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No Christmas for eBay Sellers

I can't BELIEVE IT.....Kudos to a blogger [Dinah Balk] and stock commentator who actually UNDERSTANDS the problems on Ebay and doesn't fall for the "guidance" hype!

THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I HAVE SEEN THE REAL THING RE: EBAY.

STOCKHOLDERS TAKE NOTE!

eBay: Bottom Is a Few Months Away

Bob C...appreciate the correction. Thanks.

eBay: Bottom Is a Few Months Away

I was just wondering something...Is the person who wrote this article the same as the person responding to some of the posts? That is...is "Dan Buchanon" shown at the top left as the author of the article the same as the "Dan Buchannon" that shows up as the one who is providing the comments here? [Note the difference in spelling].

I have not heard of an author's name being spelled incorrectly in two different articles or a person spelling his OWN name [as shown in the responses below the article] incorrectly 3 times?

Just wondering.

eBay: Bottom Is a Few Months Away

Mr Bohanon...I do respect your position as an analyst. And yes, I have been a small seller on Ebay. But I have 30 years of experience in customer service and being a successful retail executive [Used to run a $250 Million Dollar Biz and so have multiple points of view to draw upon.] I am retired and WAS having FUN selling on Ebay.

You are correct...Ebay management doesn't view small sellers as viable any longer. What makes that the correct decision? Could that be the REASON driving the tanking of the stock?

Business 101 says what will make a business successful is 1) a successful business model and 2) Being DIFFERENT/UNIQUE as much as possible for as long as possible from your competition.

Ebay HAD a successful business model. And it WAS different from other [online] retailers as it was a worldwide flea market. And try as they might, no other entity could match Ebay's traffic or infrastructure [at least the platform they presented on the web].

Now it seems that Ebay wants to dismiss what made them successful and grasp what Amazon has made successful.

As my experience has shown...once you start chasing your competition and chucking your core business you are doomed to fail.
If you EVOLVE...building on your base and adding on and enhancing what you do best, you have the opportunity to succeed.

I once worked for a successful multibillion dollar retailer. It OWNED the business in the markets they were in and their customers were more than enthusiastic. None of the competitors could grab even a slice of their customer base.

Their business was 75% female oriented categories and 25% male oriented categories. And the two businesses had a symbiotic relationship.

Like Ebay...a new CEO replaced the one who built the biz and retired.
He came in and decided that the male oriented businesses did not generate the margin percents that the female businesses generated.
So he threw out all the male oriented businesses and expanded all the female oriented businesses.

Within 4 years the business was gone..the new CEO got his Golden Parachute. What he didn't figure on...by eliminating the 25% male oriented businesses, he would have to INCREASE the remaining businesses 33% JUST TO ACHIEVE THE PREVIOUS SUCCESS. [100% less 25%=75%. 75%+ [33%X75%]= 100%]. There is NO WAY to guarantee a 33% basic business increase through same store basic sales.

To wake up one day and decide: "Amazon is printing money so they must be doing something right"...let's do what Amazon is doing and maybe we will revitalize the business....is VERY shortsighted. And throwing out [or deemphasizing] the auction business is deadly. EVERY online retailer has fixed pricing. ONLY ONE had a successful auction business. Ebay is a late entry into online retailing...even as they are NOT an online retailer. They have no warehouses. No inventory. But they have convinced the analysts that "auction is passe...fixed price is the way to go." And so now that that is fact...let's get there. As in the example I gave above, They are deemphasizing the auction business and expanding the fixed price business. In the process they are driving small sellers away in favor of megalith retailers who in many cases, also have their own websites. How is that keeping them different????

So you cannot expand the auction business any more and the shareholders want GROWTH? Then MAINTAIN the auction business and ENHANCE the seller experience on the auction side while growing the Fixed price business and making further acquisitions that make sense a la Paypal.

What would have happened in its day if Ford, having established success with its brand...added the Mercury and Lincoln brands. And at the same time tossed the Ford Brand????

And that helps explain why Ebay stock has a 52 week high of over $40 and a low of $15 THIS WEEK [in spite of literally printing money] and Amazon has a high on $101 and a low of $51. Or better...Ebay is currently down 60% over a year and Amazon is down 45%.

How many new 52 week lows does it take to have ebay and the analysts realize they are on the WRONG TRACK?

Oh and sir..I am not pained by the Ebay changes. I marvel at what I have seen. How very short sighted some people are. I have seen it time and time again. Because bonuses and golden parachutes often have NO BEARING on actual company performance, some execs move from company to company, marking their territories with non-sensical changes and collecting their booty only to move on and repeat the process. If those bonuses and parachutes were RESULTS oriented...you can best these CEO's would do a lot more LISTENING to their customers before they act.

eBay: Bottom Is a Few Months Away

I need to correct one thing on my last post...

