Had my pre-order of thought-Knot Seer cancelled by Zokidoji on e-bay. I was informed he is "out of stock or can't fulfill the order for another reason.".
Had my pre-order of thought-Knot Seer cancelled by Zokidoji on e-bay. I was informed he is "out of stock or can't fulfill the order for another reason.".
I hope the seller I bought them from doesn't do that to me since they had 5 listed on Monday, while my preorder does not list a tracking number on TCGplayer and I've received no notification of shipment.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Gigabites cafe. I pre ordered a deck for battle for zendikar standard. I come go into the store the day it's released, to find out my order was voided. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the jace's rising to 90.
Purchased 4x sword of the meek from strikezone online. They cancelled my order after the spike claiming "out of stock." Do not purchase anything from this vendor as they cannot be trusted
I ordered a Time Sieve from Smedlock and paid $1.37. This afternoon it was refunded with no communication. I am trying sending them a message, I'll see what I hear back. http://www.smedlock.com/
Update - no response, just cancellation.
I sent a follow-up an email at 8:40 AM the next day
Update - I received a two replies the next day at 2:03 and 2:09 PM.
Hello --, my inventory on the website is very inaccurate right now, in fact I mean to close it. We do most of our sales on Ebay right now. Sorry for the trouble. Regards, Shannon
Website is now closed for orders. We probably have the card somewhere but it would take a long time to find it, like I said a lot of the Japanese cards (that aren't listed for sale on Ebay) our disorganized at the moment.
Beyond the veil of an amateur looking site with a (in my opinion) terrible color for the background and poor selection of singles, lies the hypocritical owner who operates it. Why do I say that? Just click the link, go to 'service' and see the philosophy section. Small $28 order that got cancelled. Quantities purchased were all 8 or under, well within the acceptable limit given by the site. Other stores fulfilled what I bought later on. No response from the seller whatsoever. The automated email from PayPal was the only notification I have gotten. The seller does not even bother to send an email to me telling me the order was cancelled.
Just don't buy from this seller. Terrible selection of cards with prices that most stores can compete with. Most stores don't charge much for shipping internationally with several offering free international shipping if the purchase amount is high enough. I would suggest everyone to not deal with such a wannabe. It is of no surprise that this site doesn't even have many sales at all. My last order was for 61 cards totaling $171 and the cards came crammed in a PWE for those who were wondering how the orders were shipped. Even TnT who gets so much flak for their shipping, uses a bubble mailer. Just don't deal with rancoredelf. Such unprofessional sellers are detrimental to the community.
This site has been posted here before. I'm well aware of that. If he didn't honor the sale all it does is to prove the point of why his site is listed on this very thread.
I replied to Aranthar three days ago but this user did not bother to post the reply or respond to me via email. He ordered from my website which has inaccurate inventory and I had been intending to close. We do most of our business on Ebay these days and not on the website, the inventory is 99% accurate on Ebay but not on the Website. As for the card in question it was missing but I do believe it to be around somewhere (we have over one million cards). Really this topic should not post dealers who were simply missing one card as that is very common but dealers who cancel an entire order when someone buys 10 cards. This information is only useful to speculators and generally Magic dealers do not make any profit from speculators. Well, thats not true, we do sometimes profit from poor speculators with bad judgment
I will also give the community my two cents about the topic at hand coming from a dealer. I can see both view points and I am torn in the middle. I have cancelled a 3 or 4 orders in the past due to speculative buy outs but not many at all. One order that I cancelled I ended up regretting, both because I got a negative from TCG and the card dropped in price soon... I learned my lesson. And by the way I do not lie about the reason I cancel the order, in the few cases where it was due to a price change, that is specifically what I told them. When I tell a customer that I am missing the card due to an inventory error (or I cant find the card, as in the case of Aranthar), that is exactly what happened. I am honest person in general and Im not going to start lying over a $5 Magic card transactions.
I buy out cards from many dealers myself and while normally the cards are shipped, sometimes my orders are cancelled and I dont gripe about it. I believe Magic cards are only owned who by those who have possession of them. Just because you placed an order for a card, you do not actually own that card until it is physically in your possession. When a customer places an order on a website he is only placing his intent to buy, the seller has a chance to respond with his intent to sell whether to fulfill the order or not (which in most cases they do). This is true in basically every line of business. This is even true on the stock market where buy orders for stocks at certain prices might not go through the system before the market changes to a different price.
