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At the beginning of the year, eBay announced some changes it was bringing in with its new CEO John Donahoe. The changes spoke of things like "Detailed Seller Ratings (DSR)" and "discounts for sellers." To some, the changes didn’t sound like anything to be concerned about, but some saw through the plan and noticed other phrases in there, like "removal of bad feedback for buyers" and saw the potential for smaller businesses to be shut out. This is a notion we are seeing proven accurate months later.
BusinessWeek took a look at some real-world examples of businesses being affected by eBay’s policy changes and the frustrations that have plagued sellers. WebProNews has covered such frustrations in the past as well (that also includes payment policy changes and a boycott of the site by sellers). After scouring the Internet, reading various articles and comments, and even contacting some sellers first-hand, I have put together the following list of the top ten things that sellers are frustrated with about eBay:
1. Management
2. Feedback Policy
3. Small Businesses Get Shut Out
4. Lack of Communication
5. Payment Policies
6. Fees/Lack of Profitability
7. Unwarranted Account Suspensions
8. The Buyers Themselves
9. Glitches
10. Lack of Innovation
It’s hard to truly give an accurate ranking of these problems in terms of significance, and technically there is a fair amount of overlap with issues under each category. It suffices o say that they are each significant. Sellers have spoken, and these are the issues they have with eBay.
1. Management
I’m going to place management above all because, ultimately, it is where the rest of the frustrations stem from. Many of the negative comments I have read (and about 98% of those have been negative) have pointed the finger squarely at eBay CEO John Donahoe who took office shortly before these changes came about. Some noted a significant decrease in stock since he stepped in as well. In fact, a BusinessWeek reader even pointed to a petition that has been created, calling for Donahoe’s termination.
2. Feedback Policy
This is really the one that is getting most eBay sellers fired up. Buyers can leave feedback on sellers, but sellers can’t leave feedback on buyers. Out of the sellers that I personally contacted (that got back to me), all but one of them agreed that eBay’s feedback policy, which changed in May, is their biggest frustration.
One seller responded, "Allowing buyers to give neg feedback w/o recourse. Without leverage i.e. return Negative feedback. This keeps ignorant buyers from learning how [to] work out differences – ‘expressing how they feel’. Mistakes are made. Some ‘new’ buyers just give Neg FB w/o contacting [the] seller about exchange[s], returns or refunds." I have also seen people cite buyers’ lack of understanding about shipping costs leading to negative feedback.
Another respondent said: "The most frustrating thing about selling on ebay is the complete disregard of SELLER’s RIGHTS." He then directed me to this site, which is dedicated to creating awareness about eBay’s policy changes, and illustrates the DSR system (pictured below). "The FEEDBACK SYSTEM Penalizes Sellers who do not have at least a 4.6 Rating in ALL 4 areas," that seller noted. "I have been selling on ebay since 2002 and have NEVER had so much trouble with them!!!" I have an excellent record & I still get LOWERED SEARCH STANDING & HIGHER FEES!! THE SYSTEM IS NOT FAIR FOR SELLERS AT ALL ANYMORE!!!"
3. Small Businesses Get Shut Out
BusinessWeek’s article was about this very topic. It looked at a few small businesses that lost their ability to sell on eBay, in large part due to the feedback issue, but that is not the only thing affecting the little guys.
Another part of this is eBay’s deal with Buy.com, which some people indicate is prioritizing merchandise from that site over their own. Combine that with the charges that small businesses must incur for selling through eBay, and profitability slides. There seems to be a common theme resonating among sellers, saying that eBay has basically sold out. They’ve gone too corporate and are no longer appealing to the little guys.
4. Lack of Communication
Another common gripe is that the company will not communicate with sellers to their liking. If sellers have problems, they get the runaround. They get impersonal automated responses via email, or low-level employees if they make a phone call. They can’t get through to management. They can’t appeal their suspensions (which are often considered unjustified).
Another communication flaw some have cited is that once their account is suspended, they can’t even communicate with customers who may have already placed orders. This is not good for the buyer or the seller.
5. Payment Policy
Last month, eBay announced that they would no longer allow sellers to accept checks or money orders as payment. Well, sellers were not happy about this either. Most felt like that decision should be up to each individual seller. Many have chalked this up to the company simply wanting people to use eBay-owned PayPal.
Taking away options for payment can alienate some customers, and sellers know that and found the new policy unfair. eBay said they would accept PayPal, credit or debit card payments to the seller, ProPay, or "payment upon pickup" as possible payment methods. They claimed to update this policy to provide users with a more "secure checkout experience."
6. Fees/Lack of Profitability
As I said, there is a lot of overlap in these and this ties into the small businesses getting shut out problem. But many users are having a hard time justifying paying the fees they must pay to use eBay as their selling platform. Fees cut into the profits they could otherwise be making by selling directly from their own store, or from another platform that doesn’t charge as much.
7. Unwarranted Account Suspensions
Apart from those who are seeing their accounts suspended based on their DSR, I have seen many claims that their accounts are deemed "security concerns" and suspended as a result, without any justification for this assessment. One person claimed their account was suspended for this reason when they had not even bought or sold anything through the site yet. They went to try to sell something, but their account was already suspended.
8. The Buyers Themselves
There seems to have been an increase in tension between buyers and sellers on eBay since their policy changes took effect. Buyers have been accused of lying to get away with cheating sellers by not paying for items while eBay does little to combat the problem. Others just don’t think they can reach the right audience with eBay. They consider eBay buyers to be the type that are looking for bargains, and for those looking to sell quality products at prices that aren’t necessarily discounted, will have a harder time selling those products.
