Sellers and the S.E.P. Field

[Mindfield]

I don't get it. Some sellers just seem to have an answer for everything -- nothing is ever their fault. As in the topic title (for those of you not up on your Hitchhiker's Guide), it's always Somebody Else's Problem.

 

I bought a DVD recently from a seller who seems to deal a lot with DVDs -- not so much that they're one of those power sellers that get 300 negs a month but it hardly makes a dent because they get ten thousand feedbacks in the same period. Someone with under a thousand feedbacks. Apparently though, even they're not immune from being idiots.

 

See, the DVD was advertized as "Used" and "Good Condition."

 

It was used. It wasn't, in my opinion, in good condition. My problems with his auction were fourfold.

 

My complaint #1: "It was shipped out over a week after payment (Payment was made on the 5th, item was shipped on the 13th)"

 

His explanation: "as stated in the auction items ship on Monday after cleared payment. your item was taken to the post office on July 11th, along with about 200 other things so it must of taken the poor little lady at the post office two days to post yours. "

 

Technically this is partly true. I won and paid for the item on a Tuesday. He says he ships Mondays -- six days after the end of the auction. The stamp on the bubble envelope had a date two days later -- so 8 days after the end of the auction. But since when do you just drop off a cartload of packages and leave them? Or do things work a little differently with USPS?

 

My complaint #2: "I paid $6 for shipping. You paid $1.35."

 

His explanation: "if you will notice that the $6 is not just for shipping it is for S&H witch includes the actual shipping charge and the envelop and the gas to get to the post office. and my time sitting here answering questions, listing items and sending invoices."

 

Okay, now, I'm fine with a nominal handling fee, but I usually expect that handling fee to at least cover proper packaging -- I wasn't really complaining about what I paid in shipping versus what he paid, but rather what that extra "handling" fee didn't include -- see the next item.

 

My complaint #3: "For what I paid in shipping I would have expected a box for better protection. Instead I recieved a bubble envelope that has arrived with half of the plastic tray's DVD holding ring broken, so it does not securely hold the DVD in place any more."

 

See, this was the part that got me pissed off. The DVD was one of those cardboard gatefold affairs, not the nice sturdy plastic clamshells. There's a serious difference in the sort of punishment each can take. Cardboard buckles and creases, are made of pretty flimsy stuff, and putting anything on top of them is likely to break or at least bend them out of shape. But he stuffed it in a bubble envelope almost exactly the size of the DVD, and it arrived with the inner holder ring broken. My expectation was that he could have at least used a small box or something. It's not like it costs any more, and even if it did -- isn't that what handling is supposed to cover?

 

And finally, my complaint #4: The item was described in "good condition." Scratches and scuffs on the read surface doesn't translate to "good condition" to me."

 

His explanation: "good condition means that it will play and that the box is in good condition. all used items will have a little ware and tare because they are USED. i know that your dvd does play because my son and i watched it the week before we mailed it out to you. if it did not have a few scratches and the box did not have a little ware and tare then it would have be described as excellent condition. thank you"

 

Sure, "good" is a subjective term, but I think there is a general baseline for what could be considered "good." It wasn't scratched to hell, but it most certainly had its share of scuffs and scratches that would have placed it firmly in "fair" territory. Maybe it's splitting hairs, but I don't think so.

 

And wrapping it all up is the reply itself. It left me with an overwhelming sense of "fuck you." It's obvious he feels he's fully justified and that I'm just a whinging prat. Am I? I don't think so. I think he's being pretty arrogant, though; if his was a brick-and-mortar store I'd be climing up the corporate ladder after a response as blunt and ignorant as that.

 

Oh ... and then there's the laughable response I got from another DVD seller I bought from. Cloak & Dagger, that wonderful 90-minute excersize in Atari product placement. His auction said "fullscreen." It arrived as widescreen. I mean not a huge deal, right? But I'd really rather have fullscreen since I don't have a widescreen TV and the black bars are a little annoying.