I do believe dealers have the right to cancel an order but they will likely receive repercussions in negative feedback and the like. What I dont agree with is lying to cover up the reason they cancelled the order.
Please note, I am not referring specifically to smedlock or any other seller with this message, more speaking in general about the topic while referencing a few points made in the previous post:
As someone who has bought and sold at a brick and mortar store, and bought and sold on ebay (at the shop for 6 years, and on ebay now for 14). I have the following suggestions for some of the points brought up. I know a lot of sellers who sell online and at their brick and mortar store, will keep a combined inventory system rather than 100% separating the two. To me, this is just asking for trouble. I know at least, I made 100% certain to keep both inventories separate so that I could more easily keep track of both, and to assure I never oversell something that I have available online.
I will at least once a month go back through and update the inventory for my online sales to assure that all of the inventory levels I have up are accurate (just in case there is the possibility of an inaccuracy due to whatever reason), though I initially double or triple check the inventory numbers before ever putting the cards up for sale in the first place, to assure that I don't list more than I actually have.
Which brings up the next point, which is a tricky one for a lot of sellers admittedly. I made a point to never sell anything that I didn't have physical possession of and could assure that I had the proper number of (this meant no pre-sales which I know a lot of businesses rely on to help fund each set's release.) To that I would suggest to always underestimate your potential inventory from what you may open from your boxes, that way you wont risk over-selling from what you will potentially be opening.)
The next thing, is for those sellers who sell from the same inventory on multiple selling platforms online. Could be Ebay, Tcgplayer, Online Store, Amazon, and others. The trouble with listing the same cards in more than one selling location, is there is the risk that you will run into a situation where whatever inventory update system you may have in place between the two locations will not trigger quickly enough to assure that you can avoid accidently overselling a card because the same card sold on more than one location at the same time. In the case of selling on multiple places, its important to keep your selling, to locations that you can accurately and consistently keep your inventory accurate with to avoid potential issues with customers or overselling. If you have a location that doesn't have accurate or updating inventory as the previous poster mentioned(as well as mentioning it was something they had intended to close but simply hadn't yet), then that's something that either needs to be kept up with on a regular basis, or simply stick solely with selling on ebay (which is what I do). I only sell on ebay specifically to avoid any issues with inventory levels and selling on multiple platforms. If I were to sell on multiple platforms, I would keep separate inventory for each site to avoid any potential inventory issues between them.
In the case of cancelling orders because a price spiked and someone bought out the cards. Well, honestly that's certainly up to the seller, but the seller should always expect to receive appropriate negative feedback on whatever platform and/or negative comments at places like mtgsalvation about their selling practices. I know the vast majority of the time, the vast majority of sellers are fine when it comes to most aspects of their online selling, and that its often times when price spikes occur from unbannings, or new cards being released, or simply a card getting bought out where the problems can arise. To many buyers though, its those times that can separate the good online sellers from the truly great online sellers that do take the extra effort to keep 100% accurate inventory, that make sure the cards they are selling are in the appropriate condition, that regardless of a buyout will fulfill orders to those that bought from them without blinking an eye.
Personally I believe once I put a card up for sale online, that whomever comes in and buys those cards regardless of whether they are some random individual, another online seller, or some huge online/brick and mortar store, that the cards are there to sell, and whether that person buys 1 playset, 4 playsets, or 20 playsets, then they are entitled to what they bought at the price they bought them at, at the time. Every time a card has spiked and I have been bought out on ebay, I have made sure to ship out those orders.
As for information from a thread like this only being useful to speculators, that's not necessarily true at all. I know a lot of people that will have heard nothing but good things from a site/seller normally, and when a card suddenly gets unbanned and they realize they will need it for a deck, they go to that seller and buy the cards, expecting, and rightfully so, that their order should be successful and they will receive the cards, only to then have their orders cancelled later due to the price spike and then being unable to purchase elsewhere for the previous price and now being forced to pay the new, oftentimes significantly higher price if they want to be able to get the cards in question they will need for their decks. This tends to lead to unhappy customers and can potentially damage the reputation of sellers as a result, even if they may 99% of the time otherwise fulfill orders quickly and without issue. The information from this thread is there to let people know who to avoid in instances when a price spikes on a card for whatever reason to be able to give themselves the greatest chance to be able to actually have their orders fulfilled. Some sellers may say "well good, I wouldn't want to deal with such customers anyway" or similar. The trouble is, who is to say how much those buyers may have potentially bought from you had you not had the reputation of cancelling orders after a price spikes, and how many others will no longer consider buying from you vs. the many other sellers available online that don't have a potential reputation as someone who will cancel orders due to a price spike? Choosing to cancel spike-related orders, can lead to the potential loss of a whole lot more than just a single customer for your card sales.