Number 4 line 2 where it says 75- it should be 750. Typo.

123 said he didn't understand the term sellthru...

If you list 100 items for 7 days and you sell 33 of them during that time you have a 33% sellthru...33% of the items you listed sold.

If you list 500 items and 166 sell you also have a 33% sellthru.

Sellthru=the number of items sold divided by the number of items listed.

eBay: Bottom Is a Few Months Away

In response to the latest 123 post 10/10 9:11 PM

I will address only the numbered points you made.

1) You are correct. In the ebay user agreement it says in essence, "We can do or not do anything we want to you at any time and by using the site you agree to that". [Note: I am being kind in the terminology]. ALL websites, because they are unregulated, say something similar.

However, when Ebay was young and wanted to attract sellers, they offered a program that was "we will offer you a 1% discount on ALL fees payable on a monthly basis...provided you link our invoices to your bank accounts and ONLY have your payments paid by withdrawal ACH's. This program will contiinue as long as 1) you ONLY pay by reverse ACH or 2) there are never insufficient funds when our ACH is created." [paraphrased]. I signed up and held my end of the bargain...fulfilling 1) and 2). Once the fee increases and other changes took effect on Ebay..they "slipped in" the elimination of that program with 5 days notice. In other words...my fees increased up to 43% while my discount that I signed up for was taken away...and was replaced by discounts available on PART of the fees if untrained buyers rated me well.

It doesn't matter if anyone else offers me a 1% discount. It was part of my cost structure and I made a committment...so MY costs as a 7 year Ebay seller went up 1% MORE than shorter tenured sellers by the elimination of the discount. The AMOUNT won't hurt me much...it's the THOUGHT added to all the other THOUGHTS that distrubs me.

2) How much you don't understand. I NEVER SAID increased postage costs were Ebay's fault.
The issue is this.
a) Ebay charges a listing fee based on your initial listing price
b) The listing fee is ONLY on the listing price...not the S/H charge applicable to the listing
c) Previously, sellers could charge their estimated shipping costs PLUS a REASONABLE shipping and handling charge to include packing materials, labels, trips to ship etc. These shipping and handling charges were shown in the auctions and bidders were told what the charges represented.
d) When the postal service would raise rates previously, fair sellers would raise their S/H charges to cover the increases
e) The Postal Service raised their rates 20% or more with their last two increases. In addition, gas prices doubled costing more to mail shipments
f) AT THE SAME TIME Ebay rolled out DSR's [on shipping time] which caused more frequent trips to the Post Office with the higher gas prices to maximize your potential DSR. Normally S/H charges would be increased to compensate.
g) ON TOP OF THAT and AT THE SAME TIME Ebay reduced the maximum I can charge for shipping and handling by 50% over what I was charging...and made it MANDATORY or my listings would be blocked.
h) The ONLY way I can minimize the effect of this change is to RAISE MY STARTING PRICE of each auction [or institute a higher reserve].
i) Since Ebay listing fees are bracketed, when I raise my starting price I increase the amount I have to pay in each auction for listing fees.

So No...Postal rate increases are not Ebay's fault...but the changes and restrictions forcing me to pay higher listing fees as a result ON TOP OF their listing fee increases ARE Ebay's fault.

3) I don't know what terminology you don't understand. How I know Best Match and not the economy caused my unit sellthru to fall from 33% on average to 12-17%? Because it didn't happen gradually. I sold worldwide. If I had sales percents drop or fluctuate gradually over 8-10 weeks or more I would chalk it up to the economy. When my sell thru drops from a CONSISTENT [over 7 years] 33% or so to 17% THE SAME WEEK Best Match is instituted and has REMAINED at 12-17% since BEST MATCH'S introduction when nothing else in my selling practices or items has changed...I can only believe BEST MATCH is the cause.

If you want to know what BEST MATCH IS...it is a default in search that rewards those Ebay wants to reward and punishes those Ebay wants to punish. IT USED TO BE that the default in search was TIME ENDING SOONEST. Now the default is BEST MATCH. If you are a diamond seller [highest volume seller] your listings would appear at the top of the list when a bidder searches for an item. If you have lower DSR's, your listings can be 10 pages from the front...no matter WHEN the ending time is. Therefore your sales will suffer EVEN THOUGH you pay the same or MORE than the high volume seller to list.

