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Is it just me who does adequate research?


warwickhunt

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You see something for sale that interests you, what do you do?

A) Bombard the seller with obvious questions which are readily available via an internet search.

B) Google relevant info, THEN contact seller about pertinent 'detail'.  

I seriously thought the answer for everyone would be 'B'!  However, based on the time I've wasted answering questions on the most obvious stuff I'm lead to believe I'm in the minority.  It's one thing to spend time giving simple automatic answers like; Yes it is made in Germany (the only place these particular model basses have ever been made).  Yes it has 2 pups (ALL of this type of bass have and it can be seen in the photo).  No it doesn't have a piezo bridge (this type of bass has NEVER had a piezo).  Yes, it is 4 string fretted (as in the description AND photo) but I've spent 30 minutes messaging back and forth answering a blokes questions about a Roland GK3 'GUITAR' pick-up I'm selling... Will it fit any guitar? Yes.  Can it be adjusted to fit different types of guitar? Yes it has spacers.  Do you need to cut holes in the guitar? No.  How is it powered?  Via the lead.  Do you have the lead?  Yes but I use it with my GR20.  What's a GR20?  It's a unit you can use with this pup.  Do I have to use one?  ...losing the will to live I answer several more (6) messages before he says... "Will it work with a Mandolin because that's what I need?"  WHAT!  

Please tell me the majority do a 'bit' of basic research?  :/  

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I'm the same as you in that I do my homework, as you say most of the technical information is available online so not exactly difficult to come by. When listing something for sale I try to put in as much useful detail as I can to try and pre-empt any obvious questions - but that, of course, only works on the assumption that the people actually read the description, and judging by some of the questions I've had over the years many people clearly don't. I usually try to politely say that the answer to their question is in the description. And you can guarantee that is someone asks for the weight of something it will be too heavy regardless. In much the same way that the nut width will never be what they're looking for!

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25 minutes ago, Osiris said:

I'm the same as you in that I do my homework, as you say most of the technical information is available online so not exactly difficult to come by. When listing something for sale I try to put in as much useful detail as I can to try and pre-empt any obvious questions - but that, of course, only works on the assumption that the people actually read the description, and judging by some of the questions I've had over the years many people clearly don't. I usually try to politely say that the answer to their question is in the description. And you can guarantee that is someone asks for the weight of something it will be too heavy regardless. In much the same way that the nut width will never be what they're looking for!

Exactly this ^^^

I usually copy and paste some relevant details from the internet to hopefully stall the daft questions, but there’s always one or two who don’t get it. A while ago I was selling some passive JBL PA speakers, and did this, only to find that one guy turned up thinking they were active for some reason. 

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Oh yes it's obvious who the time wasters are when you are selling a set of RCF 710a speakers and people (genuinely) go down the route of haggling the price THEN asking "Are these the 15 inch then?" or ask if they are powered and are they more than 100w!  I had a guy sending me loads of questions about the RCFs then he wanted to know why they were so expensive compared to the Pulse PVS10's we was comparing them with... I gave up!  :(  

 

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38 minutes ago, warwickhunt said:

Oh yes it's obvious who the time wasters are when you are selling a set of RCF 710a speakers and people (genuinely) go down the route of haggling the price THEN asking "Are these the 15 inch then?" or ask if they are powered and are they more than 100w!  I had a guy sending me loads of questions about the RCFs then he wanted to know why they were so expensive compared to the Pulse PVS10's we was comparing them with... I gave up!  :(  

Yeah, soz about doing all of that. But you never really did properly explain the point of FRFR to me very well, nor what happened to the whole 510A series and why we now only seem to have 310As and 710As...

 

😁

Edited by Al Krow
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Bit of both.

 

Excessive questions can mean a buyer who hasn't done any work, but it can also easily mean a poorly drafted advert.

What annoys me more is that if I have to ask a question about an item, the person selling then doesn't have the good sense to update the advert with that info for others.

 

Cut and pasting the specs into an advert takes 5 seconds and saves the seller a huge amount of time because 99% of the questions have then been answered.

 

So on balance I'm in the 'the advertiser is to blame for not including all the info' camp.

 

And don't get me started on the "If you are looking at this you know what it is..." type advert. Flogging's too good for them.

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Two points, one in favour of those asking questions (well, more a defence) and one against (well, more of a rant)

In favour/defence, while I'm the same as you and wouldn't start asking questions until I was sure I'd got everything I can gather for myself, sometimes it's not as easy to understand for a novice.  While the mandolin owner should probably have led with that, he may well not have been well versed in any of the stuff that you see as being stupid questions and hasn't been able to follow the technical stuff that he has been able to find out.

And sometimes buyers just want some extra reassurance before they part with their hard earned cash - I recently sent a "stupid" message to a seller on Discogs, to make absolutely sure that the record I wanted to buy from him was definitely the one he was saying it was, because if he's cut and pasted the wrong ASIN and he's actually got a different version of the same album then I'd be massively overpaying for the LP in question.  So the potential buyer asking for confirmation that the only ever made in Germany model of that bass was actually made in Germany might simply be after reassurance that there isn't some Korean made version that they didn't know about until they find themselves unpacking one.

