I'm Done Selling Eggs Online

[Nksg75]

You have to pay up front on Ebay before anything is shipped. What scammers do is pay for it, send a complaint saying its damaged or some other BS, and Ebay refunds thier money. The seller gets nothing.

Wow, I had no idea!
I thought most people would just file a claim through USPS (priority is insured for $50.00) if the contents were damaged as far as eggs go.
I have done this before when USPS decided to shove a box of smashed leaking eggs into my box!
Do these people do both?
I would be curious to check on that and make sure they were double tapping the system and actually getting paid by both ebay and the post office!!
I am truly sorry that you are being taken advantage of, that’s sad you can’t continue selling eggs online anymore.

 

[DuckYouMan]

Is Etsy the same way?

 

[Backyard Hencam]

I see lots of great advice for you. Hope you will find something above that will work for you. Thank your for posting this. I learned a lot about the EBAY thing. Hope you figure it out! Let us know what works!

 

[Acre4Me]

Is Etsy the same way?

I’ve only bought a few things on Etsy. I ordered some custom embroidered tshirts from a seller with over 1 year (or more) on Etsy and high ratings. Well, she scammed me and I got my money back From Etsy (not the seller) bc ALL mycommunications with her were through their messaging system, so Etsy could see the history and promises. Right at that time her ratings tanked bc she was doing the same with many others as it turned out.

I’ve also tried a bit of selling, but had low expectations bc I figured their algorithms favor established sellers. I was not selling a unique item, but it was a hot And popular item, so I knew it was to my disadvantage as well That I would have both: lots of competition and no Etsy history. Ultimately, I had very, very few hits over the course of time my items were posted, and no sales. I was only doing it as an experiment to test out the rumors I had heard about Etsy - hard to get noticed, hard to get established. I think the rumors are correct, but if you are persistent, you could likely build up traffic, and find your niche etc.

 

[feliciadawn]

Etsy is also not friendly to sellers in the case of a dispute.

 

[RainForestBird]

These are good ideas, thank you. I've tried selling chicks and ducklings, but frankly this place is rural and a lot of farmers sell chicks for dirt cheap, so it doesn't pay to sell rare breeds. Nobody wants them any way. They want layers. If they do show at the fair, they only want one or two and these are kids that don't have a lot of money, not hobbyists that want rare, show quality birds. I'm into the rare ones, like Svart Hona, Sablepoot, Serama, Australian Spotted, Call Ducks, D'Anver, D'Uccle, little banty birds that lay tiny little eggs.

We have one poultry show per year, in non Covid 19 conditions. In November. Otherwise I'd have to travel hundreds of miles to show my birds or attend a poultry show.

I started designing a website but it took a lot of time that i don't have with taking care of my animals and renovating my house. i'm a single person (senior citizen), so I do it all myself.

i was thinking of designing and selling special chicken coops for tiny bantam breeds like Seramas so that people can have them in their houses, or on their patios. Even apartments. i have to find someone who is handy though.

I don't want to give up my birds, but I might have to. Or severely cut back like a lot of hobbyists are these days.

So frustrating.

you can do other things though.

1. Sell only locally. Pick up only, cash in hand. No guarantees.

2. Hatch eggs and sell chicks. I’ve sold chicks and chickens at a livestock auction. Clearly dependent on bids, of course. And auction house takes a %. But, you will get your money bc the auction house will pay you. Here, a buyer has to provide ID and apparently the sheriff can knock on the buyer door to get the money if the buyer didn’t settle up with the auction house. But, irregardless, it’s the auction house headache, not yours.

3. Find swaps in your area.

4. Attend Poultry shows. There always seems to be a contingent of sellers of Poultry. Many who are serious breeders. You’ll have time and travel, and possible booth fees. I attended the Ohio National last year, and many Poultry were sold prior to the show (pick up at show) or early on show day 1.

5. Start a fb farm page. Although you are not allowed to sell animals on fb, you will likely attract local traffic. Just post pics and captions several times a week. It shouldn’t be too onerous. People get excited with pictures and stories. So, maybe your head rooster is often featured, for example. Cute chick pictures and videos are always popular.