When it comes to inventory as mentioned before, I know it can be difficult for a larger ebay seller who may potentially have 1,000's of items listed to be able to double check their inventory on a regular basis to avoid inaccuracies, in such instances its even more important to make sure your initial inventory setup is 100% accurate to avoid any issues and that your card inventory is organized in such a way as to prevent the potential for cards to have been misplaced or being unable to locate them when someone does come and buy a card that may have otherwise have sat there for years collecting dust as it were.
In general I believe that most online stores are run by honest people who are out to both provide a service for the magic community as well as being compensated for the time and effort put in during such endeavors. I believe its often unfair for sellers who may get a negative reputation from say, a single missing card, or a simple honest mistake, and I believe such sellers should be given a second chance so long as they are able to own up to their mistake and make sure to fix whatever caused the mistake so as to be able to avoid it for next time.
That said, I also am well aware that there are many sellers out there that care more about their bottom line, than they do about their customers, and will cancel orders when they spike because they feel the potential additional profit they will gain is worth the potential hit to their reputation that they will receive from cancelling an order. That's why its important to be able to differentiate the two types of sellers on a thread like this to assure that an honest mistake isn't put into the same category as the more negative types of sellers from earlier in this paragraph.
Why was the site still up if it wasnt regularly updated?
Anyways, just prove somehow that you messaged him. go read post 141 and the OP for my thoughts. I had something extremely harsh on here that I can repost, but basically said my thoughts.
Hey Jeffrey, I have ordered from you many times on Ebay. You are definitely a top notch seller. Please bare in mind that my inventory on TCG (and the website before I just closed it) had over 1 million cards with 20,000 different cards in stock and a variety of conditions and languages. It is very hard to keep that 100 percent accurate and this is the case with any large dealer. In your case you simply sell a couple hundred items, mostly Planechase and Commander cards and it is much easier to keep such a small inventory accurate. For me to double check my inventory is simply impossible as it would take many months to do so and there would still be errors on completion. In fact I am liquidating a lot of it as we speak and plan to simply be an Ebay seller in the future.
Below is my response. I dont know who said what that was "extremely harsh". I posted my honest thoughts. Like I said I have only cancelled a few orders due to price spikes, was honest about it and dont plan to do so in the future. But whoever said such is welcome to say it to my face.
Smedlock <smedlock@gmail.com>
Apr 6 (3 days ago)
to David
Hello David, my inventory on the website is very inaccurate right now, in fact I mean to close it. We do most of our sales on Ebay right now. Sorry for the trouble. Regards, Shannon
On Tue, Apr 5, 2016 at 9:40 AM, David Moore <osomoore@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Smedlock,
I am saddened that your reputation is worth so little to you. Wizards always posts banned and restricted list updates the Monday after every pre-release. If you don't want people buying cards for their decks after the change, don't sell cards on those days.
You should be aware that people are justifiably unhappy with shops like yours, and your practices do not go unnoticed or unannounced.
Hey Jeffrey, I have ordered from you many times on Ebay. You are definitely a top notch seller. Please bare in mind that my inventory on TCG (and the website before I just closed it) had over 1 million cards with 20,000 different cards in stock and a variety of conditions and languages. It is very hard to keep that 100 percent accurate and this is the case with any large dealer. In your case you simply sell a couple hundred items, mostly Planechase and Commander cards and it is much easier to keep such a small inventory accurate. For me to double check my inventory is simply impossible as it would take many months to do so and there would still be errors on completion. In fact I am liquidating a lot of it as we speak and plan to simply be an Ebay seller in the future.
Yeah, the massive inventory aspect would definitely make it understandable that there would be inventory stock management issues that could lead to situations like that. I think in your case, your decision to close down the website and pare down where you are listing your inventory for sale is a good idea and will help with such issues in the future. And yes, its true for myself, my current selection is rather limited, but in the past I have had a lot more variety of items listed, with an emphasis on singles from prebuilt decks or standard singles, though I've also had all sorts of other things up in the past that I have simply sold through over time. My view on the level of inventory to list, has always been that I should never list more inventory than I can reasonably be able to keep an accurate inventory check/record of. To be fair though, prior to the last few years, I was doing a lot more in sales at the brick and mortar shop I was at, and that inventory I always kept separate from my online inventories, to avoid any issues. For a larger online operation such as yours with 10's of thousands of items listed, that would definitely be nearly impossible without help at least to be able to keep 100% accurate inventories for. Really all you can do there, is simply make sure that inventory levels are kept track of automatically with the help of ebay/tcgplayer systems, while making for 100% certain that your starting inventory is 100% accurate when you initially put something up, or when you add more items to an existing listing on either place. Even then though, as you said, there is still going to be the possibility that a single card could be off, and that said single card could inevitably see a spike some day, and then bam, here we are at the current situation.
