Ebay and Its Continued Demise

Here's a rather complicated PDF file that explains some of the pitfalls of the rise in fees at Ebay:
http://imamerchant.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/deutschebankpatel020608.pdf

As I said once before I'm a small time seller on eBay or was since the new default search Best Match makes small time sellers' listings hard to find. So I used to list 10 things at a time and at least 6 would sell, but now only about 5% of what I list sells---I end up paying more in fees than I make in selling. Here's just a taste of what's being said on the Discussion Boards:

Did you know that if you don't take paypal in bold red letters the buyer will read "THERE IS NO BUYER PROTECTION ON THIS ITEM" and ebay will list similar items with "buyer protection" in your auction (that you paid for)?

Did you know that if you do happen to have a crazy buyer who negs you for no reason your listings drop down in listing position?

Did you know that multiple fb from same buyer counts towards your fb score? So one crazy buyer and you my friend are at the end of all the listings, and in bold red letters your auction will state "SELLER HAS A LOW FEEDBACK RATING FOR SHIPPING TIME OR SHIPPING CHARGES OR ITEMS ARE NOT ACURATELY DESCRIBED." Are buyers really so stupid that you need to point this out to them?

So you may have 100% now (and I know how hard you worked for it) but how long with that last. I have given away items to placate an irrate buyer (when most of the time it wasn't even my fault that they were irrate)to avoid a neg (the customer is always right lol).

Now you have no voice as a seller. You can not protect yourself from bad buyers, scammers and even your competition. Your competition can neg you to get rid of you as competition.

DSR--detailed Feedback Score Ratings --a 5 star scale that the buyer can rate you on your description of the item you are selling, communications with buyer (mostly you don't need to), shipping, your shipping and handling (last two really means to new buyers in particular how long it takes to get there)---now eBay tells the buyer 4 out of 5 stars is good but tells the seller 4 is bad---wants sellers to work on their stars or face the possibility of their listings being left to the last page of 40 because they didn't give free shipping and even those who do offer free shipping rarely get 5 stars for it. When eBay first started the DSRs, I wasn't going to give them to anyone--but then I realized it would be hurting good sellers--so I started giving 5 stars for everything I bought no matter how I really felt.

I might as well give all the inventory I have left away which is what I will be doing if I offer free shipping.

One recent workshop on DSRs suggests that the seller should spell out what the DSRs mean in their auctions. Frankly those auctions that give me more than info on the item I am interested in usually don't get my bid and I suspect this may piss off a number of buyers--it's like begging for feedback.

Sadly, I have bought a lot of neat stuff on eBay and sold to some really nice people that would buy from me again if they could find my listings but with eBay shuffling the deck constantly these days---It's like I said earlier I have lost more money listing this year than I have made. And from the detailed sales thingy eBay offers---it turns out that when I was selling well I was still spending like 70 bucks a month in listing fees and being a small time seller if you aren't selling but 140.00 dollars in merchandise a month--70 dollars is way too much. Like I said or maybe I didn't---the little figurines I sell don't cost much and don't sell for much.

Ebay part deux on the Strike

There is a surge in sellers who do not plan on striking; in fact, they seem quiet put out with those that plan to strike. Some are out and out hostile to the strike idea and anyone who plans to participate.

It would seem that the new powers that be at Ebay have pitted buyer against seller and seller against seller. It's hard to say from the Ebay Forums which group is more hostile to the other. And shouldn't we all work together?

And hey--there's a reduced listing fee push for today (20 cents for each listing)

ebay strike on for week of Feb 18-25

Sellers at Ebay--well some sellers--are all fired up about the impending changes at Ebay and have elected to strike the week of February 18-25. These sellers feel that without a loss of revenue, Ebay will continue with their asinine changes, and sadly, there will be too few involved in the Strike to even make a dent in Ebay's bottom line. After all, it will take a massive amount of sellers and buyers sticking to the strike for it to have any effect, and I just don't believe it's going to happen. It is a good idea, but too many, especially, I think, Power Sellers will not join in the strike.

Even if the strike doesn't do anything to Ebay, there is a decided ripple effect that is surging throught the Finance circles as they struggle to guess what changes Ebay may have wrought with the sweeping changes to their once One of a Kind Venue --where thousands came to buy and sell the unique---not the everyday wares that Walmart and Target readily supplied.