 

His response to my pointing this out:

 

"Widecsreen is better..that Full screen listing is an eBay default."

 

...as though I'd ordered a junior burger and was accidentally given a double decker. It's just better! It wasn't his fault, it was eBay's! Those damn defaults always getting in the way...

 

It's as bad as wading through a crowd of flea market vendors.

[durden26]

I never bid on anything that has an unusual shipping price. I find that people who overcharge for shipping and "handling" are too hard to deal with. It's ridiculous to post an item at a $1 BIN and then have the shipping charge be $5. We've both sold a lot of games, and I know that in the states you can send two or three games priority mail for $3.85, and you don't even have to pay for the box. If you look at online sellers like Amazon, they won't charge $5 to ship a DVD because people would look elsewhere. Paying for gas doesn't count, because it was the seller's choice to drive to the mailbox, and no company charges for customer service.

[godsey1]

Sorry to hear of you problemes Mindfield. I just won 2 auctions from a seller that they said they would combine shipping. Paid instantly with PayPal, and got the games yesterday. They shipped each one seperate, in standard envelopes(not even bubble mailers). One was a loose GBA game, and the other was a boxed GBA game. Luck was with me on both as they arrived un-damaged. The shipping on each envelope was $.60 and $.83, the amount I was charged was $8.50. That was wrong for them to not ship them in a box. One thing is that I will not deal with this seller anymore, as I hate people that ship boxed games in envelopes .

 

 

Tony

[kevin242]

I never bid on anything that has an unusual shipping price.  I find that people who overcharge for shipping and "handling" are too hard to deal with.  It's ridiculous to post an item at a $1 BIN and then have the shipping charge be $5.  We've both sold a lot of games, and I know that in the states you can send two or three games priority mail for $3.85, and you don't even have to pay for the box.  If you look at online sellers like Amazon, they won't charge $5 to ship a DVD because people would look elsewhere.  Paying for gas doesn't count, because it was the seller's choice to drive to the mailbox, and no company charges for customer service.

896795[/snapback]

 

 

I used to feel the same way about unusual shipping prices until I realised my auctions

where I started at 10 dollars and charged 2 for shipping werent selling, but when I redid

them for 5 dollars and 7 shipping/handling they did sell... so I figure, what's the difference? We all know that you can ship a single game/cd/dvd for less then 5 dollars

anywhere in the US, but if it makes people look at my auction and buy my product

to reduce the actual cost and raise the shipping then so be it...

 

 

I imagine most sellers figured this out and do the same thing. Being a

frequent buyer on Ebay, I know how it sucks to get things late or partially

destroyed, so I make sure

my items are packed well (esp if the buyer is technically paying $7 for shipping when it costs only 2!!!! The wide-screen/full screen thing is BS you paid

for something and you didnt get what you paid for, that is completely unfair.

Edited July 23, 2005 by kevin242

[Mindfield]

Well, personally I do have a bit of an issue with sellers who reduce their start bids and inflate shipping. At the end of the day it still might amount to the same thing or still work out to be a good deal, but it just feels unsavory. Like I said I don't mind nominal handling fees as long as they're charged for proper packaging and the like, but when the shipping fee strikes me as tremendously inflated (like $5 or more above actual shipping cost) then I get suspicious and tend to avoid bidding (and the seller) altogether out of principle -- even if it still works out to be a good deal in the end.

 

True, there's sometimes an odd psychology at work when it comes to pricing attractively and getting people to bid, but at the same time I feel that if you kept shipping reasonable instead of inflating it to make up a percieved difference, your auctions would get bid up higher anyway. Most people do still factor in the cost of shipping to what they're willing to pay for something. (Of course there are still lots of people who don't bother reading an auction properly and so it never actually factors in -- but then it feels like you're preying on that ignorance when you charge excessively for shipping)

 

As to the issue at hand -- I do agree that a "handling fee" should not include your time, or gas to go to the post office (especially when you're taking two hundred items at a stretch -- even if it cost him $10 in gas to get to the post office, that cost is spread out over 200 freakin' items -- $0.05 per!) or such. That's what the profit margin on the items you sell pays for. I mean, would you shop at a store if, after taking something to the counter to pay for it, suddenly slapped on $4 for "handling?" No. Manufacturing, labour (including handling), packaging, storage, freight and profit are all factored into the product's margin. If you're really so concerned about your time and gas money, set a fixed price -- or at least a higher start bid. If people don't bid -- well, then capitalism has spoken; you charge too much.

