@mrdutch1001 wrote:
have been buying & selling since a youngster>have had businesses over the years,have done trade shows & craft shows, have sold various commodities from purebred horses to market garden produce to collectibles and antiques> all face to face transactions from the home property....Over the past 20+years have had a few eBay local pickups but previous to that> during the 1990s and early 2000s had countless pickups at the door for handmade products from our home businesses. More recently selling on FB Marketplace where business is done at the door.
Using common sense goes a long way.....
Yes, the world is full of crazies and we have some here in Canada too....
but TBH, I think most "nuts" live south of the Canadian border...
@mrdutch1001
There is specific "minority" that are uncomfortable with person to person. Usually the spidey senses kick in when something is just not right but I guess to each their own. It doesn't really help that eBay makes direct contact with customers, how shall we say..umm...challenging. I have always felt dealing directly makes it soo much easier to resolve any possible problems. When push comes to shove it should all be about providing actual customer service.
I started in retail. Then moved on to warehousing and assorted products that involved shipping and large amount of receiving. (Medical, automotive, groceries, manufactured signage, and oil and gas equipment...new and for repair.) Locally, over the counter, almost everywhere across Canada + USA and Internationally. I've dealt with freight rate negotiations, choosing carriers + customs and transport of dangerous goods. Plus too many tradeshows in several countries to count plus arranging returns of those items. Also, for a year on a loading dock loading and unloading..intl. and domestic freight, so the whole gamut. From those experiences I fully understand what ebay does right AND wrong. Getting them (eBay) to fix any critical concerns is a whole other can of worms.
The vast majority of my in person ebay transactions have been awesome. Had a few where last minute changes of plans caused rescheduling. Ya file that under stuff happens. Testing my memory but to date no axe murderers arrived at the door or at meetups.
Very likely the only reason eBay does not encourage the direct contact is sellers doing things outside of eBay and/or potential for losing out on any possible FVF's, but that's only a personal opinion and what other users have shared with me 100's of times.