4) Shortage or shrink is a term you may understand from Retail parlance. You factor shortage into your business model. Obviously if you are listing 75- items a month and have 2 non-paying bidders it is a nominal hit on your bottom line. But if you NOW list 150 items a month and have 10 non-paying bidders..it is a major impact. Buyers have been emboldened by Ebay because they can never be given negative feedback. Used to be that a few negative feedbacks in a short period of time would get bad buyers kicked off Ebay. No longer. Now buyers can break the Ebay contract [by not paying for instance] AND ALSO trash sellers by leaving NEGATIVE FEEDBACK for the SELLER for reporting the non-payment to Ebay. Some buyers bid for the heck of it with no intention of paying like it's a game. Now there is no downside to doing that and it shows.
5) My fees will go up BECAUSE
1) EBAY RAISED ITS FEES 25-40% and more [printed fact]
2) My sellthru has declined 16-21% as stated above. Translation, I will pay TWICE as much in listing fees [unlike Amazon, you have to pay listing fees whether your item will sell or not] because instead of a 33& sell-thru I will have 12-17%. That means I am paying listing fees on 16-21% of the items that last year sold through [and therefore you recouped those fees as part of your shipping and handling charges] and this year you will not.

I am not so naive that NONE of the sales decline is as a result of the economic turmoil. That's why I am jsut LEAVING EBAY as my primary source of income [and only listing 20% as much as last year] and have moved on to doing something else to earn income. So I don't need to REPLACE Ebay because I'm not doing similar selling somewhere else.

Other good small sellers [I previously sold $60-100K a year] are leaving for many of the same reasons I outlined in the many entries I left above.

If you can conceive of the Mall of America in Minnesota [2nd largest mall in North America with 5 levels and 500 stores] telling all sellers under a certain size to go away...and there are 6 anchors and 100 other stores left after that edict. and the hundred stores left have their rent increased by 20% while the biggest don't pay any rent at all.

1) Will the remaining stores be happy? 2) With the store selection reduced and the prices in the smaller stores increased to cover the higher costs, will the 12,500 parking spaces ever be full? As less customers come into the mall how long until some of the 100 stores left shut down or move?

eBay: Bottom Is a Few Months Away

Analysts: When have you EVER seen a stock with no debt, no inventory, flush with Billions in cash and Billions more coming in, ALWAYS beating Wall Street estimate guidance quarter after quarter, have a stock performance like Ebay???????????

Stock Performance:
1 month -31.2%
3 month -43%
6 month -49.7%
1 Year -59.9%


What does that tell you????

1) Shareholders...some are sellers and are fed up?
2) Shareholders who are NOT sellers are reading Ebay blogs and threads and are mortified?
3) Many many disenfranchised sellers ARE ALSO BUYERS AS WELL....GONE!

There has to be a reason that forces are burying a stock of a company with such a great balance sheet. And it isn't just the current financial meltdown doing it...it has been happening for a long while now.

I am no professional analyst [and (disclosure) I don't own any Ebay stock nor am I shorting it] but if Wall Street looks 12-18 months out and this battering is what's happening to the stock isn't there a problem here?

123, Mr Buchannon and other analysts...CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?

eBay: Bottom Is a Few Months Away

To: Dan Buchannon final thought:

If Ebay had not ticked off its customers, the sellers, and they had instead embarked on a path to ENHANCE THE SMALL SELLER EXPERIENCE instead of treating them like the plague, and trying to attract more buyers directly, Ebay would be thriving now and wouldn't have needed to cut costs [so drastically] and lay off 10% of its workforce. Conversely to my last comment...more small sellers with their unique items, more positive word of mouth...more positive word of mouth, even more small sellers...more small sellers...more buyers...UPWARD SPIRAL, Better year over year results, higher stock price. DUH!

Suppose URBAN OUTFITTERS, a current retail darling, decided to shun their base...the hip young crowd and moreso would start to knock them in their advertising, customer service and assortment...because in management's mind, these hip crowd's PARENTS had more disposable income. So they aimed all their promotions to the PARENTS, patted down every young hipster that came into the store and charged them more.

What do you think would happen to their business?

Lest you think that it's not the same comparison...suppose all the changes in direction were dictated BY THE LANDLORD of the mall where Urban Outfitters was located??????????

NOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

eBay: Bottom Is a Few Months Away

To: Dan Buchannon

I appreciate your thesis. But you don't get it.

You say: " My analysis is based on management's management of that business, not specific experiences or offerings to sellers." and "my story. It has nothing to do fees, seller ratings and the like which I am sure are truly providing you with angst that is reflected in slowing growth in marketplaces organisation."

It has EVERYTHING TO DO WITH "fees, seller ratings and the like" and "Management's management of the business".

As mentioned above from others in their comments, Ebay has no inventory and sells nothing. They are a PLATFORM. If unique sellers all leave, then buyers will leave. If buyers leave, then there is no one on the platform. Then Ebay collects no fees from their core business ...Paypal, Ebay's cash cow..Paypal's performance declines because they are not getting fees off of Ebay sales. [Yet I admit Paypal has expanded their base to other sources of income such as virtual cashier and other websites].

The outcome may never be 100% but the DIRECTION caused by management changes at Ebay is NOT helping the future outlook for the core business. And it's NOT about auction vs fixed price either.
And THAT won't help the stock price because year over year performance of the EBAY PLATFORM will decline.