From my perspective as an occasional buyer, I would say that the occasional minor inventory issue such as that without a repeated past history of such issues, should be something that should be forgiven. That said, one thing you could do, in the case of this one card situation, that I bet would blow the person away, would be to buy a single copy of the card elsewhere, or provide enough funds back to the buyer to allow them to buy a single copy at the current price elsewhere so they can still get the card they wanted, even if it may not have ended up coming directly from you like they would have expected. I know I've always appreciated those rare times when a seller ran into a situation like that and were willing to go the extra mile and a few extra dollars for the sake of providing the most top notch customer service possible in an unfortunate situation such as this. I am of course not saying you should be required to, but would certainly be a potential and reasonably inexpensive way to be able to make the customer happy in a situation like this and thusly avoid the potential of negative feedback or risks to reputation or otherwise on a thread/site like this.
As for the previous mention of issues with speculators when a price spikes where in the past you mentioned having cancelled only a couple or few orders/parts of orders over such things, one way to avoid such issues there as well, is to limit the stock you have listed of a particular card to say, 8 of a card (or 2 playsets) for instances when a price spike occurs, so an individual cannot just completely buy you out of a card, and you can be assured that they wont exceed any sorts of limits of getting certain cards in such situations from you and then you can just relist the item back up with more inventory when you feel the price has stabilized. That's one way at least to avoid the potential negative situations that could come from cancelling an order due to a complete buyout by someone right when a card is spiking.
Anyhow, just a few thoughts and bits of advice. I have appreciated your business in the past, and am sure I will in the future, so I certainly don't have anything negative to say about you as a customer and I wish you luck in the future as a seller :).
I'd like to add the eBay seller "Jacgro5" (I'll refrain from using his real name for now) to the list. I won a prerelease Ulamog from him for about half of what it regularly goes for (auction, not BIN), and a week later I got a lame story about it being water damaged. No refund (until I opened a case), no photos of the damage, no replies to any of my requests for more information or to attempt to work things out.
It's not exactly a spike, but it's the same principle (card is now worth more than buyer paid, seller cancels for shady reason), so I feel I ought to mention it.
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I'd like to add the eBay seller "Jacgro5" (I'll refrain from using his real name for now) to the list. I won a prerelease Ulamog from him for about half of what it regularly goes for (auction, not BIN), and a week later I got a lame story about it being water damaged. No refund (until I opened a case), no photos of the damage, no replies to any of my requests for more information or to attempt to work things out.
It's not exactly a spike, but it's the same principle (card is now worth more than buyer paid, seller cancels for shady reason), so I feel I ought to mention it.
Unfortunately a lot of new sellers on ebay who think how great auctions are, fail to realize the risks associated with going the auction vs. fixed price listing route. And I've seen many instances over the years where sellers who end up getting far less than expected on more valuable items, will indeed mysteriously be unable to find the item, or discover its damaged or any number of other issues in order to not have to mail out the card.
The trouble with that though, is if they then go to try to sell it later, then it puts them in a bad spot as I've occasionally had to deal with in the past with some sellers. Sometimes in cases like that, I would almost want to say, okay, water damaged, that's cool, I got a good price on it, send it on over anyway. Just to see what they would do :p.
sorry to bump a 6 month old thread, but i feel the visibility of this list is important to all who buy cards. I'd like to add a few shops to it as well, some already mentioned and some new. If more proof is necessary I can provide it, otherwise I will just list the store name, date, card names, and excuses given. All are TCGPlayer.com sellers:
The End Games -- 4/4/2016 -- Eye of Ugin x3 -- "It seems that we've had an error with regards to your order. Due to the time it takes for TCG and Crystal Commerce to sync, we have oversold on your order of Eye of Ugins from Modern Masters."
MythicMTG -- 4/5/2016 -- Eye of Ugin -- "I am terribly sorry, but we had an error with our automated price updates. We are issuing a full refund and correcting our prices and inventory as rapidly as possible."
