Advice for Sellers thread

Ooo, I have one! For the doll area.

PLEASE read the instructions that are above the first line in the for sale area? PLEASE? If it's on hold, PLEASE change the tag at the beginning to finished, like they ask you to?? It's not hard, there's even a link to step by step instructions!

The new doll sales area was designed so that we only had to look through things that were actually for sale. I can't begin to count how many times I've seen a listing for a long-sought-after sculpt only to find a little note in the third post that says "it's been sold, thanks for your interest!" The thread was supposed to be marked, so they can move it to the storage area!!

Purdy please?

 

Pictures: If you're selling a doll body/head, go to the trouble of taking appropriate sales photos. Preferably nekkie and full length. I'm not going to buy a head when all I can see is hair in the eyes and hand in the face... or a doll/body if all you show is a dark, blurry shot of a fully clothed doll.

And this is just a personal feeling, but I'm not likely to buy a doll if there's a huge mess, unmade bed, old pizza boxes etc. showing in the background. It makes me wonder what condition the doll is in.

Baakay, I think you can report sold items not tagged as finished, so the mods can move them.

 

I'm more concerned with how a seller behaves after they have my money. I've seen some things in the Problem Transaction subforum that make my blood boil, so I wrote up a list of unacceptable excuses from sellers and added my commentary. I wrote this just to relieve my feelings, since third parties can't comment on problem transactions, but I thought I might share it - who knows, it could do some good. It's too long to post, so I uploaded it to MediaFire (MediaFire is for hosting documents, like Photobucket is for hosting pictures). It's a Word document, click to 'download' (nothing will stay on your computer unless you you save it in the next step, it just gets you to where you can open it), then click 'open' to read it, or 'save' if you want to keep it for some reason.

 

That list needs to be a massive bolded sticky at the top of the sales pages and enforced with tazers. *not at all bitter about the hellish sale I'm currently stuck in*

I really don't know when people stopped giving a toss about how they treated their buyers, but it does seem to have got worse in recent years and it's ALWAYS stupid stuff that could easily have been avoided if the sellers would just behave as they wish to be treated.

 

THANK YOU for this thread!! And kcurry9, cant agree more on you on your list! I'm saving it and will be cracking over it because IT'S ALL SO TRUE. I seconding Lulu in sticky-ing kcurry9's list on the Marketplace with superglue!

I always see how buyers get silent after they received the money when they were really communicative and polite before getting the money. And when something goes wrong... "HONESTLY. IT'S NOT MY FAULT. I DID SHIP IT. I REALLY REALLY DID." Plus a bunch of curses in the back for accusing them of not shipping the item >->

 

Thanks for the positive feedback. I don't expect my list will have any effect on scammers and thieves, but I hope some of it is an eye opener for some of the immature and/or irresponsible sellers. At least it should be a heads-up for some of the more trusting souls here when buying. Sometimes "stuff" does happen and I'm prepared to be understanding, but I wasn't born yesterday.

Thank goodness most of the sellers here are responsible, considerate and honest, and the mods are very pro-active in ridding the MarketPlace of the bad sellers. We need to do our bit and report problem transactions, even though it's hard for some of us to do it.

 

I wanted to quote this one--I find this PARTICULARLY annoying because SO many people--I dunno--compete(??) with each other in how many ridiculous hearts and tildas they can fit in a thread topic?! It makes the title of the thread TOO LONG TO READ IN THE FORUM LISTS! So no one can see what you're trying to sell! And those titles are even SHORTER on SMARTPHONES which a gazillion people are using to check out DoA while they are at work (>.> Who what? Me? What? Nawwww.) All those silly characters also break the links in the email notifications so it screws up pulling up the proper threads when you click on them.

Ugh. HATE special characters. I wish they were banned from thread topics altogether....

Also, unless you're a seamstress in the customization forums, or a dealer/rep, giving a name to your used clothing/items threads is kinda--well, I hate to be insulting but no one cares whose selling it. There's a lot of "~~~~MICHELLE'S CLOTHING BOUTIQUE ~~~--*--~~~New things added---**^*^**---Come and see!!"

Ugh

 

This a million, billion times over.>:[ I've essentially given up looking in the clothing section of the Marketplace because I've gone into so many poorly-labeled threads hoping for MSD-sized items just to find SD and Yo-SD-sized items only. OR finding 1 MSD-sized item among a sea of other sized items.

