By: ModZilla

ModZilla — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 14:31:05 +0000

I too have been on eBay for a very long time and as a seller with several businesses on ebay and on ebay motors, well, I made alot of money for a short while. After 911 things changed for me. Over time it got worse for me as an eBay seller, I felt like I was out there twisting in the wind being punished by eBay for simply offering a buyers service, as a result of actions brought to the forum by buyers, my block bidder list swelled, DBB’s and No pays surged and I was held account for it every time. So as all of this went South, I did a hiatus for two years trying to get away from the mistreatment of Sellers by blind sighted ebay seller policies and a lack of input/feedback in the area of paypal fraud and tranaction resolution cases only to be surprised that upon my return all was fixed and fees are lower, but the action is not there, instead I have a huge list of unsold items in MyeBay. Now ebay fully guarantees paypal purchases to make instant electronic transactions the main operative for doing business. But the costs for this are higher, I get charged by Paypal for a percentage of both the shipping and handling plus the amt of winning bids. This is unfair. Furthermore I am not allowed to accept any other payment method which also limits my ability to appeal to customers as I offer very low prices in the antiques, rare book and vintage computing catagories. BTW, not every geek carries a paypal credit card. The problems also started by a two fold assault on sellers with half dot com and the acquisition of paypal-as I recall during a timeframe that twarted business online in a short period. This on both fronts essentially made ebay a double dipper. They got you coming and going on both sites. I think at some point pure greed set in and became the driving force which fueled an operative by which sellers became discouraged and felt that they were on the losing end of most any deal, especially those the effected inventory losses and replacement costs, consequently, sales have fallen due to the mistreatment and bad temperament by ebay staff in regards to transactions which, for a long time favored only buyers if a transaction went awry. It is most difficult for me to replace merchandise purchased by someone who received it and then reversed the paypal transaction on me, having filed a complaint that it was not received or it arrived broken. Tracking numbers do not guarantee delivery, INSURANCE does not insure a good transaction, not everyone can be at their residence for signing of delivery, not every tracking number is verifiable by ebay stgaff. In essence this all came to a head in 2006 as it was demanded that sellers pay some kind of price beyond just selling, for selling. The cost of doing business skyrocketed when ebay refused to place the burden of proof on buyers for the receipt of goods when they [the buyer] screwed up, had a rip off attitude or perpetrated fruad using paypal as “electronic deception” for transactions on ebay in the “purchase” of items they refused to admit they ever received when in fact they did. I even caught buyers selling my items they said they never received, I contacted ebay and got no justice. This became such a problem many people including myself stopped shipping over seas, esp to places like great Britain, Canada and Greece, places full of scammers where there is no home postal delivery, if you have ever lived in Canada or overseas you will be well aware of such problems as there is no real post office service like we have and take for granted. These countries all have a horrible track record with customers reversing payment when they did not like what was purchased offered as is and/or lost packages, not picked up, what have you.

I used to collect rare old books and sell them on half.com. After over a successful year and a half of doing this, in 2002, I was told that I would have to “merge” my account-with what else? eBay of course! No explanation or business strategy was provided, you did as you were told or else-no input or feedback allowed in this regard. This idea sucked and ruined my repeat customer business on half.com. There, my customers gladly paid by personal check or IMO as purchases were not high end items and half.com compeated directly against me with .99 cent deals of the same book no matter what it was. When my repeats left, so did I. Now things are “better” on ebay, fewer disputes, instant payments are not reversed and I just sell all of my rare books there. However, I pay higher transaction fees with paypal taking a percentage of both the bid and s&h totals. This is wrong, why should I pay for part of a shipping and handling fee? [esp. when all S&H is what is required for the "lucky winner" to pay for themselves to receive the items in the first place to fullfill the order, what is this the olde soviet union?] If a buyer does not want to pay for this and insists on using the free shipping trend, I just ask them not to bid (politely I might add…). You win some and you lose some and in this case *ebay* is the loser in the long run… sales not driven for sellers by a venue that really backs up their own clientele…well that is a venue that will cruble in time, suddenly, like now it will do so very fast and this for me, and for my buyers who like to save money, is disfortune.

By: popculturizm

popculturizm — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:42:54 +0000

I agree – eBay has totally blown it – we have been sellers on eBay for 10+ years and their service is getting worse and worse – Now there a little things that seemed to have stopped working completely – I have tried the live desk it isn’t working (2 days now) – I have emailed no reply yet – I’m starting to think that there is no one there. If the CEO donahue (who was at wal-mart) thinks he’s going to turn eBay into Amazon he really has no Ideas or new concepts and eBay will FAIL – FAIL – My questions is with the void left with eBay who and what site is going to step in and there will be a need for a new eBay – anyone have any ideas (better than donahues?)

By: Wes

Wes — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 04:21:15 +0000

beware

By: ebayStellarSeller

ebayStellarSeller — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:00:09 +0000

I love ebay, and I certainly hope they make it through these tough times! I also liked Meg at the helm and thought the BIG spend for Skype was soooo gutsy, and may eventually pay off? However, now that things are in deep boopy land everywhere, I think Meg’s buying Skype may turn out to be a goof… oops! Also, if Meg is an advisor for Sen. McCain, then we might be in serious deep doodoo if he wins?

By: Gary

Gary — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:53:54 +0000

The reason ebay is losing business is, raising fees on everything, paypal fees. It’s simple sellers do all the work and ebay makes all the money.

By: Steve

Steve — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 04:28:00 +0000

@eBay doctor

Well, maybe you got laid off for not knowing that the lightning comes before the thunder.

What a knucklehead. http://tinyurl.com/69u9o3

Thanks for the comment.

By: ebay doctor

ebay doctor — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 03:20:20 +0000

I got laid off from Boeing with a few thousand other people! Did people stop flying on Boeing aircraft?

Ebay whiners cry louder then thunder but I see no lightning!

By: Stuart Krasnow

Stuart Krasnow — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 16:13:56 +0000

lets hope 2 of the lay offs are grif and john donahoe. ebay blew it. it was the sellers who paid the fees, they never seemed to grasp that. amazon is going to have an amazing christmas this year. eBay’s stock won’t be worth $5 by next year’s 4th quarter. business students will study the implosion and poor management for years.

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