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 I urge all buyers and sellers on eBay around the world to take a stand against the greed that has set in to eBay' headquarters.

Many local newspapers offer free online classified ads.  craigslist.org is also a free alternative for selling things.  Methods like these may help out the smaller sellers to get rid of stuff and make some money.  Hold out as long as possible.  Avoid eBay whenever you can.  Amazon often has way better deals on things like toys, DVDs, books, software, etc.  Buy from those places.  

eBay can thrive with lower prices.  It's insane that they force sellers to pay such a high fees.  No wonder eBay sellers charge so much for shipping... shipping isn't eBay taxed!  eBay also plans to start forcing sellers to charge an eBay-specified shipping rate!  What next... BUYER FEES!

I have been a ebay member for years , only as a buyer, untill about 4 months ago when i decied to try selling. I gave it alot of thought and studied the items i was going to buy, and felt it was gonna be a great move.

All my items I selll are small tiny ones, so shipping costs are never a problem for me. The problem was trying to keep up with all these powersellers who are selling the same items as me for half the price. So i looked closly at there listings. I decided it was my auction title itself that was not attraking as many buyers, so i changed , thank god only 10 of them. Then i get a notice from ebay saying i was word spamming, which i had no clue as to what it was, untill i received this mesage. I didn't relize that yoo couldn't use a "brand" name in your title. Fine i took them down, and went back to my boring auction title names. Than what do i see but tons of power seller's with stores, having the exact same wording for there titiles as me, so i reported them. Nothing happened. I reported them again, and again, and to this day i report them once a day, yet none of there listings have been taken down. Only mine were, so not only is it hard enough to competet with theese big time sellers, they are somehow allowed to keyword spam all they want, and there for are getting all these buyers seeing there items when searching for something eles.

I have had nothing but problems with ebay from day one as a seller. Being a buyer is great, being a seler sucks. Finally things started to calm down, and the fees get raised, i mean come on, there already to high anyway. A free gallery pic??, who cares, there is no evidence that having a pic makes your item sell any better. All they want is more money. These changes are not good, and do help the little guy just starting out.

And soon we sellers can't leave negitive feedback for a bad buyer, where on earth is the logic to that???? How are we to even warn others of a bad buyer?, it just dosn't seem fair. The whole feedback system on ebay is a joke, and dose not work. For example I use to have %100 feedback for both buying and selling, untill about a month ago. Long story, basically i got a item that was describbed horribly wrong, the seller charged me for priority shipping, and never actually shipped that way, it took 3 times longer than should have, i had even asked for regular ordinary shipping so it would be cheaper, than i tried to contact the seller many times to resolve the problem, filed with paypal, and i got nothing, So I left her a negitive feedback. I had never done this with anyone before, sure i had unpleasant transactions, problems in the past, but they had always been resolved, so positive was left in the end. This seller turns around and leaves me a negitive simply because i left her one. I did everything i was suppose to do before leaving a negitive. She phoned my home and started to yell at me for me leaving her a negitive. She ruined mt perfect score, and since i only have 100 or so stars, 1 negitive drops my overall score alot. Her overall starts is in the 4000's, she has 28 negitives in the last 12 months alone, and her overall score is still higher than mine. The comment she left me, all she wrote was i was banned from her store. She wrot that simply cause she didn't have 1 bad thing to say about the actual transaction. So i tired to get help with ebay to have it removed, and did they help me???, NO. They didn't do a dam thing for me. I tried to get paypal to help me, did they ?? NO. They say that if i ship the items back at my own cost, than i will receive ONLY what i actually paid for them, not the shipping that i paid her. The shipping ervice she claimed to have used, but clearly did not. So basically i'm stuck with the item, it ill cost me more money to return it outa my own pocket than it will be worth to get a refund.  And the funny thing is I wasn't even asking the seller for a full  refund, all i was asking was for a percentage of it, and a refund for the over priced shipping, since she did notindeed use priority. PayPal did nothing to help me at all.

Now i have a bunch of stock, so i'm basically stuck, trapped you might say on ebay untilli can sell it all. It should be all gone by the end of summer, but thats way to long to be putting up with the over priced fees, the non helpful staff, and these new outragious  fees and rules. Some may actually think that these new fees are a savings, but read the fine print of it all, the only person who is benifiting from it is simply ebay themselves, not sellers. Especially new sellers, or hobbie sellers.

I found this & signed up immediately: www.ioffer.com  I haven't checked it completely yet but it looks very promising so far.  I had some questions answered already by the support people there who were VERY fast.  I also imported my ebay feedback.  I'm not sure about how many buyers there are but it seems to have lots of sellers & they are obviously getting lots of traffic according to Alexa.com who ranks them 4th under their Auctions category.  Listings are free but I haven't compared the fees with ebay yet as I haven't sold there for ages.  I've read ony some old reviews about iOffer which were not too favourable but they seemed to have improved since then.  Does anyone else know this place? 

