On February 25th, I purchased an item from a seller on the “Xianyu” app for over 2,000 RMB. From the other items she was selling, this seller appeared to be a young woman. Before placing the order, I had a decent conversation with her while asking about the details of the product. However, after I made the payment and placed the order, I asked her when the item would be shipped, and she said, “In about five days, I’m currently out of town.” Well, I can understand that she might be away during the holiday season(Chinese New Year), but shouldn’t she have informed me about this before I placed the order? Given her unreliable behavior, I had reason to doubt whether she would actually ship the item on the promised day. So, I asked her: “If it’s five days later, then it would be March 2nd, a Monday. Can you confirm?” She replied with 2 words: “Pretty much.” From this, it was clear that she had no empathy, as if the world should revolve around her. At that point, I pretty much knew what kind of person I was dealing with. So, I decided not to waste any more time arguing with her and just waited until March 2nd.
On that day, the item wasn’t shipped, and she didn’t send me any messages. On the morning of March 3rd, I messaged her asking why she hadn’t shipped it yet, and she said, “I couldn’t find the item, I’ll look for it when I get home tonight.” I was completely speechless. What could I even say at that point? From March 3rd to the morning of March 4th, I still received no updates. By 2 p.m. on March 4th, I messaged her again, asking, “Did you find it?” but still no reply. At that point, I immediately applied for a refund.
Around 4 p.m., her message finally came: “Sorry, I didn’t see your message because I’ve been busy working.” This “sorry” was really hard to come by. If we break it down, she probably should have apologized to me several times by now. I even wonder if I hadn’t applied for a refund, she might never have bothered to say “sorry.” She then mentioned that she still hadn’t found the item, but at this point, it didn’t matter anymore. I asked her to approve the refund immediately because I didn’t want to waste any more seconds on someone like this.
So, what did I learn from this shopping experience?
Before making a purchase, don’t assume the seller is a reasonable person(sadly). Ask as many questions as possible, like when the item will be shipped, to avoid potential pitfalls.
The “seller reputation” numbers on Xianyu is just for reference (this seller had a 97% positive rating with zero disputes). A low rating is obviously a red flag, while a high rating doesn’t guarantee anything either.
In a society where overall social standards may still be lacking, no matter how much you try to prevent issues, there’s a high chance you’ll encounter people with poor manners. It’s necessary to be vigilant, but it’s also important to relax yourself to accept this fact. After all, what else can you do?