Desu Nation -- 4/5/2016 -- Eye of Ugin x4 -- "sorry to inform you that the cards was missing from our inventory, sorry for the inconvenience."
TJ Collectibles -- 10/10/2016 -- Dark Ritual -- "We unfortunately have to cancel your order. We just started using a new Scanner system for imputing our inventory. It entered a 3rd edition as Alpha. We do not have any Alpha editions of any condition, if we did we would send it out to you. We have also spoken with the team to make sure they are more careful in the future. We're very sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused. "
TJ Collectibles -- 10/12/2016 -- Lure -- "I’m sorry to say that due to an inventory error on our part we do not have a Near Mint Lure available to send your way. We do have a Heavily Played version available if you’d prefer that, with a refund for the difference in price. Or if you’d rather I can refund you for the missing card.
I’m sorry again for any inconvenience, we're still working the bugs out of the new scanning system that we're using and hopefully your next order with us goes more smoothly."
Comic Asylum -- 11/04/2016 -- Volcanic Eruption -- "We did not have the card in are stock."
PowerHousePlayers -- 11/28/2016 -- Black Knight -- "I have to refund this order. This particular inventory listening was meant to be hidden. The black knight is no longer available. I am extremely sorry!"
P.S. I STILL need alpha black knight and volcanic eruption if anyone wants to sell......
Had been a user of StrikeZoneOnline many times in the past, but today they cancelled my order for a pair of $3 Protean Hulks, citing "out of stock". Now, I will admit I do not have conclusive evidence it was cancelled due to the price spike which saw the card spike from $3 to $25 in about 2 hours. It COULD simply have been a case of an inability to track inventory when selling across multiple platforms. But, I do still feel it's worth posting here.
I purchased 4 x Patron Wizard for a total of 23.99. Three days later they are listed on TCG median at 22.00 EACH and the seller canceled the order:
"Our inventory is normally 100% accurate, but we had an incorrect inventory number on this item and did not have it to send you. This is due to an auto relist error on behalf of ebay. We have been told the system should not do this and the issue has been escalated as a bug."
Of course, no verification from eBay to back up his claim is offered.
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I hope the seller I bought them from doesn't do that to me since they had 5 listed on Monday, while my preorder does not list a tracking number on TCGplayer and I've received no notification of shipment.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
http://www.smedlock.com/
Update - no response, just cancellation.
I sent a follow-up an email at 8:40 AM the next day
Update - I received a two replies the next day at 2:03 and 2:09 PM.
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Beyond the veil of an amateur looking site with a (in my opinion) terrible color for the background and poor selection of singles, lies the hypocritical owner who operates it. Why do I say that? Just click the link, go to 'service' and see the philosophy section. Small $28 order that got cancelled. Quantities purchased were all 8 or under, well within the acceptable limit given by the site. Other stores fulfilled what I bought later on. No response from the seller whatsoever. The automated email from PayPal was the only notification I have gotten. The seller does not even bother to send an email to me telling me the order was cancelled.
Just don't buy from this seller. Terrible selection of cards with prices that most stores can compete with. Most stores don't charge much for shipping internationally with several offering free international shipping if the purchase amount is high enough. I would suggest everyone to not deal with such a wannabe. It is of no surprise that this site doesn't even have many sales at all. My last order was for 61 cards totaling $171 and the cards came crammed in a PWE for those who were wondering how the orders were shipped. Even TnT who gets so much flak for their shipping, uses a bubble mailer. Just don't deal with rancoredelf. Such unprofessional sellers are detrimental to the community.
This site has been posted here before. I'm well aware of that. If he didn't honor the sale all it does is to prove the point of why his site is listed on this very thread.
I will also give the community my two cents about the topic at hand coming from a dealer. I can see both view points and I am torn in the middle. I have cancelled a 3 or 4 orders in the past due to speculative buy outs but not many at all. One order that I cancelled I ended up regretting, both because I got a negative from TCG and the card dropped in price soon... I learned my lesson. And by the way I do not lie about the reason I cancel the order, in the few cases where it was due to a price change, that is specifically what I told them. When I tell a customer that I am missing the card due to an inventory error (or I cant find the card, as in the case of Aranthar), that is exactly what happened. I am honest person in general and Im not going to start lying over a $5 Magic card transactions.