Ebay has destroyed the positive word of mouth cheerleading that once was their biggest asset. You can't BUY that.

eBay: Bottom Is a Few Months Away

123..I didn't mention one thing...the reason DSR's are such a hot button with sellers is that they have a great impact on profitability for sellers. DSR's determine how much of a discount on Ebay commissions you get at the end of the month. Discounts range from 0 to 20% so the amounts can be significant.

I lost a 10% discount last month because ONE BUYER decided to give me the lowest mark on communication. I sent an email within 1 HOUR of his winning bid to thank him for his business and give him payment details. I sent an email within 1 HOUR of his payment beinf received thanking him for the payment and providing him a tracking number for his shipment. I shipped his item [actually took it to the post office] within 1/2 hour of his payment and confirmed shipment. And yet he gave me the lowest score on communication. Why? Because I didn't leave him [positive] feedback IMMEDIATELY upon receipt of his payment! [Note: leaving feedback immediately or at all is NOT a requirement under Ebay rules and the buyer never communicated with me that leaving immediate feedback was an issue for him].

So I sold him an item costing $10, shipped immediately and his DSR's cost me $20 in lost discounts against Ebay fees. Net profit on this transaction? Minus $10 + shipping.


It's this kind of stuff that gets sellers emotional.

eBay: Bottom Is a Few Months Away

123: You want quantify. I'll make it simple.

1) Ebay used to have a 1% discount on ALL FEES not just Final Value Fees if you had their monthly fees taken directly from your bank account. I had the 1% for 7 years. 6 months ago they announced that within 24 hours the fees would be gone. My costs then went up $100 a year
2) Within the last 18 months, the Post Office has raised IT'S costs to sellers...an average of 20%. My postage costs went up $2400 a year. Ebay has just instituted maximum fixed costs on my category, If I left my starting price where it was I would lost $7000 a year based on their maximum costs I would be allowed to charge. Instead I have to raise by start prices which cost me an additional $3000 a year in initial listing fees.
3) I have been selling on Ebay 7 years. For the first 5.5 years, I could count on like clockwork, my sell thru percentage. I did my research, had my starting prices competitive with other sellers and along with what the item had been selling for on Ebay. I COULD COUNT ON SELLING 33% OF THE NUMBER OF ITEMS LISTED. My wife and I would marvel on how that would happen EVERY TIME even though the titles changed. Now, through "Best Match" and DSR's my sell-thru at best is 17% and averages about 12%. Example...I used to list 500 items for a week. I would sell 170. List 100? I would sell 35. Now I list 200 and sell 25. All because of "Best Match" and DSR's and Corporate Customers being placed first. And that's when I had LEGITIMATE S/H charges in the listings and 100% feedback!
4) When there was two way feedback, I would have 2 non-paying bidders maybe a month...and I could block bidders who obviously were troublemakers as seen in feedback they received from others. Now I have 5-10 a month and they threaten me with bad DSR's unless I allow them to pay on THEIR TERMS. It's not so much the money lost [$50-$150 more a month lost] but the TIME it takes to chase these poeple, communicate and file reports with Ebay. So I am getting MORE NPB's on LESS LISTINGS.
5) I have projected that my TOTAL FEE COSTS as a procentage of sales and including listing costs for items that don't sell will rise 20% this year. And that is totally due to Ebay fee changes, S/H caps and sell-thru deterioration based mainly on BEST MATCH search engine. And my customer service is impeccable...but my DSR's and therefore Powerseller discounts don't reflect that.

I could go on and on. But I've spent enough time. Ebay wants the big corporate sellers. Donohoe does NOT want a "flea market" platform that had been the success of Ebay over the years. He wants what Amazon has. When a marketplace leader starts emulating the competition instead of staying ahead of it like they had in the past, they are doomed to failure. When they don't LISTEN to their customers [the sellers] they are doomed to failure.

The buyers are leaving [as Donohoe naively or egotistically states] not because of the potential of retaliatory negative feedback by sellers but because the small sellers with the unique items are being forced out. So Donohoe's tact is to lambast the sellers and make them impotent with higher costs to make the platform more "buyer-friendly". Except who knows that? Are they advertising that? The angle is all wrong. You attract more buyers by having more sellers selling items buyers want. With more sellers prices stay more competitive. Ebay should spend their resources creating a Customer Service department that GETS RID OF the scam sellers AS WELL AS the scam buyers.
I am not saying by any means that all buyers are bad. Quite the contrary. But neither are all sellers bad.

Ebay was once unique and at the top of their game. No longer. Pretty soon they will have just a bunch of selling conglomerates selling same-o items that can be found anywhere.

