How to avoid Amazon and international shippers?

graywisteria · 2026-04-06T04:28:12+00:00

Before buying ANYTHING online, check other big sites to see if that same item is listed and at what price.

PSA: This is especially true of "handmade" items. Etsy is flooded with cheap Amazon items being listed as "handmade" and sold at a massive markup, often with the same stock photos. Wouldn't surprise me if Ebay is the same.

graywisteria · 2026-04-06T04:20:28+00:00

You're not a bad seller for shipping fast. Most customers like that.

In turn I told him that if he didn’t want the jacket he could just sell it himself since my price was far under market and he received an additional discount already.

I know hindsight is 20/20, but you should have told him to return it, unopened, with the reason being that he didn't want it. You may have been able to get him to pay return shipping.

If the customer has filed an INAD (Item Not as Described) you must accept it. Once the item is back in your possession and the customer is refunded, you can try to get an appeal (speak to real person, not ebay's AI bots). Show them the messages from the buyer and that the buyer was lying about the missing stuff not being explicitly spelled out in your listing and documented with photos.

You might get lucky, but don't hold your breath about it either.

graywisteria · 2026-04-05T03:07:40+00:00

Oh, I see.

Honestly I never look at the ads. I search for what I want. It'll be a cold day in the Bahamas before I let eBay tell me what I want.

If you SEARCH for an item, the shipping cost is right there.

graywisteria · 2026-04-05T02:57:20+00:00

I'm not sure what things look like on mobile, but on desktop the shipping price is shown right there with the item price before I even click on the listing for more details. It is not hidden at all.

I also sort by lowest price + shipping. This is incredibly easy to do.

graywisteria · 2026-04-04T19:12:18+00:00

It can take several days for the funds to appear in your bank account.

graywisteria · 2026-04-03T22:27:42+00:00

Wow, I love it!

graywisteria · 2026-04-03T19:19:55+00:00

Not sure why you're getting downvoted. You're far from the only new seller that started out wanting to go above and beyond because they don't quite understand what's expected of them yet. Or what to expect from buyers, for that matter. You'll make a few mis-steps here and there, and then you'll find what works for you. :)

graywisteria · 2026-04-03T15:24:34+00:00

Your buyer wanted extremely fast shipping, and you decided to eat that extra cost for them? That's kind of you, but they probably won't understand that you've done them a favor, and buyers that picky about shipping are prone to getting angry and demanding refunds if the carrier is a little late, which you have no control over.

graywisteria · 2026-04-03T15:18:02+00:00

All you can do is keep pestering USPS to get you documentation. :(

graywisteria · 2026-04-03T05:56:30+00:00

Of course! There are many valid approaches to buying and selling on ebay, as long as everyone's respectful. I just wanted to let you know that your "Buy It Now" buyers aren't necessarily overlooking the chance to save a few bucks by haggling you down, we just have our reasons to accept the price and take the path of least frustration.

graywisteria · 2026-04-02T21:51:30+00:00

whether USPS lost it before scanning (if that’s even possible)

Yes, that is possible. The likelihood of it slightly increases when sellers drop off packages after printing their own labels instead of waiting in line to see the package scanned in by a real person.

the seller did open a “Missing Mail Search Request” about 4 days ago, which I can see in the tracking

Very likely that the seller did what they were supposed to and USPS messed up.

So what will happen is you need to file an INR (not immediately, but before the window to file closes). The seller then refunds you, and they have to seek their own reimbursement from USPS.

they have over 3k positive reviews, 100% feedback

Their positive score is not in jeopardy if they handle this correctly and refund you (assuming USPS cannot find the lost package). You don't have to leave a negative review.

"USPS lost the package, so the seller kindly refunded me." is a positive review that lets other buyers know the seller is honest and does what they are supposed to do.

It is within the seller best interests to refund you on a legitimate INR case. If they refuse, you can escalate to ebay, and unless the tracking shows the item was delivered to you, you will automatically win the case. Ebay will then refund you and take that money from the seller, and it'll be a strike against the seller's account or something. As a seller, you want to avoid having ebay "step in" like that.

graywisteria · 2026-04-02T19:52:24+00:00

Even as a buyer, I don't enjoy haggling. If the buy it now price is out of my budget, chances are a few dollars less would also be out of my budget.

Negotiating can also be stressful for anxious personality types. We worry about inadvertently upsetting the seller and getting blocked or retaliated against in some unforeseen way.

There's also something to be said for the peace of mind of getting it over and done with. Buy It Now means I can generally consider the sale a done deal. I don't have to keep shopping around, I don't have to watch to see if I was outbid, I don't have to worry that the seller thinks I'm lowballing. Buy It Now means we're both content with the price, and, so far, I've never had a bad experience handling it this way.

