Human nature

[sammyc]

I had my eye on an item on Amazon.com, it'd been there a while but I had a small query so I chanced it would stay a while longer & asked the seller to clarify. (Stupid me, having had more than enough instances where I've resolved buy first ask questions later/ assume no-one ever answers messages).

3 days later (& a followup message and no reply) I decided to buy it anyway & the seller would have on record I asked for details, so if it was wrong, it's 50/50 their fault.

I go to buy it and it's gone cue minor meltdown and much kicking myself and so on

however.. slightly odd I thought that it goes not long after I ask about it.. and maybe it was slightly unlikely to find when it's hard to come by.. and maybe I'll just check the seller feedback on ebay where they also keep a store.. and bingo, ALL their negs were for 'sold an item they didn't have' 'never got item' 'paid & waited then they finally said they couldn't send' and so on.

so.. I reckon there's a pretty good chance they didn't have the item, took the listing down after I messaged, & will of course say nowt about it.

Does that make me any the happier that I haven't got the item? No BUT -

it makes all the difference thinking that probably nobody else has either.

[peterb]

I'm very wary about eBay, although generally I have had good experiences their because I am careful about choosing sellers and what I buy. Specialist gear, like photographic items from private sellers based in the UK seem OK as it is hard to counterfeit, and the eBay guarantee should be easy to enforce. Similarly, good feedback is a big plus. The only item I had reservations about came with non-standard accessories, no box, and I suspect it had been nicked, taken to a retail outlet and fenced, the sold on. Nothing I could prove though.

I have bought low value items from traders in Hong Kong and mainland China without problems, but prefer to go with those that have UK warehousing.

Amazon marketplace seems to be a safer place to buy though. But whether that is just an impression because Amazon seem to do more checks on the seller and have a more robust complaints procedure (sellers there seem more sensitive to adverse feedback) backed up by reality, is hard to say.

[Lucio]

Primary reason Amazon Marketplace is "better" is the horrendous procedures and charges they levy on sellers cost far too much for smaller businesses to cope

[sammyc]

I generally haven't had (too many) problems with Amazon - however my point is more that incidences like this really shine a light up on human psychology.

Knowing someone else hasn't got an item, cheers you up that you haven't either..
The way someone else wanting something makes it more appealing..
Dog-in-the-manger-ness..

All those kinds of slightly ignoble emotions.

[peterb]

Ah, a more philosophical reflection on your emotions, rather than on the psychology one dubious practices of some sellers on eBay?

[kalniel]

I generally haven't had (too many) problems with Amazon - however my point is more that incidences like this really shine a light up on human psychology.

Knowing someone else hasn't got an item, cheers you up that you haven't either..
The way someone else wanting something makes it more appealing..
Dog-in-the-manger-ness..

All those kinds of slightly ignoble emotions.

Kind of like..



But not quite so bad

[sammyc]

Ah, a more philosophical reflection on your emotions, rather than on the psychology one dubious practices of some sellers on eBay?

Indeed; logically, disappointment at not having the item should be the chief emotion - but the relief that I didn't have to berate myself for slowness, and that someone else out there hadn't beaten me to it, outweighed it immediately.

Though the disappointment + the annoyance at seller + the fury of people not replying to messages - will probably resurface any minute Really cannot bear the latter, it's the knowledge that bad sellers like this are totally unaffected by their mistakes - they can just skip along airily ignoring customer messages & the worst inconvenience they get is a bit of neg fb. Whereas I'd put in thought, research, even moved money around to pay for my imaginary item & so on.

Some of the worst offenders are online shops keeping items for sale that they don't have as of months/years ago, that really does bring on the red mist when I've been tracking something like a book down, triumphantly place my order and get an 'oh sorry..' So many places are guilty of this.

But not quite so bad

Well, you say that

[scaryjim]

... Some of the worst offenders are online shops keeping items for sale that they don't have as of months/years ago...

Ugh, stock control - it's like some shops just don't know what's in stock and what isn't. I ordered a click and collect shed from Wickes recently, and after chasing them twice to find out if they actually had a shed for me, it turned out they had all the bits of wood but didn't have the fixings pack for it (last one in stock). That means that either they took delivery of a shed without a fixing pack but marked it up as saleable stock, or someone removed the fixing pack for that shed and didn't mark out that the shed was no longer complete. So in stock on the website, but completely unsaleable. So annoying. Had to wait a week for them to restock before I could get my shed... *sigh*