 

Shipping in plain envelopes -- I hate that, even just on general principle regardless of whether or not the item shipped in it suffered any damage. If there is any chance of damage, whether or not no one has complained "yet" then pack responsibly! Because inevitably something will get damaged somewhere down the line and someone will complain. For boxed items, I don't even like bubble envelopes, becaue they will be crushed. I've recieved quite a few that way and the only time one ever arrived without any significant damage is when the item's box was really sturdy cardboard with an inner sleeve. Even then I was upset with the seller for even considering a bubble envelope. Never underestimate the postal system's destructive ability.

 

Widescreen vs. Fullscreen -- true, I definitely agree it's BS. He went on to say that it wasn't available in fullscreen. That may be true, but it's also beside the point. I can't be expected to research every DVD I'm looking at -- . I expect the seller to represent his items properly, and I expect to get what's advertised. When I don't, and when the seller is at fault, I think I'm well within my rights to complain about it.

[Albert]

Technically this is partly true.  I won and paid for the item on a Tuesday.  He says he ships Mondays -- six days after the end of the auction.  The stamp on the bubble envelope had a date two days later -- so 8 days after the end of the auction.  But since when do you just drop off a cartload of packages and leave them?  Or do things work a little differently with USPS?

You can in fact just drop packages off at the post office. Most post offices have a location where you can drop off packages and bulk mail, such as at the end of the counter or outside at a business drop off. That's all I generally do when I bring packages to the post office to mail them, and it saves me a hell of a lot of time. Otherwise I'd probably only mail packages out once a week also!

 

Well, personally I do have a bit of an issue with sellers who reduce their start bids and inflate shipping. At the end of the day it still might amount to the same thing or still work out to be a good deal, but it just feels unsavory.  Like I said I don't mind nominal handling fees as long as they're charged for proper packaging and the like, but when the shipping fee strikes me as tremendously inflated (like $5 or more above actual shipping cost) then I get suspicious and tend to avoid bidding (and the seller) altogether out of principle -- even if it still works out to be a good deal in the end.

I agree and I generally avoid sellers who play this game. If they're going to try and rip off eBay as well as try and make bidders think are getting a better deal, that's not the type of seller I'm going to generally trust very much. So I'll just move along and buy from someone who doesn't play those games.

 

As to the issue at hand -- I do agree that a "handling fee" should not include your time, or gas to go to the post office (especially when you're taking two hundred items at a stretch -- even if it cost him $10 in gas to get to the post office, that cost is spread out over 200 freakin' items -- $0.05 per!) or such.  That's what the profit margin on the items you sell pays for.  I mean, would you shop at a store if, after taking something to the counter to pay for it, suddenly slapped on $4 for "handling?"  No.  Manufacturing, labour (including handling), packaging, storage, freight and profit are all factored into the product's margin.  If you're really so concerned about your time and gas money, set a fixed price -- or at least a higher start bid.  If people don't bid -- well, then capitalism has spoken; you charge too much.

Yes, I agree wholeheartedly with this entire sentiment. It amuses me that some sellers feel the buyer should pay for everything related to the transaction--the envelope, the packing peanuts, the gas they used in their car, the wear on their shoes as they walked to and from their car, storage of said items in their house while the auction was ongoing, cost of the ink used to write out the address on the package, and so forth. Your cost of "doing business" should be included in the price of the items you are selling. "Handling" charges are simply a means of extracting even more money from the buyer, simple as that. Again, I avoid sellers who tack on excessive handling fees.

