Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/08/18/ebay-auction-shouts-stop-stop.html
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If I were him I’d start slipping DVDs in with the backer cards after I added that announcement. Not exactly a common chance, maybe 1% of the cards he sells.
As a business ebay seller, yes they are so scummy it’s stopped surprising me anymore. They are going to be blocking active content on listings next year, which seem to be about five years too late.
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I need a slow clap gif.
I admire the guy. He has like 29 of them it looks like. He probably got tired of GIVING them away, for people who would get the card, get pissed, and put in a complaint to eBay to get their money back. He probably just refunded the money.
At least he tried. Others are trying to trick people on purpose.
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EBay’s still around? Hasn’t all the crap been bought by now?
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I’m not convinced. If he truly wanted to avoid confusion, he would correct the auction title so the words “backer card” came first instead of dead last, after several redundant, undescriptive SEO-bulking keywords.
The audio warning only helps people who turn their sound on to browse eBay.
Yes. Bought the first time. Now everyone who originally bought it has died and their heirs need to get rid of it, so…
The Circle of Life…
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Only when there is no new crap will there be no more old crap. The crap will outlive us all.
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[quote=“Vert, post:7, topic:83669”]If he truly wanted to avoid confusion, he would correct the auction title so the words “backer card” came first instead of dead last[/quote]I unfortunately found that out the hard way the last time I was trying to sell off some packaging. “I was so excited I didn’t bother reading to the end of the title!”, he said, or something to that effect. Oy. I capitulated simply because I did not want any further dealings with a seemingly illiterate psycho who had my home address.
My new strategy is to state “I will not ship until I receive acknowledgement from you that you are aware that this is empty packaging”.
In any case, eBay’s interface on the whole is severely outdated and I dearly wish someone would buy them out and apply some sort of modernization. It would seem they do not make much of their money off of casual sellers.
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Here is the actual listing:
Yes, the term “backer card” comes last, probably because that would be considered a generic descriptor term for an item within the “Postcards & Collector Cards” category (listed right above the title). A buyer of such items would more likely be interested in the particular movie title that the backer card is from, thus the placement of that information at the front of the title.
I’m not seeing the redundant SEO-bulking keywords you mentioned. Buyers might be interested in “Toy Story” particularly, or “Disney” or “Pixar” titles generally. Is it “movie” and “DVD”? That’s it, right? Quelle horreur! (clutches pearls tightly)
The audio warning is definitely goofy, but at least the seller tried to do something. If you are, or were, a regular eBay seller, you probably have more than a passing familiarity with the types of brain-dead buyers that populate the eBay ecosystem.
[quote=“Vert, post:7, topic:83669, full:true”]
The audio warning only helps people who turn their sound on to browse eBay. [/quote]
I don’t have to “turn my sound on” to browse eBay, or any other website – I keep the sound on all the time, and adjust the volume as necessary. Is leaving one’s computer on perpetual mute a thing?
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The screaming guy sounds just like “Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog.”
I’m not against adding keywords! But if this guy really wanted to head off confusion, there was an easier and more effective way to do it. As an experienced seller, he would have known that.
Sure, at libraries / offices / coffee shops… not to mention folks browsing on smartphones. An audio-only warning is not a good fit for a webpage.
The screaming guy sounds kind of like the guy who’s talking in the video, too. And in years of going to eBay, I’ve never had audio “pop-ups”. Sounds like a goofy Reddit prank.
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Like what?
He put it in the proper category (NOT under DVDs) and labeled it correctly. If read the title it is pretty clear. I assume he spelled it out further in the description, as per his audio comments.
If you think by changing the order and putting the words “Backer Card” first or something is going to prevent what he is trying to avoid, you have too much faith in people following instructions. As one who has had to create websites, ecommerce layouts, and forms for custom printing orders, you have to make it as idiot proof as possible, and even then someone will find a way to screw things up.
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I’m thinking BACKER CARD!!! in 72-point bold lettering, bouncing across the screen, as the screams of STOP! STOP! STOP! blast in the background.
Yeah, probably too subtle for most eBay buyers.
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I absolutely think putting “DVD BACKER CARD” first instead of last would result in fewer buyers thinking they were getting Toy Story 3, the Walt Disney/Pixar movie. Probably still not zero! But fewer.
As you say: as idiot proof as possible.
I do on my Windows PCs (except my desktop which only has audio through headphones or my stereo when I’m watching a movie). Before Chrome introduced tab muting, I even kept my Mac on mute.
Windows gives too much audio feedback and installing a new program sometimes messes with a carefully curated “no sounds” audio theme (my previous solution).
Okay, I have to ask, because I see stuff like that on eBay all the time.
Why?
No, really, why?
Assuming there are strange people out there who actually want empty packaging, (cardboard fetish?), by the time you add in the time factor the tiny margin is erased completely, so again I ask WHY?
Somebody puh-lease, answer me this burning question, I’m dying here! 
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Last time I sold some stuff on eBay, my last auction was a disaster where somebody bought two very specific peripherals for Atari computers which they couldn’t use. It was mind boggling. They complained that I sent them the wrong items and didn’t know what I was selling, only to later admit that they don’t even have an Atari to use them with. I was wary of being scammed, but it eventually worked out.
Some buyers are apparently quite impulsive and pay no attention.
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