Question
After I run a batch of auctions, there are always several winners that obviously do not get my emails. All attempts to contact them are nil. I usually send out a snail mail to the person and the transaction is then completed, but that takes a long time.
Is it ok to put something like this right in the auction description:
If you use a spam filter, please be sure that you are able to receive email from (email address here).
I would hate to launch 80 auctions and have them all pulled because I have my email address in my auctions.
Thanks.
Answer
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/...nks-email.html
Not advisable due to you get more spam. But some do it.
Answer
in all of my listings, and haven't found any significant increase in spam or spoof emails to the email I use in my listings.
I find some buyers are leery of relying on eBay's communication system and prefer to email directly.
Answer
Thank you 10x and katiyana. That was just what I was wanting to hear!
Answer
In my auctions I've had both a link to my email address and also just give the email address in straight text for years....no problems
Answer
same here, I've got my email address (at my own dot.com) in all my listings and have had so for years with no problems with ebay.
but I also have to say, I RARELY, and I do mean rarely have someone not get my email and in 9 years on ebay I've never had to send someone an invoice snailmail. do you think maybe it's your email provider?
Answer
There are a couple options that you can use to offer your bidders contact to you in an auction.
They already have a link to click to use eBay communications to you in your auction... They can use that link and you need do nothing. Perhaps remind them that link is at the top. You can also put a link to your About Me eBay page in the auction and also put your email contact method on that About Me page.
You can put a link for your email in the auction. I believe you will likely get more spam from it as I did. I used to get 150 spams a day and it becomes hard to sort out the customers from the junk.
You can use the email link for a feedback page instead of using mailto. It is possible to have a separate page on your website which is used for feedback that only sends email to you and never shares what your email ID is. You can include that link in the auction and put a button or link "Email Me" for it. The advantage to using a server based language feedback page for the bidders is that they cannot copy the ID wrong, spammers cannot send you spams from an ID they did not scoop, and the emails only go to you. An ideal server language for feedback would be PHP for the one webpage. Personally, I like this option. I believe it is the most secure option but requires minimal PHP programming work one time to set the page up. The feedback page cannot have links on it based upon my last, but not recent, reading of eBay's link policy.
Another option is to use a programmed or encrypted email ID in the auction. These are readable manually with effort but are less likely to be automatically scooped. What these do is not have obvious characters mailto with more letters after that for a bot to scoop. These use various languages including Javascript.
Another option would be to use a graphics program like PaintShop to create a JPG image of your email ID text but in graphic format. By placing the text in the auction but in graphic image format only, the bidders see the ID and can write it down. The spammer bots cannot read the image, although a spammer could read it manually and sign you up to many lists. The downsides to this are that there is no easy link to click and people are lazy and make errors in writing things down.
I have one die hard spammer who has lately taken to sending out spams using my webmaster email ID in a malicious attempt to get my business harmed by blacklisting. Apparently, I am one of the SPAMIS targeted businesses because I have a zero spam tolerance policy incoming and outbound and reported a number of his spams, that apparently resulted in fines, which I advised in advance I would do on my website.