Is it possible to make some policy changes in the Exchange ?

[RamZar]

USPS also delivers to US possessions like Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, and Guam.

My initial assumption for just the 48 states was following the example of many sales threads in the Exchange and made a second assumption that sellers did this due to increased shipping & insurance cost. Turns out USPS Priority Mail Flat Rate is the same for ALL 50 States and U.S. Territories (Puerto Rico, Guam, United States Virgin Islands, Northern Mariana Islands).

 

[338375]

It's my understanding that insurance is expected. I just figure insurance under the heading of "shipping and handling". It's downright dumb to not include it regardless of rules... it's pennies on the dollar for goodness sakes. It's not a guarantee that nothing will go wrong, but at least it shows that the seller is paying attention and gives a hoot.

Exactly

My initial assumption for just the 48 states was following the example of many sales threads in the Exchange and made a second assumption that sellers did this due to increased shipping & insurance cost. Turns out USPS Priority Mail Flat Rate is the same for ALL 50 States and U.S. Territories (Puerto Rico, Guam, United States Virgin Islands, Northern Mariana Islands).

After thinking about this, I remembered I have also sent a knife to Alaska. As I mentioned earlier, I never even thought about this, then again, nobody has ever asked me about shipping to the other U.S territories . I am making a note for any future sales though, and will include these in my listing.

If nothing else comes from this thread, I have learned I need to be more specific in my future listings...

 

[RevDevil]

While I'm in geenral agreement with the one simple price option,
I keep seeing the word "irritating" ... why is it irritating?

I've done hundreds of transactions thru paypal, I have yet to find a dishonest person in this community.
Are you frequently needing the recourse of paypal?

I find it irritating that gas prices have a 9/10 at the end of the gallon price but there isn't really any thing I can do about it.
Personally I find it annoying when a seller removes the price and puts SOLD in place of the value. They claim it's at the buyer's request, but I have never once had a buyer ask me to remove the price ...It's like the seller is trying to be clever or something.

The word clever and sales are synonymous with a used car dealer in my mind. No thank you. I don't pretend to speak for others, but I do think that the old "add 3.75%" to the existing asking price accomplishes nothing. It goes like this:
Buyer: I want to buy your knife.
Seller: I'm asking $435 + $7.95 for shipping, $6 extra for insurance, and add the 3.75% and the original 30¢. Or we can do $435, net to me, or you can use "gift"...
Buyer: can you possibly just give me a single price, don't make me sit here and do math that is apparently too complicated for you to do. This isn't math class. I'm trying to give you money.
Seller: $old!/Withdrawn for now, thx BF!
Buyer: WTF??

Go through that enough times it gets irritating. Maybe some people love the thrill of the general mathematics, other people are busy, see something that want, but the seller insists on setting obstacles. For what purpose? As far as the gasoline example, they can write 10/9 if they want to, when I fill my vehicles with fuel, i know what the fixed price per gallon is. End of story.

Gift removes the buyers protection, because there is an assumption that the money is, well....a friggin gift. That knife I'm buying ain't a gift, it's $435 and a whole lot of other extra fluff added on. Where is the gift? Will it be a gift when paypal locks your account for evading the policy and ToS and you cannot refund someone because their money is tied up to be damned in your account? Problems man, I don't know about you but i like to try and avoid them myself.

 

[RamZar]

Tell me how you'd change this sample verbiage:

Payment of $200.00 via PayPal ONLY and I'll send you a PayPal invoice which covers you under the PayPal Purchase Protection plan. Upon receipt of payment, package will be shipped within 24 hours via USPS Priority Mail (2-3 day delivery) with insurance to U.S. addresses ONLY.

 

[RevDevil]

Not everyone knows how to or has the Premier or Business version of Paypal to send invoices.


Back to the topic at hand, here is a fine example of what can go wrong, and fairly recent too. So far we have 3 pages worth of back and forth. There are lessons all over the place for those that choose to learn from them. Ignorance is certainly not a virtue in my eyes.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1154704-Screwed-by-Charles-Lester

 

[Zidfeldts]

The fact that people list nice knives for sale and then put "net to me" or plus 4% has saved me a ton of money. I wouldn't send PayPal gift for the last knife for sale in the whole world. Put a price, including PayPal fees, on your knife and your knife will move a lot faster.

 

[james terrio]

Put a price, including PayPal fees, on your knife and your knife will move a lot faster.

I would think so. I'll say this much... no potential buyer has ever asked me to make the process more complicated for them

 

[338375]

The fact that people list nice knives for sale and then put "net to me" or plus 4% has saved me a ton of money. I wouldn't send PayPal gift for the last knife for sale in the whole world. Put a price, including PayPal fees, on your knife and your knife will move a lot faster.