I buy out cards from many dealers myself and while normally the cards are shipped, sometimes my orders are cancelled and I dont gripe about it. I believe Magic cards are only owned who by those who have possession of them. Just because you placed an order for a card, you do not actually own that card until it is physically in your possession. When a customer places an order on a website he is only placing his intent to buy, the seller has a chance to respond with his intent to sell whether to fulfill the order or not (which in most cases they do). This is true in basically every line of business. This is even true on the stock market where buy orders for stocks at certain prices might not go through the system before the market changes to a different price.
I do believe dealers have the right to cancel an order but they will likely receive repercussions in negative feedback and the like. What I dont agree with is lying to cover up the reason they cancelled the order.
As someone who has bought and sold at a brick and mortar store, and bought and sold on ebay (at the shop for 6 years, and on ebay now for 14). I have the following suggestions for some of the points brought up. I know a lot of sellers who sell online and at their brick and mortar store, will keep a combined inventory system rather than 100% separating the two. To me, this is just asking for trouble. I know at least, I made 100% certain to keep both inventories separate so that I could more easily keep track of both, and to assure I never oversell something that I have available online.
I will at least once a month go back through and update the inventory for my online sales to assure that all of the inventory levels I have up are accurate (just in case there is the possibility of an inaccuracy due to whatever reason), though I initially double or triple check the inventory numbers before ever putting the cards up for sale in the first place, to assure that I don't list more than I actually have.
Which brings up the next point, which is a tricky one for a lot of sellers admittedly. I made a point to never sell anything that I didn't have physical possession of and could assure that I had the proper number of (this meant no pre-sales which I know a lot of businesses rely on to help fund each set's release.) To that I would suggest to always underestimate your potential inventory from what you may open from your boxes, that way you wont risk over-selling from what you will potentially be opening.)
The next thing, is for those sellers who sell from the same inventory on multiple selling platforms online. Could be Ebay, Tcgplayer, Online Store, Amazon, and others. The trouble with listing the same cards in more than one selling location, is there is the risk that you will run into a situation where whatever inventory update system you may have in place between the two locations will not trigger quickly enough to assure that you can avoid accidently overselling a card because the same card sold on more than one location at the same time. In the case of selling on multiple places, its important to keep your selling, to locations that you can accurately and consistently keep your inventory accurate with to avoid potential issues with customers or overselling. If you have a location that doesn't have accurate or updating inventory as the previous poster mentioned(as well as mentioning it was something they had intended to close but simply hadn't yet), then that's something that either needs to be kept up with on a regular basis, or simply stick solely with selling on ebay (which is what I do). I only sell on ebay specifically to avoid any issues with inventory levels and selling on multiple platforms. If I were to sell on multiple platforms, I would keep separate inventory for each site to avoid any potential inventory issues between them.
In the case of cancelling orders because a price spiked and someone bought out the cards. Well, honestly that's certainly up to the seller, but the seller should always expect to receive appropriate negative feedback on whatever platform and/or negative comments at places like mtgsalvation about their selling practices. I know the vast majority of the time, the vast majority of sellers are fine when it comes to most aspects of their online selling, and that its often times when price spikes occur from unbannings, or new cards being released, or simply a card getting bought out where the problems can arise. To many buyers though, its those times that can separate the good online sellers from the truly great online sellers that do take the extra effort to keep 100% accurate inventory, that make sure the cards they are selling are in the appropriate condition, that regardless of a buyout will fulfill orders to those that bought from them without blinking an eye.
Personally I believe once I put a card up for sale online, that whomever comes in and buys those cards regardless of whether they are some random individual, another online seller, or some huge online/brick and mortar store, that the cards are there to sell, and whether that person buys 1 playset, 4 playsets, or 20 playsets, then they are entitled to what they bought at the price they bought them at, at the time. Every time a card has spiked and I have been bought out on ebay, I have made sure to ship out those orders.
As for information from a thread like this only being useful to speculators, that's not necessarily true at all. I know a lot of people that will have heard nothing but good things from a site/seller normally, and when a card suddenly gets unbanned and they realize they will need it for a deck, they go to that seller and buy the cards, expecting, and rightfully so, that their order should be successful and they will receive the cards, only to then have their orders cancelled later due to the price spike and then being unable to purchase elsewhere for the previous price and now being forced to pay the new, oftentimes significantly higher price if they want to be able to get the cards in question they will need for their decks. This tends to lead to unhappy customers and can potentially damage the reputation of sellers as a result, even if they may 99% of the time otherwise fulfill orders quickly and without issue. The information from this thread is there to let people know who to avoid in instances when a price spikes on a card for whatever reason to be able to give themselves the greatest chance to be able to actually have their orders fulfilled. Some sellers may say "well good, I wouldn't want to deal with such customers anyway" or similar. The trouble is, who is to say how much those buyers may have potentially bought from you had you not had the reputation of cancelling orders after a price spikes, and how many others will no longer consider buying from you vs. the many other sellers available online that don't have a potential reputation as someone who will cancel orders due to a price spike? Choosing to cancel spike-related orders, can lead to the potential loss of a whole lot more than just a single customer for your card sales.
