How does eBay and Bricklink protect the sellers?

[Ed Mack]

I'm doing some research for a little project I'm working on. I know how eBay protects a buyer in transactions, but how, in real terms, do they protect the seller? Also, what protections does Bricklink have for either buyers or sellers? ...and as a seller, do these protections even matter? Do the fees and commissions take precedence over any other options?

[littlenicky]

I can speak about eBay as I have been selling for over 10 years. The only protection that a seller now has, is that it must have a signature in order to be protected. No signature and a buyer complains that someone stole it or it was never delivered (even though carrier's website states delivered) will 100% go against the seller. Back in the good old days, you only needed signature for $250 and above and any kind of delivered message and Paypal will side with the buyer. Now, it has clearly shifted. So, it is sometimes tough to swallow as a signature is going to run at least 2 bucks. As a seller, you simply have to pray everything gets there and that you don't have a shady buyer. Although, if you press Paypal enough and appeal the case and continue to email them, sometimes, they will give and simply refund you just to get you off their back. That has happened as well. It seems like if you provide enough documentation and copies of emails, they may side with the seller. But, overall, it's like pulling teeth if anyone ever files against you and you have no signature proof for delivered products.

[cvail8]

I've been selling a lot on ebay (Lego and otherwise) for a few years. There's little protection for the sellers at all. It's depressing, but that's the reality. If a buyer is unhappy, you have to bend over backwards to make sure they won't leave negative feedback. Even if the problem is no fault of your own, ebay will side with the buyer. At the end of the day, you have to weigh whether the money you'd lose on the transaction is worth the 20% discount you'd lose. The fees suck and will forever continue to suck, but there's no better option to get your items seen in front of the maximum audience.

[StarCityBrickCompany]

I'm doing some research for a little project I'm working on. I know how eBay protects a buyer in transactions, but how, in real terms, do they protect the seller? Also, what protections does Bricklink have for either buyers or sellers?

...and as a seller, do these protections even matter? Do the fees and commissions take precedence over any other options?

The poll is a little tricky since they are all important to some degree & the results could be misleading. If you could you make the poll capable of rating each category 1 through 10 by importance, I think it would be more helpful to you.

[comicblast]

Ok, this is what I think... When selling sets, I don't really care whether only Legos are sold on there, or cottonballs and earwax are sold there. As long as the fees are low, then I am fairly satisfied. That is pretty high on my priorities list. The MOST important thing that I look for when I am selling something is the protection of buyers and sellers. I say this because I have heard of many, many stories of people being cheated on their purchases as well as sold items. People claiming it was never shipped, people saying it was damaged, etc. Most, if not ALL sites that we see today offer very generous BUYER protection, but almost zilch seller protection. Why, you ask? My guess would be that the sites that we sell our items on don't get any money from the seller. In theory, the money first goes to the seller, then eBay and/or PayPal takes their chunk, so I guess the seller should have some priority in the money-ing world of selling sites. This isn't really how they work though. eBay, Amazon, and other selling sites alike, get their money exclusively from 2 sources: advertisements and sales. These sales they do not do themselves, so essentially, that is "free" money. They get the money from the buyer, they get the sale from the seller. Which is higher on THEIR priority list? The buyer. These sites are after the money, so they have to do some things in order to please the buyer. This includes being nice to them in customer services as well doing some unethical things. By unethical, I don't mean inhumane or anything. I mean they ignore the morals of a person and do what is best for them. Many of these companies advertise that "You are their Priority". In saying this they mean that your money that you happen to have with you is their priority. This is why I am so unhappy with eBay's Customer Satisfaction coming wayyy before Seller Satisfaction. Enough about my raging though. In some ways, site traffic is important in the sale of an item, but IMO, I would rather relist an item 3 times than list it once and then get scammed. I would like an honest site and an honest buyer/seller, but such sites are hard to come by.

