Why Ebay Customer’s Are So Sick and Their Car’s So Crap

It is the scourge of selling furniture on line. I have sold over 1000 pieces of furniture on line over the years, mainly on ebay. Nice to sell the item and generally if the furniture is being collected it generally is without fuss. But sadly ebay customers suffer from two chronic problems, regular spells of sickness to themselves or their cars that correspond with an arranged collection.

So you arrange to collect some furniture. Simple. But something has cropped up that takes priority. Something more important or frankly you have has a tough week and would like to rearrange.  That’s fine. At this point the customer merely needs to say the day is not convenient. From the seller’s point of view, slightly annoying but hey ho, that’s selling on line.

But what is intensely annoying is the lies. I know a lot of people in the trade and we all agree, if a customer can’t make it, just cancel. But no they lie. It is always a sudden sickness tragically occurs on the arranged day or the motor has broken down. It is always, bar an odd one or two a lie. Probably 1 in 5 collections are aborted and it is always one of those two reasons.

The message comes through from the customer. They have just pinged over what they consider to be a great excuse. But we all know it is a lie. They delude themselves they are cunning but they are merely part of the ebay furniture buyer’s lie factory. No big deal of course but why not just say, ‘can I re arrange ?’ But so few do, they just find it easier to casually lie from behind the safety and the comfort of their keyboard.

Any sellers reading this, this is my solution. I immediately email back and say I am oh so sorry for their poor health or broken down car and would they like me to cancel the sale. This correctly regarded by the buyer as a basic, collect or you’ll lose the item, the seller knows you are lying. Good as gold they get back and never muck you about again as you have basically said to them, not that bothered if I sell to you. Collect or else and they are always SO sheepish when they collect.