SCCues said:
I'm the person "cuedoctor" is referencing and here's a brief summary of my deal with Mike.
I listed a Mottey on ebay for sale, he asked many many questions and then made me an offer for the cue if I would stop the auction, I didn't have any bids and the auction didn't look promising so I accepted his offer and stopped the auction, he said he would only pay with Paypal so I agreed and had to accept the loss of the paypal fees on my cue sale. The sale went through OK, but I really didn't want to pay all of the Paypal fees for that amount of money.
SCCues
He should have covered the shipping.
I realize what you are saying about not being fairly reciprocal, but I would like to say something about fees from Paypal.
Paypal is a selling tool you may choose to use if you wish. If you advertise that you accept paypal, the fees should be politely absorbed by the seller, just as the buyer should politely pay the shipping costs.
If I bid on something or negotiate something and someone advertises that they accept paypal or credit card in their ad, I would be disappointed (in them) if they squacked about the 3% fee. To me, it would put them in a bad light. When I sell, I just assume that everyone will just pay me on paypal.
Running a business where we accept credit cards, I just accept bank fees as a way of doing business, and I include them in my pricing. Given the choice, about 80% of our customers will pay by credit card. We spent over $100,000 in credit card fees alone last year, double that if you take into account the fees paid by other vendors we use. If we stopped taking credit cards, I would estimate (conservatively) that we would lose 20% of our sales.
So basically, he is a smart buyer who asks a lot of questions. He also does not accept paypal. This is probably a security issue. OK - so I wouldn't buy from him unless it was a steal or something I really wanted. His loss. I will not take time to go to the bank to get a cashiers's check - and these days, a lot of people won't either. My guess is he loses at least 20% of his sales on that alone.
Chris