There is life outside of ebay Im living proof

Here for all you ebay employed staff writers trying to discourage the sane with bully tactics and scorning honest sellers who deserve to earn what effort they put forth...

Ebay, You are making a terrible mistake as per the Jan 29th Update to all members regarding the feedback system, paypal funds, fees and dictating to the buyers how they are to run their own operation.

Youre taking the rights away from all the sellers to run their business as they decide to practice. Why should any seller just say, "uuh, okayeee"? and go with your flow when:

1 - Youre giving the buyers the upper hand and not just the upper hand, way too much power over a seller.
with this power, they WILL abuse it at the expense of honest sellers. If you were to actually use FAIR means of monitoring things and weed out sellers that are TRULY criminals, then ok. But youre not doing that. Youre tampering with a good thing. Ever heard the saying if ainit broke, dont fix it? well the feedback system was almost unfixable except you HAVE ENOUGH MONEY TO PAY PEOPLE TO ACTUALLY REVIEW IT in order to delete certain lies. but youre not even going to question the buyers now. They have complete power. Try that at Home Depot. I have sold thousands of items and have come across at least 1% wacko (people that cannot be pleased when they receive perfect item, timely AND get full refund).

The feedback system was close to fine and acceptable enough. Doing away with sellers not even being able to leave feedback to buyers is unreasonable and goes againts how ebay was defined and so many other copy sites ran with that and still do. Did you all hire ten year olds in the board room?

2 - you say that now paypal can HOLD SELLERS MONEY (it IS THE SELLER's MONEY, NOT PAYPAL's or EBAYS) until the buyer HOPEFULLY leaves a feedback or 21 days have passed without a dispute? and you feel this is reasonable or acceptable? to whom is this acceptable? Its beyond poor business practice on your part . I'm finished with paypal, I went with google checkout last month with sucess! Until you buy that, then a merchant account only. I made you lots of money, I guess that was enough for you. You disallow Google Checkout in the ebay realm (what a shocker), much the same way as when you TRIED to disallow paypal. go ahead and buy it so you can control it or kill it. there will always be an alternative to your monopoly. Shooting your foot.

3 - Did you not notice that were in a slow economical situation? maybe youre using that to take advantage of sellers? sure looks like that to me.

4 - Maybe you forgot that you need buyers and sellers alike? you cant have one without the other. takes 2 to Tango.
I think this now... somthing, some site or the many sites are ruffling your feathers? why the terms "critical" to make the buying experience better? what was wrong with it? someone finds an item, they bid or buy, they receive, they exchange feedback, everyones happy.

the buyer can CHOOSE to pay high shipping costs if they DECIDE to. The seller should have the right to CHARGE whatever they feel is needed. higher or lower. Use WHOever and WHATEVER shipping means THEY deem. and STATE the time in which an item should be shipped at the sellers terms. then if the buyer chooses to agree to that, well and good.

You ebay have forced sellers to accept paypal or a credit mercahnt account? wow! Now if that isnt greedy, i do not know what greed means. you place in all inhouse emails the fact that it is unsafe to send payment money order or western union? since when? The seller likes it because they KNOW they have that money. They earned it. The buyer can trace those funds and act on a postal mail fraud if the seller is a cheat. No one loses. oops, ebay loses a few cents. I forgot. tisk tisk. theres that greed again.

It's THEIR STORE! The sellers are the workers. The sellers are the ones who put all their money and time into it. The sellers place their neck and name on the line. if they fail it should be THEIR FAULT. this ISNT a communist country yet. Its sure headed that way. WHY would a seller decide to pay you ebay for these incredibly rediclous rules that can hurt their bank account? Something's very wrong here.

5 - you make it all about the benjamens. the powersellers. i was never an official powerseller. I refused it I had the volume, so why did I need the hassle? I was good to go. So i just opened my website and fled the fee structure and reduced my overhead by a huge percentage.

I know, I know, you do not care. Well your stock holders seem to apparently.

6 - You seem to be WANTING the sellers to quit? to make room for whom? What is the incentive for sellers with any brains?

If you make the sellers angry, and they leave, that takes less diversity from your listings attracting fewer people. All the weird stuff is what ebay popular. remember?

Theres an old saying that says something to the effect of not stepping on toes on the way up..., I feel some ouches coming.

7 - What does this mean, "sellers who list in certain categories with higher rates of buyer complaints". ? because a category receives numerous complaints, youre holding the sellers responsible? thats very strange business. Sounds like its the products fault. not the sellers. Ok, whatever - youre your own boss!

