The last three locomotives I have purchased on eBay, an Athearn GP-35, an Athearn GP-38-2, and a Front Range GP-7 have all arrived destroyed.
In all cases, this was because the seller put no effort into packing them correctly.
I have been an eBay user since September, 1999, and this has never been a trend before.
Are other people seeing this?
-Kevin
Nope.
As a seller, I have all of my original boxes and foam inserts for all of my locos. When I sell a loco, I repackage it the same way that I received it when I bought it new. Then, I place it in the outer box for shipping and fully insulate it. There is no excuse for sloppy packaging.
Rich.
This was the undecorated Front Range GP-7. It was just placed into a bubble envelope and put in the mail like that. The locomotive came out of the box. The motor mounts were broken and wires pulled out of the motor.
This was a bummer, because these are difficult to find.
-Kevin
Whenever I buy an individual golf club new from the manufacturer, they put the club in a box and ship it. No insulating material whatsoever. Incredibly, the clubs all have arrived without any damage. Go figure.
Rich
It always amazed me how many shipping department people would pack boxes with absolutely NO cushioning at the BOTTOM of the box yet have lots of space at the “top” with plenty of padding there.
Generally, the box is going to be tossed, often label-side-up, and if the item inside does not have 360° protection it will recieve a huge shock on impact with the floor, truck bed or my front porch.
I often get packages where the item is laid flat on the bottom of the box with lots of pillows, bubble wrap or, yuck, peanuts dumped all over the top.
Packing 101: CUSHION the bottom!
Regards, Ed
A loco, in a padded envelope? What in the actual…? Can’t decide if someone could really be that dumb and not know or if they knew better but were just trying to be cheap. About the only thing model railroading that would go in a padded envelope are maybe soem decals, but even then only sandwiched between a couple pieces of cardboard.
–Randy
Did you check the seller’s feedback rating before purchasing that loco?
Rich
[Y] +1
I would guess they were just doing it in a hurry. I got a refund with no problem, but that does not cure the disappointment of not having the model.
Yes, 100% positive. Since he refunded my money I cannot leave him negative feedback. Just another example of how worthless the eBay feedback system has become.
-Kevin
I wonder how much rising postal rates have to do with the problem? Where a medium box would have been the preferred choice in the past, sellers are cheaping out with padded envelopes.
Ebay is pushing sellers to ship faster and they are trying to get sellers on the “free shipping” wagon. Cutting corners along the way.
Still, there needs to be a distinction from a product review or a shipping problem. Maybe not so much with eBay since the seller “score” is an overall performance rating but I have seen many Amazon products get a negative write-up because the box was crushed or the package never arrived.
Amazon has a separate review process for the shipping and delivery but people often ignore the distinction.
Regards, Ed
I’m surprised that poor packaging did not show up in his feedback. In such cases, it usually does. Yes, the feedback feature has lost its potency. eBay got overly protective of its sellers.
Rich
Some sellers are just idiots. While all of my eBay purchases have arrived undamaged, it amazes me that they have done so. My father was a Packaging Engineer at Montgomery Ward for 45 years from 1940 to 1985, and he influenced me a lot with effective packaging. His role at Wards was to design the packaging that vendors had to use when they produced products for the catalog operation. No shortcuts, no half ass measures.
Rich
The Company worked for instructed staff that all packages had to be secure 100%.
When my wife sends a package thru the post she has me inspecting it.
A couple of days ago (because of Covid and lockdown) she decided to wrap Christmas presents, so if there was chance to see any family we could give them their presents.
Some of the presents were for our grandchildren. The way my wife had wrapped the parcels, they were ‘bomb proof’. Little James will still be trying to open his present on New Years Day.
Nope. Pretty much everything I’ve gotten of Ebay has been well packaged.
OTOH, I’ve had a couple of vendors do minimal packaging and fortunately the contents seemed ok despite the lack of padding - in otherwords, they got lucky. By minimal I mean no or virtually no padding around the contents boxes. Hogtrainz and Bobthetrainguy in recent weeks.
I have seen that a lot over the past year. I have gotten lucky nothing damaged. Maybe they are following amazon. They never added packing and more recently barely tape the box shut.
Shane
In general, I have not had a problem. Almost everything that I have received from eBay has been well packaged. There have been a few that were not but they arrived without damage. However, last week I got a gondola that not properly packaged at all, and there were several pieces broken off.[|(] I stated that clearly in my feedback.
Dave
Yes. I bought an Athearn Genesis GP50 from a private seller. It showed up in a padded envelope, which is bad enough, with no other filler. LOL.
The Genesis packaging kept all but a truck hanger detail from falling off. I returned it for other reasons.
The worst way to pack is to let the item rattle around in the box. The model needs to be sure in its factory packaging, and then the factory box has to be secure inside the mailing box. Skip any step and something is likely to break off
You can still comment about it in the 80-character feedback field - e.g. “Item arrived damaged because of poor packing. Seller issued refund.” Yes, it still ends up being a positive review because of the refund but it’s better than not commenting about it at all.
I always comment about the packing when I leave my feedback on eBay. I think that’s important for both the seller AND for other potential buyers of that seller.
Tom
Ordered some framed pictures of e-bay (Iknow, not train but all my train stuff has arrived with no problems), glass was broken on one, they were bubble wraped but there is a type out there with a lot less gas in them.
After the refund is issued, the item disappears from my “purchase history” list.
I will need to see if I can locate it another way to leave feedback.
-Kevin