eBay Tries to Fix a Canceled Order Problem of Its Own Making

by: Rexford

Oh he** no.  Not going to happen. I will cancel every time. I will not be pressured into lowering my price because some buyer "supposedly" found the same item for a lower price, especially when eBay may have shown the buyer the lower priced item after the sale.

by: pace306

If eBay wants the buyer to get a “better” price, let THEM. refund the difference

by: papergoy

Saying I found a better price and actually getting a better price are two separate things.  Anyone can say anything.  Especially if this is rolled out and people are aware- buy an item, then immediately cancel.  Sometimes you get money back and when you don't, just rebuy and pay full price.  It's a no-lose situation for the buyer.

by: Rexford

Buyer's should tread very carefully with this one. While I likely would not, a lot of sellers would immediately add the buyer to their blocked buyer list due to the annoyance and fickle behavior associated with the cancellation.  These are red flags that alert sellers to a potentially problematic buyer.   If the buyer really wants the item they may be blocked from buying it if they play games with sellers.

by: terry55

More stupid ideas, its a big NO. I lose money, ebay loses money, makes no sense. Plus wasting my time to deal with it, onto my block list

by: Shanna

The question that eBay needs to answer, and here we are years later and still no answer, is why would you show someone who has just made a purchase the same item at a lower price? When I shop on Amazon, Walmart, Target, Mercari or a multitude of other websites, they never show me the same item at a lesser cost after I have made a purchase. Its just dumb, when the buyer cancels and buys elsewhere, the seller makes no money, loses the $0.50 transaction fee and eBay makes less on the FVF. Its a dumb business decision, but when has eBay ever made a smart decision.

by: pace306

As said above the whole idea is stupidity

When you down do much time cooking the books to eke out %1 growth, the last thing you want is LOWER prices.

Lower prices=LESS fvf for eBay, less profit for sellers and bad feelings all around.

This games only hurt sellers and eBay - ok they hate sellers, but the %1 this is self inflicted!!!!

More Walmart dope magic!

by: Deacon Blues

So let me get this straight; eBay is in the habit of showing a buyer less expensive options after the sale is complete? So they can potentially extract less revenue from the sale? Well I may not hold an advanced degree in hyperbolic topology, but that seems kinda illogical.

by: comments

I am sure this will lead to an extortion like game of chicken and cancel more orders than it saves. If anyone requests a cancelation from me I will politely accept. I have never renegotiated the price after a sale and don't intend to start now.

I am sure this feature is actually angles to be click bait for promoted listings. It is a win win. Ebay would get the ad revenue for an advanced click or standard sale or create a false sense of an unexpected discount for the buyer.

Change after change the only thing I am noticing are less sales and more items that are actually just garbage and click bait in the promoted listing slots.

I think more focus should be placed on treasure than trash. It worked out pretty good during the pandemic when promoted listings enticed repeat business instead of showing trash and grab bag junk. Buyer satisfaction was also over the moon. Customers were coming back weekly. That is all gone now in favor of click bait ebay knows won't sell.

by: AddyUp

As many said on that thread it would make more sense if eBay fixed the low to high sort in the search.

Show the items the buyer is looking for instead of hiding them.

by: Working It

This is nonsense. The buyer may have found the item for a better price, but maybe not in the same condition.
Our items are priced not only on what the item is, but the condition of the item compared to the other items being offered.
I will simply cancel the sale, if the buyer prefers an item of less quality.  

by: Opalie

Add me to the list of sellers who will just straight out cancel.

This is not like the original Price Guarantee stuff ebay rolled out a wile back where the buyer had to actually link to a lower priced listing AND ebay would front the difference.

Just another way to coddle buyers and let the seller's take the loss.

by: Snapped

“ So let me get this straight; eBay is in the habit of showing a buyer less expensive options after the sale is complete? So they can potentially extract less revenue from the sale?”

Perhaps not. But that question is at the root of this despicable practice.  

Consider that once a ‘sale’ is made, it’s typically ‘paid for’ - (recall the push for IP on all sales?) legal tender, effectively at light speed.  Consider that given how much control over ‘payment and payout eBay has, despite how Ayden may be the ‘processor’, how fast eBay can ‘book’ that sale, and credit it for metrics, and collect the cash.  No 2-3 ‘business day’ delay there.

Now consider the physical actions relating to the cancellation enticement while eBay is ‘holding’ that cash pending transaction closure (payout, refund, etc.) - time for buyer consideration and decision, time to communicate that to the seller, time for the seller to make the decision, time to input the decision.  All happening at multiple orders and of magnitude less fast than light speed.  Even if it only takes ‘minutes’, that leaves lots and lots and lots of microseconds in between.

All the while that first sale remains ‘booked’ - all those microseconds - eBay earns interest on that.  Their volume certainly qualifies them for compounding that fast and at healthy rates.   Not much ‘per item’ perhaps, but given enough time lapsed, perhaps enough to ‘cover’ the few cents potentially ‘lost” on fees for a lesser (and for eBay metrics now) SECOND sale of the same item with enough left over to dump in the jet fuel jar.  And who can guess how potentially many of these might happen per second with this latest ‘enticement to enhance the buyer experience for YOUR own good’, that can take days to consummate.

Don’t forget they’ll still get a shipping FVF either way - and now TWO processing fees as well if sale is cancelled and the buyer purchases the ‘better deal’.

Now here’s the despicable part.  They don’t care about ‘your’ sale, or more accurately, ‘who’ sells.  They don’t really care about the buyer either, or as Pace noted, let THEM do the refunding.  

They care about the money they can make from a TRANSACTION, and even better of they can finesse a second from the same buyer, be that by refund or cancellation and resale.  They make money off YOUR money, either way - and from all the wolf food metrics they can manufacture.

by: Snapped

Incidentally, when a buyer does get cancelled so they can save a buck, do they then get enticed again on THAT sellers checkout?  Maybe they’ll eventually find a seller that will pay them to take that thing - free shipping of course.

Absurd of course, but eBay would still profit from it.

by: BatmanOfOz

"Ebay Tries To Fix..."  HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

^^X^^

by: pace306

While I %100 agree with Snapped (his logic is always brilliant on these kinds of topics) - Im not sure if what they make in those seconds is really more/justified to "go through all the trouble" of the cancellation and they have to HOPE the buyer will go thru with the second sale, and then what they actually "end up making".

Selling or trying to sell OTHER items makes some kind of sense, cheaper versions of the same item? NO.

Different sellers pay different amounts for the same items, and some may be more "desperate" to move those items then other sellers.

Of course it all boils down to the same thing - the relentless 24/7/365 war on sellers. I mean geez, they only supply the merchandise YOU make money on ...... "so go ahead and turn the crews some more why dont you?"

Being from Philly (pre Kensington Krasner of course), Benjamin Franklin taught me "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" ..... not sure if that works in todays world.

The Bonannos, Colombos, Gambinos, Genovese, and Luccheses would all be proud of this kind of move .....

by: Paul W

Cancel requested?
Accepted.
Done.

by: None Such

Cancelled order when buyer is shown lower price = less fee revenue for eBay from sale of the higher priced item = another reason why revenue from actual sales (as opposed to fees from promoted listings) is down.

And the CEO gets a bonus from stock options,   Brilliant.

by: None Such

Sorry,  meant:  less fee income from the sale of the LOWER priced item…  

by: ZZ

I recently discovered one of the clickable choices presented to the buyer is that they made the purchase "by mistake."  This reason always bothered me because I couldn't imagine how that could happen until I see now that the buyer has to click one of the choices and often times, none of them are relevant.