What you need to think about when buying or selling here.
As the buyer.
Some members selling here are young people most of whom are still at school or college, they are not a shop or a business. Before you commit to buying read rep comments, pm someone who has dealt with the seller, look through the companies and reviews forums.
If you decide to go ahead with the purchase agree price, postage arrangements and a time scale for despatch.
As a seller
You are entering into a contract with the buyer, the buyer has the right to expect to recieve the goods as described within an agreed time period.
If for some reason you will not be posting the item by the agreed date inform the buyer of the delay and make new arrangements.
If things are going wrong do not bury your head in the sand waiting for the problem to resolve itself... Communicate!
There have been cases on the forums where a seller starts off being the good guy and ends up as the seller from hell.
It goes something like this
1) Young lad starts making lasers/parts/drivers, he seems to be good at it..
2) Forum members ask "can you make me one"? Of course he can! Orders start coming in, lasers are sold and it all seems easy.
3) For a while it all goes great, lots of happy customers and money coming in. Rep and post count builds.
4) Homework and exams loom and orders get behind, all customer information is in PM's, no spreadsheet to keep things in order, things get forgotten.
5) Money gets spent on other things.
6) Promises are made that are not kept, seller starts to get stressed and further behind.
7) It all gets too much for seller and e-mails are ignored.
8) The whole thing colapses with recriminations and acrimony.
Just a heads up for other would be regular sellers on the forum.
1) Buying and selling on a regular basis is a business, not a game, this is real money from real people that you are handling.
2) Keep good records of what you are selling to who, E-mails, addresses, timings and the costings involved.
3) Be sure that the money to complete orders is used for buying parts for those orders, it is not a fund to improve your computer/game console/music collection.
4) Do not even start down the road if school/college exams are in the offing.
Note to buyers
It comes as a hard lesson when someone you thought you could trust lets you down, it is very easy to get angry at a very early stage and bang off e-mails/start threads that are rude/threatening and start Paypal disputes at the drop of a hat.
Try and keep it friendly, try to work it out. It may take a couple of weeks of negotiations but it is worth trying and is likely to get better results, be patient. Only when it is obvious that you are being given the runaround should you resort to bringing it to the forum.
It is all basic stuff but if you think carefully when you buy/sell, ask the right questions/give the right answers, it will be beneficial to all of us.
Regards rog8811