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I am pulling my products off of Marketplace for now. Two-thirds of all orders that I receive never go through. There is no way to contact the buyer directly except through Dmail. Unless the buyer is a regular participant on DG, they will never receive or see any follow-up information that is needed to complete the transaction. I think that the buyer's email address should be mandatory on all transactions (it is on Ebay). There should also be some repercussion for not paying...maybe a six-month ban from using Marketplace. This excessive flakyness never happens on e-bay because there are consequences for bidding and then not paying.
Additionally, inventory amounts are not reduced until the transaction is completed (i.e. 'paid'). Quantities should be reduced as soon as a transaction is initiated. I've had to explain that even though it shows thirty bulbs are left someone else has ordered 20 of them and there are really only 10 available. They just haven't paid yet.
Finally, when and how do we pay our transaction fees? Do you want them sent via check in the mail?
I commend DG's effort to initiate this Marketplace and look forward to using version 2.0 (hopefully by next spring), but it feels that there was a big push at the beginning and now it has been forgotten.
I also posted several items with temporary photos that were not of the best quality. When I got better photos I was not able to update or change the intitial photo and had to create a duplicate entry that added to the confusion of managing my products.
I had no idea that inventory wasn't reduced when some one has a pending order going on, I've checked some ofmy pending orders of which I only have one plant listed and it shows theres no plants listed for that item, so looks like that is working for me. Not sure it is for you.
I canceled 2 orders last week because of non payment, I know how frustrated you feel. but fo rme, most ofmy orders go through I also have to say I have had some FANTASTIC new to daves buyers that have followed through to the TEE I just wish all of them were that way.
I hate that you've had so many not follow through. I pulled mine once thinking the same thing, but came back and glad I did. It's still a better place than ebay. the over all experience and not to mention the fees are so much cheaper. and it's not a big deal to get your money back through a canceled order like it is on ebay. Just cancel the order and relist the item.
It does help me to have something writen at the very top of each of my sales pages, to let the new comers know that they have to come back here to view their invoices and pay for their purchases and that 7 days goes by that their orders get canceled and they get negative feedback. Not having read any of your sales. Wonder if you have something like that at the very top. I use to hve mine at the bottom but have moved it to the top of all my sales so that's the first thing they read, I still get one or two but not as many.
That photo thing is aggrivating to say the least, I know, i've tried that myself and have had to resort to relisting the whole thing again in order to use a diff photo as the one that shows up on marketplace.
I've asked over and over how to pay. Not sure if we'ere going to get hit all at once or if he's let alot of it as going unpaid since it brought in alot of new members. I'd like to know that myself. I may go broke come pay time LOL
I've gone back several times since Daves started, and sold on ebay as well. Each time, Feeling like , "Why did I do this, " The fees are outraious and with the first initial listing fees for all the things I list would be like l5.00 then the final total after sales is out ragious, almost makes it not worth lsiting at all. I have to decide in my head every time, "Now which plants are going for free so to speak to cover all the fees" I't so not like that here, and I'm veering away from ebay more an dmore these days and sticking to DAves.
There are some wonderful advantages, you never have to relist them untill their sold. Whcih I love. Pictures are free. No listing fees if your a paid subscriber.
I'd encourage you if you haven't already to do what a lot of the sellers are doing to put a statement in your listing letting people know that they have to come back here to complete the transaction, and also state what time frame they need to come back before you cancel their order. Make it 24 hrs, 48, whatever you're comfortable with, then when that time has gone by just bump the quantity back up on that item or relist it. It's a little extra effort but that way you're not sitting there forever waiting to see if someone comes back or not.
My inventory is reduced when people buy but prior to payment (I have checked). I usually just go back and edit add until they pay if they have no feedback.
I haven't had any non-paying buyers in a while--but slow payment is sometimes the norm. It often takes 3-4 days for them to pay, I always felt that was the length of time it takes them to get a dmail about the sale. But I could be wrong.
I also have the 24 hour notice in big and bold letters--but I'm not sure they really read it.
I agree totally with KA.There are some aggravations but they are minor compared to the outrageous fees on Ebay.Things will improve when Dave gets a little more time to work on things.I have noticed one huge improvment lately...my sales now come up last in,first out.Thank you Dave.