9. Glitches
Some complain about technical glitches at eBay. A BusinessWeek reader mentioned a variety of them including store glitches, PayPal glitches, search glitches, DSR glitches, etc. Any company is bound to experience some hiccups from time to time, but those hiccups are going to be frustrating to users, and there’s not much that can be done about that other than trying to catch such glitches before customers do.
10. Lack of Innovation
Finally, some just don’t feel like eBay is doing much innovation anymore. There seems to be a general consensus that in eBay’s earlier years, the company was somewhat revolutionary and appealing to anybody who wanted to get rid of some "old junk." As time has progressed, many sellers have become less impressed. eBay has made some acquisitions over the years like Skype and StumbleUpon, but these have had little if any impact on eBay the site.
In the End…
Not all eBay sellers are sitting idly by while they vent their frustrations. There have been a number of sites started dedicated to catering to those who feel cheated by eBay. Sites like Shopify, Wigix, SeeAuctions, EveryPlaceISell, and I’m sure many more. Sellers know that they have other options. Many have turned to Amazon for example, or have opened up their own eCommerce sites to sell directly.
But not everybody is anti-eBay, so let’s make that clear. The one person I contacted who didn’t cite feedback as their top frustration, actually said, "You know honestly there really isn’t that much frustration that goes on with selling on my end. About the only part is mailing out items and them getting ‘lost’ in the mail. That is about it." eBay could hardly be to blame for that. This person’s business didn’t even appear to be particularly large.
I’m fairly certain that this person isn’t alone in her opinion of eBay either. Even though many people are upset with eBay’s practices, some still find it a useful place to do business and will likely carry that mentality with them into the holiday season as consumers look for good deals on gifts for their loved ones.
However, it is quite clear that the company has alienated a broad range of users. I can’t imagine that all of eBay’s management finds this acceptable. Will there be changes made? What will eBay do to win back customers? Or will they just continue to target new ones? What does the future hold for eBay?
The point missing from many articles about recent eBay changes is that eBay was founded and grew to be a global community of commerce. It had its own ‘personality’ and a unique array of items available nowhere else in one place. It also had NO competition – and still could have none if eBay would quit fixing what isn’t broken and stop comparing themselves to unlike models.
This community was a virtual venue, where “a member” (not user) paid for a service of exposure to a global market. How one conducted business was their own affair – and yes, some were shady, just like IRL – but not to the degree reported as so much justification for all these changes. Consider: how often does the airline that takes off on time, arrives safely and does so thousands of times an hour day after day ever get attention? Let one plane crash however…
So, just who is eBay to dictate a set of performance standards that are unsustainable, very poorly implemented, not even applicable to their "premier" sellers, and completely misaligned with the culture that made it a success?
They have no inventory, yet they dictate TOS. They lack customer service, yet dictate CS quality standards. They have no claim to the payment for goods sold, yet dictate and place limits on the methods used, seize a sizable piece of it, and manipulate its processing to maximize a profit by enforced monopoly while barely fending off anti-trust law.
They have no clue nor care to foster community, and soon, will have no unique value. Consider: on one hand they claim their losses are being caused by the economy, and on the other hand state that the sweeping changes are increasing the number of buyers and items being offered. But who is able to buy if the economy is the issue? And who is increasing their item offerings if quality sellers are being jettisoned by the hundreds daily? New diamond power sellers with discount listing costs, no grading (DSRs) and 2% sell-thru? JD better hope nobody looks behind that curtain.
Just how long will such ‘growth’ last given the draconian control applied, and the increasing costs to the seller (passed along in item cost). If sellers all offer the same items, where is the buyer’s variety? What then will make eBay unique? Explain again please, how business will increase when all factors of late have resulted in forcing volume over choice and packaging over provenance – fostering distrust, and disrupting the community?
Yet, they are a private company who has the unalienable right to disruptively transform themselves into yet another e-box clone jamming cheap import consumer goods down the throats of increasingly empowered buyers desperately recruited with a message that because they have a dollar and a desire, all should bow to their demands. Used items WILL be MINT and descriptions will be conceived by reading minds – or else; Shipping must be FREE – or else; Sellers must allow and pay for returns under any conditions – or else.
Some community: We’ve upped our standards – so Up Yours!
And so those whose living was supported or enhanced by being a respected and profitable seller on eBay for years find themselves passionately arguing the wisdom of reforming a working model – or giving up. Remember "New" Coke? They just had to do something to compete with Pepsi! Fortunately for them, it only took 72 days to see the error of their analysis.
Not ignoring the "noise" created by the hundreds of thousands of customers "with just something to complain about" also helped – along with some willingness to set aside their own "studies" in order to assimilate an understanding of the concept of community and their place in it.
eBay says all this will hurt for awhile, but that the pain will go away. Same thing doctors tell their dying patients. But at least that patient knows that after the worst has passed and the funeral well attended, the community will abide.
I just started a new Co-op where the members are part owners in their own auction, and split the profits. I’m offering good money, retirement income, and Medical & Dental insurance. Now I need some sellers to put some ads on, to jump start the site. http://www.ProfitSharingAuction.com
I’ve been thinking about selling on eBay for some time, but have been advised to go through a "re-seller" instead of trying it on my own. I’ve developed a made-to-order sofabed which I sell online, and it makes a lot of sense to try selling it on eBay. Would you recommend using a "re-seller," or not? If so, how do I go about finding a good one?
Hi, Why would you want to give a reseller 25% of your profit? You will be charged front end, back end, and Paypal fees. The profit that’s left will be split with the reseller.