They are on a downward spiral and I am saying that without emotion.

eBay: Bottom Is a Few Months Away

To 123...your answer is to stay and take the abuse? You may be long on Ebay but you obviously don't SELL on Ebay for even PART of your livelihood! Your comment is like telling a victim of domestic abuse to stay with the abuser because where would she go [assuming the victim is a female]? And how would she replace the abuser's income?

Sellers are either going to other sites, starting their own websites or doing other things. Between Ebay and Paypal fees I used to pay upwards of 22% of my sales...$12K a year. Ebay will probably get $2K in fees from me this year. I've moved on. I've replaced the income and now work less hours. I used to ENJOY the Ebay experience. I probably made less than minimum wage for the number of hours I put in...but I met great people [my customers] and had 100% positive feedback through 40000 customers worldwide over 9 years.

I recommended people to do Ebaying [either buying or selling] as I was recommended by my friends originally. Not anymore.

I disagree.

Ebay WAS a great brand.

Based on the stock price, it looks like Ebay DOES NEED its disenfranchised small/medium volume sellers. The 800 lb gorilla is finding that as the sellers go so do the buyers. And all the tweaking done by Ebay won't bring them back.

eBay: Bottom Is a Few Months Away

I think it is absolutely hilarious that all these analysts think Donohoe is on the right track. ANY company that belittles, demeans,and otherwise disrespects [NOISE ANYONE????] their primary source of revenue, their customers...the sellers, and pretty much tells them they are no longer wanted [because the company wants to become another Amazon]...and then when some of those selfsame sellers try to hang on...creates a website SO TOXIC to small sellers that many have fled elsewhere or given up altogether deserves to have its stock price tank.

If disgruntled Ebay sellers who either garnered extra money by selling part-time on Ebay or it was their entire livelihood were able to claim unemployment and would count in the unemployment numbers...who can judge how much it would spike the numbers.

Analysts: Look at ANY blog comments surrounding the current state of Ebay in ANY forum and see how many [sellers] are in favor of the "ebay platform" vs how many are angry and disgusted. When you get that ratio, delete the positive ones that have obviously been planted by Ebay employees and relook at the ratio again.

THEN you will see why the US market for Ebay is tanking. With Ebay's old business model, it would have been PROSPERING from the economic downturn because MORE SELLERS would have been putting MORE ITEMS on Ebay for sale to make ends meet.

Oh...when you are looking at number of listings, make sure to discount the MAJOR LISTING SALES currently going on vs last year AS WELL AS the corporate sellers who don't have to pay listing fees [where there weren't any last year]. Ebay used to run 3, maybe 4 ONE DAY listing sales...now they have fire sale listing sales lasting the rest of the year.

Where else can A+ be a "passing grade" and A be a failing grade"? According to ebay with their new rating system where buyers can rate sellers, "ships quickly" is a 4 grade [an A] and ships VERY quickly is a 5 [an A+]. an average of 4.3 will get you to not be able to list for 30 days. And they don't tell the buyer what differentiates "quickly" from "very quickly". I ship the same day paid communicate that I do, and send a confirmation tracking number that same day yet I get 4.6 on shipping time, That's a lot of 4's. How can I do better than ship the same day paid? I have free shipping yet I get 4.7 on shipping and handling charges DSRs. How can I do better than free? That's the frustration of good sellers that are trying.

In its heyday Ebay used to tout three things: 1) That a winning bid is a CONTRACT between buyer and seller that BOTH had to honor. 2) Whenever there was an issue or a challenge, Ebay would say we are only a venue and have no control over the transaction between buyer and seller. 3) That the Ebay site was a level playing field between buyers and sellers and between Mom/Pop small sellers and behemoth corporate sellers. All played by the same rules.

Now: A winning bid is a contract that ONLY THE SELLER has to honor. The buyers can demand [and get] any number of concessions from the seller by threatening to leave bad DSRs...all they have to do is call the seller so there is no MY MESSAGES or email record. Ebay will do nothing. Also we sellers get to LIE about the buyers all we can leave is POSITIVE FEEDBACK even if they are unreasonable, even if they ignore payment terms and pay 30 days later when the auction states payment due in 10 days. What's the point of leaving coddling feedback? We sellers dont even know from other sellers when the bidder never pays but leaves negative feedback!

The we are only a venue thing HA! Ebay now controls HOW something is listed, HOW it can be paid for, WHERE the items show up in search, HOW MANY items can be listed [regardless of how many are paid for to be listed}, and that buyers can only rate sellers.

Think of it this way...WHAT LANDLORD of a bricks and mortar retailer tells a retailer what credit cards to accept, what items to sell, that you have to coddle buyers regardless of how they act ion your store or how they treat your inventory. And tells the retailer how much they can charge for shipping and handling. How long before that bricks and mortar retailer moves to a more resonable siteor goes out of business.

In essence, this is what Ebay is doing as a landlord to sellers with these changes.

An example of the land mine field Ebay is throwing at sellers?

