhh, No did not read all of it, been too busy. However, that is a huge issue. International shipping creates somewhere around 20 or so item not received cases a month for me. I push them off as long as I can, and most all receive the original item as promised. Then the case disappears. However with this new policy, that can't happen in the first place or it will count neg. Big changes will need to take place. A lot of people will be taken off Ebay due to this policy. I have always said, DO NOT rely on ebay for your primary income, one day you will wake up and they will have kicked you off for no reason. Now your stuck with inventory. This is truly bad news.

 

I think there is some wording in there about item not received cased. If you ship with UPS, Fedex, DHL, or UPS and ebay can verify the product was delivered you must escalate the case to Ebay to prove it was delivered and then it will drop off. But be carefull if you escalate and ebay finds in the buyers favor that counts against you and you are only allowed .3% escalated cases not found in your favor!! Another thing that affects me is I have to maintain 90% tracking uploaded within 24hrs. Ok no problem right? Wrong!!! Now ebay is changing that you can only use those aforementioned four carriers to ship. I use a local delivery service Speedee for a five state surrounding area. They are at least 50% cheaper than UPS to those states, now ebay will not count that as uploaded tracking because their systems are not linked!!! Really Ebay?? Are you going to pay the extra shipping charges for me to use UPS?? Shipping tires is extremely expensive so I try to save where I can. Only saving factor in this whole change is that ebay will no longer count low ratings in shipping costs against me which is the whole reason I changed it to free shipping. I may have to change back to charging for shipping. Ebay IS my primary income source and it has been very lucrative for me the past four years. Making more money than I could doing anything else, so this is VERY SCARY STUFF for me

 

I am right there with ya brother. I use and run a site for a good friend for a side job. We have over 100k in inventory and have approximately 1k in transactions a month. Fairly large. This is his retirement funding, and my 63 funding. Yes big deal financially.

Shipping-- My suggestion is get a UPS account for you. See if you can work discounted deals or prices and see where your at. USPS would likely be too expensive. Auctane shipping manager works wonder for us. We also are starting with Channel Advisor to branch all items our distributor has, plus move to Amazon also.

The item not received are from international shipping primarily. Issue---- First class takes on average 4-6 weeks for them to receive. They file INR Cases from 3 days to 3 weeks down the road. We push off due to not enough time has been allowed. There is Customs tracking, but all that will say it is went through US customs on such and such date. That it forever. So any international first class mail order could file for a INR case and win. Express Priority Inter is the only one to offer true delivery confirmation. Starts at $50 to ship, not happening for a shirt, pair of handcuffs etc..... Thats an issue. We probably get 20-30 a month. Very few item not described, when we do its someone complaining about a missing box on underwear, or shirt, or torn up shoe box. Glasses--- they file if they don't fit them the way they like. So all added up could pose problems. Issue is what do you do with 100k of inventory if they shut you down???

 

Yes I have a UPS account and do get about 25% off of their normal rate. About 90% of my shipping goes through them. Speedee is just way cheaper to the closest five states to me and they account for right about 10% of my total sales. USPS is not really any cheaper than UPS and much more of a hassle. I use a program called Shipgear to export out of ebay and into Worldship, it works well and is integrated into ebay. We dont ship anything internationally as the size and weight of most tires just makes the shipping uneconomical.

Used stuff is tough because there are always those who think they should get a brand new product for used prices. That's why I'm trying to do better job showing everything. Also adding post cards in with the shipment to try to get customers to call first if there is any issues in their mind. I'm am honest seller that does stand behind his products and am more than willing to work with them, just wish more would contact me first instead of running to ebay. I currently have about 10 or so item not as described per month, I resolve every single one. So I wouldn't be over the 5% as is but really close to 2% so that puts my TRS discount in jeopardy which is about $1500 a month in ebay fee savings.

Well thanks for letting me vent, hopefully I've alerted you as well to the new policies that ebay will be introducing. Selling on ebay is love/hate relationship for sure. Hoping to stay on for the long term and will continue to save my cash in case the long arm of ebay comes back to slap me in my face!!

 

I just looked at what I think you were referring to. August 20 is what they call it. Most of what you said we are already following. One thing is USPS does not always scan in their items, and sometimes the scans are not done enroute either. We ran into that over the holidays. The way Ebay says is, 90% of items sold must have verified scanned tracking through their systems within time (the seller) allots for shipping ( 24hrs). One question is , what if sold on Sat, or Sun. That uploaded tracking might not get scanned for 2 days or so. USPS fault. Also some things appear that Ebay is only going off Delivered status not tracking status.

I think we are still good (US ITEMS) on complainers opening a case. If we resolve it we are still fine. Its only if its escalated further as a claim that it hurts us. Feedback is giving them less choices now, so if they ding us on two things, because they are mad or crazy, it only affects us once, not twice like before. I think the worst worry is losing the 20% off fees, but the next month you can make it back.

No worries on international I don't think. Also, I don't think ebay is gonna remove a seller that quick due to these policies. We have been running with them for 6 months or so now anyway. Top Rated people have.

You are seeing these issues due to volume. We do enough to have several issues a month, which is totally normal. the card in the box is a great plan. Bold letters attached to the card on the tire needs to say call with ebay sale number if ANY issue. Then you can handle immed on the phone hopefully.

GN