A Solution for eBay and Its Frustrated Seller Community 47 comments
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Not a day passes by without word spreading of another eBay seller boycott. If you were truly to believe each seller, eBay (EBAY) is the most evil of all companies. There is never a word of praise for the company that made them what they are today. Before eBay existed, these sellers were likely selling their wares at various markets throughout the United States. Yes, they would freeze on cold days and sizzle on those days that were scorchers. If they sold their wares through trade shows, etc, they would pay steep fees. Then along came eBay and turned them all into instant business gurus. The sellers started to whine with each seller increase, albeit it a few cents there a few cents here. These sellers lambasted eBay. "How dare such a company take food from our table" was their common mantra. Little did they see the improvements on the site.
For example, eBay purchased PayPal, which made it easier for buyers to pay with credit cards and thus these buyers made more purchases. eBay purchased Shopping.com to draw more eyes toward eBay's seller's wares. eBay even started up a free classified listing sites in the U.S. called Kijiji for all of those sellers who would like to list for free. Yet all these moves are still not enough. eBay announced earlier this year that they were going to reduce fees, but the sellers are still not satisfied. It has reached a point that these sellers will always whine and complain.
I have come up with a simple solution that will make both the seller community and eBay happy. eBay can post a link on their website with the following info: "For all of those sellers who are upset with eBay, please click on this link and complete the following to be removed permanently from our site. We understand the difficulty you are experiencing. We tried to satisfy your needs to no avail. If after leaving the site you continue to harass us through vile messages, threats etc, a restraining order will be put into place. If you have had a change of heart and decide to come back, you would have to go through an appeal process that may take up to two years. We understand your complaints and are satisfying your request."
There you have it. Simple, indeed. A way to satisfy both eBay and the sellers.
Did you know that Channel Advisor did away with their lifetime guarantee of 120 per year to subscribers of their service and are forcing their loyal subscribers to pay $29.95 per month? How is that for price gouging? How about your local gym membership charging $200 extra per year to sign up? Have the prices in your local supermarket changed this year? How about your transportation costs? Movie tickets? Sports Venues? If you are a whiny eBay seller, put all of those costs into perspective and you will see how ridiculous your complaints truly are.
I have been a seller on eBay since its inception and have never complained about a fee increase since I realize eBay is still and will always be the #1 place for e-commerce. Period.
Disclosure: Author has a long position in EBAY
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It is the fact that after a buyer buys a product, I send them an invoice, after 10 days I send a reminder and after another 5 days another reminder, then 3 days later I file a non paying bidder alert and then after about 10 days I finally get my selling fees back. During this almost 2 month process, the buyer does not even attempt to contact me or tell me the reason for his nonpayment it is still with great reluctance that I leave negative.
Being a seller, I know how a negative feels (I have received 11 out of about 15,000 fb and do not feel I deserved any, but that is another story). I do not leave negatives lightly, but that is my decision and ability to do so. This basic right has been taken from me.
The other change that eBay has made that could hurt me in the long run is that I ship to a seller that does not have a confirmed address. To have a confirmed address, the seller has to have a credit card on file. Even I do not have a confirmed address; I have gone through all the bells and whistles only to get a "verified" address. I refuse to have a credit card on file with if not the biggest at least one of the biggest payment processing presence on the web. If anyone were to be a hijackers dream, PayPal would be it and they have been hit. (If they were FDIC insured, I would not have such reservations). I also have a copy of a letter from an ex-PayPal employee that sheds some definite dark sides to using their services. So now, if we do not ship to a "confirmed" address, PayPal, at its discretion, can hold my money for that transaction for 21 days (until it clears the bank statements) and still requires us to ship within a 7 day period. What happened to the seller protection and what potential losses can I expect to see if a customer decides after receiving their product to say they did not get it (thus requiring an increase in shipping costs to request a signature) or that they did not order the item. There is nothing to stop PayPal from returning the money to the customer and I am out both the product AND the money! It can and HAS happened to me under the old policy and can only see this possibility increasing.
All we are asking is for more protection for the seller and respect for our business. I do not like price increases, but that is a fact of life. My (our) major concern in general is the seemingly total disrespect for the seller who are the ones buttering their bread. We need both buyers and sellers to keep this marketplace a valid venue and fun place all parties concerned. eBay was built by the small buyer and seller and with its growth, the profits have decreased and the total costs increased. I have finally grown to the point where I have hired 2 employees and was feeling confident in my position within the company. All of this bickering and backstabbing by both parties is only hurting eBay’s reputation and thus further cutting into the bottom line.
eBay IS listening and have hired a full time, unbiased person to create a venue that we all can voice our opinion without being removed from the posting sites which should increase the communication between the company and the community. I have personally made hundred of calls and letters to the company about a program I have developed and spent THOUSANDS of dollars investing in and not one person has been able to send me into the right direction for answers to my development issues. Perhaps this forum is the best thing eBay has done in a long, long time. You can read about it at: money.cnn.com/2008/03/...