 

Shipping in plain envelopes -- I hate that, even just on general principle regardless of whether or not the item shipped in it suffered any damage.  If there is any chance of damage, whether or not no one has complained "yet" then pack responsibly!  Because inevitably something will get damaged somewhere down the line and someone will complain.  For boxed items, I don't even like bubble envelopes, becaue they will be crushed.  I've recieved quite a few that way and the only time one ever arrived without any significant damage is when the item's box was really sturdy cardboard with an inner sleeve.  Even then I was upset with the seller for even considering a bubble envelope.  Never underestimate the postal system's destructive ability.

After receiving a few items in plain envelopes or bubble envelopes, if it's something I'm worried about getting crushed, I always ask the seller to use a box. If I'm smart, I'll even ask about this before the auction ends so there are no surprises afterwards. Nothing like receiving a crushed Atari 2600 boxed game because the seller stuffed the game into an envelope with no padding, and on top of that, charged you $5.00 for shipping when the postage cost $1.29.

 

Widescreen vs. Fullscreen -- true, I definitely agree it's BS.  He went on to say that it wasn't available in fullscreen.  That may be true, but it's also beside the point. I can't be expected to research every DVD I'm looking at -- .  I expect the seller to represent his items properly, and I expect to get what's advertised.  When I don't, and when the seller is at fault, I think I'm well within my rights to complain about it.

897046[/snapback]

Yeah, that's pretty lame, but the widescreen version of movies is better anyways.

 

..Al

[guitarmas]

Yeah I hear it. Not a lot of sellers want to stand behind their stuff. People just have issues.

[Osbo]

a lot of sellers are pinchapennies.

[Osbo]

here's one... pinchapenny and a crybaby...

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...gory=62054&rd=1

[Mindfield]

You can in fact just drop packages off at the post office.  Most post offices have a location where you can drop off packages and bulk mail, such as at the end of the counter or outside at a business drop off.  That's all I generally do when I bring packages to the post office to mail them, and it saves me a hell of a lot of time.  Otherwise I'd probably only mail packages out once a week also!

 

I assume you have to use something like UPS' Click 'n Ship for that priviledge though. Canada Post recently introduced something like that here, but since I don't have a credit card (and don't really want one) so it's not an option for me. It'd have been quite convenient for me on numerous occasions however, though I doubt the people at the post office I deal with regularily would like me any better for it.

 

I agree and I generally avoid sellers who play this game.  If they're going to try and rip off eBay as well as try and make bidders think are getting a better deal, that's not the type of seller I'm going to generally trust very much.  So I'll just move along and buy from someone who doesn't play those games.

 

That's generally how I feel about it. It just strikes me as disingenious and a little bit shady, and that's not how I want to conduct business. I know business is business, but that doesn't mean it can't be honest.

 

Yes, I agree wholeheartedly with this entire sentiment.  It amuses me that some sellers feel the buyer should pay for everything related to the transaction--the envelope, the packing peanuts, the gas they used in their car, the wear on their shoes as they walked to and from their car, storage of said items in their house while the auction was ongoing, cost of the ink used to write out the address on the package, and so forth. Your cost of "doing business" should be included in the price of the items you are selling.  "Handling" charges are simply a means of extracting even more money from the buyer, simple as that.  Again, I avoid sellers who tack on excessive handling fees.

 

Precisely. There's actually a commercial playing on TV lately for a Canadian bank about a woman who approaches a bank teller wanting to return a box of cheques because they printed the wrong address on them. The teller then goes on to ring up and announce a laundry list of fees being charged in order for her to do so -- transaction fee, paper fee, labor fee, conversation fee (by the noun and verb), etc. It's such an apropos theme for some eBay sellers. :-)

 

But even going outside commercial venues, the same thing would apply in the common market -- nobody would ever want to patronize someone's garage sale if the seller slapped on handling fees for dragging everything out on to the lawn, rental of said lawn, reseeding for the grass damaged during the sale, not to mention pesticides and fertilizer, and so on. That's just absurd. Why eBay sellers feel differently is beyond me.