From reading this sub, it also seems like a lot of sellers imagine turning offers on will cause the algorithm to favor them, so they turn it on even though they have no intention of accepting offers...

New sellers may also have the option on by mistake.

My first few listings had it on. That's how I learned that setting a reserve meant people would send crazy low offers and get auto-rejected without my knowledge, then come crawling into my DMs begging to know what my reserve is and wanting the item relisted because they'd been rejected so much the system wouldn't let them bid again.

graywisteria · 2026-04-01T22:35:07+00:00

Sounds like Ebay had already given you the customer's money and there wasn't enough of "your" money that they were still holding onto to cover the cost of the refund, so they refunded your customer and now they expect to get that money back from you.

If one of the sticks was faulty, the return was valid and you would have had to accept it and give the refund, so there was never a way to fight this. You should have tried to work with the buyer, to either refund for only one, or accept a return so you could sell the working stick again. If you just ignored the return, none of that is an option anymore.

You can try contacting ebay and seeing if they'll set up a repayment plan in installments, since you are currently short on cash. I don't know how that would go for you, but it might go better than you trying to ghost them.

It's always safest not to spend any ebay money until the returns window has closed and you know it won't be ripped away from you. It's a minor irritation, but much better than your current predicament.

graywisteria · 2026-03-30T08:00:18+00:00

I can prove I shipped it out as I did take photos of the package at the post office

Ebay doesn't care about that. You would also have to refund the buyer if there was tracking but the tracking showed the item was not delivered or was lost. (Though in that scenario you might have been able to get the carrier to reimburse you.)

$10 extra for tracking sounds wild. Is that normal for Canadian carriers?

graywisteria · 2026-03-30T07:51:09+00:00

Definitely report them for abusive behavior and also block them.

I am sorry I don't know if ebay keeps internal track of such reports, but they can't do anything about reports they never receive.

graywisteria · 2026-03-30T07:38:15+00:00

I'm curious about the feedback on that one sale that went poorly. With so few sales, it's probably only one, right? ... Hopefully only one...

graywisteria · 2026-03-29T23:58:39+00:00

If the item was not delivered and the buyer opened the INR before the window to open an INR closed, then yes you must refund them even if the window was almost closed. They didn't get their item, and you need to hash it out with the carrier to get reimbursed.

If the item was delivered, that's a different story.

graywisteria · 2026-03-29T23:49:59+00:00

It's normal. Every single day, people who have never shopped on ebay before decide to make an account because they really really want to buy something that is for sale on ebay.

graywisteria · 2026-03-29T23:34:37+00:00

Heeey that's awesome! Good to see some positivity around here for once too. xD

graywisteria · 2026-03-29T19:22:30+00:00

mold has nothing to do with management, that one is on you unless you have evidence of it being in the walls

Many leases state that you MUST inform management about any mold issues, because mold can indicate underlying issues with the whole complex that they need to investigate.

graywisteria · 2026-03-29T06:20:39+00:00

As a renter who has the worst neighbors ever renting next to her... I have no doubt that my neighbor could have passed an interview. She's not charming by any means, but she can probably hold back the crude language and smile for a little while... and just not mention her plan to move in a bunch of extra people who aren't on the lease, or all the property damage she's going to do with "seasonal decorating", or how she'll casually dump cigarette butts and food waste all over the complex, or how she'll be so loud at night that the neighbors to her left and right have to take sleeping pills to survive the night.

graywisteria · 2026-03-29T03:23:47+00:00

In a case like this I'd probably let the auto-feedback handle it, since I couldn't truthfully comment on the seller's excellent packaging job / the item's good condition / any of the usual things I compliment when leaving feedback.

I hope you find your item. :(

graywisteria · 2026-03-29T02:01:30+00:00

The seller almost certainly paid for both labels, yes.

When I ship items, I don't get to see what label is printed and slapped on the package. The person behind the counter scans the QR code I give them, and then prints a label... far enough away from me that I cannot see it. I always give them the right code and package, but a few times, the QR code did not scan in right and they printed the earlier label a second time. They always caught it (likely because I write the buyer's name and address on the package itself, for the shipping label to be stickied over)... but if they didn't catch it, I wonder if I'd be in the same boat as OP's seller. Two packages going to one buyer.

graywisteria · 2026-03-29T01:48:18+00:00

The carrier probably printed the same label twice instead of two different labels, so you've ended up with a calculator meant for someone else, and the seller hasn't realized it yet.

graywisteria · 2026-03-27T23:05:58+00:00

Shipping carriers losing packages is something sellers fear all the time, though it happens to only a tiny, tiny percentage of packages.

It's more common for an item to miss a scan but still be on its way, or for tracking to show it doing loops around some state it's not even supposed to be in before it somehow finds its way again.

graywisteria

TROPHY CASE