If you have developed something that is essentially one thing, maybe except for colors, you have something to list that is extremely easy and will require no effort after you’ve tweaked the listing. This is the easiest kind of listing. Try it before you give your idea money away.
I like to sell china that’s all the same. I list 12 saucers, 12 cups, etc., all separately. I pay the fee for each but it turns into much more money plus the buyer can choose what he wants. Once a saucer is written up, it’s a simple matter of listing it. Then listing it 11 more times. Change the wording for the cup, size, etc. Do it again 12 times. This makes listing a 144 piece set of china a breeze and will be the same with your sofa idea.
Try one. What can you lose? Fees. Depending on the cost of your sofa and number of extras you may choose, you won’t lose more than $5 and could probably get off as low as $2. More if it sells, but if it sells, do you care you might have to pay another $10 in fees?
I must admit, when I first started reading this, it simply sounded like another seller scorned.
But I will give them credit for at least acknowledging that some sellers are not having the problems and that he particular noted it was a small seller whom said that they were not feeling these frustrations.
Although some are. I simply have to ask how much of it is self indured/created. By that, how many complain, but never tested the waters to see if it would effect their business. I know that there are many just such sellers right here on SC.
I believe that there are some valid concerns and complaints, but believe it is not as great of a problem as a small minority would like others to believe.
You forgot Search, or the eBay "Finding Expereince", as the Finding Team calls Search now.
The New Ebay Search defauts to Best Match which is what eBay decides a buyer wants to see, from the Sellers that eBay promotes. (Search for a lamp and get a few pages of shoes, all from Buy.com).
Indeed some Seller’s listing aren’t even indexed or shown to buyers. A large number of mostly small sellers are paying for a service through a venue, (eBay). The service is to have their listing shown to users who search for the items thay have paid eBay to present to potential buyers.
This is why I beleive eBay will go to free listings with heavy back end fees if an item sells. If there are no listing fees then eBay can argue that they reatin the option to present ,or not present, whatever listings they want to potential buyers. Look forward to pages and pages of Buy.com items and mass made crap from China.
Searching eBay for a specific item is a crapshoot now. More often than not it is only by happenstance that you can get what you are really looking for to come up in Seach. The domino effect is that Sellers can sell items that aren’t presented to buyers, so they stop listing the unique and hard t ofind items.
I sold on eBay for years, bought a bit too. Gave it up months ago. ebay is a rally scary place now for Sellers. Any minor infractionm gets you susupended and you have no idea why…..
Sellers, (who are Byers too) aren’t angry any more…….most have reached the point where they just don’t care and have moved on.
eBay is irrelavant.
> But not everybody is anti-eBay, so let’s make that clear.
The sellers firmly in the ‘eBay no more’ category currently amounts to only 9%. That’s the loss of Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) that eBay lost between Quarter 2 and Quarter 3 2008.
That’s $1,400,000,000 of inventory that sellers removed from eBay, and took somewhere else.
Amazon and other selling sites benefited from that 1.4 billion dollar transfusion.
I still find eBay to be bery useful. It is one of the first places I look when I am seraching for a good deal on electronics or something. True, it does not appear much different than it did in 2002… maybe it is in a stasis field or some such thing. Hmmm…
Ebay’s largest issue is that the customer can no longer find what they are looking for. In the Ebay environment, as a shoe seller, if we stock a style of shoes in 3 colors, 10 sizes per color, in most internet sites this equals 1 listing and the customer chooses their size and color. In the Ebay world, this one listing is 30 listings, then add 10 sellers offering this product, 300 listings. The same product listed on any other website brings up one search. In the Amazon application, they use UPC codes to combine all sellers listings of a product into 1 "parent" listing, then it shows when a customer chooses a style/color the options for sellers, their ratings and the cost of the item and the s/h fees. This makes Amazon easy to search for the consumer and easy to find their product.
In Ebay, we answer 3000 emails a week asking for a product clearly listed on the site in a different size than the listing they are looking at. Ebay is at a huge disadvantage in trying to manage search because of all of the variations combined with the # of unnessesary duplicate listings. It’s hard to believe that the largest ecommerce merchant has the most antiquated technology on the internet.
Lastly, they forgot about who brought them to the dance and built their business. Sellers like us, The_shoe_guy!! on Ebay have paid over $2.5 million in fees to Ebay in the past 8 years. Up until 2 years ago we were profitable. Then Ebay forgot their roots, conversion went down from 30% to 10%, fees went up to 30% of sales and they stood by while Amazon called all the top sellers and offered a sweet deal to test their site. Pay for performance, no listing fees, if you sell your product, you pay the fees. We tested 2500 SKU’s to start and within 90 days had an excellent business that has surpassed our Ebay revenue and we achieve a 40% higher average sale.
Ebay became a tax and spend operation and forgot that the sellers on the site that built their business actually had to make a profit in order to stay in business. Now as final insult to the top sellers like us with 99.6% feedback over 8 years and millions in fees paid, that Ebay says sellers suck, that they ALL charge too much for shipping, and that if you do not lower your shipping costs or ship free, your account will be suspended. Our invoices dropped from over $25,000 a month to less than $5900.00 last month. I hope Ebay gets the message. Hire your top category sellers to run that part of the business. For instance, we have offered for years to assist Ebay with the shoe category, nope, they will not listen, they have some 25 year old with no business experience is running the category, and running it into the ground.