EDIT: Thought of another one, though this is more of a pet peeve. For the thread title, avoid words like "GORGEOUS" "FANTASTIC" "STUNNING." These adjectives are really overused in this hobby and completely subjective.

 

Another pet peeve: sellers who provide little or no information and tell you to "ask questions because all sales are final"!

I would never buy from anyone who does that because they are either too lazy or ignorant to bother with a proper listing (and so can't be trusted to ship safely and promptly either) or they have an item in bad condition and want to cheat a buyer into overpaying.

I have seen too many sellers who didn’t disclose important information and then fell back on the excuse “I said to ask questions before buying and you didn’t ask that specific question, so I won’t take the item back.”

That's nothing but a scam, because sellers have a responsibility to accurately describe an item and especially to disclose any damage or condition problems. Period. Anyone who thinks the "ask questions" dodge makes their dishonest behavior acceptable has another think coming.

 

Baakay, you hit my pet peeve on the head! I have started to serch for a Ixtee Mui Chan so I put those words in the search. Of the 8 theat came up only 2 were still for sale. I tracked down two of the sellers on ebay and sent PM's to all, no reply. One person had not been on for a month (?) but the other was on as I was PMing her, again. Never responded and the 2 dolls are still up for sale. Of course one I had to scroll down 2 pages and find the tiny litlle type that said 'sold'.

 

THIS! I would much rather know WHAT someone selling than see a a store name and a million useless characters. If you (generic) didn't make the clothes, you have no business having a store name. That's space you could be using to describe your items to actually attract buyers who are, you know, looking for specific things you might have. Same for wigs and eyes.

Brands, sizes, outfit names. These are what get buyers. Not "Fluffy's Awesome Clothing Store" with no descriptor of what you're selling.


My own personal things to add to the list:


*Don't say you have TONS of an item when there's really just 5 or fewer things. That's not a ton, not by anyone's definition. I expect "tons" or "lots" to have more than 10 items, preferably more than 15. Otherwise, ditch the descriptors.

*Get your "Sold" items out of your sales threads as soon as the item is sold. It's against the rules to have them there anyway, and it just crushes the hopes of people who think they've found what they're looking for, only to see that it's no longer available.

*Don't use company pics for your sales pictures, especially for dolls. Especially if you then say there is yellowing, damage, etc. Buyers want to see the exact item that is in your possession, so that they can assess whether they want to buy it or not. Company photos are useless as descriptors for your personal item, and it makes a seller look like they have something to hide by not posting their own images. A link to them for reference is fine, but the images of what you're selling should be your own.

*On a related note, don't post a sales thread with nothing but "Image coming soon." Wait until you have your images, then post. Again, savvy buyers will not buy without owner photos, and not posting them will cause these buyers to pass by your thread. This is another thing that makes it look like the seller has something to hide, especially if a thread is bumped for several days without adding the promised photos. It screams flake.

*And finally: Please, please edit your wig, eye, accessory and clothing thread titles to reflect what you're actually selling. Do if often. Especially every time an item is sold.

 

This thread is win I can't wait to get home and read the mediafire list (stupid work net blocks it agrr) This should all be common knowledge, it's awful that so few people seem to be utilising this these days. The problem transactions forum is quite sickening lately >.<

This this this this this so so much this. I watched a Soom Gena for literally months and months while I saved up, she was there for so long, and finally I scraped my pennies together only to go and post in the thread and find about two pages from the end of the thread that she'd been sold but never removed from the thread That's happened to me more than once, and it's really frustrating >.<

 

Ehryn,
That is EXACTLY what happend to me twice! I also get so excited in the clothes/ shoes/wig MP scrounging around for my hard to fit girls seeing something to good to be true and AFTER reading their post at the end the have in small print "Lati items sold". Of course it is still in the discription.

 

In addition, list the clothes for the size and kind of doll they are for! Not every Mini doll is the same size and proportions of an MSD, and it's horribly frustrating to see listings for clothing marked MSD, when everything listed is for a Minifee. :/

 

One more thing: if you have nothing but girl clothes, or nothing but boy clothes, please put that in the title! I know some of our members cross-dress their dolls, but that doesn't mean you can't identify the clothes as boy or girl clothes, it's just easier to shop for things that way. Someone looking for a dress for their boy won't be put off by the word 'girl' in the title, I'm sure!

 

my pet peeve, and thankfully it doesn't happen often on doa, is people who put coins next to their items to show scale. i don't know how big foreign coins are!!!!!!!
use a ruler or grid with a scale.