No matter how nice or how mean a question you get is, the number one rule for responding is: respond quickly.

   Quick response can turn problems into solutions and angry buyers into happy, repeat customers. Even a "No, we just can't do that at this time" in response to an unusual and excessive request, possibly accompanied with a reason for why you cannot, often makes your denial gentler and more understandable to the requester.

The Obvious Answer

   I'm married to an eBay fanatic and I call him my eBay Maniac. Perhaps you have an eBay Maniac in your home too 9and you might be one yourself!). My husband, Greg, will agree that the following type of question is common: "How much is shipping to Canada?" (or any other country) when your auction states at least twice that shipping to the country in question is $8.70. It's astounding how many times we've been asked questions that are clearly answered in our auction listing.

   Here is another question that never ceases to amaze us: "Do you combine shipping charges if we win multiple items?" At the time of this writing, and for the past 18 months, every auction listing we've ever posted says that we combine and reduce shipping when anyone wins multiple items. That's not all. Every auction we've listed in the past 18 months has said that in two or three places throughout the auctions!

   If you ignore such questions then your bidders might go elsewhere thinking you don't ship to their country or that you don't offer shipping discounts. They might conclude you are an unresponsive seller. If you get very many of these kinds of questions, your patience will be tried. Yet, you must answer them politely and promptly. It's one of the eBay seller's albatrosses. Typically, my eBay Maniac will respond with something such as, "Yes, as our auction states, the shipping charge for Canada is $7.80. Thank you for your interest in our auction."

   That could be construed as slightly sarcastic (he doesn't have to imply that their answer is already answered) but it is friendly and it does help teach eBayers, gently, to read auctions more carefully.

Can You Take Criticism?

   Your bidders as well as those who choose not to bid will sometimes complain about the things you do. Some are funny, some make you angry (again, you must show patience), and some you will learn from.

   In selling a personal home library for a friend of ours, she told us in advance that she had cut off some of the inside dust jacket flap prices. This is a big no-no in the world of book collecting. The value of the book can decrease anywhere from 10% to 40% depending on the title and rarity of the book. Some books are bookclub editions that bring very little money and that price on the inside dust jacket is often replaced with the words Book Club Edition. So collectors are wary of buying any book with a clipped dust jacket flap because it might be difficult to tell if they are getting a true first edition of the book or a cheap bookclub printing of the same book. Therefore the value drops.

   Some of our auctions say this to say when we sell such a book:

   "Sadly, a well-meaning (but wrong) family member cut the original price from inside the dust jacket flap."

   We received a complaint from someone who had looked at our auctions telling us:

   "You have too much time on your hands if you take the time and space to write about your poor family member who cut the price out of the book. Nobody cares. Don't air your family grievances on eBay like that! You waste our time using eBay as a platform for tattling on your family!"

   She didn't realize that such information (the clipped dust jacket flap) is one of the most important aspects to note about buying used books. She also didn't know that it was that very lady who clipped the dust jacket who told us we could say she did it.

   Greg looks back on this with grief because he didn't use tact when responding to that one. He replied,

   "If you have time to write eBayers about what they say in their listings, it seems to me that YOU are the one with too much time on your hands."

   Don't do that. Greg says that he never would respond that way anymore. Even though he's an eBay Maniac, he does improve with age!