Yes, this is a rather spiteful revenge blog post… but it’s true!! Ebay sellers using Amazon do misrepresent items!
The story:
A week or so ago, I realized we were running low on towels and decided to purchase some. The easiest (and cheapest) thing would have been to drive the few miles between me and the nearest Target, but I am that lazy… I tried to find what I wanted on Amazon or Ebay, and although I wasn’t entirely successful, again, lazy.
I ended up ordering two sets of bath sheets on Amazon, and a set of bath sheets and, from a different seller, a set of towels on Ebay. Why Ebay?
The last time I bought towels, I did so through Ebay. This was over 15 years ago, when we were living in Panama. I bought 16 used, almost new, oversized towels from their owner: heavy Egyptian cotton. They were very good towels; indeed, the ones that remain in use (and have not been buried with pets pr cut up to use under my saddle pads) are still in good shape. There are just not enough of them.
So I wanted to buy more towels on Ebay. The set of bath sheets is exactly as described. The towel set (2 large bath towels, 2 hand towels, and 2 very big wash clothes) was not. Unfortunately, I had already left feedback before I realized this.
This is the item I was sold:
They are nice towels; not excellent, but really nice. Perhaps they do not dry as much as I would like, but for the price, I wouldn’t have complained, if it had turned out that they were, as described, 725 grams. They don’t feel like 725 grams, and when I realized this, I tried to verify their weight.
The description provided by vos*distributors said (and still says) they are, but they had come in an Amazon box with an gift label, so it was easy to track them down on Amazon.
They are, in fact, 600 GSM, or medium weight, towels:
They were also $5 cheaper on Amazon, but hey, if I was stupid enough not to verify (or even ask about the brand-it’s Amazon’s) well, too bad. The fact that vos*distributors was making money buying and selling (I assume this is legal) didn’t bother me that much.
The fact that they were falsely advertising the weight of the towels did.
The response:
I emailed vos*distributors and received the following reply:
It was nice of them to offer to pay for returning the item, and if we had not already used a towel, I might have done so. But what I really wanted was for them to change the description of the item so that other buyers would not make the same mistake I had done.
My reply:
My reply (admittedly a bit cranky): “What I would like to see you do is change the descriptions of your items such that they reflect the truth (e.g., the weight in this case was misrepresented). It would also be much more HONEST to state clearly that you are simply ordering from amazon and charging a commission. You source this particular product from Amazon because it is an Amazon brand product. It also has good reviews, but it is disingenuous to imply that you used Amazon to ensure quick delivery (it would have been faster if I had ordered directly from Amazon with Prime shipping). As it is I paid an extra $5 to have slower shipping and a product that was not as described.”
When I checked this morning, they had not changed the item description, but they had lowered the price by $3:
At the time of writing, they have raised the price again to $26.99 (item) They have not replied to my email.
It is entirely possibly that people who purchase these towels now will receive ones that are 725 GSM. I hope so.
In the meantime, I am going to post this blog, and add a follow-up comment to my original positive feedback. It’s not wrong to make money buying and selling, bringing goods to customers that would otherwise not find them. It is wrong to misrepresent the item you are selling.
P.S. These really are decent towels. Just buy them directly from Amazon.
Putting resources into your image is viable putting resources into yourself. I’d preferably put resources into myself than an Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Etsy, Pinterest, or the most recent pattern in-outsider stores store. I see both Amazon and eBay as negative to any business keen on building its own image. Immediately, Amazon could roll out an operational improvement that would render your business totally out of date. You could be offering cleaner and they could choose to buy a cleanser retailer and wipe out each of the outsider cleanser postings. It isn’t so much that outlandish. Yes, it’s actual that dealers will at no time in the future need to have enthusiastic choices and rely on upon devices like JungleScout, Sellics, SellerPrime, AmZScout, it doesn’t ensure achievement.