Some years ago, I bought a lot of items on eBay for several hundreds dollars and it arrived poorly packed and heavily damaged with several of the highest value items missing entirely. When I contacted the seller about the damage and missing items he/she’s first response was, “What the hell do you care, you’re probably just going to resell them anyway?”
While I wasn’t buying these particular items to resell, I bristled at this. Even if I were to resell them, why does that make me any less entitled to getting the items I purchased in the condition I purchased them in? How does my being a seller have anything to do with the fact that I didn’t get what I ordered?
I tried to be as nice as possible about it, though obviously if he/she had just given me my partial refund in the first place, it wouldn’t have had to move onto a claim. (I only asked for a partial refund to cover the items that were missing which was damn nice of me since the items that did arrive were destroyed beyond repair.) I’d been charged for insurance but apparently no insurance was purchased, a big mess with a very antagonistic seller resulted.
When it was finally escalated to PayPal and they found in my favor weeks later, they gave me my partial refund and I figured we could all move on with our lives I got an email from the seller that said, “You got your refund. YAY Powersellers, we’re so F*ing cool!!!! YAY! 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 :-)”
My first thought upon receiving this email was, “Holy crow, this person is out of their mind.” But as I reread this psychotic, sarcastic email and the rest of his/her angry emails from the claims process, I realized that s/he hated the fact that s/he had sold his/her item to a PowerSeller and was specifically mad that the very idea that I might try to resell what I had bought from him/her. S/he wasn’t just annoyed by the idea, s/he was filled with blind rage about it, enough that s/he’d been cursing me out for weeks and desperate to prevent me from getting a partial refund.
I have to confess, I don’t get it. It has never even occurred to me to look and see if someone who buys from me is also a seller, nor would I care one way or the other if they were. And why would I care if that person resold an item after buying from me? I already made my money.
But since this happened, I’ve had several conversations with other sellers who insist on having separate account for buying and selling on eBay. I know many of us collectibles sellers occasionally “flip” items, buying big lots on eBay and later re-selling individually or after cleaning/restoration. I know some sellers are desperate for their buyers not to know they do this and use a separate account to buy to keep this secret.
As you’ve no doubt gathered, I don’t do this. My selling account is the one that gets all the coupons and other selling benefits, of course I’m also going to use that to buy. I also, frankly, don’t understand what’s wrong with buying and selling from the same account. That’s how the site is designed to work!
That said, I know I’m in the minority with this. Do you separate your buying and selling into different accounts? Would you mind explaining why? Have you ever had an issue where a seller refused to sell to you because they knew that you were also a seller?
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Hmm – title a bit misleading. I felt cheated when I got to the end and wish I had my time back to do laundry…
Because of some of the eBay changes towards anonymity I think it matters much less now than it used too, but yes, I have multiple “buying” accounts … I should say they’re multiple only because from time to time one of the buying accounts would become a selling account and I’d stop buying on it; another time a customer found my buyer’s account after I outbid them on several items and was kind enough to keep me informed on what I was buying and how much I should be making off them for the items on resale. That last example is why I began my first separate buyer’s account as the same experience happened on my seller’s aka original eBay account, which I had used for everything from about 2000 to I want to say 2003. Ironically I just made my first purchase in years on my seller’s account a couple of days ago–it was from a customer who knew me as a seller. I figure by the time the goods arrive and are scanned the history of the transaction will have disappeared from eBay anyway – what is it, two weeks of history now? On that last point I’d say I don’t see much of a case for having the extra accounts anymore. It used to offer much more anonymity, plus it offered protection from crazy seller feedback back when sellers could neg buyers. Mostly I keep the accounts separate out of habit at this point. I guess the best current benefit is being able to point to my seller’s feedback and have all of the comments be from happy buyers rather than confusing it with seller feedback to me mixed in (yeah, I know there are tabs to separate that, but I don’t think newbies and tabs get along).
See, for me, if I am going to buy something to resell it is almost always a really big lot. By the time I clean everything up and separate it out, even if a buyer did figure out which lot that item came from, I can’t help but feel like they’d rather pay to get a nice, clean, correctly described item from me then pay a larger sum for a dirty item in a confused lot that they may not feel like sorting through for that one thing they wanted.
But that’s just how I see it. The example above is the only time I ever got any kind of comment on it either way so I guess I haven’t seen any need to change my methods.
…if you’re dealing in collectibles, separating accounts is vital – as knowing what you paid might influence bidders. But in general, having separate accounts is only necessary if you’re specializing in a niche – with the intent to build a back-end of return customers (brand building 101). One other thing to consider might be separate accounting and possible PayPal holds or disputes. If you’ve bid on an item with the intent of using your PayPal balance to buy it and get nailed by an unhappy buyer for something you’ve sold as a seller (within the last 90 days), the funds you were counting on will be unavailable until the dispute is over – that is, if you win. And, I can tell you from experience, eBay and PayPal will typically allow the return… the thought being that the seller can simply resell it.