[sadowsk1]

I think that site traffic and exposure is extremely important. Most buyers on Ebay are unaware that Bricklink exists or how long it has been out though they can usually get everything they want at much better prices and even have the ability to negotiate. It's hard to beat the exposure Ebay can give a seller. I've never had bad dealings on the selling end on Bricklink so I'm not sure what happens when things go bad but it seems more driven by Lego fans that understand eachother.

[Ed Mack]

I've been selling a lot on ebay (Lego and otherwise) for a few years. There's little protection for the sellers at all. It's depressing, but that's the reality.

If a buyer is unhappy, you have to bend over backwards to make sure they won't leave negative feedback. Even if the problem is no fault of your own, ebay will side with the buyer. At the end of the day, you have to weigh whether the money you'd lose on the transaction is worth the 20% discount you'd lose.

The fees suck and will forever continue to suck, but there's no better option to get your items seen in front of the maximum audience.

Do you think that the ability for sellers to leave feedback on buyers would be a fairer system?

[joelfinch]

Do you think that the ability for sellers to leave feedback on buyers would be a fairer system?

As an example, I think Bricklink handles this quite well - feedback goes both ways. That has allowed me on several occasions to look up the people who have made complaints against a store I'm considering to see if they're a bad buyer.

[Darth_Raichu]

As already alluded by several posters above, there is no seller protection on eBay. The requirement for signature confirmation on $250 and above transactions is technically Paypal Seller protection. Any eBay seller pros will tell you that following eBay's rules and self insurance are the best (although often inadequate) protection. Although at the very minimum, eBay still go after the extreme system abusers if not for protecting their own image. As far as the poll, I believe there is a correlation between fees and visitor traffic. There are many auction/marketplace sites with much lower fees than eBay yet the sellers stay on eBay because the eBay name brings in the potential customers. On the flip side, Amazon has much more traffic than eBay yet the fees and restrictions on Amazon force eBay sellers to think twice before jumping ship. It is interesting to see how many eBay sellers will go to different venues due to the upcoming huge fee increase. I am voting visitor traffic because if it is just fees, the many eBay clones would have crushed eBay by now. I do not have that much experience with Bricklink so I won't comment on it.

[Ed Mack]

The poll is a little tricky since they are all important to some degree & the results could be misleading. If you could you make the poll capable of rating each category 1 through 10 by importance, I think it would be more helpful to you.

It's apparent that you can't have your cake and eat it too with all these options. Basically, if you want high exposure and protection, you have to pay high commissions. I'm just trying to figure out what is most important to sellers and the risks they are willing to take to save large sums of money.

[Anakinisvader]

Do you think that the ability for sellers to leave feedback on buyers would be a fairer system?

I think it would help to get rid of the buyers who don't read auctions completely and then "threaten" to leave bad feedback if you don't give them what they want. If they are only buyers it probably wouldn't matter but if they are sellers too it may effect how they act.

[TheOrcKing]

As an example, I think Bricklink handles this quite well - feedback goes both ways. That has allowed me on several occasions to look up the people who have made complaints against a store I'm considering to see if they're a bad buyer.

That is one of the best features of Bricklink I believe. It helps me gauge on who is a good or bad buyer or seller.

[azalon]

