posted on March 25, 2002 01:10:15 PM
I signed up to be an Ebay trade asistant.
For those of you not yet familiar with this program.......its lets experienced sellers rent out their expertise and list auctions for other people.......whatever the seller decides.
Anyways,
I have been getting random idiots calling me AT MY HOME to ask basic Ebay customer service questions.
How do I sign up for an account?
Do you have a customer service telephone number to call Ebay?
I have problems registering my credit card on Ebay can you help me?
I have a bidder who won't pay, how do I make them pay?
GOOD GRIEF!!
This program was not designed for us to be Ebay's stooges fielding calls meant for them.
posted on March 25, 2002 01:43:35 PM
"This program was not designed for us to be Ebay's stooges fielding calls meant for them."
It wasn't?
That certainly was the impression I got. And I'm not being sarcastic; I thought participants in the program were volunteering to be unpaid eBay customer service reps.
Didn't this originate during the heinous Auctions for America debacle?
posted on March 25, 2002 01:49:01 PM
While I thought about being a volunteer, I quickly discarded the thought. It just felt like I would be doing the work that ebay should be doing, only I wasn't getting paid for it.
If there was any credible evidence that ebay cared about its sellers in a genuine way, it would have been a different story.
It seems like ebay is a one way street - do they offer the "volunteers" anything in return? Nope. It seems to me that this is just a program to save them money.
Good luck finding someone to pay for your hard earned expertise.
[ edited by litlux on Mar 25, 2002 01:50 PM ]
posted on March 25, 2002 01:58:44 PM
Looks like eBay really wants potential TAs to believe they'll make a ton o' money selling their services, so thanks for the heads up on this Trade Assistant thingy. Some of the stories told in the discussion threads, though, are downright...well...unbelievable. They're TOO good, if you know what I mean.
But the amazing thing is this: I entered my area code in the directory search and presto! Found 14 people in my area code with:
eBay userid
Real first and last name
City and State
Phone number
So what if eBay masks email addresses? I can get those elsewhere with all the information above.
Cool. What a great way to build a big database of folks I KNOW are active on eBay and all their particulars. And you don't even need to sign in to get this stuff.
posted on March 25, 2002 06:30:59 PM
I started a consignment store on ebay last year. I hit the pavement and went to yard sales, hung up signs, put ads in the local papers, etc. Really paid my dues! When the ASSistant program came about, I thought they were going to steal my business from me.
I can't believe I have had such good luck. I have had four people in so many weeks look me up and hire me already. I am happy to say that I have sold all four items, made a little commission and now with word of mouth, I am hoping to get more customers.
I have a contract that I email to the person to review first and give it to them in person to sign then I meet with them at a local mall to take possesion of their widget(if item is not too big)or other public place and so far so good.
The only thing I am not thrilled about is the personal information very public. I would vote to put just the email address and then have the potential client email for phone numbers, etc.
[ edited by antinoise1 on Mar 25, 2002 06:33 PM ]
posted on March 25, 2002 06:51:38 PM
I was close to signing up, but I don't want to give out my phone number. I don't even want to give out my cel number (which is a different area code anyway, and I would not get locals calling as I think most search by area code) and I certainly do not want what you get, calls asking questions.
I may reconsider if I can give email for contact info. Then, if it looks good, I will call the person. Otherwise, I think I will just pass for now.
posted on March 25, 2002 07:37:15 PM
I LOVE selling other people's stuff! No inventory overhead, no digging thru sales looking at somebody's beat up walmart junk hoping to find a saleable item....but I've decided NOT with the seller's assistant program...and it would probably go over real well out here in the sticks of rural Arizona, I searched by area code and didnt find even one person close by...but what happens to your reputation when someone decides they don't want to sell at the last minute? To avoid this you have to figure out a way to get them to trust you well enough to give you their stuff before it's even posted. I wouldn't hand over anything of value to someone I had never met before on the promise that they were going to sell it for me and bring me the dough even IF (maybe that should be ESPECIALLY if!) they had their info on Ebay, and personally I think anybody who would is sort of naive in this day and age. I still think it looks like a great way for burglars to get rid of their goods, let somebody else sell it for you, no risk of exposure. The key for me is to sell in areas I know and am interested in for people I know personally who then refer their friends my way. So far so good, and you can't go read my phone number on Ebay........
posted on March 26, 2002 07:43:09 AM
"...but what happens to your reputation when someone decides they don't want to sell at the last minute?"
It happened to me. An unemployed acquaintance with no computer at home asked me to sell some things for him on eBay and I did it as a favor, charging him nothing and absorbing the eBay fees. I took the pictures and did all the work. I passed the winner's addresses along to him so he could ship the items.
Come to find out that he CALLED each winner and tried to weasel more money out of each one. The outraged negs went on MY feedback, of course.
Never again. I won't sell anything unless I have physical and legal possession of it. Goods are not that hard to find.