 

After receiving a few items in plain envelopes or bubble envelopes, if it's something I'm worried about getting crushed, I always ask the seller to use a box.  If I'm smart, I'll even ask about this before the auction ends so there are no surprises afterwards.  Nothing like receiving a crushed Atari 2600 boxed game because the seller stuffed the game into an envelope with no padding, and on top of that, charged you $5.00 for shipping when the postage cost $1.29.

 

See, and this is what I'm on about. A small handling fee for proper packaging is fine with me -- though I don't like having to I will pay a small surcharge to ensure that it's packaged properly so it arrives in as good condition as it left. But when the handling fee doesn't appear to have gone towards anything but the maintenance of the leather in the seller's wallet then why would I possibly want to deal with them again?

 

I do the same though -- any boxed item, no matter what it is, will have me asking for a box for it to be shipped in. I think I might have to start asking that for DVDs, too.

 

here's one... pinchapenny and a crybaby...

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...gory=62054&rd=1

897253[/snapback]

 

Wow. That's some fine Merlot right there. She was probably cranky from having to list auctions until well past her nap time.

[Zwackery]

Oh ... and then there's the laughable response I got from another DVD seller I bought from. Cloak & Dagger, that wonderful 90-minute excersize in Atari product placement. His auction said "fullscreen." It arrived as widescreen. I mean not a huge deal, right? But I'd really rather have fullscreen since I don't have a widescreen TV and the black bars are a little annoying.

 

His response to my pointing this out:

 

"Widecsreen is better..that Full screen listing is an eBay default."

 

I gotta say, as a complete tangent to your overall posting, which I agree with, that the widescreen/fullscreen issue is a pretty significant one to me, seeing as I teach university Intro to Film courses.

 

1) The original aspect ratio (OAR) of the film is very important, because this is how the film was intended to be viewed (even if the film was shot with the idea of getting trimmed for a television distribution) in terms of image composition. Would you buy a poster or a painting with the edges cut off?

 

2) Okay, so the whole concept of home viewing comes up with regard to this topic. The majority of televisions right now are 4x3, but more and more widescreen units are being made, and eventually the 4x3 ratio will be abandoned. Now, I'm sure for the next 50 years or so people will continue to buy older, second-hand units if their preference is for the 4x3 ratio (although signals getting upgraded to HD might force the obsolescence on faster).

 

Now, the studios love this. Why? Because you don't want to see those bars at the top and bottom of your screen, but you probably don't want to see bars on the left and right of the image when your fullscreen film is played on a widescreen tv. Now you can stretch that out and distort the image, but it doesn't look so good. So people will then go out and buy another copy of the film, this time in widescreen, and probably in whatever format is popular (HD-DVD, crystals, light cubes, whatever the future holds).

 

However, films that are recorded in widescreen, and particularly in anamorphic widescreen (as opposed to the "matted" widescreen") will have a longer playback life as playback viewing devices (i.e., televisions, monitors, LCD projectors) are being made to prefer this format (by both the studios and the technology companies).

 

Please support widescreen whenever possible. Please surf to here http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/ana...ic/welcome.html for more information.

[Mindfield]

I gotta say, as a complete tangent to your overall posting, which I agree with, that the widescreen/fullscreen issue is a pretty significant one to me, seeing as I teach university Intro to Film courses.

 

1) The original aspect ratio (OAR) of the film is very important, because this is how the film was intended to be viewed (even if the film was shot with the idea of getting trimmed for a television distribution) in terms of image composition.  Would you buy a poster or a painting with the edges cut off?

 

No, but then that's what Pan & Scan partly addresses. I realize it's not the whole picture (literally and figuratively) and eventually widescreen and HDTV will be the norm (thus obsoleting my current P&S collection) but then in either case I'm either putting up with black bars at the top and bottom now or black bars at the sides later. It sort of amounts to the same thing.