I would think so too, but amazingly most seem to still sell. However, we don't know what communication was involved through p.m or e-mail.
There are some people that just want something and they don't care about the details of the transaction. Personally I can't do that, but to each their own

I would think so. I'll say this much... no potential buyer has ever asked me to make the process more complicated for them

There are some people that truly love making things difficult for themselves.

The word clever and sales are synonymous with a used car dealer in my mind. No thank you. I don't pretend to speak for others, but I do think that the old "add 3.75%" to the existing asking price accomplishes nothing. It goes like this:
Buyer: I want to buy your knife.
Seller: I'm asking $435 + $7.95 for shipping, $6 extra for insurance, and add the 3.75% and the original 30¢. Or we can do $435, net to me, or you can use "gift"...
Buyer: can you possibly just give me a single price, don't make me sit here and do math that is apparently too complicated for you to do. This isn't math class. I'm trying to give you money.
Seller: $old!/Withdrawn for now, thx BF!
Buyer: WTF??

Go through that enough times it gets irritating. Maybe some people love the thrill of the general mathematics, other people are busy, see something that want, but the seller insists on setting obstacles. For what purpose? As far as the gasoline example, they can write 10/9 if they want to, when I fill my vehicles with fuel, i know what the fixed price per gallon is. End of story.

Gift removes the buyers protection, because there is an assumption that the money is, well....a friggin gift. That knife I'm buying ain't a gift, it's $435 and a whole lot of other extra fluff added on. Where is the gift? Will it be a gift when paypal locks your account for evading the policy and ToS and you cannot refund someone because their money is tied up to be damned in your account? Problems man, I don't know about you but i like to try and avoid them myself.

Well said. That has been my thought all along.

 

[Metal Made Fox]

The only rule I would like to see established in the exchange is that sellers can not be allowed to post a sales thread without including any pictures of their items for sale.

My biggest pet peeve here is sellers who do not post pictures and require you to "email them for pictures". That's just BS and anyone who does that here should not be allowed to sell.

 

[338375]

The only rule I would like to see established in the exchange is that sellers can not be allowed to post a sales thread without including any pictures of their items for sale.

My biggest pet peeve here is sellers who do not post pictures and require you to "email them for pictures". That's just BS and anyone who does that here should not be allowed to sell.

I don't understand that either. They obviously have the pictures on their computer, and even an idiot like me can post pictures...
There is no way I would ever buy a knife without seeing it. Unless it was someone I had done business with before, and there was a valid reason they couldn't post pictures at the time.

Back to the original topic, I have been on two other websites recently. One knife related, the other wasn't. In the exchange area, both have large stickies at the top of each area in red, with big letters, saying Paypal gift, and charging additional for fees, is not allowed. In the sticky thread, it is clearly explained why neither of these practices is acceptable. I'm sure there are still people that don't read them, or read them, and ignore it, but I still think it would eliminate a lot of these practices..

As mentioned before, lump everything you want into one price. You can add the extra to cover fees if you want. Nobody will know the difference, and the seller gets exactly what they want. Just don't be lazy and not take 10 seconds to figure out the math, and openly list the charges for everything...
It's ridiculous, and doesn't take much effort to make things simpler.

 

[RevDevil]

The only rule I would like to see established in the exchange is that sellers can not be allowed to post a sales thread without including any pictures of their items for sale.

My biggest pet peeve here is sellers who do not post pictures and require you to "email them for pictures". That's just BS and anyone who does that here should not be allowed to sell.

I do not disagree with this. Pictures of the actual item, not a stock photo off the web either.

 

[Fanglekai]

I don't understand that either. They obviously have the pictures on their computer, and even an idiot like me can post pictures...
There is no way I would ever buy a knife without seeing it. Unless it was someone I had done business with before, and there was a valid reason they couldn't post pictures at the time.

Back to the original topic, I have been on two other websites recently. One knife related, the other wasn't. In the exchange area, both have large stickies at the top of each area in red, with big letters, saying Paypal gift, and charging additional for fees, is not allowed. In the sticky thread, it is clearly explained why neither of these practices is acceptable. I'm sure there are still people that don't read them, or read them, and ignore it, but I still think it would eliminate a lot of these practices..

As mentioned before, lump everything you want into one price. You can add the extra to cover fees if you want. Nobody will know the difference, and the seller gets exactly what they want. Just don't be lazy and not take 10 seconds to figure out the math, and openly list the charges for everything...
It's ridiculous, and doesn't take much effort to make things simpler.

Agreed. Pictures should be required.

I also agree Paypal gift shouldn't be allowed.