6. Have no idea of your setup or how many eggs you get. But, here a farm gives away free turkey poults to 4-H kids that promise to show the turkeys at fair. Well, everyone here remembers the name of that farm! are you interested in donating hatching eggs to classrooms or similar? Maybe 4-H, but it might depend on how the fair classes chickens for show. In Ohio each county does it a bit differently, so can’t provide guidance here.

you now know eBay selling isn’t for you. Online selling may come with similar headaches bc A buyer can make a credit card claim, which can cost the seller money and time to clean up.

suffice it to say, you can only move forward. Either stop completely or find a new direction.

 

[RainForestBird]

People who sell on Etsy report much lower sales numbers than Ebay. I tried it and had a shop but I was selling vintage clothing. It was fun, but it just didn
t pay.

I’ve only bought a few things on Etsy. I ordered some custom embroidered tshirts from a seller with over 1 year (or more) on Etsy and high ratings. Well, she scammed me and I got my money back From Etsy (not the seller) bc ALL mycommunications with her were through their messaging system, so Etsy could see the history and promises. Right at that time her ratings tanked bc she was doing the same with many others as it turned out.

I’ve also tried a bit of selling, but had low expectations bc I figured their algorithms favor established sellers. I was not selling a unique item, but it was a hot And popular item, so I knew it was to my disadvantage as well That I would have both: lots of competition and no Etsy history. Ultimately, I had very, very few hits over the course of time my items were posted, and no sales. I was only doing it as an experiment to test out the rumors I had heard about Etsy - hard to get noticed, hard to get established. I think the rumors are correct, but if you are persistent, you could likely build up traffic, and find your niche etc.

 

[nao57]

I wonder if you can use a minimum number of positive orders on sales. I saw this on some ebay web pages where they cancel all buyers that don't have a certain number of positive feedbacked orders already under their belt. You could try this.

Another option is to try to see if you can secure a small time contract with a livestock group wholesaler.

I hope you can try something without giving up. But I DO share your frustration.

I haven't had this happen to me.

But I did order ducklings from Strombergs Chickens, and 6 of them died in the mail. And they never responded to my claim on it. And they haven't tried to ship me new ones over it. This was over 1/3 of the order lost. And I'm kind of upset with them. They ignored all my claims, even though I told them I didn't want a refund, I just wanted the 6 ducklings resent, and that I'd even give them a tip for the costs. But they still didn't respond.

So as far as I am concerned Strombergs is a bunch of scammers too. They should have at least responded and never did.

You see this going around.

Maybe another think you could do is ask for references with phone numbers, like they used to do on resumes. TRY THIS! It sounds fun to see if it can work.

I've noticed other problems with Ebay also and I'm getting tired of them. Here's what I encountered...

On Ebay chinese manufacturer sellers put up ebay pages the way they would do it to sell on Google. IF you were using a search engine you'd put up every possible keyword possible to score a hit. Like for example selling eggs. You'd put in keywords, chicken, egg, feathers, hatching, inbubator, farm, etc, etc and pile on tons of words. But on Ebay these chinese sellers are trying to use the same strategy for selling parts. So when you go on there to order parts you can't tell if a listing is for a part or for a whole product. And in many cases the parts for fixing an product LOOK LIKE the whole bonafide fully assembled product but AREN'T!

!!

This is a major way they are scamming people.

The last 3 times I ordered parts on ebay which were China made sellers, I got parts but not a whole product, but it was LISTED AS IF it WERE a full product assembled!

So there are some serious problems with ebay right now.

I think their management needs to be aware of this kind of stuff. But the problem also is that American businesses are generally too corrupt from having the guys at the top only worried about filling their own pockets with gold. We have 'carpet baggers' not businesses anymore. That's what it comes down to. These people creep into the wood works because they know the coop is unguarded.

 

[nao57]

Is Etsy the same way?

That's a good question. I'd been seeing the Etsy brand a lot recently also, but don't know if they are reputable. I'd like to know also.

It does appear that they do either make or whole sale a lot of poultry products.

I'm hoping someone can speak up and say if they are trustworthy or not.

 

[gardenchix]

this happened to my daughter with a michael kors watch, the scammer said it was damaged and ebay required a return, once they had a tracking number ebay refunded them, they back a box with a yarn bracelet and got a beautiful watch for free and my daughter was out all the shipping costs on top of it.......ebay had already ruled in the buyers favor, tough luck