1) As of this month sellers are ONLY allowed to accept Paypal.
2) Paypal rules/regs require that you accept ALL APPROVED FORMS OF PAYMENT offered through Paypal
3) Echecks are a form of payment Paypal offers that must be accepted by sellers if bidders pay with that form of payment.
4) Paypal requires a seller to HOLD SHIPMENT until PAYPAL SAYS the echeck has cleared
5) Ebay has a "Shipping Time" DSR with no parameters set for buyers to rate sellers
6) When you HOLD SHIPMENT buyers will lower your DSR on shipping time
7) DSRs are rated on a 1-5 system, whole numbers only
8) 4 is "Ships Fast" 5 is "Ships very fast"
9) According to Ebay rules, ANY DSR under 4.3 will cause you to no be able to list for 30 days
10) So all you need is to follow the rules, hold shipment until cleared by Paypal and get a couple of 3's on DSRs on shipping time and you won't be able to list for 30 days. Or as an alternative, you can ship immediately and if the payment bounces, Paypal will tell you you're not covered because you didn't wait to ship until cleared to do so by Paypal. In which case the seller will have lost the cost of the item, profit and shipping totally.
11) Even if you manage to avoid being thrown off the site for 30 days thing, your future listings will be buried in BEST MATCH because your DSR's will be under the Ebay average...which is boosted by all the heavy hitters such as BUY.COM that Ebay is wooing.

Untenable Catch 22 for Sellers...Sorta makes you want to stay with Ebay and sell doesn't it?

It is no longer a level playing field: a) Buyers can leave negative and neutral feedback for sellers but sellers cannot inform other sellers by feedback when a buyer cheats them or doesn't honor their committment to the ebay contract when making the purchase. Buyers can leave subjective and anonymous DSRs about sellers with impunity sometimes causing sellers to NOT BE ABLE TO LIST FOR 30 DAYS and the buyers can just MAKE UP A REASON to do so. [Ebay gives buyers no parameters [or ultra weak ones] for what the DSR levels mean and how to rate sellers. Getting slammed unfairly by buyers can also make listings unfindable by other buyers through BEST MATCH EVEN THOUGH sellers PAY THE SAME FEES to list their items. b) Small sellers now have different rules and fees from corporate sellers so the corporate sellers can undercut the Mom and Pops because their fee structure is enhanced.

So the Mom & Pops sellers can no longer compete and are getting slammed by unscrupulous buyers in DSRs so they are leaving taking with them the unique cutesy items that made Ebay a fun place to shop for buyers. Without the unique cutesy items, the good buyers are leaving too. And as mentioned above the positive word of mouth has been replaced by decidedly negative word of mouth from these disenfranchised sellers.

Sellers will leave and wont buy either. As they go and the Ebay broken and draconian search engine keeps the buyers left from finding their unique treasuresI hope the new management can sleep at night with their handiwork.

And yet Ebay, who cannot field a decent customer service department that CARES that could rid the site of bad sellers AND buyers, spends tons of money changing ITEM pages and MY EBAY 4-5 times a year WHEN IT DOES NOT NEED TO BE CHANGED. And I betcha the 1000 layoffs announced this week are in Customer Service! BTW when is the last time Amazon changed its pages? Putting lipstick on a pig with these superficial changes doesnt change the fact that its a pig.

You think LAST YEARS Ebay Live, which used to be a cult-like positive cheerleading event, was a disasterwait until THIS YEAR! Ebay may have to PAY sellers to show up to a venue that people were once treating like a Yankees/Red Sox World Series event.

And with all of the above enhancements sellers are asked to pay fee increases up to 43% to 100% and are now required to use Paypal only thus eliminating the 20% of buyers who ONLY pay by money order or check. Oh! and as punishment for Ebays not accepting Google Checkout, EBAYS searches have been lowered in GOOGLES BEST MATCH further hurting sellers AND buyers! Hah!

Ebay will implode.

And the only winner will be Donohoe and his Golden Parachute.

eBay: A glimmer of Hope for Feedback

You mention "where else can 'very' put you out of business?" Where else can A+ be a "passing grade" and A be a failing grade"? According to ebay, "ships quickly" is a 4 grade [an A] and ships VERY quickly is a 5 [an A+]. an average of 4.3 will get you to not be able to list for 30 days. And they don't tell the buyer what differentiates "quickly" from "very quickly". I ship the same day paid yet I get 4.6 on shipping time, That's a lot of 4's. How can I do better than ship the same day paid? I have free shipping yet I get 4.7 on shipping and handling charges DSRs. How can I do better than free? That's the frustration of good sellers that are trying.


In its heyday Ebay used to tout three things: 1) That a winning bid is a CONTRACT between buyer and seller that BOTH had to honor. 2) Whenever there was an issue or a challenge, Ebay would say we are only a venue and have no control over the transaction between buyer and seller. 3) That the Ebay site was a level playing field between buyers and sellers and between Mom/Pop small sellers and behemoth corporate sellers. All played by the same rules.