When it comes to inventory as mentioned before, I know it can be difficult for a larger ebay seller who may potentially have 1,000's of items listed to be able to double check their inventory on a regular basis to avoid inaccuracies, in such instances its even more important to make sure your initial inventory setup is 100% accurate to avoid any issues and that your card inventory is organized in such a way as to prevent the potential for cards to have been misplaced or being unable to locate them when someone does come and buy a card that may have otherwise have sat there for years collecting dust as it were.
In general I believe that most online stores are run by honest people who are out to both provide a service for the magic community as well as being compensated for the time and effort put in during such endeavors. I believe its often unfair for sellers who may get a negative reputation from say, a single missing card, or a simple honest mistake, and I believe such sellers should be given a second chance so long as they are able to own up to their mistake and make sure to fix whatever caused the mistake so as to be able to avoid it for next time.
That said, I also am well aware that there are many sellers out there that care more about their bottom line, than they do about their customers, and will cancel orders when they spike because they feel the potential additional profit they will gain is worth the potential hit to their reputation that they will receive from cancelling an order. That's why its important to be able to differentiate the two types of sellers on a thread like this to assure that an honest mistake isn't put into the same category as the more negative types of sellers from earlier in this paragraph.
Anyways, just prove somehow that you messaged him. go read post 141 and the OP for my thoughts. I had something extremely harsh on here that I can repost, but basically said my thoughts.
540 Peasant cube- Gold EditionSomething SpicySmedlock <smedlock@gmail.com>
Apr 6 (3 days ago)
to David
Hello David, my inventory on the website is very inaccurate right now, in fact I mean to close it. We do most of our sales on Ebay right now. Sorry for the trouble. Regards, Shannon
On Tue, Apr 5, 2016 at 9:40 AM, David Moore <osomoore@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Smedlock,
I am saddened that your reputation is worth so little to you. Wizards always posts banned and restricted list updates the Monday after every pre-release. If you don't want people buying cards for their decks after the change, don't sell cards on those days.
You should be aware that people are justifiably unhappy with shops like yours, and your practices do not go unnoticed or unannounced.
Sincerely,
- David Moore
PS. The card is still listed for sale on your site. As is your site listed here: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/market-street/market-street-cafe/store-discussion/388552-list-of-shops-that-cancel-orders-when-cards-spike
Yeah, the massive inventory aspect would definitely make it understandable that there would be inventory stock management issues that could lead to situations like that. I think in your case, your decision to close down the website and pare down where you are listing your inventory for sale is a good idea and will help with such issues in the future. And yes, its true for myself, my current selection is rather limited, but in the past I have had a lot more variety of items listed, with an emphasis on singles from prebuilt decks or standard singles, though I've also had all sorts of other things up in the past that I have simply sold through over time. My view on the level of inventory to list, has always been that I should never list more inventory than I can reasonably be able to keep an accurate inventory check/record of. To be fair though, prior to the last few years, I was doing a lot more in sales at the brick and mortar shop I was at, and that inventory I always kept separate from my online inventories, to avoid any issues. For a larger online operation such as yours with 10's of thousands of items listed, that would definitely be nearly impossible without help at least to be able to keep 100% accurate inventories for. Really all you can do there, is simply make sure that inventory levels are kept track of automatically with the help of ebay/tcgplayer systems, while making for 100% certain that your starting inventory is 100% accurate when you initially put something up, or when you add more items to an existing listing on either place. Even then though, as you said, there is still going to be the possibility that a single card could be off, and that said single card could inevitably see a spike some day, and then bam, here we are at the current situation.