Got thinking about the feedback question Retaliatory feedback is lame on Bricklink though, if a buyer or seller can change feedback they already left. I don't think people even read the feedbacks for Ebay anymore unless it's a new store or to find out why someone received a negative. It would be nice if it were just a number based system. Say 1 - 10(or 100). Also, if it were tied in to USPS. Shipping gets an automatic 10 if the package was delivered in a reasonable time based on the tracking information. Perhaps tied to the lot size of the order if it were pieces like on Bricklink. If feedback numbers were solely based on Lego sets and pieces or minifigs, there should naturally be a limited number of possible complaints - bad packaging, condition wrongly described, order short, late to ship, and whatever else I can't think of. If a buyer wants to leave a low number or complain about an issue, have a box that pops up with the possible issues and they click whatever box applies. That way someone could see my average is say, 95% and if they checked out the sub categories they could see a chart or list that I had two complaints for bad packaging. That would suffice. No need for shipping charges to be judged - a buyer can either ask beforehand, or check the shipping for that country or read the sellers details. If you know how much the shipping cost is and decide to make the purchase, you shouldn't be able to complain about it. Same for communication. If the buyer has a question, fine. But if the item has been sent, there's no need to communicate on a daily basis. The DSR system on Ebay is a good idea, but stupidly flawed. Same can go for a buyers feedback. Buyer takes forever to pay or has a history of chargebacks or claims of not receiving an item? A seller can hit their complaint chart. Personally, when thinking about the feedback system on Ebay and Bricklink, I would rather see less of the ALL CAPS name throwing in feedbacks and just see how many complaints they received for the different aspects of a buyer or a seller. So there should be a logical way to protect both buyer and seller as well as enable them to be as honest as they can to either warn others or to let them know which buyers/sellers excel. At a certain point for either buyers or sellers, they might have 1000+ feedback. I'd really prefer a simple click to view their complaints in the last 12 months in a chart format as opposed to scrolling through 50-100 pages to find negs or neutrals.

[StarCityBrickCompany]

Do you think that the ability for sellers to leave feedback on buyers would be a fairer system?

I suppose that some sort of feedback option should be made available, but I would think it would need to be different. Clearly, if a buyer left you a negative - you would respond with a negative. Not only would it be sellers just looking to strike back, but if someone left you a negative - it wasn't a good transaction for you either. Maybe if they allowed for sellers to leave a neutral feedback & notated if it was left after a negative was left by a buyer.

[StarCityBrickCompany]

No need for shipping charges to be judged - a buyer can either ask beforehand, or check the shipping for that country or read the sellers details. If you know how much the shipping cost is and decide to make the purchase, you shouldn't be able to complain about it. Same for communication. If the buyer has a question, fine. But if the item has been sent, there's no need to communicate on a daily basis. The DSR system on Ebay is a good idea, but stupidly flawed.

Yes, the shipping DSR is completely unfair. Especially since ebay started taking 10% of your shipping charges as a fee. Just to break even on shipping you would need to charge a 15% premium to the actual cost (ebay fee, paypal fee, packing materials). Right from the start you will have people who are simply trying to state that shipping costs are too high in general, having nothing to do with what you charged. Then (unless you absorb the hit on shipping), you will have people who think that you are making $ on shipping (even if you're not), & ding you for that.

Not only is ebay receiving the 10% shipping charge fee for doing nothing. They are also benefiting by creating a system that produces less sellers who will qualify to get the Top Sellers 20% fee discount.

By the way, many people believe that charging fees on shipping is illegal - One day there is bound to be a class action lawsuit/settlement.

[Fcbarcelona101]

What about not making feedback visible until both parties actually leave it. I think it would help avoid buyers/sellers not leaving feedback (assuming they both care about it of course) and also in a way help reduce retaliatory feedback. The problem this would have is that someone who does not complete a transaction or sends defective merchandise would probably not leave feedback knowing that the other end will be leaving negative, thus avoiding it to be visible to others. This would need to be solved in some way for this system to work.

[CNH1974]

Got thinking about the feedback question

Retaliatory feedback is lame on Bricklink though, if a buyer or seller can change feedback they already left. I don't think people even read the feedbacks for Ebay anymore unless it's a new store or to find out why someone received a negative.

It would be nice if it were just a number based system. Say 1 - 10(or 100). Also, if it were tied in to USPS. Shipping gets an automatic 10 if the package was delivered in a reasonable time based on the tracking information. Perhaps tied to the lot size of the order if it were pieces like on Bricklink. If feedback numbers were solely based on Lego sets and pieces or minifigs, there should naturally be a limited number of possible complaints - bad packaging, condition wrongly described, order short, late to ship, and whatever else I can't think of. If a buyer wants to leave a low number or complain about an issue, have a box that pops up with the possible issues and they click whatever box applies. That way someone could see my average is say, 95% and if they checked out the sub categories they could see a chart or list that I had two complaints for bad packaging. That would suffice.

