a buyer's market (ebay.co.uk)

Member Name: helican

Product:	ebay.co.uk
Date:	21/06/09 (63 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: getting a few quid for your cast-offs, & bargains to be had

Disadvantages: the convolutedness of any but the most straightforward transaction

I'v bought a great deal of stuff from ebay & sold a couple of dozen items, & there's nothing like the thrill of winning a bargain or of selling something for more than you hoped.

The novelty has worn off for me quite a bit though. As a buyer there's still bargains to be had, although I soon realised that there's no substitute for actually seeing & holding a thing before you buy it & most things I've bought haven't been as great as I'd hoped.

I've sold a fair few clothes & toys - decent stuff but nothing of enormous value - but the postage costs instantly bump up the price & affect how well it sells. Ebay also seems to be so saturated with stuff for sale that it's very much a buyer's market & I've always been disappointed with the money I've made.

The main thing that puts me off is the element of chaos involved & the difficulty in putting things right. When I mistyped my email address recently & a buyer's payment went astray it tooks weeks to put right, due in no small part to the uselessness of ebay customer service who never answered my email to them. There also doesn't seem to be a definitive guide to using ebay, which surely they could have sorted by now. Instead you have to post a question to the ebayers' forum or read previous answers & hope there's one that covers your query.

The entire system seems needlessly convoluted, so that when recently I neded to change an item's description slightly ebay wouldn't let me because my Paypal account isn't linked to a bank account, & I was stuck with an auction with an inaccurate description.

This huge difficulty in correcting mistakes & the worry of whether a transaction will go smoothly - the thought of buyers disputing the item's condition or it not arriving at all - makes me feel very weary. It puts me off going through the great faff of photographing & listing & trekking to the Post Office, & I think I'll stick to buying much more in future.

Summary: a useful site, but can get very complicated