 

2) Okay, so the whole concept of home viewing comes up with regard to this topic.  The majority of televisions right now are 4x3, but more and more widescreen units are being made, and eventually the 4x3 ratio will be abandoned.  Now, I'm sure for the next 50 years or so people will continue to buy older, second-hand units if their preference is for the 4x3 ratio (although signals getting upgraded to HD might force the obsolescence on faster).

 

The obsolescence will occur by 2009 anyway -- at least for Canadians, since the CRTC will be making HD signals mandatory by then, so we've all got about three and a half years to go buy a high def TV.

 

Now, the studios love this.  Why?  Because you don't want to see those bars at the top and bottom of your screen, but you probably don't want to see bars on the left and right of the image when your fullscreen film is played on a widescreen tv.  Now you can stretch that out and distort the image, but it doesn't look so good.  So people will then go out and buy another copy of the film, this time in widescreen, and probably in whatever format is popular (HD-DVD, crystals, light cubes, whatever the future holds).

 

However, films that are recorded in widescreen, and particularly in anamorphic widescreen (as opposed to the "matted" widescreen") will have a longer playback life as playback viewing devices (i.e., televisions, monitors, LCD projectors) are being made to prefer this format (by both the studios and the technology companies).

 

Well naturally movie companies would love it... they get to sell the same things twice. I don't particularly like buying it twice -- but then as things stand right now I have the choice of buying widescreen and having it displayed in a smaller (vertical) image with black bars on top and bottom, or buying fullscreen displayed in a taller image with no black bars but missing peripheral image data which, for the most part, aren't central to the focus of the film anyway.

[Zwackery]

but missing peripheral image data which, for the most part, aren't central to the focus of the film anyway.

 

I really didn't expect to change your mind, and maybe the majority of films you watch you don't care about image composition, but I think that Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa, Francis Ford Coppola, Sam Peckinpah, Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Rainer Fassbinder, Leni Riefenstahl, James Cameron, Luc Besson, Lina Wertmuller, Paul Verhoeven, David Cronenberg, Federico Fellini, and John Carpenter (for starters) would completely disagree with what you say. Enjoy your butchered productions.

[Mindfield]

I really didn't expect to change your mind, and maybe the majority of films you watch you don't care about image composition, but I think that Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa, Francis Ford Coppola, Sam Peckinpah, Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Rainer Fassbinder, Leni Riefenstahl,  James Cameron, Luc Besson, Lina Wertmuller, Paul Verhoeven, David Cronenberg, Federico Fellini, and John Carpenter (for starters) would completely disagree with what you say.  Enjoy your butchered productions.

897954[/snapback]

 

I'm not saying the original format doesn't have artistic merit; certainly in the right hands it can be used effectively. For the average hollywood spiel however peripheral imagery is largely ignored even by the directors. I'm referring generally to the average cop flick or romantic comedy or stuff like that. Movies where the cinematography is done Kodak style -- point and shoot. Movies with sweeping vistas or otherwise impatctive imagery use the cinematography to great effect. The opening shots to The Sound of Music for example naturally benefit from the anamorphic widescreen format. The chase scenes in Lethal Weapon, on the other hand, do not.

[Zwackery]

I'm not saying the original format doesn't have artistic merit; certainly in the right hands it can be used effectively. For the average hollywood spiel however peripheral imagery is largely ignored even by the directors. I'm referring generally to the average cop flick or romantic comedy or stuff like that. Movies where the cinematography is done Kodak style -- point and shoot. Movies with sweeping vistas or otherwise impatctive imagery use the cinematography to great effect. The opening shots to The Sound of Music for example naturally benefit from the anamorphic widescreen format. The chase scenes in Lethal Weapon, on the other hand, do not.

 

Like I said, I felt that you had your mind pretty much made up about the whole widescreen vs. fullscreen debate, and your statements - which are largely predicated on uneducated opinion - just prove my point.