Rare ponies on eBay?

[Chrissytree]

Some buyers have stories on facebook. Some have arrived damaged due to poor packaging. Cracked bubbles, folded cards and too small boxes. Part of it was down to the global shipping service but they dropped that after the first lot of auctions. Later ones have also had a few problems. They aren't toy collectors but they could take some time and expense to make sure the items are packaged carefully.

[banditpony]

I don't think so - there were playsets and loose ponies in outfits too.
My guess is they need a break before they continue!

Yeah, I was gonna say there were loose items. Although it's just as possible they sold them in a job lot to someone else locally.

My thought was it was possible it was local too.  Especially since his friend has a store (and who knows maybe he does too. They obviously are in the business of selling used things)

[Taffeta]

Some buyers have stories on facebook. Some have arrived damaged due to poor packaging. Cracked bubbles, folded cards and too small boxes. Part of it was down to the global shipping service but they dropped that after the first lot of auctions. Later ones have also had a few problems. They aren't toy collectors but they could take some time and expense to make sure the items are packaged carefully.

That's sad. I wonder if that's why Global Shipping disappeared off the options after the first round except for some bagged items. When I asked them about international shipping at the time the first stuff got listed I did mention that GSP does that, and I wonder if they fell foul of it and decided not to risk it again. It's why, honestly, even if my most wanted MOC comes up on ebay, I won't use GSP - rather not have the item than receive the heartbreaking sight of one broken by neanderthal repackers trying to skim profits.

Sad that some of these, with the prices they were making, got damaged. There aren't enough surviving examples of some of these MIP items for shoddy shipping to damage them :/

[Ponyfan]

Some buyers have stories on facebook. Some have arrived damaged due to poor packaging. Cracked bubbles, folded cards and too small boxes. Part of it was down to the global shipping service but they dropped that after the first lot of auctions. Later ones have also had a few problems. They aren't toy collectors but they could take some time and expense to make sure the items are packaged carefully.

That's sad. I wonder if that's why Global Shipping disappeared off the options after the first round except for some bagged items. When I asked them about international shipping at the time the first stuff got listed I did mention that GSP does that, and I wonder if they fell foul of it and decided not to risk it again. It's why, honestly, even if my most wanted MOC comes up on ebay, I won't use GSP - rather not have the item than receive the heartbreaking sight of one broken by neanderthal repackers trying to skim profits.

Sad that some of these, with the prices they were making, got damaged. There aren't enough surviving examples of some of these MIP items for shoddy shipping to damage them :/

I agree. Some of these items don't come up MIP?MIB/MOC often and to find out that some were damaged due to poor packaging or through GSP workers is heartbreaking.



Ponyfan

[kamakazee82]

they have more up now

[SaraMari]

Yeah that's sad to hear that paying all that money (with a lot of them finishing above market rate esp) that the buyers received damaged packages.

They added this to their listings now to cover themselves I guess "DON'T EXPECT A PERFECTLY FLAT CARD. "

[TheBeatlesPkmnFan42]

Yeah that's sad to hear that paying all that money (with a lot of them finishing above market rate esp) that the buyers received damaged packages.

They added this to their listings now to cover themselves I guess "DON'T EXPECT A PERFECTLY FLAT CARD. "

"Don't expect to receive in the condition you bought it for" fixed that for you, seller.

[Taffeta]

Yeah that's sad to hear that paying all that money (with a lot of them finishing above market rate esp) that the buyers received damaged packages.

They added this to their listings now to cover themselves I guess "DON'T EXPECT A PERFECTLY FLAT CARD. "

"Don't expect to receive in the condition you bought it for" fixed that for you, seller.

Absolutely. Although some of the cards are clearly damaged, any additional bending should not happen in transit or because of packaging...

[banditpony]

Yeah that's sad to hear that paying all that money (with a lot of them finishing above market rate esp) that the buyers received damaged packages.

They added this to their listings now to cover themselves I guess "DON'T EXPECT A PERFECTLY FLAT CARD. "

"Don't expect to receive in the condition you bought it for" fixed that for you, seller.

Actually, since a majority, if not all those cards are damaged.. It's a fair and important statement. That's not saying he should not be properly packing them as well. And I feel like it's important to say he notes "LOOK AT THE CONDITION OF THE CARD".

His shipping is so expensive, he has no excuse not to ship nicely in a box. It's $16, when actual shipping is $9.30.

I do wonder what amount of damage was.there previously vs in transit. He's taking more care to note damage now.

[Ponyfan]

I noticed he has two negative feedback for items being damaged in shipping by using too small boxes/wrong shipping container for the item.  It looks like Whizzer's bubble is detaching/torn  at the bottom?


I agree with everyone else. Even with a disclaimer there's no excuse for not making sure the items will arrive in the condition the buyer paid for the item in. I would be devastated to find out my MOC?MIB G1 had been damaged during shipping due to poor packaging.



Ponyfan

[SaraMari]

Yeah that's sad to hear that paying all that money (with a lot of them finishing above market rate esp) that the buyers received damaged packages.

