Every day marketplace sellers deal with returns abuse, unfair metrics, rude buyers and declining sales. Why do they put up with it?
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Question
We have been selling smartphones, tablets and accessories on our website, eBay and Amazon for almost 3 years now. Our sales were very good last year but now they have almost halved. We are also opening our first outlet store in about a week’s time.
Let’s begin with eBay, where some buyers abuse loopholes in the money back guarantee to return damaged items which were delivered in full working order.
Now we come to Amazon which is an even bigger problem. We have four main issues:
- Other sellers on our listings keep changing the product details, meaning that the listing no longer matches our product. We only find out when buyers complain.
- Buyers are allowed to open A-Z claims up to 90 days after purchasing an item, but can also do it after 6 months and get a full refund!
- Amazon penalizes small sellers for a few invalid returns, negative feedback and A-Z claims when there are hundreds of other orders without any problem.
- Unlike eBay, buyers do not bother to leave feedback. The only time they will leave feedback is when they are angry.
What can we do to tackle the issues mentioned above and increase our sales on eBay and Amazon?
– Salma G., Surrey
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