Thank you for listening,
Shary
BTW, my user name is Vintageaddict2
Don't mind me quoting here:
"For all of those sellers who are upset with eBay, please click on this link and complete the following to be removed permanently from our site. We understand the difficulty you are experiencing. We tried to satisfy your needs to no avail. If after leaving the site you continue to harass us through vile messages, threats etc, a restraining order will be put into place. If you have had a change of heart and decide to come back, you would have to go through an appeal process that may take up to two years. We understand your complaints and are satisfying your request."
Last sentance is just blatantly wrong , feeBay do NOT listen to the hundreds of thouands of small/medium sellers who have built this 800 pound gorilla over the years.
The sellers built it up from scratch and I'm sure founder Paul did not treat those earlier folks in the way they are being treated now
Your dictatorial entry above must be out of ebay management 101 or apart from a few technical terms something out of Orwells 1984 !
If you cant report unbiased facts and why report , however with a log position in ebay this could not happen could it Paul.
This new blog that feebay is organizing, frank open discussion or more double speak ?
There is enough in the world for every mans need , not his greed !!
Greedbay knows no bounds for pilfering every last dollar , , pound or sheikel out of their customers (sellers) pocket
Watch MAYDAY May the 1st Sellers BOYCOTT (and a lot of buyers joining ranks now) and see how many combine sellers there are .
So here is an alternate solution before the empire crumbles , listen to what the majority of sellers are saying :
They don't want restrictive trade practices and the emafia butting into every facet of their business.
Comments in other articles say's it all about your dictatorial attitude regarding sellers.
In most of the cases you state above price increases can be overcome by choosing an alternate service , business or supermarket/market .
As feebay is currently a greed orientated monopoly folks have had no choice .
They will have many in a short time , as other auction services improve and expand their services .
If you are a wagering man Paul , care to place a bet that ebay will still be in their monopolistic position in 12 months time ?
They will not be, they are self destructing at an ever increasing rate .
Others have seen a golden opportuniuty being handed to them on a plate.
How can that be justified? The seller paid for that auction! If buyers want to see his shipping rating they are smart enough to look at his starts. And if I saw 4/5 stars on a movie, restaurant, hotel, etc. I would think that was POSITIVE.
And for the poster who mentioned bad sellers and retaliatory feedback. That situation definitely goes both ways! Some buyers are plain awful and know how to play the game. They say something is stained, broken, missing, etc. but they don't want to send the item back....they just want a full or partial refund! They do chargebacks 3 months after the fact with no notice. They say it was bought with "unauthorized funds" so you are out the money and the item. They try to extort positive feedback. I could go on and on. The sellers need protection from bad buyers. How can we know if a buyer is bad if the only feedback that can be left is positive?
I would too, if I were you! lmho!
* A 4% to 67% increase on final fee's. (varies depending on price structure, check charts.) www.hammertapresource....">www.powersellersunite....;br>www.hammertapresource.....
*All the years you have worked on keeping and growing a Positive Feedback percentage : GONE. It is now a 12 month rating period.
(Although your entire feedback history will still be able to be seen when accessed.)
Unbalanced feedback:
Seller's can only leave a positive. Buyers can give a positive, a neutral [neutrals will count towards your 5% dissatisfaction rate] and a negative.
The potential of abused negative feedback by a competitor, unknowledgeable buyer or a retaliatory buyer will have an effect on your account in these ways:
(Good Buyers do not be offended I am not referring to you. These other buyers do exist and must be acknowledged)
The Small seller who sells fewer items per year will be impacted on their percentage rating far greater compared to the much larger sellers who sell 1000's of items per month. If your percentage drops below 5% due to neutral or negative feedback or a DSR (Detailed Seller Rating) of 4.5 this is what will be required of you:
What Pay Pal will require from you:
PayPal will require sellers to accept either PayPal or a merchant credit card and will have a 21 day hold on you account if you meet this criterion:
(21 day hold means shipping your product without the money from that purchase or risking receiving a negative due to poor shipping time.)
*Seller's Dissatisfied Buyers more than 5% in the last 30 days
*Seller's Detailed Seller Ratings in the last 30 days less than 4.5
*Final price for the item (high ticket items, not based on feedback rating)
*Shipping & handling fee (to much charged, not based on feedback rating)
*Seller's tenure as an Ebay member less than 6-months (not based on feedback rating)
*Seller's total number of Feedback less than 100 (not based on feedback rating)
*Seller is listing items in higher risk categories (and sub categories) (not based on feedback rating)
(Pay Pal has reserved the right to make an exception per individual basis. For more info please use links provided)
What Ebay will require from you if you meet this criterion on your feedback rating:
*Sellers will get a decreased exposure in Best Match. (Buyers will have a harder time finding your auctions because other sellers will be placed above yours first)
*Your Auction page will have a note embedded by Ebay which will contain a red warning message in the Meet the Seller section indicating the Seller has a low Detailed Seller Rating (DSR rating.) This will happened when your DSR is a 4.1 or lower (4.1 is considered below the average and therefore not a good rating).www.ebaychatter.com/th...
