This guy deals in volume. He currently has 1437 items for sale and most of them are not worth the shipping cost, but all he has to do is sell 10% of them and that is 144 sales. I read over some of his auctions and to be fair he is not trying to pass his garbage off as gold. His descriptions are minimal but not dishonest. Couple that with the fact he includes plenty of photos, then you are getting what you bid on.
On the other hand he is a tat merchant and does seem to take his time shipping or communicate, but let's be honest and lay the blame where it really belongs. The buyers who expected great things are boneheads.
In the last 12 months he has received feedback on 5459 sales. Since neutrals don't count against the seller only the negatives are valid to his feedback percentage. In this case 71 negatives is only 1.7% of his total and that's why he has 98.3% in his feedback. Conversely this tatman has more than 5300 positives in the last 12 months so many people bid on and got what they expected.
Along with stupid buyers that expect wonderous treasures for the cost of a pint of beer there is also the role Ebay plays in this selling platform they have created. Ebay has no interest in getting rid of a seller like this. Think of all the listing fees, final value fees, and dodgy conversion rates that Paypal/Ebay charge and they make good money from this seller. Ebay used to be a good place for the part time seller to list some rare, interesting and unique items but it is now hardly worth a persons time to go through the minefield of crap they have created. The amount of items available to collectors like us has nosedived in the last few years. Ten years ago I bought exclusively from Canadian sellers, then from Canadian and US sellers, then from Canadian, US and British sellers. Now I am willing to buy from people anywhere in the world. I find myself scanning a thousand items to find one worth bidding on and then I have to contend with "the money is no object crowd" in the hope that I can pay a fair price for a desired widget.
Still, Ebay is really the only game in town for collectors like me that live in an area with minimal shows and a limited supply of fresh to market items. You Brit's are a lucky bunch of sods. You still have lots of unfound treasures out there and you can travel to any show in the UK in less than a day. It takes 5 days to cross Canada and if I want to go to the next large urban centre (Montreal) it takes 10 hours of driving.
The best thing that can be learned from this is to choose both your seller and desired items with care. I know I said in a previous post that I don't understand why people would buy from this seller but after thinking about it I have changed my mind. If the photos looked good, if the price was right, if the the shipping was fair and I really wanted the item I might well give the tatman a go. Hell, even now with all my careful scrutinizing of sellers and their items there is at least one in ten of my items that I am either somewhat or completely disappointed with. At least this guy doesn't try to pass himself off as anything other than a rag and bone man and I can enter a deal with him fully aware of the situation. Then again, looking at some of the crap this guy has listed and the picture I have created in my head of how and where he lives I think I will stick with smaller less suspect dealers.
Ah, what the hell, it's all a freakin' crap shoot where we have become accustomed to being surprised when we get a good deal and not surprised when we run into problems.
Okay, I'm done.
Vlad