From my perspective as an occasional buyer, I would say that the occasional minor inventory issue such as that without a repeated past history of such issues, should be something that should be forgiven. That said, one thing you could do, in the case of this one card situation, that I bet would blow the person away, would be to buy a single copy of the card elsewhere, or provide enough funds back to the buyer to allow them to buy a single copy at the current price elsewhere so they can still get the card they wanted, even if it may not have ended up coming directly from you like they would have expected. I know I've always appreciated those rare times when a seller ran into a situation like that and were willing to go the extra mile and a few extra dollars for the sake of providing the most top notch customer service possible in an unfortunate situation such as this. I am of course not saying you should be required to, but would certainly be a potential and reasonably inexpensive way to be able to make the customer happy in a situation like this and thusly avoid the potential of negative feedback or risks to reputation or otherwise on a thread/site like this.
As for the previous mention of issues with speculators when a price spikes where in the past you mentioned having cancelled only a couple or few orders/parts of orders over such things, one way to avoid such issues there as well, is to limit the stock you have listed of a particular card to say, 8 of a card (or 2 playsets) for instances when a price spike occurs, so an individual cannot just completely buy you out of a card, and you can be assured that they wont exceed any sorts of limits of getting certain cards in such situations from you and then you can just relist the item back up with more inventory when you feel the price has stabilized. That's one way at least to avoid the potential negative situations that could come from cancelling an order due to a complete buyout by someone right when a card is spiking.
Anyhow, just a few thoughts and bits of advice. I have appreciated your business in the past, and am sure I will in the future, so I certainly don't have anything negative to say about you as a customer and I wish you luck in the future as a seller :).
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Currently playing Knight of the Reliquary - Retreat to Coralhelm Combo
It's not exactly a spike, but it's the same principle (card is now worth more than buyer paid, seller cancels for shady reason), so I feel I ought to mention it.
Unfortunately a lot of new sellers on ebay who think how great auctions are, fail to realize the risks associated with going the auction vs. fixed price listing route. And I've seen many instances over the years where sellers who end up getting far less than expected on more valuable items, will indeed mysteriously be unable to find the item, or discover its damaged or any number of other issues in order to not have to mail out the card.
The trouble with that though, is if they then go to try to sell it later, then it puts them in a bad spot as I've occasionally had to deal with in the past with some sellers. Sometimes in cases like that, I would almost want to say, okay, water damaged, that's cool, I got a good price on it, send it on over anyway. Just to see what they would do :p.
Everything seemed to go through all right.
Then a scant few hours later, I receive this:
"Insufficient stock" is a wonderful little coincidence, isn't it?
The End Games -- 4/4/2016 -- Eye of Ugin x3 -- "It seems that we've had an error with regards to your order. Due to the time it takes for TCG and Crystal Commerce to sync, we have oversold on your order of Eye of Ugins from Modern Masters."
MythicMTG -- 4/5/2016 -- Eye of Ugin -- "I am terribly sorry, but we had an error with our automated price updates. We are issuing a full refund and correcting our prices and inventory as rapidly as possible."
Desu Nation -- 4/5/2016 -- Eye of Ugin x4 -- "sorry to inform you that the cards was missing from our inventory, sorry for the inconvenience."
TJ Collectibles -- 10/10/2016 -- Dark Ritual -- "We unfortunately have to cancel your order. We just started using a new Scanner system for imputing our inventory. It entered a 3rd edition as Alpha. We do not have any Alpha editions of any condition, if we did we would send it out to you. We have also spoken with the team to make sure they are more careful in the future. We're very sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused. "
TJ Collectibles -- 10/12/2016 -- Lure -- "I’m sorry to say that due to an inventory error on our part we do not have a Near Mint Lure available to send your way. We do have a Heavily Played version available if you’d prefer that, with a refund for the difference in price. Or if you’d rather I can refund you for the missing card.
I’m sorry again for any inconvenience, we're still working the bugs out of the new scanning system that we're using and hopefully your next order with us goes more smoothly."
Comic Asylum -- 11/04/2016 -- Volcanic Eruption -- "We did not have the card in are stock."
PowerHousePlayers -- 11/28/2016 -- Black Knight -- "I have to refund this order. This particular inventory listening was meant to be hidden. The black knight is no longer available. I am extremely sorry!"
P.S. I STILL need alpha black knight and volcanic eruption if anyone wants to sell......
8/14/2017
I purchased 4 x Patron Wizard for a total of 23.99. Three days later they are listed on TCG median at 22.00 EACH and the seller canceled the order:
"Our inventory is normally 100% accurate, but we had an incorrect inventory number on this item and did not have it to send you. This is due to an auto relist error on behalf of ebay. We have been told the system should not do this and the issue has been escalated as a bug."
Of course, no verification from eBay to back up his claim is offered.