Andy Hall wrote:
On 2007-12-28 14:14:20 +0000, Lobster
said:

Tim Ward wrote:
"Lobster" wrote in message
...
a 'good' transaction paid for by Paypal - which does account
for the vast majority of ours - really is totally smooth and
very quick and easy.

A 'good' transaction carried out by any means would be "totally
smooth and very quick and easy".

Agreed - but Andy seemed to be saying the opposite.

And I do find the whole ebay thing extremely straightforward for
lots of stuff, items that I really don't know where else I'd go to
buy or sell with anything remotely approaching 'convenience'.

What matters is when things go wrong.

For sure...


That's really my point.

For the most part, I don't want to have to get into an
argument/recovery game with individuals over buying and selling,
especially of small things.

But I would maintain even considering the very small % of transactions
which do go wrong, you're still very much quids-in overall whether you
counting in terms of your time or cash.

Eg - my most recent ebay purchase...the other day I needed some inkjet
cartridges for my now-obsolete printer; I usually pay about 7 quid a pop
for these from a shop a few miles away: this time I typed the model
number into ebay and it threw up several hits - result was that I paid
£2.00 all-in for 6 cartridges which landed on my doormat two days later.
(it cost the poor guy £2.10 to post them!). If I'd bought them from
dabs.com or somewhere I can't see how I could have spent less time and
hassle.

In terms of selling stuff, I've been able to get rid of plenty of junk
from the house and garage which would otherwise have cost me time and
petrol to take down to the dump, but people have happily come and paid
me money to remove from my property.... my most successful ebay sale? I
had an old much-loved Lewis Leathers biker jacket in the back of my
wardrobe, waiting to see if the male menopause would strike soon enough
to get me back on a motorcycle before my ever-expanding waistline
rendered the jacket totally obsolete for me. Unfortunately the latter
condition prevailed, and SWMBO decreed that it was time it went to the
dump. Decided to have a punt on ebay, as it was a quite nice jacket
really (cost me 80 or 90 quid new IIRC, circa 1982). It ended up going
for a jaw-dropping 650 quid, plus about 50 to Fedex, to some bloke in
Tokyo, who later professed himself to be delighted with the deal!

David