No need for shipping charges to be judged - a buyer can either ask beforehand, or check the shipping for that country or read the sellers details. If you know how much the shipping cost is and decide to make the purchase, you shouldn't be able to complain about it. Same for communication. If the buyer has a question, fine. But if the item has been sent, there's no need to communicate on a daily basis. The DSR system on Ebay is a good idea, but stupidly flawed.

Same can go for a buyers feedback. Buyer takes forever to pay or has a history of chargebacks or claims of not receiving an item? A seller can hit their complaint chart.

Personally, when thinking about the feedback system on Ebay and Bricklink, I would rather see less of the ALL CAPS name throwing in feedbacks and just see how many complaints they received for the different aspects of a buyer or a seller.

So there should be a logical way to protect both buyer and seller as well as enable them to be as honest as they can to either warn others or to let them know which buyers/sellers excel. At a certain point for either buyers or sellers, they might have 1000+ feedback. I'd really prefer a simple click to view their complaints in the last 12 months in a chart format as opposed to scrolling through 50-100 pages to find negs or neutrals.

The Positive Neutral & Negative numbers on a persons feedback profile are links.

So you can click on the Negative numbers and view them all together.

I only found this by accident :)

[cvail8]

Do you think that the ability for sellers to leave feedback on buyers would be a fairer system?

I understand why ebay did away with sellers being able to leave negative feedback: retaliatory negatives.

Sellers need to be able to leave feedback for buyers who don't pay, and sellers should be able to block people who have any kind of unpaid item. There's no perfect solution here, because you can just register under a new email and not pay for things over and over again, but it's a start.

The best solution would be a system where payment was initiated as soon as the auction ended. Something like using buy it now where payment is required for the auction to end. I see ebay is trying to fix best offer by doing something similar. I hope it helps because I seem to get 3 or 4 buyers a month who make an offer, I accept, and then I never get paid.

But it would be really great if there was a way to make people authorize Paypal to submit payment as soon as auctions end too.

I have 6 unpaid item cases open right now, and have had to open 175 cases in the last year (99 closed with no payment). There's a lot of wasted time and money.

[cvail8]

I think that somehow weighting the feedback system would be a way to help as well. For example, I have 1200+ feedback on ebay. I think my opinion on a transaction should carry more weight than some guy who just signed up and has 3 feedback. It would be great if at some level (PowerSeller or Top Rated), there was a "get out of jail free" thing that forgave 1 bad transaction a year or something. I'm not saying that the feedback should disappear, just that it shouldn't count against your ratings.

[joelfinch]

What about not making feedback visible until both parties actually leave it. I think it would help avoid buyers/sellers not leaving feedback (assuming they both care about it of course) and also in a way help reduce retaliatory feedback.

The problem this would have is that someone who does not complete a transaction or sends defective merchandise would probably not leave feedback knowing that the other end will be leaving negative, thus avoiding it to be visible to others. This would need to be solved in some way for this system to work.

The simplest solution there is to make "Did not leave feedback" a black mark in itself. That way, if one party leaves feedback and the other doesn't, even if the feedback is never revealed, the non-responder will effectively get the worst rating possible for the transaction.

If the other team doesn't show up for the match, it's an automatic forfeit.

I can understand Ebay not wanting to make feedback mandatory, since they're all about milking their market for as many transactions as possible, but in a more focused marketplace like Bricklink or LEGO sales generally, I think you could make a strong case for a site that comes with the condition of leaving feedback.

You want to use a marketplace which works well for everyone and has lower fees? Your responsibility is to leave feedback.

[Alcarin]

Why even give feedback type of stuff.. we just need thumbs up and thumbs down fingers... and a neutral representation... if buyer/seller clicks thumbs up he gets option to give commends to a buyer/seller for different things (prearranged like <> good packaging <> fast response <> fast shipping etc if bad same window pops then the seller gets those thumbs up collected and it calculates like a brickpoint system. you get 3 negative in a row from different seller (different country, different name etc.) and you get alerted that if you continue this you will be perma banned IP, MAC adress etc.... everything possible.