This is a real simple fix, but Ebay is moving at a snails pace while Amazon just eats their lunch. Hire category experts that will work WITH the sellers to increase sales instead of working against the sellers. While I own the business, I am in software sales for a living, and have had relationships with all of the top ecommerce companies, and I can tell you that Ebay needs to get their team on the road and presenting to the top sellers ways to increase business and then listening and implementing quickly. They will only survive if they move fast and listen to the people who built their business.
I used to be a powerseller on Ebay but they made so many changes to their TOS it was hard to keep up. Have now moved on to pastures new!
I was a Silver Powerseller and loved my eBay store. At one time I was so busy shipping eBay orders that I didn’t have much time to work on my own website. I thought it was a win-win, since I paid a lot more fees then and I was making money.
I now only have 30 fixed price listings on eBay just to advertise and get new customers for my website. My fees on eBay run 20% and that is with zero frills or extras.
I closed my store because my average order size on my website is about 4-5X what it is on eBay because eBay never delivered on the shopping cart promised about 4 years ago, and didn’t make it easy for a customer to pay with a regular credit card. The eBay orders take about 3X more work for me. eBay makes it hard for customers to buy multiple items and hard to pay.
So if you have options, and limited time and money, eBay no longer makes a lot of sense to throw a lot of resources at.
2008 won’t be remembered as a banner year for eBay. Many of the changes implemented were not to the benefit of the every day, average eBay seller who has been making an extra $100 to $500 per month on eBay.
Great job on this article – it shows all the changes eBay made in 2008.
At the same time, there still is a huge opportunity that can be found on eBay. It all is based on how you look at it. As people move to sell on other platforms such as Amazon it means less competition on eBay.
As technology advances and more eBay tools become available – sellers who use such technology will differentiate themselves from their competitors. And, with the uncertain world economy in peril, eBay is still a place for people to make the extra income they desparately need.
Let’s hope that eBay goes back to their core – and focuses on the "little guy" in 2009.
James
http://www.templateoptimizer.com
Most people seem to forget that it was Meg Whitman (I affectionately dubbed her "Margaret NitWhit") who first began implementing the horrid changes at ebay, and that Donahoe reported directly to her. Donahoe was "groomed" by her.
How convenient that Meg~e~poo slipped out of her seat moments before poo fully hit the fan because she has her sights set on the White House (omg) and didn’t want to be attached to all of this negative publicity… in other words… John Donahoe is her scape goat.
John McCain wants to appoint Meg Whitman to the post of Secretary of the Treasury (and there was mention that she was on his "short list" of VP choices)… I find this terrifying on so many levels.
Let’s begin with all of the insider trading. Millions of shares of stocks she (and other ebay execs) unloaded, beginning a year ago, magically moments before a major downfall in it’s value. (why does this go uninvestigated?)
Then there are the offshore bank accounts, put in place to avoid paying taxes to that same post (if McCain has his way) she is to oversee… are you kidding me?!
Moving right into the blatant fraud that is now synonymous with the word ebay, because they have done nothing to keep the site free from rip~off sellers, and in fact, have promoted it with hidden bidder IDs, zero verification, etc. Perhaps they didn’t recognize fraud when they saw it? It’s been their own modus operandi for so many years, perhaps it escaped them as wrong~doing?
A quick political note: There are many reasons we need to be highly concerned about a John McCain administration, but here are just two for you… between the poor judgement call of McCain in wanting Margaret NitWhit in charge of our money (he’s clueless about her true identity/character) and his choice for VP (again, clueless about her true identity/character)… after the greed of "Wall Street" (and it was/is people exactly like NitWhit) and what happened there, do we really want someone like "ebay" running our country?
Be very careful in casting your vote this election, but by all means, vote.
Slow suicide… that’s what ebay is doing to itself. I used to think that surely they had some valid reason for the terrible changes they’ve been implementing, but I’ve finally come to realize that they’re just plain stupid. They want to throw away what made them great (and made them a lot of money I might add) and try to be the "next Amazon"… LOL… I’m sorry, but this makes me laugh, because it’s just so ludicrous… why on earth would you want to be someone/something else, when being yourself was perfect and there is already one of "those" around?!
The greed made ebay blind, deaf and dumb and they will not turn back from their "mission" now… the only hope for ebay is if someone with half a wit of business sense purchases them (hostile takeover w/their stocks in the toilet?) and tries to take them on the path back to what made them great.
I spent over 10 years on ebay. The last five started going downhill and the last six months were becoming unbearable. In 6 days it will have been a year since I left ebay and I can’t even express to you how wonderful it has been.
It’s a terrible tragedy, but ebay has destroyed "Main Street" and that idiot Bush just gave Donahoe an award for it.
(ebay=fraud, McCain=Whitman, Bush=Donahoe… do we detect a connection here?)
By all means, vote for the man who is supported by Fidel Castro, the leader of LYBIA, Louis Farrakhan, and Bill Ayers – a man who bombed buildings here in America and in 2001 told the press that he wished he’d done more.
Vote for the man who wants to ‘spread’ your wealth around to the people who dont wish to actually achieve things for themselves.
I wonder if he has ‘located’ his coveted "Birth Certificate" for the Pennsylvania courts.. the request was made back in August.. But in a book he wrote (which he was SURE everyone in America would care to read) in 1995 spoke of him …’finding his birth certificate in some papers..’ That was back in 1995, and yet the one he posts on the internet was generated in the year 2007?
The Messiah is not even Constitutionally eligible to be the President of the United States. Thats not nit-picking. Its the rules. Its been the rules for over 200 years.. YOU have to show your birth certificate to qualify for things in life. HE Doesnt??