The argument that the mods don't have time doesn't make sense. I don't see how it's toooo difficult to monitor sales threads but policing people's language all over the site isn't too difficult. If the mods are able to police language in all areas of the site without that being too much of a burden, why would adding clear, organized policies regarding payments in sales threads in the exchange be way too difficult? It simply doesn't make sense. People will read the stickies. People can report threads that are in violation of the rules. Yes, it would be more work, but it would save work in other areas. Paypal gift is the cause of dozens of threads in GB&U about deals going south. How much time do mods spend dealing with that? The policy should be changed once and for all.

 

[Esav Benyamin]

The argument that the mods don't have time doesn't make sense. I don't see how it's toooo difficult to monitor sales threads but policing people's language all over the site isn't too difficult. If the mods are able to police language in all areas of the site without that being too much of a burden, why would adding clear, organized policies regarding payments in sales threads in the exchange be way too difficult? It simply doesn't make sense. People will read the stickies. People can report threads that are in violation of the rules. Yes, it would be more work, but it would save work in other areas. Paypal gift is the cause of dozens of threads in GB&U about deals going south. How much time do mods spend dealing with that? The policy should be changed once and for all.

Mods do not have time. A LOT of what we respond to is from reports by members, and we don't always get to all of them. Anyway, we can all have our opinions, but if Spark doesn't want us enforcing policies some might suggest, we aren't going to be enforcing them. You can convince yourselves it would be a good idea, you might even convince me -- I hate PayPal violations, for all the trouble they cause -- but without Spark ruling on them, we aren't going to.

You want rules? How about leaving prices in place? Liu Kang is the one who started the general practice of removing them. Now almost everyone follows that con man's example.

Pictures? In the rules already.
SECTION 2 - Rules/Procedures for Selling, Buying, Trading, & Offering Services:

3. Be honest and provide an accurate & detailed description of the item. Don't forget to mention defects, blemishes, new, used, or other problems. When in doubt, be pessimistic with your descriptions.
4. Provide as many photos as possible, in the best lighting possible. It's always nice for buyers to see what they are going to get.

 

[Fanglekai]

Mods do not have time. A LOT of what we respond to is from reports by members, and we don't always get to all of them. Anyway, we can all have our opinions, but if Spark doesn't want us enforcing policies some might suggest, we aren't going to be enforcing them. You can convince yourselves it would be a good idea, you might even convince me -- I hate PayPal violations, for all the trouble they cause -- but without Spark ruling on them, we aren't going to.

You want rules? How about leaving prices in place? Liu Kang is the one who started the general practice of removing them. Now almost everyone follows that con man's example.

Pictures? In the rules already.
SECTION 2 - Rules/Procedures for Selling, Buying, Trading, & Offering Services:

3. Be honest and provide an accurate & detailed description of the item. Don't forget to mention defects, blemishes, new, used, or other problems. When in doubt, be pessimistic with your descriptions.
4. Provide as many photos as possible, in the best lighting possible. It's always nice for buyers to see what they are going to get.

I know the mods aren't going to enforce things that aren't in the rules. It would be nice if Spark would read threads like this one and make it a rule.

I think leaving prices up in threads should be a rule, but I suppose that's a topic for another thread.

If pictures are already in the rules then why aren't listings without pictures closed? I'm not trying to be difficult I'm genuinely curious.

 

[Clem Kadiddlehopper]

I know the mods aren't going to enforce things that aren't in the rules. It would be nice if Spark would read threads like this one and make it a rule.

I think leaving prices up in threads should be a rule, but I suppose that's a topic for another thread.

If pictures are already in the rules then why aren't listings without pictures closed? I'm not trying to be difficult I'm genuinely curious.

I really can't speak for Spark, but I know he likes this place to run like the majority of the members want it to run?

So if you can get the MAJORITY here to go along with your idea? He would probably make it go that way?

And I think I can say that the majority here could do with out a bunch of rules - because most folks here at Bladeforums, has basic common sense.

 

[Esav Benyamin]

If pictures are already in the rules then why aren't listings without pictures closed? I'm not trying to be difficult I'm genuinely curious.

You need a keen legal mind to read anyone's rules. Precision counts.

4. Provide as many photos as possible, in the best lighting possible. It's always nice for buyers to see what they are going to get.

"as many photos as possible" can mean none if the seller has no camera, doesn't know how to download, doesn't think a well-known and inexpensive knife needs them.

We can discuss it with him -- but not in the thread -- and he may just not click when it comes down to it.

We do have the option as buyers to avoid sales with no picture, with PayPal violations, with high prices, etc. As we so often remind those who interfere with sales threads: Let the market decide.