Now: A winning bid is a contract that ONLY THE SELLER has to honor. The buyers can demand [and get] any number of concessions from the seller by threatening to leave bad DSRs...all they have to do is call the seller so there is no MY MESSAGES or email record. Ebay will do nothing. Also we sellers get to LIE about the buyers all we can leave is POSITIVE FEEDBACK even if they are unreasonable, even if they ignore payment terms and pay 30 days later when the auction states payment due in 10 days. What's the point of leaving coddling feedback? We sellers dont even know from other sellers when the bidder never pays but leaves negative feedback!

The we are only a venue thing HA! Ebay now controls HOW something is listed, HOW it can be paid for, WHERE the items show up in search, HOW MANY items can be listed [regardless of how many are paid for to be listed}, and that buyers can only rate sellers.

Think of it this way...WHAT LANDLORD of a bricks and mortar retailer tells a retailer what credit cards to accept, what items to sell, that you have to coddle buyers regardless of how they act ion your store or how they treat your inventory. And tells the retailer how much they can charge for shipping and handling. How long before that bricks and mortar retailer moves to a more resonable siteor goes out of business.

In essence, this is what Ebay is doing as a landlord to sellers with these changes.

An example of the land mine field Ebay is throwing at sellers?
1) As of this month sellers are ONLY allowed to accept Paypal.
2) Paypal rules/regs require that you accept ALL FORMS OF PAYMENT through Paypal
3) Echecks are a form of payment Paypal requires.
4) Paypal requires a seller to HOLD SHIPMENT until PAYPAL SAYS the echeck has cleared
5) Ebay has a "Shipping Time" DSR with no parameters set for buyers to rate sellers
6) When you HOLD SHIPMENT buyers will lower your DSR on shipping time
7) DSRs are rated on a 1-5 system, whole numbers only
8) 4 is "Ships Fast" 5 is "Ships very fast"
9) According to Ebay rules, ANY DSR under 4.3 will cause you to no be able to list for 30 days
10) So all you need is to follow the rules, hold shipment until cleared by Paypal and get a couple of 3's on DSRs on shipping time and you won't be able to list for 30 days.
11) Even if you manage to avoid being thrown off the site for 30 days thing, your future listings will be buried in BEST MATCH because your DSR's will be under the Ebay average...which is boosted by all the heavy hitters such as BUY.COM that Ebay is wooing.

Untenable Catch 22 for Sellers...Sorta makes you want to stay with Ebay and sell doesn't it?

It is no longer a level playing field: a) Buyers can leave negative and neutral feedback for sellers but sellers cannot inform other sellers by feedback when a buyer cheats them or doesn't honor their committment to the ebay contract when making the purchase. Buyers can leave subjective and anonymous DSRs about sellers with impunity sometimes causing sellers to NOT BE ABLE TO LIST FOR 30 DAYS and the buyers can just MAKE UP A REASON to do so. [Ebay gives buyers no parameters [or ultra weak ones] for what the DSR levels mean and how to rate sellers. Getting slammed unfairly by buyers can also make listings unfindable by other buyers through BEST MATCH EVEN THOUGH sellers PAY THE SAME FEES to list their items. b) Small sellers now have different rules and fees from corporate sellersso the corporate sellers can undercut the Mom and Pops because their fee structure is enhanced.

So the Mom & Pops sellers can no longer compete and are getting slammed by unscrupulous buyers in DSRs so they are leavingtaking with them the unique cutesy items that made Ebay a fun place to shop for buyers. Without the unique cutesy items, the good buyers are leaving too.

Sellers will leave and wont buy either. As they go and the Ebay broken and draconian search engine keeps the buyers left from finding their unique treasuresI hope the new management can sleep at night with their handiwork.

And yet Ebay, who cannot field a decent customer service department that CARES that could rid the site of bad sellers AND buyers, spends tons of money changing ITEM pages and MY EBAY 4-5 times a year WHEN IT DOES NOT NEED TO BE CHANGED. And I betcha the 1000 layoffs announced this morning are in Customer Service! BTW when is the last time Amazon changed its pages? Putting lipstick on a pig with these superficial changes doesnt change the fact that its a pig.

You think LAST YEARS Ebay Live, which used to be a cult-like positive cheerleading event, was a disasterwait until THIS YEAR! Ebay may have to PAY sellers to show up to a venue that people were once treating like a Yankees/Red Sox World Series event.

And with all of the above enhancements sellers are asked to pay fee increases up to 43% and are now required to use Paypal only thus eliminating the 20% of buyers who ONLY pay by money order or check. Oh! and as punishment for Ebays not accepting Google Checkout, EBAYS searches have been lowered in GOOGLES BEST MATCH further hurting sellers AND buyers! Hah!