*Sellers will not be allowed to qualify to be a Power Seller and/or will lose their Power Seller status. (Below a 4.5 DSR [12 month average] or 98% feedback rating [30 day average])
*Power sellers will lose all discounts if they do not maintain a rating of 4.5 or higher in all four DSRs within a 30 day period.
*Power sellers are judged differently in many areas. For more info go to: pages.ebay.com/service...
Further information can be found at Ebay site:
pages.ebay.com/sell/up...
Are you ready for these changes?
By the way, I ship for free and/or exact shipping amount charged by the post office which is printed on the label for the buyer to see. I do not charge for supplies or handling. I have not achieved a 5 on my DSR. I believe buyers are uninformed when it comes to the DSR system and do not understand anything below a 5 is detrimental to the seller on Ebay.
Sellers on eBay have those same free speech rights everywhere *except* eBay. eBay does not tolerate any kind of dissent, on their venue and that is their right. It IS their venue.
Everything eBay did 'for sellers' was NOT done for sellers it was done to enhance eBay's business. That is what a corporation is supposed to do, grow. You have a new product or service, your customers pay for it, you grow.
The key phrase there is *your customers pay for it*, eBay is not a retailer, it is a venue. Sellers are retailers and we are eBay's customers, we buy their product or service and we pay for it.
Sellers on eBay can take their *junk* product and their *noise* elsewhere, since most of us are buyers too, we can take that activity elsewhere also. Other venues may not have the traffic yet, but neither did eBay in the beginning, I know this, I was there.
Yes there are rotten sellers out there, I have been ripped off by them too. It would be nice if eBay enforced their policies on high volume bad sellers who make them a pile of money but in the corporate world that eBay has become, it is not going to happen.
If eBay has lost touch to the extent that they no longer know who their customers are it IS time for us to move on.
I believe what most of us mourn is the eBay Community, but that too can be rebuilt, I'll see you guys * Elsewhere *, maybe up the River, on the Moon or in the Pond!
For years now GREED-BAY has been getting more and more HOSTILE against we smaller sellers....the ones who have actually made eBay what it is today.
The Straw that BROKE the Camels back is Greed-Bays announcement that we sellers will no longer be able to post TRUE feedback for the many, many bad sellers that eBay has been recruiting the last few years.
Buyers can post negative feedback for any reason, or no reason at all to the sellers, but buyers will not even be able to post TRUE feedback for non-paying bidders.
Yes, the continued increasing of rates are totally uncalled for too. Yes, costs are rising on ALL PHYSICAL GOODS ITEMS, however rates for intangibles such as electronic listings only rise because of Greed. The old time proverb has been....."cheaper by the dozen", So therefore by the millions it should be getting even lower cost per each.
As PROOF of eBays wealth....just look where their (former) CEO Meg was listed as the worlds 8th most wealthy woman last year....by Forbes or Time....I do not recall who does that listing each year.
I seemed to elicit quite a angry response to my first article titled "A Solution for Ebay & their Frustrated Seller Community. Through various articles, boycotts etc, the concensus seems to be that sellers are fed up with Ebay and are leaving in droves.
I simply suggested a link which would allow them to fulfill their request. Notice these frustrated sellers are always approaching Ebay with angry comments and threats. It reminds me of all of the so called celebrities; George Clooney, Susan Sarandon, etc who promised to leave the country if George Bush was elected President. However they are still here to this day. They had eight years to leave the country. Why haven't they left? Because they realize that there is no better country out there. The same can be said for Ebay. For example so many people chimed in and left comments to my article. However if these people have already left Ebay and are finished doing business with Ebay why are they still leaving comments about Ebay.
Enough is enough already. For example I love Sports however the ticket prices have gone through the roof; thus I do not attend any games. I have the freedom not to attend the sports venue; thus I do not which is a very simple logical way to look at the situation. I have been selling on Ebay since inception and Channel Advisor, formerly auction rover recently announced that they were doing away with my lifetime membership fee of $120 per year. If I remain with Channel Advisor I would have to pay $29.95 per month. How is that for price gouging?