[Mos_Eisley]

I voted for seller(buyer) protection. In most cases, the buyer has plenty of protection, it's the seller who really needs it. It's so easy at this point for people to claim they never received an item or something was missing and they easily get their money back. I would rather sell less items and pay slightly higher fees than get ripped off on a transaction or two. If you're selling battle packs, no big deal. But all it takes is losing out on one big set and you've potentially lost a lot more than you would have paying slightly higher fees (assuming you aren't selling thousands of dollars of merchandise). The insurance provided through ebay is actually really good. I use it on all big ticket items and have had to file claims with it 3 or 4 times. Every time I have received the refund I requested without any issues, and all the transactions were over $300. The USPS insurance sucks. I've tried to file a claim with them before and got nothing at all. So some kind of private (non-USPS) insurance would be nice. Allowing both parties to leave feedback is also needed. The ebay system is lame since there are plenty of bad buyers out there and others should be aware when they are creating problems for sellers whether they aren't paying or regularly claiming they didn't receive items. I hadn't thought of it before writing this, but maybe there could be a tally for people who claim they didn't receive an item. It could be similar to non-paying bidder strike kind of thing that would be listed under feedback. If a buyer claims they don't receive an item, the seller may not wish to leave negative feedback, but they could at least make it known that the buyer claimed they didn't receive the item. I'm not saying that people should get removed from the site after getting a few of these, but it's only fair to let the sellers know ahead of time if someone is regularly claiming they didn't get their item. That way a seller can choose to deal with this person if they want, or take steps to protect themselves like using Signature Confirmation and insurance. Things get lost, I get it. I wouldn't hold it against a person with hundreds of positive feedbacks, but the person with 20 positives and 6 never received my items is obviously suspect. I'm sure there could be holes with this and maybe it's over the top, but I really did just think of it right now so I haven't had much time to hash it out. Lastly, buyers who don't pay or otherwise just cause problems should be removed from the site and better measures should be taken to prevent them from simply creating a new user ID.

[redeemed763]

Personally, I love the shipping feature on ebay and it is one reason why I would have a hard time moving away from them, as much as I don't like them, the shipping part is really nice on both ends. Secondly, I don't know if this is how it works on ebay, but I feel that the money should not be released from paypal until the buyer has received the item and posted feedback. I know, we all like getting paid right away but I think this is a safer way to conduct the transactions. I also feel that the seller should be allowed to decline a transaction and refund the money if they do not want to deal with the buyer, lets face it, if we think someone is legit, and they want to pay our price, why not sell to them, I don't see this getting abused much. Furthermore, I don't think an item should be deemed "purchased" until it has been paid for and the funds have cleared. The fact that someone can buy something, not pay for it, and the seller is out fees is absurd, furthermore, they should have no claim on the item until it is paid for. Right now, I can list an item on ebay, a person can buy it, and not pay for a week, I would rather find a buyer who will pay immediately.

[Ed Mack]

There is no perfect solution, just a give and take. I think sellers having the ability to leave feedback on buyers will keep many buyers honest. Maybe there needs to be an option put in to request a feedback review for a transaction if either party has a major dispute. What's the point of neutral feedback? Do people use it? I have over 800 transactions on eBay and never left neutral feedback.

[Alcarin]

There is no perfect solution, just a give and take. I think sellers having the ability to leave feedback on buyers will keep many buyers honest. Maybe there needs to be an option put in to request a feedback review for a transaction if either party has a major dispute.

What's the point of neutral feedback? Do people use it? I have over 800 transactions on eBay and never left neutral feedback.

I got a neutral once for ordering and canceling instantly since i ordered FIGURES CMF series not Sets, and I wanted sets...

then seller gave me neutral saying insufficient communication.

se ye neutral is pretty much to leave comment... :D