Ebay will implode.

eBay Down Further as Morgan Stanley Downgrades

Then: In its heyday Ebay used to tout three things: 1) That a winning bid is a CONTRACT between buyer and seller that BOTH had to honor. 2) Whenever there was an issue or a challenge, Ebay would say “we are only a venue” and have no control over the transaction between buyer and seller. 3) That the Ebay site was a “level playing field” between buyers and sellers and between Mom/Pop small sellers and behemoth corporate sellers. All played by the same rules.

Now: A winning bid is a contract that ONLY THE SELLER has to honor. The buyers can demand [and get] any number of concessions from the seller by threatening to leave bad DSR’s…all they have to do is call the seller so there is no MY MESSAGES or email record. Ebay will do nothing. We sellers cannot tell the truth [through feedback] about bidders who don't pay, pay MUCH later than auction terms state, who bounce checks, or who cheat the seller through bogus claims and return empty packages for full refunds that Paypal will award them in a heartbeat. In addition, these same bidders can knock a good seller off Ebay for 30 days by annihilating them in DSRs which they can leave even though they do not pay. We get rated on "communication" even though there is no requirement for the bidder to have a correct email address. There may be a different email address attached to the Ebay account but the current email address is attached to the Paypal account. So even if you contact them through MY MESSAGES they won't receive it unless they log onto Ebay...but can bash a seller in DSRs because the seller didn't communicate!

Bidders can "award" a failing grade [anything under a "4" out of "5" is failing according to Ebay] for rules that aren't even part of Ebay's policies like "failing to leave feedback first". Ebay doesn't make a differentiation to bidders that "Shipping time" is NOT "delivery time" as sellers who ship the same day have no control over when that package is actually DELIVERED. So bidders fail sellers when the USPS or UPS or Customs delays a shipment even though that seller shipped the SAME DAY payment was received.

The “we are only a venue” thing…HA! Ebay now controls HOW something is listed, HOW it can be paid for, WHERE the items show up in search, HOW MANY items can be listed [regardless of how many are paid for to be listed} etc. Think of it this way…WHAT LANDLORD of a bricks and mortar retailer tells a retailer what credit cards to accept, what items to sell, and that customers have been complaining so a retailer HAS to allow all students coming in to shop to carry backpacks without being searched. And tells the retailer how much they can charge for shipping and handling. How long before that bricks and mortar retailer moves to a more resonable site…or goes out of business.

In essence, this is what Ebay is doing as a landlord to sellers with these changes.

It is no longer a level playing field: a) Buyers can leave negative and neutral feedback for sellers but sellers cannot inform other sellers by feedback when a buyer cheats them or doesn’t honor their committment to the “ebay contract” when making the purchase. Buyers can leave subjective and anonymous DSRs about sellers with impunity sometimes causing sellers to NOT BE ABLE TO LIST FOR 30 DAYS and the buyers can just MAKE UP A REASON to do so. [Ebay gives buyers no parameters [or ultra weak ones] for what the DSR levels mean and how to rate sellers. Getting slammed unfairly by buyers can also make listings unfindable by other buyers through BEST MATCH EVEN THOUGH sellers PAY THE SAME FEES to list their items. b) Small sellers now have different rules and fees from corporate sellers…so the corporate sellers can undercut the Mom and Pops because their fee structure is “enhanced”.

So the Mom & Pops sellers can no longer compete and are getting slammed by unscrupulous buyers in DSRs so they are leaving…taking with them the unique cutesy items that made Ebay a fun place to shop for buyers. Without the unique cutesy items, the good buyers are leaving too.

Sellers will leave and won’t buy either. As they go and the Ebay broken and draconian search engine keeps the buyers left from finding their unique treasures…I hope the new management can sleep at night with their handiwork.

And yet Ebay, who cannot field a decent customer service department that CARES that could rid the site of bad sellers AND buyers, spends tons of money changing ITEM pages and MY EBAY 4-5 times a year WHEN IT DOES NOT NEED TO BE CHANGED. BTW when is the last time Amazon changed its pages? Putting lipstick on a pig with these superficial changes doesn’t change the fact that it’s a pig.


You think LAST YEAR’S Ebay Live, which used to be a cult-like positive cheerleading event, was a disaster…wait until THIS YEAR! Ebay may have to PAY sellers to show up to a venue that people were once treating like a Yankees/Red Sox World Series event.

And with all of the above “enhancements” sellers are asked to pay fee increases up to 43% and are now required to use Paypal only…thus eliminating the 20% of buyers who ONLY pay by money order or check. Oh! and as punishment for Ebay’s not accepting Google Checkout, EBAY’S searches have been lowered in GOOGLE’S BEST MATCH further hurting sellers AND buyers! Hah!

Ebay will implode.