They added this to their listings now to cover themselves I guess "DON'T EXPECT A PERFECTLY FLAT CARD. "

"Don't expect to receive in the condition you bought it for" fixed that for you, seller.

Actually, since a majority, if not all those cards are damaged.. It's a fair and important statement. That's not saying he should not be properly packing them as well. And I feel like it's important to say he notes "LOOK AT THE CONDITION OF THE CARD".

No true I  see your point (and he for sure should say that) but to me the intent appears differently because this statement was added after getting negative feedback for damaged by poor packing. Most of the cards/boxes he's sold have been curled, bent and/or dented and some being straight up mashed. But he never said anything about that before.

[banditpony]

Yeah that's sad to hear that paying all that money (with a lot of them finishing above market rate esp) that the buyers received damaged packages.

They added this to their listings now to cover themselves I guess "DON'T EXPECT A PERFECTLY FLAT CARD. "

"Don't expect to receive in the condition you bought it for" fixed that for you, seller.

Actually, since a majority, if not all those cards are damaged.. It's a fair and important statement. That's not saying he should not be properly packing them as well. And I feel like it's important to say he notes "LOOK AT THE CONDITION OF THE CARD".

No true I  see your point (and he for sure should say that) but to me the intent appears differently because this statement was added after getting negative feedback for damaged by poor packing. Most of the cards/boxes he's sold have been curled, bent and/or dented and some being straight up mashed. But he never said anything about that before.

As a non collector, he probably didn't know that the condition of the box was that important.
Again, his full warning was : PEN POINTS TO OPENING. LOOK AT CONDITION OF CARDS BEFORE BIDDING! DON'T EXPECT A PERFECTLY FLAT CARD.

Omitting the "look at the condition before bidding" skews the whole statement.

But he's taking sideway pictures of the bubbles falling off and pointing out all the damage. He's making sure people know they were in bad condition BEFORE he sends them off.

Any additional damage due to poor packaging is also his fault. But at this point, he's documenting the damage beforehand too. This is a GOOD thing!

I personally think it's a mixture of both.


Man, poor Cherry Treats tho... what happened to her face.

[Taffeta]

I don't think that not being a collector - not knowing the importance of card condition is an excuse. Whatever he usually sells, anything getting damaged by poor packaging or bad shipping is something he ought to know. So for me that side of it is not an excuse.

On the other hand, it's been obvious from the pictures so far that some have damage. I still think Twilight was taped shut and I maintain it (not the SS, the unicorn). But I don't see why if you were a MOC collector you WOULDN'T scrutinise the issues. It's important because you have to know if you can live with those flaws in your collection. And if you can't, then don't bid. That goes for anything, though. You should always scrutinise, ask questions, etc. (Though this seller discourages asking questions, so there is more onus on him for a more detailed description).

The things I wouldn't expect him to notice necessarily are things like ponies discolouring (if it's even/fading hair/etc), ponies on the wrong card, with the wrong sticker. Regrind etc or mismatch he might or might not see but it might not occur to him as being important. However, detached bubble and great bit tear in card - those are flaws. So those should be mentioned no matter what. Even if you don't sell ponies regularly...that's the condition of the item.

I feel like it's a partnership between a buyer and a seller.

And I have no quarter for poor mip packaging. I have had four MIB Flutters mailed to me from overseas and none of them got damaged. That's because of the great packaging by the sellers. By contrast, I lost two MOCs because the sellers put them in padded mailers and the bubbles came off the card in transit. The worst was watercolor Misty, as she was also sent this way via surface mail (she spent 6 weeks in transit with no packing). I didn't ask for surface mail...but that was a long time ago and she wasn't expensive so I let it go since I didn't have her at all in my collection then. The other was a movie Wind Whistler. I got a partial refund for that one as it came from within the collecting community and shouldn't have happened. But the heartbreak of a damaged MOC for a MOC collector is profound.

So to summarise...

If there are flaws, state them very clearly. Even if you don't know if they matter, if you notice something, state it.

Pack MOC items safely no matter what. No excuses. I have heard of people cutting bits off cards to fit them in smaller boxes. MOC collectors collect the whole thing, not just the pony...but the bigger issue is that the moment you wreck a MOC pony in this way, there's one less MOC pony out there - so protecting it in transit is really important to do.

...Yeah, this is one of those twitches for me I have some MOC ponies in less than perfect condition, and I have a few which have come off card before I bought them but I got them knowing that. It's the nasty surprises that I think we really need to prevent.

[banditpony]

I don't think that not being a collector - not knowing the importance of card condition is an excuse. Whatever he usually sells, anything getting damaged by poor packaging or bad shipping is something he ought to know. So for me that side of it is not an excuse.

I NEVER ever said that anything was an excuse for poor packaging.

I said that he is documenting the damage BEFORE he sends the item now, because he wasn't aware of the importance to collectors.

Just like he's pointing out the flaws on ponies that have defects (like cherry treats). He didn't with the whatever pink pony with regrind, and yet while so many of us saw that -- the buyer did not.

[Ponyfan]

What could have happened to Cherry Treats? It looks like some kind of mold/fungus on her face?


Ponyfan