Here are two articles that explain some of the variables causing Ebay's problems and those who may benefit from those changes:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/63500-how-donahoe-broke-ebay?source=d_email
http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/06/smbusiness/ebay_alternatives.fsb/index.htm?source=yahoo_quote

Ebay--Who's Running the Asylum

It would seem that the In-mates are now running the Asylum that once was the on-line auction giant--can it be saved? My local news' headline on the late night news claimed that Ebay was lowering its listing fees, but the news missed what else Ebay was changing.

In the fall of 2006, I took the plunge and started selling on Ebay. At first it was just stuff I had on hand--then I found these little Disney Stitch Capsule Toys (well mostly cell phone charms --they are just so darn cute) I went a little wild buying them, but they also sold rather well (I got them for at the most 3.00 dollars a piece and have sold over 300.00 dollars worth and I'm not the most studious seller--so that was over a 4 month period). I kept saying I was going to open an Ebay store, but listing is a pain for me and slow tedious work--so I kept putting it off and then the slow season hit about April of 2007 and I had 10 listings and nothing sold. So I stopped till August when I had a major fiasco with selling a plastic toy to someone in Naples (you can't ship plastic toys to Italy). I got the customer his Stitch charm but it was a nail biter and ended up costing me 20 dollars (I paid for the second charm's postage, after all it was my mistake for not knowing I couldn't mail plastic toys to Italy) along with a small lie to Italian Customs---lets just say I mailed two paperback books and used a Stitch charm and some plastic jelly bean eggs as the packaging material for the books.

Of course sometime in all of this Ebay started to make changes to their feedback policies and other things. And now Ebay is planning on big changes to feedback to virtually leave the seller at the mercy of unscrupulous buyers. I have had no bad buyers. I baby mine and always pay for mistakes out of my own pocket and I package very well and tend to give free stuff. However, I don't sell a lot and the new changes coming seem aimed at driving the small sellers off of Ebay. I liked the idea of the Yard sale on line but sadly Ebay only seems to want the BIG POWER SELLERS and the little guy is left to drowned in all this new red tape---the stake in the heart is that in feedback the seller and buyer could rate the transaction with a positive, a neutral (which ebay used to see as not necessarily bad but now sees as a negative) and a negative--but in the new Ebay world a seller can only give a buyer a positive feedback---this is to make the buyers feel safer or so they claim.

here's a link to the changes:
http://pages.ebay.com/sell/update08/rewards/index.html?ov=004KO#4

and here's just a taste of some of them:

Safe Payments
To help ensure more buyers are protected, in some cases we'll require sellers to offer either PayPal or a merchant credit card to customers. PayPal buyer protection covers most qualified transactions up to $2000.00 USD.

Sellers will only be required to provide this safe payment option to customers in certain situations:

• For listings in riskier categories, like computers and cell phones
• If the seller has 5% or more dissatisfied customers
• If the seller has less than 100 Feedback

In a small number of cases (fewer than 5% of all payments on eBay), PayPal will hold payment funds until either the buyer has left positive Feedback or 21 days have passed without a claim.

Feedback Changes
The eBay Feedback system was designed to provide a simple, honest, accurate record of member experiences. Focusing on customer service includes doing everything we can to grow customer confidence in our sellers.

• Buyers will only be able to receive positive Feedback.
• Positive repeat customer Feedback will count (up to 1 Feedback from the same buyer per week.)
• Feedback more than 12-months old won't count towards your Feedback percentage.
• When a buyer doesn't respond to the Unpaid Item (UPI) process the negative or neutral Feedback they have left for that transaction will be removed.
• When a member is suspended, all their negative and neutral Feedback will be removed.
• Buyers must wait 3 days before leaving negative or neutral Feedback for sellers with an established track record, to encourage communication.
• All Feedback must be left within 60 days (compared to 90 days today) of listing end to encourage timely Feedback and discourage abuse.
• Buyers will be held more accountable when sellers report an unpaid item or commit other policy violations.

I sure am going to have a lot of Stitch Charms with no place to sell them.