8 - you reduced listing fees but increase the FVF? thats like trading in your car for 1200.00 and having the dealer tack on 1800.00 - not a fair trade and any one with common sense knows this.

the whole thing smells like 3 day old fish to me. I wonder what the majority feel?

Ebay acts as if they didnt care. They HAVE to care. its their bottom line. When the sellers get out from the net they placed themselves in, ebay will see the difference.

Then again, if theyre plannign on ridding themselves also of the classic ebay auctions (they really have lost it) then who needs them? just go to wally world or anystore thats within driving distance. Save on shipping. Save on waiting. save on peace of mind.

for the life of me, I cant figure this one out ebay.

After reading that Jan 29th letter,  id never consider opening a selling account again. I do business my way and its successful and honest. and dogonnit, poeple like me :)

As a buyer, i only use ebay for rare items. and lately my echecks have taken 8-9 days when there is money in my bank. What gives? 3 times? no more. when the rare items are gone, so am I as a buyer. Who is left then to ride ebay?

as a stock holder, I think ill take the advise of my broker and sell most of it now.

After 9 years of selling on Ebay,I packed up and established my online business where I am doing above expectation.Ebay has turned into a greedy company because they want to do away with the very small sellers who made the company what they are.It is sad and I think they will continue to lose almost on daily basis.A lot of folks are not really enthusiastic about Ebay as they used to be,thanks to some selfish and silly policies.Everything is begining to suck about this company; management,fees,feedback etc.I am very glad that I have my website and I must thank Ebay for that! My site is cool to me! http://www.myafricanbargains.com

I started my ebay selling 3 years ago and did good, at that time my fee payment for ebay was more than $5000.00 plus, now ebay is big mess and buyers are openly writing emails saying they will give you negetive feedback, now my fees are around $1000.00, I can up with a plan, ( I was not aware that so many people are no happy with ebay, just stumbled open this today ) because ebay is one of the top 10 website (traffice wise) I thought why not take advantage (this will help lots of sellers) sell your products at higher price so no one will buy as ebay customers, you will get lots of leads whom you can close and sell directly, just spend around $1000.00 (believe me its worth it) for me my sale in total is same, also my regular customers who by from my website dont ask for ebay deals, I am making more money now than last year and without ebay problels,

Minimal effects.... about as accurate as Amazon being an auction site.  This person needs to be spending a little more time researching his facts before embarassing himself publicly with inaccurate information. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon.com

eBay is doing what they feel is necessary to operate at maximum efficiency. I think it's a shame that so many of the smaller sellers are getting swept away with the changes. Trying to find another auction site is fruitless. There simply isn't enough bidders on these sites to make it work. Opening your own store is a great alternative, but you soon realize your items are buried on page 100 of the search engines and it cost money or endless hours of work to get them to the front page.

 What you need is a store that cost you absolutely nothing to open, that you can list an unlimited number of items with no fees, and your items will appear on the front page of the search engines. I found a site a couple of years ago that offered all this and never looked back at eBay again. In fact the items I had listed appeared in the search engines in front the same items from my online store, prompting me to close it. It's young but growing fast, and has the potential to be a major player in the online market place. You owe it to yourself to at least check it out. http://www.loudfrog.com/

We have been using Ebay for some 10 years now, and have seen it change from the good to the bad and then the ugly, hopefully things may improve in this situation, but until then, it basically is all about setting up your own websites, or using alternative sites which may eventually supercede the likings of ebay. We probably won't close down our ebay store just yet, but we are actively exercising our options.

In the meantime, if you need any assistance starting up your web presence from a company, who has assisted many others, then feel free to contact us and take a look at our website.

http://www.3cwired.com

http://www.completecomputingconcepts.com

Thanks again for your time, and hopefully this situation can get better.

It's an old - yet common practice.  I have done it for years.

I make up my fee's loss in the S/H department.  Always have, always will.

There are many tricks to getting this done, without being flagged.. just do some homework.

I was an eBay Powerseller with 10000+ rating, until around six months ago when I finally decided to leave.

IT WAS THE BEST DECISION I EVER MADE!

I run my own website and used eBay partially as a portal to my own site, and partially to sell of excess stock on the cheap. I had been with eBay since 2000 and at first our marriage was a happy one - eBay was the embryonic beginnings of my business - without them I would have never started my own website.

But slowly things got worse and worse. Constant fee rising, lack of support for honest sellers, refusal to remove fake goods, spoof emails, hacked accounts- the list of problems goes on.

Anyway, around six months ago I made the decision to leave and concentrate on my website. At first I was nervous, but I realized that if I spent the money eBay was taking from me in fees on getting my website professionally optimized I could cut them out altogether.

