...especially if someone already touched it.
That's a great way of putting it, Rasputin!
..where our GermanShepard greets them.
Our local UPS guy (PM use UPS for all our DS orders) is great and if he can't deliver, he drops the parcel at a nearby convenience store (with whom UPS have an agreement) and leaves a card at our house. This is better than them taking the parcel to somewhere 10 miles away, like some companies do. We find many delivery people very helpful, but clearly some don't take the job seriously (like the ones who wait all of 3 secs. after ringing the doorbell before rushing off, claiming 'no-one was in').
I think the massive growth in Internet shopping has meant a lot of courier companies have sprung up. Some are great, others are charlatans. Here in the UK, City Link went bust on Christmas Day and made 2356 employees redundant (many only heard about it from the media). Some of these may get compensation. But many other people, subcontractors for example, many working at the minimum wage, have also lost their jobs. In our heavily consumerist society, we expect everything fast and cheap, but someone else is invariably paying the price in terms of poor working conditions, poor job security, low pay, pollution or environmental degradation. Yes I hate paying high shipping fees, but I hate to be part of exploiting other people more.
Anyway, back to the discussion about auction sites. My wish list (bearing in mind that ebay operates differently in different countries):
1. I wish there were more competitor sites so ebay had less of a monopoly.
2. I wish German sellers on ebay.de were required to have PayPal accounts like all UK sellers. (Most of the ones who will ship internationally do offer Paypal though).
3. As a seller, I wish ebay did not charge sellers fees on shipping costs
4. As a buyer, I wish ebay could find an effective way of stopping sellers from charging excessive shipping costs.
5. As a buyer, I wish all sellers would regard the loss or damage of items in transit as their responsibility and provide insurance as standard.
6. I wish ebay would extend Buyer Protection to cover collection-in-person items so one has chance to take goods away to check discrepancies in what one is buying without having to stand on the seller's doorstep checking to see if the item matches the description.
That's my list. I liked what Joe (basilsdad) said too- that's how I work Joe!
I use a sniping tool (sorry leefert!) because otherwise I miss the end of auctions or spend too much (but I still like the frisson of bidding in person in the last few seconds too!). The bids go in within 6 seconds of the auction ending with the tool I use.