This move barely created a stir in the Ebay community. This is ironic as Scott Wingo, CEO of Channel Advisor is always lambasting Ebay for their price increases. Think about it, an increase from $10 per month (supposedly guaranteed for life) to $29.95 per month for basically the same service. Can you guess what I am going to do? I am going to Leave Channel Advisor. I will not whine and whine for months on end
For those who stated I have no clue about Ebay; I have been a seller on Ebay longer than if not equal than you. Ebay did use to use billpoint and it flopped as most buyers and sellers where using Paypal. Thus by acquiring Paypal Ebay made it easier for buyers and sellers. Ebay had purchased Kruse International and Butterfields and Butterfields. Both companies flopped with sellers thus Ebay sold them for a loss.
The huge majority of the buyers and sellers I have met on Ebay have been wonderful. As for the law of averages you will always have one or two out of 500 that cannot be satisfied no matter how hard you try. Additionally the post office will always wind up losing at least three out of 200 of your packages once a year. However the majority of people understand problems that cannot be controlled. Thus buyers will not hold sellers hostage with any new feedback rating system. If you are a deceptive seller and charge $15 or more for domestic postage under one pound or sell inferior products than of course you are going to be upset. After all no one hates the authority more than the criminal element. For those of us who are honest sellers the feedback system will not effect us and only make the Ebay community continue to grow.
I only encountered what was fraud once on the site since inception and Ebay went out of their way to help me. Thus from the so called stories people tell about frustrated customer service you are probably contacting the wrong people to being with.
Regarding the price increases.the higher your item sells for the more you make and the more Ebay makes. For example a famous actress once e-mailed me and asked me to sell her an old deck of playing cards she was planning to throw away. These cards went on to sell for over $300 dollars on Ebay. Thus this actress was expecting zero dollars. She wound up selling her cards for $300 dollars. So from an angry sellers comments Ebay took a percentage of her $300 dollars. However if it wasn't for Ebay she would have made 0 dollars.
Ebay has also pumped most of their funds into making their site and paypal safe. Try going to another site and see how safe they truly are? If you really left, you may get fleeced and wish you were back at Ebay.
A company has to increase fees in order to enhance and make the site better than ever. Again this is a free country if you don't like Ebay leave already and quit whining. What hubris, to think that you are all irreplacable. The minute you leave there is someone to take your place. If you put as much effort into your constant whining as you do into your business you would be a success.
Thus for the final time, for those sellers who issue threats and vile comments. please stop whining and leave already. That will give sellers like myself and others who have pride in Ebay your business(if we are to believe you contributed any). For it is common logic that most whiners contribute the least and are a deterrent to morale Just look at the NFL Football New York Giants, the year that Tiki Barber, their biggest whiner left, they won the Super Bowl.
Thank you,
ebaymonday.blogspot.co...
Paul Rapa
I have left Ebay and am selling else where but I would love to return to Ebay this is why I keep fighting. Ebay is worth fighting over....to a point.
For me IT IS ABOUT THE FEEDBACK CHANGES.
I am one of the seller's with an outstanding feedback profile and DSR rating. I achieved this rating by working hard for 10 years and being an honest, trustworthy seller. I will not let my feedback be a victim to an unbalanced feedback system. In my experience Ebay has not protected me against unwarranted feedback. I only have one negative from years ago when a buyer confused me with someone else back in a time when you need not complete an auction to leave feedback. She left a positive with an apology right after the negative. It is in black and white on their own feedback board and they still refuse to remove it after years of trying. My seller name is reineeos and it is on the last page of my ID if you would like to confirm what I am stating. I would have 100% if not for this negative.
Do you even understand what is going to happen to us small seller's when all the new changes take effect? I do not believe Ebay will protect me. They haven't in the past why should I believe they would now?
Let me also point out. My ego can handle getting a negative I deserve. It is the negative's I don't deserve that worry me and how they will effect my bottom line.
With the new changes we will be penalized for someone else's actions. Ebay has directly entwined how we make money, how much we make and when we will receive it all dependent on our feedback profile and DSR rating's.
I do not believe you can judge everyone's experience by your own. I believe the variables such as what type of product you sell and how much it is can influence the type of buyer you attract. Therefore not everyone's experience is the same.
Any community (and yes Ebay is it's own community) will suffer when you do not allow equal rights to all. Then again, I do not believe this is not about the buyers and sellers.
IT IS ABOUT how Ebay can make more money thru the manipulation of the new changes directly linked to the sellers feedback.
Scot Wingo from ChannelAdvisor here. We never offered any lifetime guarantee of any pricing and als it's a mis characterization to say we are increasing prices.
In fact we are end-of-lifing our Pro product and offering people the ability to move to another product, MarketplaceAdvisor Standard that yes does cost more, BUT it is a different product and has vastly more and advanced features. eBay raises prices and delivers less (buyers) which is a cat of a different color.
Scot
Ebay thinks they are invincible - so did Enron, Nixon, Rome, and the Titanic.....