One other thing I noticed, if you cancel a sale you have to go back and relist that item, it doesn't automatically relist iself. but when someone purchases an item it does take that item off the marketplace.
Will,
I am a frequent buyer here on the marketplace...one of yours as a matter of fact...and a lurker here on these threads. Reading all the posts about npb's has helped me to be a good customer, or better at the very least. I really hope that you reconsider and don't pull out...I felt that you were getting a good start here:-) Perhaps the advice about how others have dealt with these problems will help you with your approach to them. I have certainly had fun and hate to see folks get frustrated and leave.
Kathy Ann, hope your recovery is going well:-)
Bev
I too have pulled my listings due to communication and payment problems, and I am far too busy with the Lily harvest now. BUT this happened to me ALL the time on feebay because there is NO,NONE,NADA bit of seller protection there, and there wasn't in 2005, right after it started when they made me a "power seller" (translate that to big loser). Not only did I lose fees I lost plants and bulbs, 2 weeks is way too long to hold perishables for deadbeat bidders and then have feebay reverse negatives and not give strikes because of some sob story deadbeats tell them when no excuse or other excuses were told to me, and I had many fraudulent bids. I had at one point 50% nonpayers or late payers and reversed many strikes I shouldn't have. I finally quit feebay and killed off most herbaceous and woody plants. That was MUCH more economical than losing so much time and money on Feebay. This sort of thing happened on Yahoo, the Blooming Auction and the website, but I did and do NOT lose money there, just time which is even more precious. Very little of this went on on The Lily Auction, Mike won't tolerate it and took care of problems. Due to previous experiences on Feebay I have very little BS tolerance left.
Please do the other sellers a favor and leave them a neg for not following through.
Not as a seller but as a buyer, both here and ebay, I have a comment.
When making a purchase on DG, it is buy it now... then wait for a dmail... then transmit payment... then wait for a shipping date... then wait for delivery.
When purchasing on ebay, it is PAY NOW with an easy link to my paypal account.
This makes a far more convenient transaction for the buyer inspiring the buyer to quickly be finished with the transaction.
As there is no bidding on DG, it should be as efficient with DG sellers at least providing the total including shipping immediately after the purchase. As soon as I have the total, I will arrange payment. Some of my DG Marketplace purchases had taken so long, I forget they are coming.
I know the sellers are looking for convenience but the buyers appreciate efficiency and convenience too. After all, that will give us more time to shop!
I love DG both as a buyer and a seller! It is so much fun and I get good plant material. I don't think shipping is a problem. If I list something, I can promise you it will be at least the following Monday or Tuesday before it goes out. That is one to two weeks.
I bought on ebay 2 weeks ago and she said she would ship on Oct 28th...that is ok with me...
Don't get discouraged and go to ebay. We want the Marketplace to stay and get better all the time. A few dmails won't hurt any of us...irritating but that is a small complain.
My customers usually pay right away and , if the don't, they either left town for a few days or didn't understand what to do...they pay eventually.
I don't think, Dave's garden marketplace should be compared with Ebay in any way. Of course it is convenient for buyers and sellers to have an automated checkout, but those features don't come for free. Expensive software and programmers is not what any selling venue could offer and still not charge for listings. Those features result in an awful lot of fees, which of course are built into the item price.
No fees here, at least for right now, and no reason to add anything to the item price, hence items can be offered way cheaper than at Ebay.
It would be nice though to have a direct email system, and I don't think, this would be a huge programming task, just to have all these Non paying buyers, that don't know how it works here, turn into paying buyers. This feature, even if it costs some money to implement, would pay for itself in no time, because Dave could collect a lot more FVFs.
No comparison dear... just as most of you sellers take paypal, make the payment as easy as the purchase was my intended statement. It will remedy a lot of your selling aggravation.
The problem is, if they don't go back to DG, they never see the DMail. I even say in the invoice that they must come back to DG for invoices, etc, but many don't seem to read that part.
Most of the time it shouldn't matter if they read that part or not--if a dmail goes unread for some time period (I think 48 hrs) then the system sends an email to that person's real email address. There are a few email providers where messages from DG go into the junk/spam folder so there will be some people that won't see those notices, but most people should be getting them.