And, what a difference it has made! Six months later the sales through my website are up 200%. I no longer use eBay or PayPal and I have only had positive results.

I also found that once I switched to a different payment provider from PayPal (I use Worldpay now) my transaction completion percentage increased by 15% too - it would seem that PayPal has a bad reputation with your average online shopper, just like eBay.

I don't think the boycott will hurt eBay initially, but the bad publicity it generates will. The more people complain about poor customer service, higher fees, the more people will start to take note and start to look elsewhere.

I think the next few years will show a general shift away from eBay by your occasional buyer & seller, and eBay will eventually be a business orientated tool. This is most likely what eBay want - to cull the small whining sellers and concentrate on their big business. A shame really, when it is the little guys who got them where they are today.

Still, keep voting with your feet - they can't ignore it if more and more people walk away.

Good luck to everyone out there - you can do it without eBay!!!

Andy

sorry I dont have time to really write this in perfect sequence. but...

apparentkly this is a pretty hot topic. its going to run strong. ebay will read it and gather all kinds of information that were handing them to use againts us. but we still need a platform.

maybe ebay can start a second company and make it for the small timers only? then everyone wins. I doubt that will happen. cmon ebay, you are oppressive! lighten up!

First, yes, ebay does listen to boycotts. any company listens to loss of money. they are reading this page you can bet on that. anyone who is under the payroll of ebay is posting positive things about beiong happy that ebay is raisingtheir fees and lowering their profits. get a life ebay were not idiots. well if we stay with ebay we are.

you also need to boycott paypal, rent.com, shopping.com, and the rest of ebay owned entities.

also we need a NEW means of shipping because the USPS lies with the priorty 3 days rule. high costs to ship when the volume exceeds what they can keep up with and do they really need that much to mail an ietm? NO. they even raise regular stamp fees. GREEDY GREEDY WORLD in general.

leaves very little places huh? I think one post said that was a monopoly. yep. it is. and its wrong but itis what it is. 

I agree with another post on here that says the buyer has more to do with it than the sellers as far as a boycott goes. They are the ones who are flocking to ebay and all ebay companies. they are forced to open a paypal account or JUST GO THRU them with their CC info. when people boycott walmart, it isnt sellers, its the buyers.

get a web site! they actually work! and theyre WAY cheaper than ebay!

Every one is talking about an ebay alternative, but there are lots of them out there. IF they banded together instead of trying to do this apart from one another, THEN it woud fly. everyone would win. work it out! it can be done! The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

and im 100000 percent positive that if this happened it WOULD be a success and ebay would make an offer to buy it. They HATE competition, theyve proven that with all the companies theyve bought to create the monster they are - just dont give in! because if ebay wants it , then it is a worthy rival and WORTH KEEPING! dont sell your soul.

for what profit is it for a person to gain the whole world but lose their soul? none.

what to do is keep the rival site like ebay USED to be, how they began, with the little guy earning a profit for his/her hard labor.

ebay was awesome at first. until about 2003-2004 with honest sellers & honest buyers. Maybe the main problem is ... sin? scams? professional robbery teams? they can have 20 people, create new accounts, rip off the public for thousands and by the time its discovered, have another thug in the outfit begin it agian.

and yes ebay caters to the power sellers. They generate more money. MONEY TALKS! always has, always will! - The bible says that Money soves all matters

i never was a power seller and was begged by ebay about every two weeks with letters and incentives. I didnt see the need. I was seliing at a rate of 90% of all listings for good prices. I had 99% rating and the few negatives that I did have were all BS. buyers remorse. I had poeple buy mine and buy the same item within 3 days from someone else for 5 bucks less and then give ME a negative for not paying for what they bouight.?

ebay once was an awesome place for everyone. but as they grew and the greed set in, what else can we expect from a board whos primary objective is to create revenue? exactly what ebay is today.

and it didnt happen over night. they been continually raising fees since what, 2001-02? thus lowering profit margins for ALL Sellers. They raised their profit margins. They must pay google to stay on top becuase I can type in a sellers unique name and its first in line.

there was supposed to be a boycott during the FIRST fee increase. Never happened.

even same item widgets are above my web sites and my site ranks #1 in many of my items. They should be UNDER the rest of the websites.

Google is next - better watch out for them. They just bought the 700mhz bandwith that somehow the FCC owns? how can theFCC OWN the analog frequency range? Just WHO did they buy it from ? GOD? I dont think so. what do they plan on doing with this? that is scary!

and they bought it off of EBAY!

Google can pull your site from their index without reason at any time and keep it off. think it doesnt hurt sakles? extremely. I lost 9/10's of revenue due to google pulling mysite for violations i had no idea existed and Im not selling ANY adult related material. very far from that.

but do boycott ebay, THEY WILL LISTEN,believe that.