The State of Hawaii website has an application process for people with at least 50% Island bloodline.. so they can request Homestead land. One of the requirements is a "Certificate of Live Birth." NOT a Certification of Live Birth, which is all he will show. EVEN THE STATE OF HAWAII SAYS THAT CERTIFICATION DOES NOT SATISFY THEIR STATE REQUIREMENTS AND THEY ARE THE ONES WHO ISSUED IT!
I wish Americans would wake up and quit drinking the koolaid, or you will find yourselves in the lines waiting for day old bread and government cheese…
I fully agree!
Question: If you had a grandmother who you were very close to because she had raised you and she was on her death bed (very unlikely to make it to election day), wouldn’t you think that your wife and children would also want to make the trip to Hawaii to see her one last time? Yet, Obama was the only one to go to see her…the family stayed behind.
Something very strange about the whole thing. A trip to dig evidence out of grandma’s attic and destroy it?
Go to http://www.obamacrimes.com to ready about the lawsuit filed by Constitutional attorney Philip Berg on Aug. 21, 2008.
Obama knows that he has duped the American people and is trying to hide the secret of his foreign birth. The birth certificate on his website is false and the lawsuit is only asking to see the vault copy from the state of HI.
So far, everyone running for office, EXCEPT OBAMA, has turned over their vaulted birth certificates, their medical records, their school records/registration, employment records….WHY HAS OBAMA REFUSED TO FURNISH THESE DOCUMENTS?????
Why has Obama hired high powered attorney Joseph Sandler to fight this case? Joseph Sandler is the lawyer for the Council on American Islamic Relations and moveon.org. http://www.homelandsecurityus.org
Obama did not go to HI for one business day to see his elderly grandmother who is suffering from osteoporosis…he went to check on the lawsuit which is his greatest secret…….he hopes to stall it long enough to get in office and dupe the American people. Only a natural born citizen can run for President. Obama was born in Kenya and had to be legally adopted by his Indonesian step father to attend school in Indonesia. In INdonesia you can only hold one passport as a citizen of Indonesia. He visited Pakistan in 1981 using the only passport he had, an Indonesian Passport because Americans could not travel there due to unrest.
Obama has strongly encourgared early voting (most of which is African American) so that he can create racial unrest on a high scale if his right to run for the Presidency is legally challenged. Obama knows that his secet is about to be told and he wants to manipulate himself into the White House.
As the lawsuit states, Obama can clear up any questions immediately by furnishing the same documents that Biden, Palin and McCain have already furnished. But he has refused since Aug. 21, 2008 to do so. Why?
What does he have to hide?
I am not happy with ebay, either. We are all well aware of the problems.
I realize that Meg Whitman does have a place in McCain’s campaign and may sit on his cabinet. That said…I will take a capitalistic approach to the economy anyday over a SOCIALIST Economy. Obama=Socialism + so much more…the only "change" you will have is what is left in your pocket after he is done redefining the definition of rich after the election.
McCain is not "All I have ever hoped for", but he is much less dangerous to this country and the economy than the equation of Obama + Pelosi + Reid. I could go on with many other issues, but this is not the place for it.
If you do not fully understand the issues and are basing your vote on the empty words "hope and change" or an emotion, please stay home and do not vote.
I am for spreading opportunity, not "spreading the wealth".
I have said more than I wanted to, but could not let this go. I think it is silly and opportunistic to use this forum to voice your preference in the election. There are others out here who also have the facts and are able to weigh them intelligently and responsibly.
the so called "bailout" is socialism at it’s finest, and who told Mr Bush to "ignore congress and do it anyway" if the house didn’t pass it the second time? McCain. No one wanted that bailout except the banks, yet McCain said IGNORE the people WE WORK FOR, the people who HIRED US and do it anyway? the government now owns a gigantic portion of all major banks, insurance companies and more. they are now in "private business" for themselves and that is exactly what "socialism" is. look it up. oh sure, they’ll tell us it’s us who own those shares in that corporation. have you received your papers of ownership yet? I haven’t, nor do I expect to. God help us if McCain grabs those reins. even worse, if he dies and that dishonest, hateful moron Palin is forced to step in.
Carrie says: "if you are basing your vote on empty words or emotion, stay home and do not vote"
That is really sad. I would hate to see anyone try to discourage/deny another American citizen of any Constitutional right, such as voting. I’m sure she didn’t mean it like that.
Perhaps Carrie read something into my post that was not there? "Empty words" not typed? I don’t recall, nor do I read now, that I ever used the name Obama. Is Carrie confused? Please don’t get upset Carrie, I can tell you are very passionte about this election, as you should be and I commend you… so many people are complacent and disinterested.
This article is about ebay though, hence the reference to McCain and NitWhit… along with the other references to current "leadership", as in Bush and (keeping on topic with this article), Donahoe.
How nutty to turn this into a racially, terroristically (is that a word?) motivated post. Seriously, calm down people, so you can see things as they really are… clearly.
NEWSFLASH!
ALL politicians are LIARS… welcome to the real world!
And ebay wants to be right there in the thick of it, beginning with NitWhit.
This is very scary to those of us who see, on such a small scale, the damage ebay has done.
Do you think the bank rescue (as bush likes to now call it) was a good idea for people like you and I? You know… "Joe the plumber"? As the stock market still tanks.
It’s quite obvious that the reason ebay executives have never been investigated for their fraudulent (insider trading) sale of ebay stock is because they’ve been kissing the right booties… any fool can see that.
And who would be at the top of that list? I’ll let you insert the answers here.
Is it koolaid or pills? I think I may need some, since Hillary is out until 2012
Does anyone have the name of Cindy McCain’s pusher?
