G

Agriculture Stocks Still Make Sense, When Selected Wisely

selling pork in that market -- it's up about 20% since my mention last Thursday.

Hope ya locked in your profit Friday!

Postage Increases Might Be the Least of eBay's Problems

Good post! Hitting the nail on the head. No reason for 'PowerSeller' status. It just attracts attention and the benefits are pretty much worthless. Look for a mass exodus of powersellers if this pans out. Im really surprised ebay doesnt do more for their powersellers. It's a suckers bet at present.
Here is how it works. You sell more stuff with us and maintain a certain volume of sales we will give you a 'brownie button' called powerseller status with different colors representing different levels. Price breaks?
Oh no ebay won't do that. Who has ever heard of that concept? Use our service more and get a break in price? Let's see; the airline industry, the utility companies, restaurants, almost all retail stores. That is the dumbest ebay policy which will ultimately be their undoing in my opinion. But as a monopoly they can currently get away with it, but their users are disgruntled and always looking for an alternative. Not my impression of a way to run a long lasting company. Because there is no competition they have no incentive to increase customer service. Interesting but true.
So ebay just gives you a title that is suppose to mean something, but actually means little. Instead of price breaks the powersellers get hit with the bulk of the price increases everytime ebay raises their prices (yearly).

eBay Launches Feedback 2.0 System, Should Boost Revenue

Cmon! Ebay modifies its feedback and it's suppose to boost revenue? Hogwash! Feedback is not the big issue. Fraud, fees and policies are the real issues on both the buyer's and the seller's point of view. Anytime you have a feedback system based on individual people's comments, you are subject to emotional outbursts, schemes and manipulation. Don't get me wrong; feedback is an issue that needs improvement and clarification. However, the current fix is no more than a bandaid and there are much more serious issues that need addressing.
Just to give a perspective on the new feedback system, here is how it will play out. Let's say I am the seller and you are the buyer. As an established seller I do not need your feedback and it has minimal affect on my overall score, etc. So now that the feedback system allows the buyer to be more specific in his rating of the seller (more categories), however, the seller side of the equation remains status quo. First I as a seller have know reason to leave feedback 1st; so I simply don't. That leaves the burden of feedback on the buyer. Now if the buyer leaves too negative of comments in any of the categories, the seller will retaliate with neutral or negative comments.
The old feedback was pretty much the same, now it will just delay the timeframe of the feedback and create a more complex system to create false and retalitory feedback.
For example, you as the buyer feels that it took too long to get your item, otherwise the transaction was okay. So you give the seller good marks in everything but shipping. The seller sees this feedback and can retaliate with negative feedback. Sure in the perfect world we are all honest and give each other the benefit of the doubt. But we arent in a perfect world and this is reality. So I as the seller notice that the buyer took excessive time to pay for his item (let's say 10-14 days) and he opted to send a money order rather than Paypal. Now as a seller I am perfectly fine with this as it saves me Paypal fees; but it does have a tendency to delay things. I am at the mercy of the USPS, or whatever mail delivery system. Now I have to deposit the money order and make sure it's legit. (Yes there are scammers out there using fraudulent money orders to pay for items and it's not until after it has been deposited that the bank notifies the seller that it is fake. At which time, if the seller already shipped he is out the money). So I deposit and wait 2-3 days for it to process before I ship. This whole process is considered too long for my buyer and his only recourse of complaint is thru the NEW/IMPROVED ebay feedback. Good luck guys but your feedback system is still flawed and this 'enhancement' will only prove the point further.