Against...as a man of a certain age I do find that there is a massive difference between how I communicate and how millennials and kids communicate.  While it's not fair to tar everybody with the same brush (and I have plenty of examples of millennials who are nothing like this) the worst of them don't seem to be able to do anything for themselves, and need to be spoon fed.  A recent example was a friend telling me that her daughter, a recent graduate, received a tearful phone call from a uni friend (also a recent graduate) who was in bits because the power lead to her laptop had stopped working and her father was too busy to help her buy a new replacement.  Without her laptop she had no life, and why was her father being so unutterably cruel to her? How could she possibly cope without her laptop?  The daughter, being a bit more self reliant, replied that actually it's fine, tells her just to pop into town and get a new laptop power lead from Currys or Argos, she doesn't need someone to help her with that.  The tears stop and the friend's world is now alright...but why has nobody ever explained to her how to do that before now?  I have a much longer rant about certain millennials that I have to work with, who have no idea that, for instance, when they are supposed to be working they cannot also be watching Love Island on their phones and texting their mates about what's happening, and when you pick them up for doing it are genuinely surprised because nobody ever told them that they shouldn't do that in the office.

Add to this that they live in a digital world where they don't actually speak to each other very much - friends with teenage kids tell me that their offspring never leave the house to go and play or hang out with their mates like we used to do back in the day, but as far as they are concerned they are still "with" their mates, just on some social media platform.  The millennials at work tell me that they have fully "discussed" work issues when despite sitting opposite each other they haven't actually said a word out loud, they've sent messages, and they are extremely reluctant to ring anybody to ask a question when they can e-mail it instead.  So while I'm saying this is a rant against them, in fact they probably see me as a complete dinosaur who is making them do stuff like talking out loud when there's no real benefit to them in doing it.  And they may be right.

So, back to the point, they don't see asking a load of stupid questions as any sort of intrusion or inconvenience to you, they see it as having a conversation, and asking you is no different to googling it and doing some research if they get the same answers, in fact it's probably better because you can tell them about where the bass was made and whether it's got a piezo.

Of course, some people are just annoying idiots.  Add to that the anonymity of the internet, where there are no consequences for a bit of trolling and wasting other peoples time...

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52 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Yeah, soz about doing all of that. But you never really did properly explain the point of FRFR to me very well, nor what happened to the whole 510A series and why we now only seem to have 310As and 710As...

 

😁

Tut tut tut!

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It’s Simple - you do your research thoroughly, and not a cursory glance at only the first hit on google or bunk having spelt it wrong, only read the first comment on a discussion and give up. There will be a point where you run out of understanding, we all do, do some more research around the areas it crosses over and educate yourself. At this point you may run out of understanding and need to ask to fill in details or to galvanise information. 

Some people genuinely think their time is too precious to do it themselves and would prefer others to do it for them, as I suppose other people’s time is less important. Kind of people that read the first and last page of a book and say, “well that was rubbish/good....”

 

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At least you might have got a sale out of it - way back when I had the patience to log onto another popular bass forum (which may or may not share its initials with a respiratory disease common in Victorian times), I got a fair old Spanish Inquisition from one guy who seemed to be desperate to know every little detail about my Schecter.

I wasn't selling it - I'd just mentioned on a thread that I was very happy with my purchase. He picked up on my mention of the neck profile being "more Jazz-like than P-like" and wanted to know exactly which neck profile that would be - C, D, U, X, Y, Z? I went onto Schecter's website and quoted the measurements they'd kindly supplied for public use.

OK, what's the nut width? I wasn't about to nip home and measure the thing - far easier to head back to the webpage and get it from the horse's mouth.

String spacing at the bridge? There's a website I'd like to recommend to you, mate: it's called "Google."

What's the serial number on your bass? ...and at this point it started to feel like I was being stalked. I stopped responding, and was very grateful that he didn't chase me up for further answers.

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I think it's perfectly legit to ask the seller any Qs you might have as a buyer, stupid or otherwise IF you are genuinely interested and without having to read the entire manual from cover to cover or do 20 hours of research on Google. 

Of course, no one has time for time-wasters who are not actually interested in buying.

You'd hope the seller should already be able to answer Qs about the thing he or she is trying to sell and, as one of the earlier posters said, they can always update their ads to reduce repeat Qs.

At the end of the day treat your potential customers with respect, after all it's you who wants their money. Simples.

Edited by Al Krow
need to use gender neutral pronouns - not everyone on BC is a bloke
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Research? Not sure if I would dignify what I do as research, but if I'm considering a pedal I'll watch some YouTube videos to listen to it and to the review. if it's a bass then my 'research' goes as far as is it pretty? if it's an amp, beyond the obvious, I need to know weight and width, oh, and is it pretty? 

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Adequate research can actually produce better questions to ask, especially if said research uncovers a possible or common fault with the model/year. It can also point towards fakery and plain old seller's ignorance of specs.

Other obvious ones sometimes need asking - weight, for example, can vary in the real world from anything which may be on a spec sheet, and sometimes significantly.

Edited by Muzz
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30 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

I think it's perfectly legit to ask the seller any Qs you might have as a buyer, stupid or otherwise IF you are genuinely interested and without having to read the entire manual from cover to cover or do 20 hours of research on Google. 

Realistically it's more like 20 seconds on Google if you're using sensible search terms :P 

But as someone pointed out earlier there are those who won't - or can't be bothered - to look, they're the ones that annoy me, especially if I've already gone to the trouble of putting that information into my ad that they haven't bothered to read. I have actually backed out of a couple of sales like that over the years as I won't - or can't be bothered - to deal with people like that. How long is it before you get a snotty message back saying something along the lines of "it's got a chip in the paint" to which you're obliged to point out that that was clearly started in the ad had they taken a few seconds to read it. I'd rather lose the sale than my sanity.  

 

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One man's poor advert can be another man's bargain!

I once knew a guy who made a living from buying misspelt or miss listed items on fleabay, then selling them on.

I suppose the modern algorithms have mostly put that idea out of business by now..

Edited by Ricky 4000
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