P.S. One thing that is very interesting… I didn’t see one person come back and spew the dirt on McCain (imaginary or not)… I guess that’s because we already know exactly what kind of individual he is. So I won’t drop nasty little topics here
Before anyone gets their knickers in a twist….
That was not a slam against Cindy McCain… I feel sorry for her… her husband used her for her money and then abandoned her just like he abandoned his crippled first wife and Cindy felt her only solace was at the bottom of a pill bottle… such a shame.
Gee. After reading what going on on ebay. I don’t think I’ll go their. Thankyou for all the comments..So If a person wanted to go to alernative site what sites out their can I go. I am a new business I sell supplements??
Could you list some sites..?
Supplements – sounds like you dont need Auction. You just need a store to park your items..
Try eCrater, or blujay. Both give you a store for free.
You’ll need to know how to write basic HTML.
If I’m not mistaken, Blujay uses and HTML editor and HTML is not allowed on eCrater, so no problem!
Nope, Blujay does not use an HTML editor, Sorry.
I have over 250 items listed there. No editor, and no Bulk Upload either.
So far ive found that not may buyers on ebay any more and the visibility factor has not been resoved but got worse !!
I seem to sell more at the begining of the month and end. But recent changes i havent sold any thing in 2 weeks whats going on ??
at this rate there be no buyers or sellers on Ebay
I have been trading on Ebay for years, and I have over 870 positive feedbacks, with no negatives or Neutrals.
To get to this I have had to give products away to buyers who use the feedback system as a threat to get something for nothing.
The new system where buyers cannot leave negative feedback to buyers just encourages the proffessional complainer, who enjoy the challenge of getting something for nothing.
The Ebay final value fees have shot up recently, and these new fees do not seem to tie up with the minor increases that Ebay advertises.
I have written to Ebay , and I got back the computer generated response.
If you work out how much the listing fee is+ the Final value fee+ Paypal fees, you really understand just how much Ebay are taking from the seller for running a website.
An example is that if you sell something for £150 then all the fees will cost you close to £15,
add your comittment to the taxman, then you realise why busineses are finding it hard.
Bottom line is Ebay have got really greedy.
Although I do not condone the new ruling of sellers being unable to leave negative feedback, I do not think it is going to be that detremental to sellers.
If you have a good positiive feedback and suddenly get a negative, are buyers really going to be deterred from buying from you when they read all the positive feedback? anyone with any sense is going to realise that the negative was left by a timewaster.
Don’t forget that you can still reply to feedback left, so if a negative is received, count to ten and write a short mature reply that will show future buyers that the negative was unwarranted.
I also find that a lot of people leave feedback weeks after the transaction so the chances are you are owed feedback, I am currently owed just under 100! Once this feedback starts filtering in, the negative gets pushed further down the page until it disappears onto page 2 which we know is like search engine results, who looks past page 1?
I had a negative left by a serial negative leaver early in the year, after two days it was on page 2 obviously nobody took any real notice of it.
I think a neutral is more harmful as it shows that the buyer has given their purchase and experience with the seller some thought.
knickies
I charge cost of post only with no charge for packaging ie the customer can read the post office label that is what they pay… my feeback for post is 4.5 as not cheap enough. They are clearly told this in my terms and conditions but some still complain and ebay expects me to alter costs . . . I asked them how and was told that was up to me but would improve my score if they were more ‘reasonable’ . .. brain transplants needed at headoffice may be an option
I have this problem with my DSR on ebay, the postal charge section is way down compared to the other ratings despite me explaining my postal charges are what I pay at the post office and not just a figure plucked out of thin air. Yes I add 15pence on to cover the packaging, printing, paper, electricity, bubble wrap, fuel to get to the post office daily, which I do not think is extortionate when the buyer just has to sit at home and wait for the package to arrive, they do not have to get in their cars and drive to the shops, paying for fuel, finding a parking space and often paying for that space and then having to walk to the store, wait in a queue before returning home with their purchase.
We are doing them a favour, saving their time and money yet they still moan about what is a reasonable postage cost. I am not including all buyers in this category, many leave feedback stating how reasonable the postage is, but there is always going to be the odd one out there who has to be awkward. That’s life.
knickies
Yes Ebay is B***cks now lately. I got kicked off and account restricted all items were removed for one whole month. and Y because My performance was not to their expectations. What i dont understand is there are sellers with more neg feedback than me and the do nowt to them.
Maybe I might stops selling on ebay all together after 3 years they just gone from bad to worse
I used to sell regularly on ebay.. i battled on through the implementation of the DSR’s even though buyers were never told how to use them correctly and ebay mis-representing how the figures were being and going to be used, never again though! The day i said enough is enough and stopped selling on ebay was the day ebay started putting banners on buyers ‘my ebay’ pages where they had not left feedback stating ‘ not happy? dont miss the deadline to open a paypal dispute’ Any seller will tell you that once a buyer opens a dispute that nothing short of devine intervention will stop them seizing the money from your bank account and re-funding the buyer under any number of reasons.
The suspensions back in June were a farce, with many innocent sellers suspended and many not so innocent sellers never even touched… followed by a spate of auction wrecking here in the UK that ebay did nothing about for over a week landing sellers with monumental auction fee’s for unpaid items and many hours of submitting claims to try to get the fee’s cancelled. This episode was then promptly followed up with a small group of disillusioned and sick individuals posting images of child pornography on the .co.uk forums which ebay did absolutely nothing about even after numerous reports both to liveworld who host the forums and ebays own head of trust of safety here in the UK until a band of Q&A regulars got the british police involved.. Then guess what? ebay became ‘concerned’ about the conduct of some users on the forums! talk about having lead in yer pants ebay.
