Pack carefully! If you’re an online seller here is a gentle reminder to pack your outgoing items carefully.
The inbound package I received today from USPS. It’s a very good thing the seller left a little room in his package and used lots of bubble wrap. An inch away from disaster!
Packages can get damaged at any time of year but with the “crunch” of holiday mail and packages, it’s especially important to pack your online sale items exceptionally well. It looks like this box had a very rough time of it as it traveled to my front door. It’s a good thing there weren’t any loose items inside.
Thanks for stopping by and Happy Selling! – Chris
Follow me on Instagram at @ccphotographyai
Comments are always welcomed as I’ve learned quite a bit from reader feedback. As always, thanks for stopping by, and while you’re at it, feel free to visit my camera shop at http://www.ccstudio2380.com (CC Design Studios hosted by Etsy). – Chris Whelan
Please respect that all content, including photos and text, is this blog’s property and its owner, Yashica Pentamatic Fanatic, Yashica Sailor Boy, Yashica Chris, Chasing Classic Cameras with Chris.
I’ve been on eBay since 2003 and a regular seller since 2008. During this time I’ve been a “Top Rated Seller” and in the old days, a “Power-Seller”. What’s the advantage of being a top-rated seller? Well, they place a little logo next to your seller ID, you get a reduction in some of your final value fees, and you get to be compared and judged against other sellers with higher sales figures and often higher negative feedback ratings. In order to qualify, you must maintain at least 100 sales during a twelve-month period with a minimum of at least $1,000 in transactions. So, if you have 99 transactions and $5,000 in sales and no negative feedbacks you wouldn’t qualify because negative feedback isn’t really that important to them in the long run. But let’s say you have 3,000 transactions, $20,000 in sales, and a bunch of negative feedbacks from your customers you could still be “Top Rated”. Here are a few recent messages I’ve received from eBay –
This is crazy – why tell me that I had no cases and still need to improve?How’s this for a roller coaster ride?
To say the least this is a confusing mess. I was Top Rated and then I wasn’t with no defects and no negative feedback comments. I sold 99 items (over a 12-month period) with just under $5,000 in sales. eBay charges about 12 to 15% so they made a nice profit from me.
These numbers only reflect feedback received – many buyers don’t take the time to leave feedbackPositive feedback is a good thing but not necessarily in eBay’s eyes.
I’ve started to list fewer items for sale on eBay and as I have a majority of my cameras and lenses on Etsy (www.ccstudio2380.com) and on my Mercari site. BTW, Etsy charged only 5% but will start charging 6.5% in April. It’s still a deal compared to eBay’s 12-15%.
Here is how Etsy rewards sellers (below).
Thanks for stopping by and have a great day! – Chris
Comments are always welcomed as I’ve learned quite a bit from reader feedback. As always, thanks for stopping by, and while you’re at it, feel free to visit my camera shop at http://www.ccstudio2380.com (CC Design Studios hosted by Etsy). – Chris Whelan
Please respect that all content, including photos and text, is this blog’s property and its owner, Yashica Pentamatic Fanatic, Yashica Sailor Boy, Yashica Chris, Chasing Classic Cameras with Chris.
It’s always good advice to beware of the so-called “too good to be true” offers no matter where you encounter them, especially on eBay. I’ve alerted eBay about these messages but to no avail. They said that they would look into them but since I still receive them it’s unlikely eBay did much about it.
As you’ll see in these four messages from what looks like legitimate accounts an obvious trend. I’ll add that these messages are for the same item I have listed on eBay and the messages cover about a two month period. The item lists for around $1,800.
I believe that the scammer(s) hijack legitimate accounts that haven’t been active in a while so as to appear to be legit offers. I’ve never responded to any of these and I’ll never do so. Please, never engage a scammer as they are capable of almost anything and may be able to glean something of importance from any conversation that you may exchange with them.
I once had an offer to mail a full-size piano to Nigeria!
Thanks for stopping by! – Chris
Please respect that all content, including photos and text, are the property of this blog and its owner, Yashica Pentamatic Fanatic, Yashica Sailor Boy, Yashica Chris.
Sometimes cameras that I purchase from online auction sites simply blow me away with the overall quality of the item. Sellers that tend to understate the condition of their gear and then deliver something unexpected (“looks good” is really “like new”). Occasionally cameras arrive and my reaction is just the opposite. But I have a wide range of acceptance because I look closely at the pictures of the item in the listing and ask questions when I’m not sure of something. No one likes bad surprises.
One area that I’m completely inflexible on is previous owner’s initials etched, carved, or engraved into the camera body or lens. If I’m told about it and shown a picture of it that’s fine – I can decide if I still want that piece of gear before I bid on it. Often an etching will be on a part of the camera that’s replaceable like the baseplate or even the film door.
Here’s an example of undisclosed damage from an engraving. I received this camera yesterday and it was described as looking like it was unused in the listing. I guess in fairness to the seller a camera can have an engraving and still technically be “unused”. Not in this instance, however.
This engraving is on the camera’s right side near where the strap would go. That side was not shown in the listing photos. Go figure. If you look closely you’ll also see a hairline crack in the plastic just to the left of the “J”. The camera it turns out was very well used (or very well abused).
No worries, the camera is on its way back to the seller and they’ve promised a full refund. If the seller simply didn’t catch that there was an etched name or social security number, or driver’s license number (I’ve received all three on one camera before!) then I understand. But when it’s this obvious and you don’t mention it why bother going through the motions of sending it? Oh well.
Thanks for stopping by! Oh by the way, if you’re looking for accurately described and well taken care of cameras and photo gear, then a visit to my camera shop just might be the place to start. You can find my shop at http://www.ccstudio2380.com (Etsy Pattern site). Everything I sell is from either my personal collection of gear or locally sourced cameras. Carol and I are always on the lookout for interesting gear so if you’ve got something you’re interested in selling please drop us a line and tell us what you have. We may be looking for that exact item to add to our collection.
Chris
Please respect that all content, including photos and text, are the property of this blog and its owner, Yashica Pentamatic Fanatic, Yashica Sailor Boy, Yashica Chris.
We’re always searching for interesting cameras to review here on the blog – sometimes our searches online lead us to discover cameras that we’ve never heard of.
This is one of those cases. While searching for Topcon cameras, we discovered a TLR (127 film) that struck our fancy. Partly because of the name – Sawyer’s Mark IV… made by Topcon in Japan.
And then… THIS!!!
Would you want to bid on this camera claimed to be in near mint condition? By the way, there is a half eaten donut on the table just behind the camera.
You don’t need a fancy studio to take good images of items that you sell online. Heck we started out by putting our cameras on a clean piece of white poster board and shooting with the natural daylight coming in through the window. Now we use “studio lights” that we put together from utility lights from a hardware store and daylight fluorescent bulbs.
I wish this seller all the best – I hope he continues to do well – just watch your backgrounds man!
Chasing Classic Cameras with Chris 