Taking it to recycling is additional effort...

Ok, so we conclude that Germans are particulary lazy, 🤣... ?
(and assuming they do not want to relist)

Still be cheaper for me to PAY them to recycle than the monstrous shipping cost... hmm, maybe I'll suggest that the next time, heh... 😁
Heck, they can even send it to the dump site via regular mail and even so it'd be cheaper.

For some reason, with all other countries this has been no problem, so far...
(fingers crossed!)

well Germans are like that... the majority will just "obey" the eBay listing and will not listen to your request... it has nothing to do with being lazy, they just follow the "rules" and nothing more

eBay tends to side with the buyer in disputes, doesn't it? Perhaps the sellers in question have had buyers complaining that they did not get all the items pictured in the auction, despite having provided instructions to the contrary. I can see why it might be simpler to follow the rules rather than having to deal with some messy, costly dispute process.

[Is it safe to ask how many German purchasing experiences were used to establish this trend that has been extrapolated to all Germans? Or is that a no-go area? I don't know anymore.]

Jorpho wrote:

Perhaps the sellers in question have had buyers complaining that they did not get all the items pictured in the auction, despite having provided instructions to the contrary. I can see why it might be simpler to follow the rules rather than having to deal with some messy, costly dispute process.

Could be.

And anyway, if you're bidding on a whole bunch of items because one of these items is what you want, then either don't bid, or do bid knowing theres a good chance you got it cheaper then when buying the single parts. Many people looking for particular items seem to miss the large lots and thus you can get the whole pack cheaper.

well Germans are like that... the majority will just "obey" the eBay listing and will not listen to your request... it has nothing to do with being lazy, they just follow the "rules" and nothing more

Oh yes, and all greeks are lazy, corrupt and eat gyros all the time before dancing the sirtaki. Thank god for stereotypes, they make the world so much easier to cope with.

Don't know what particular auctions the OP is referring to, but I guess the auction could be part of a "house clearing" project, which would mean the "auctioneer" (?) wants to get rid of the stuff that has piled up in his attic/basement.

and don't forget that the seller deemed that junk to be too precious to be dumped, it's the reason he wants to sell it and didn't just dump it anyway.
If you force him to keep it you will morally challenge him:
throw it away because buyer tells him to do -> can't do that it's too precious to be thrown away -> keep it (but can't, it's a house cleaning thing) or sell it again -> but he already sold it, selling it again would be wrong.
So the only way for the seller to avoid this problem is to ship it off.

Fine, fine... I'll avoid doing that then, and totally stop bidding on these lots.

And, no - there is definately no saving vs normal price here, if I have to get the whole 'container' shipped - rather the opposite...

Probably the odds are against me, and I've just been 'unlucky' with my choice of sellers. But I still find it very puzzling that this 'problem' has never occured in other countries, even after several dozens of such requests...

Anyway, I think by now there is not much point for us to continuing creating more of these seemingly logical arguments for why this happens - though I of course agree with them all making sense by themselves.
I was merely wondering if there was something special in Germany, trade rules, culture or otherwise, which by current replies it seems there are not.

Sorry if I started out too strong, was never an attempt to offend anyone. (at time of writing was just kinda annoyed that yet again this happened, accidentally? in Germany again, when I totally wasn't expecting it)

I don't think it's just German eBay sellers who will bundle a bunch of things into 1 lot -- I do it myself, particularly when the component items in the lot have gone unsold as individual items at least once. If you really only want part of what's included in a lot, you should use "ask seller a question" before bidding to make sure that seller is willing to ship just part of the lot. (As an eBay seller, I've often received such requests in the past, and usually am happy to ship partial lots, especially to international buyers.)

BTW, I'm currently selling 2 lots of DOS Forgotten Realms games on CD-ROM on eBay. One is the 2001 Gamefest compilation (with the documentation in a big PDF file on-disc); the other is the 1997 Interplay Forgotten Realms Archives, with paper manuals, codewheels for Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, and Hillsfar, and even the SSI cluebooks for Pool & Curse above, as well as for Secret of the Silver Blades & Pools of Darkness. (These are duplicates of my personal copies of these games, picked up at a recent convention.)

bestemor wrote:

Ok, so do anyone know why so many sellers from Germany INSIST on shipping ALL items, nomatter if you only want a single one from their crapload of crap that is listed in a single auction ?

I've had the opposite experience. German sellers have been accomodating and cooperative, even when I asked one to only send me two cards (a Soundscape Elite and a nice video card) from a large auction of miscellaneous computer items.

digitaldoofus wrote:

bestemor wrote:

Ok, so do anyone know why so many sellers from Germany INSIST on shipping ALL items, nomatter if you only want a single one from their crapload of crap that is listed in a single auction ?

I've had the opposite experience. German sellers have been accomodating and cooperative, even when I asked one to only send me two cards (a Soundscape Elite and a nice video card) from a large auction of miscellaneous computer items.

Actually, I now remember I wanted an item badly but the seller stated he only shipped to germany!
So I bought it and THEN asked if he wanted to ship to The Netherlands and all went ok!

So far I've had only 1 bad experience from Ebay sellers (which happened to be a German seller, but irrelevant in this conversation) and I learned from it.