Today ebay is a joke. An expensive and very bad one if your a small seller today. eBay is desperate.. never before have i recieved so many money off coupons which incidentelly very rarely actually work when you input the code. They are signing deals with anyone and everyone to make sure ebay listings appear at the top of search results in search engines and directories. wasnt long ago they didnt need to advertise..
My advice… use an alternative, there are many good ones out there and much cheaper. A good one is http://www.ebid.net, they actually look after both buyer and seller…
I purchased a $3500 laptop computer on ebay using Paypal. They were supposed to charge my credit card. They withdrew the money from my checking account. The seller couldn’t deliver the computer because Dell shut them off for nonpayment. I spoke with seller who said Ebay’s fees negated their profit and they were declaring bankruptcy. Paypal would not help. In fact, they tried to take another $3500 from my bank account to reimburse me. Fortunately the bank refused and contacted me. It took 6 months to get my money back. Paypal permanently suspended my account. I still buy on ebay but if they demand Paypal payment I’m done with them.
WE have ben seling on eBay for years. We are a Power Seller, which basically means that we pay eBay a LOT of money! While we used to actually enjoy doing business on eBay, this is no longer the case.
Since the coming of new CEO J. Donahoe (and even before in al honesty), eBay has taken a nose dive in quality. They no longer seem to place even a smal value on their seling community and have created a one sided beast which heavily favors the buyer.
While this may sound ok in theory, it is just not reality. Ebay seems to be of the feeling that if the buyers are happy and wiling to shop then the selers wil come running in droves to their "newe and improved" marketplace. This is not so. In fact, both buyers and selers are leaving eBay at unprecedented rates.
We are phasing out our eBay sales department and plan to be completely finished with seling on that venue after the first of the year (2009)
David A Darsow, CEO
Montana Body Art, Inc.
Montanabodyart.com
Ebay, just to hear the name aggravates me. I’m slowly weaning off the ADDICTION to sell on ebay. What gets me is If I pay my listing fees i expect to get the same exposure as anyone else and not have to accept free shipping or have high DSR’s to get it. Ebay treats sellers like it’s a prividledge to sell on their site. EBAY, KISS THIS!!!!!!!!!!!
I to feel that eBay is getting to greedy, and I to have started to search around for other sites to sell my items.
I make a small item which I sell for $1.50, and by the time I pay all the fees, and for the supplies to make the item, I come out with about $0.50 profit. I made powerseller not because of the amount of $$$ that I was bringing in, but because of the volume of sales.
It seems that eBay sends me all the NEWBIES, since most of them have a feedback of less than 10. My biggest problem is that the customers just DO NOT READ that they must include some information to me in order to make their item.
If eBay wants to improve something, maybe they should look into the PayPay site and use some of that to help the sellers who use eBay for personalized items.
I also think that the sellers should be able to leave a negative feed back! I have had 13 customers in one month that have not paid for their items, and we are supposed to eat it? Sure they give us back the final value fees, but what about the fees to list the item?
I am retired, and these fees are killing me. I wanted to make an extra $220 to $300 a month to supplement my checks, but I am about breaking even………
Tis article pretty much sums it up exactly. I used to be an ebay powerseller but finally got fed up with them squeezing me and squeezing me and squeezing me. It was the cnage in rate and feedback policies that finally made me so mad I didn’t care that I was earning a profit of around 100k a year from Ebay (which had been squeezed by about 25% because of their fee changes) I left them for good and have never looked back.
I did find a great new auction place http://www.ola.com trying to give them a run for their money which needs some help as far as traffic goes and has a way to go but is so good in so many ways I have invested in their growth and longevity by becoming a founding member so hopefully lots of disgruntled ebayers will see this and discover ola and try it out.
I have been a seller with eBay since 1998. The worst thing eBay could have done is not give sellers the right to leave negative feedback. In the last month, I have been extorted twice by buyers who threaten me with negative feedback unless I return a portion of the money they spent buying my item. With eBay banning sellers left and right, I am afraid to lose my place and have fallen victim to unscrupulous buyers.I only see this practice increasing. I am glad you listed other selling venues because I am certainly going to check those out. I sell used one of a kind toys and dolls. I am the kind of seller that eBay started their whole business on–the collector of Pez toys–and they are killing me off.
The second worse thing they have done is tell sellers they cannot buy without using Paypal. My business is mostly little old ladies who will never trust the internet with their credit card and never come up to speed with Paypal and bank transfers. eBay can kiss those buyers good bye. I notice that sellers who don’t take Paypal are still selling, so eBay is going to take a lose in sellers to when they get around to kicking them off.
Are they all asleep at the wheel in eBay land?
I too think eBay and the eBay community make it very difficult for "the little people" to sell on eBay.
First of all, you have the fees. The fees are a lot higher for individuals than they are for businesses. Recently I sold off a few of my t-shirts because I’m poor and we’re desperate for money. Between the few shirts I made $30. But when the eBay fees came due they wanted $10. I don’t think it’s right that they get 1/3rd of my meager income. In fact, because of their high fees for when an item sells, I don’t bother listing anything that’s not worth at least $15 easilly… but for me that means I can’t sell anything at all, because I don’t have anything that’s worth that much. Their fees for when an item sells is just far too high for poor people to try to make any extra money off of eBay. And then PayPal takes $1-2 off your sale too.
Secondly, I think the eBay community makes it hard for poor, individual sellers like myself too. Even when I have sold very nice items, I just do not get a good price for it. People do not bid very much at all, and I do not get more than 1 or 2 bids, and many things won’t sell at all. I feel that it’s because I’m not a business, and people only want to buy from some rich person who owns a business. Even though I have a score of 117 (last time I looked) and have always had 100% positive feedback, I just feel like I always get cheated when I sell something on eBay, both because of the high fees and the extremely low bids. What’s even worse is I have no way of estimating postage. I don’t run a business or have my own postage scale. So postage is almost always more than I ask for and then the shipping comes out of my pocket!! And now they’ve put limits on what you can ask for shipping. So now it’s not worth it to sell anything small because there’s no way anything more than a letter can be mailed for less than $3.
The whole thing makes it very unfriendly towards little people who have so little in this world and have no means of making money otherwise.
p.s.
I never thought of that too. I’m glad no one has tried to extort free items from me because I sure can’t afford it. Threatening sellers with negative feedback… That just encourages the criminally-minded to go around getting everything for free and cheating people like me out of meager and sorely needed income. That makes me so mad! And it’s always people who don’t NEED a hand-out that get everything handed to them! It makes me so mad that I almost want to do it myself if I weren’t so honest and didn’t have the concious and moral values that I have.
Ebay is worse than useless. It costs you money and serves no purpose. It is going down the pan, firing the robots who work there won’t help. The share price will crash further as people quit Ebay in droves.
I’m a "gold" level eBay powerseller. When they announced the new fee structure that started in September, I thought it was a great time to finally sort out a shop on my website so I launched it in August. I pay no fees on this so only have to pay the PayPal or Google Checkout fee.
In September I closed my eBay shop in resistance to the 150% shop fee increase. Every eBay order I dispatched since August included a coupon for a small discount to buy via my website instead of eBay.
In August my website sales were 50% of total sales, 60% in September and now 80% in October. Before it was 100% eBay. So there is a way to beat them at little expense with just a bit of effort.
I rarely left negative feedback for anyone other than non payers. I had 2 non payers in 5 years on eBay before these changes. Now I’ve had 6 this month! I’ve suggested many times on the PS forums that eBay should allow sellers to leave a negative feedback if and only if the buyer has received a non-payment strike for the item. I sold one very expensive item 4 times before I got a buyer that paid.
Sellers have no protection at all. You can only block buyers with a feedback of -1 or less. As they can’t receive negative feedback, what’s the point of this? No buyer can have a feedback score of -1 any more.
I’ve got listings on eBid and CQOut too but have sold 2 items in a year off those two sites combined. Ebay still has the stranglehold. One of the other auction sites needs to start a more aggressive marketing plan to attract more buyers.
I just wish ebay would return to as it was just a year ago but with the added benefit of ebay shops being listed in the main search pages.
Sigh
I am just a average guy who every now and then looks for a bargin on ebay. In the last few months I have tried to buy about a dozen items. I have made bids, I have followed them and adjusted my bid as needed to be competitive only in the last 30 seconds have a secret bid outbid me. It is frustrating for a buyer who follows all the percieved rules and follows an item for days/weeks to lose in the last 30 seconds. I have learned to just ignore the "good deals" on ebay and just go somewhere else. It will be the death of ebay if we continue to be treated this way. As far as sellers go…just keep rasing the cost to sell and they will leave too.
Just my humble opionion
What rules do you mean? If you dont win an item, it means someone else was willing to pay more for an item than you were, simple as that.. You have no way of knowing how many others are watching the same item that you are, Only the seller knows that… and Im sure they are pleased seeing the activity on the items they sell..
If sellers dont get the kind of prices they need to stay afloat, Why will they even bother to sell here?? It would be a Monumental waste of time if they arent making any money..
I was selling a few books I no longer had room for and the ebay fees ended up being more than what I sold the books for and because I used the payments I got to ship the items I ended up owing ebay $200 and the profit I made on the books was $150. I ended up losing by $50. I am no longer a registered ebay user. I did enjoy buying though, but I thought the selling fee practices were not fair.
The new feedback system sucks even more than the last!
Now, as a seller we can not leave any type of negative feedback for the buyer. This is terrible because buyers then get to be as unprofessional & unreasonable as they want & we have zero recourse. And trust me, they can be extremely unfair, immature, unethical, & down right mean without any good reason.
As an example, they don’t read the auction, so they make assumptions. Then later they freak out on us, with our company not being at fault. At least in the old days we had the threat of leaving negative feedback. Now they threaten us all of the time, & if we don’t want to ruin our company’s long & hard earned reputation we have to break our own policies & sometimes literally bribe them not to leave negative feedback, when we did nothing wrong in the first place.
It is now a completely one-sided system.
And the new DSR system sucks too. We sell furniture, which often comes directly from the manufacturers, which is slow & takes weeks. We explain this up front, but still buyers rate our ship times as slow, which knocked down our DSR quickly & booted us off of being a powerseller which we had been for years. Now we have to pay higher eBay fees & UPS shipping costs because of this unfair DSR system!
Whomever came up with these new policies were extremely out of touch with the sellers, as well as the direction of the economy.
What do you mean I ordered a Bobby Pin? I wanted a Lear Jet!!
I don’t care that your description CLEARLY stated it was for a Bobby Pin and I don’t care if your pictures CLEARLY showed a Bobby Pin, that’s a big, fat NEG for you, because I wanted a LEAR JET dammit!!!
I don’t care that the post office charged you 8.29 to mail my package, I want it mailed for FREE and if you don’t, that’s another big, fat NEG for you!
eBay sellers are screwed.