A subversive idea for sellers

great idea...they already have something like that on gumshoo...

Personally if I can leave only a buyer positive, and get an unjustified red or a bad buyer experience I will then leave a positive starting with the word "NEGATIVE ...".

I am sure if all sellers did that we can protect ourselves again

Would be interesting to see if eBay pulled that type of positive feedback ?

Why are you so sure you're going to get all these negatives now, and that every buyer will be a "bad buyer experience"?

Choo Choo Guy I'm with you. I recently had a buyer who bid and stiffed me. Well shame on me as I didn't see she wound up having a -3 feedback rating. Now? She is no longer a registered member and I can't leave feedback at all. I agree with you about leaving the word NEGATIVE first. Good idea!

quote:

every buyer will be a "bad buyer experience"?

Not everyone, but the only thing remotely near to policing the site for fair play was the mutual feedback system, with that gone ...

How many negs and bad dsr's do you need to get the boys from effbay to pull the plug on you, the seller is guilty until they can be bothered to check things out.

They don't need most of us and hopefully soon I won't need them and then we can both be happy

I agree. I have only done a couple thousand transactions so far, and my feedback's in the 230 range. I've had about 3 negative buyer experiences. I can only imagine that for the folks who are doing a few thousand transactions a month, that adds up over time. With no repercussions for buyers behaving badly, I fully imagine that a much higher percentage of them will.

quote:

Originally posted by WingedWolfPsion:
I agree. I have only done a couple thousand transactions so far, and my feedback's in the 230 range. I've had about 3 negative buyer experiences. I can only imagine that for the folks who are doing a few thousand transactions a month, that adds up over time. With no repercussions for buyers behaving badly, I fully imagine that a much higher percentage of them will.

I don't understand people... "Buyers behaving badly"?

I think you're all worrying about nothing when it comes to this feedback change. Now that I've had a week to think about it I can see where it will be a good thing. If you treat your buyers right, nothing's going to change. If you give your buyers reasons to ding you, then you probably deserved it. IF you get an asshole buyer who is playing games or threatening you, REPORT HIM. That's how the new system is going to be set up, so work with it.

The fees...? No, they STILL suck. I surely don't see the same outcry about the fees, and I find that simply amazing

quote:

If you treat your buyers right, nothing's going to change. If you give your buyers reasons to ding you, then you probably deserved it.

I wish I was so experienced and optimistic

quote:

Originally posted by ChooChooGuy:
I wish I was so experienced and optimistic

Let's compare notes in 6 months, shall we? Six months from May that is.

I don't think it is just the FB thing for us, it is how all the policies announced are tied in together.

If you are a lower volume seller, the risk is higher. Such as:
You can always get someone who is scamming a bit or just had a carppy day and takes it out on you, the seller. So say your stars get dinged some, and eBay tells you that you are in the >5 percent now.

They tell you that you either have to take PP or a merchants account (and many small sellers cannot afford the charges, so in with PP), and you get bumped down further in the search and your funds are held by PP for up to 21 days ( and you do not get the interest on that held money either! BT is another thing).

You have to ship all the sold products out of your pocket until the buyers either leave positive or 21 days or 3 days after DC shows it is delivered.

FB is nw tied into everything else in a direct manner and I do not think it is good at all, at least not for us.

quote:

Originally posted by Pigeon Alley Books:
Ijust had a carppy day and takes it out on you, the seller. So say your stars get dinged some, and eBay tells you that you are in the >5 percent now.

Your "stars" have never had any protection from somebody answering them falsely. That was something that existed since last year. Nothing new there.

ONE bad buyer answering falsely is not going to overly affect your star ratings. Unless of course you only have 15 ratings. If you've got over a hundred (and I don't yet, I only have 42) It's nothing to be concerned with.

I'm finding nobody agrees with me, and everyone is predicting feedback gloom and doom. Well, I guess we'll see. So stop worrying until May.

quote:

Let's compare notes in 6 months, shall we? Six months from May that is.

Sure

Greetings all.

I am not embacing neg feedback but I am not running from it either. I saw this some where and thought it was a good idea. To me it is non-intrusive but yet lets the buyers know that I will not tolerate feedback extortion subliminally, so now I put it in all my auctions. Here it is.....

"We appreciate your business and love being a part of the Ebay community. To help maintain Ebay as a positive environment and to be fair to all involved, we do actively participate with Ebay's policies, including the Non-Paying Bidder process and feedback extortion policies."

I am new to Ebay. I have only done about 50 transactions. So maybe I am off on how I see this whole thing but I think its going to actually be GREAT for GOOD Ebay sellers.
because more people will be encouraged to use EBay because they will see it as more trustworthy and its less intimidating to the buyer now. which means more customers for everyone. With the number of buyers down and the number of vendors up, its rough out there. I think it might be good to thin the herd a little.
More over, prices go up, its a fact of life. If a persons business model is so shaky that a few bucks is going to kill their margin than it was never a viable business anyway because if it wasnt Ebay it would have been something else that would have removed them from the commerce food chain.

I think alot of people are whinning and wringing their hands instead of figuring out how to be more competitive. Boring.
And I have no intention of boycotting or "striking" as some people were calling it. Its stupid. Ebay is not an employer, its a free market place. We dont live in a little town and Ebay is the steele mill that employs everyone. Ebay is like an open market bazaar. Some of the people "striking" are my competitors. Good. Most of them suck. I only respect about 10% of the people that do what I do and the rest are clogging up our section with shit no body wants to buy but they have to get through it to get to me. Im glad they are boycotting. I wish more would. They suck at what they do. They should be glad if anyone buys anything at any price from them because they suck so bad. They are tools. They should be thinking about how to get better, make more money or sell different things or moving on. What a bunch of babies.


2. The people that suck will eventually leave and that means more buyers for the people left
3.

Everyone is certainly entitled to their opinion. But I believe you'll have a much different opinion after you sell a couple thousand items.

And that's just MY opinion

katkos
I have to agree w/ 8880 on this one, not that you don't have some valid points. but it is really hard to get a feel for it until you have several thousand transactions under your belt.

For example, I have been selling on eBay since mar 1999 with over 5000 transactions completed. To date I have only received 5 negs for reasons that are absolutely unbelieveable. My very first neg came after 3 years and it wasn't one but no it was 3 from the same guy. His only reason for hitting me was because he was upset at UPS for not putting the pkg on the back porch even tho I tagged it that way. Yeah right like I deserved that, another guy neg me for the Canadain Postal system overcharged him vat tax and duty. The last one came from a clown who neg me me because I wouldn't lower the dollor amount on the custom forms so he would pay less duty. I refused because I am not interested in a 10,000 dollor fine at the bare minmum.

Heck even in the real world you've got bad business'es and good ones. But the point is as a business owner I owe it to my business and my customers to be prepare for any risk that may have a negative effect on the business. I am not saying your wrong because everyone is entitled to their opinion. But, I'll bet that after you get quite a few under your belt you will have a different outlook on it.

Now that is my 2 cents worth.

Burly,
You 5K tansaction vendors are my heros because I have my eye on the prize! I'm going to join your ranks soon and I want my bragging rights like you. But 5000 transactions and only 5 moron votes proves my point Baby. Good vendors will be even better off. There will be more customers, more bidding, & higher closes. I also noticed that Ebay TV ads are WAY UP. Your 5000 good transactions discounts any whimpering feedback idiot. Who is not going to bid on your auctions? Anyone who drives a car knows that at least 1/3 of the people in the world are extra cool, 1/3 are OK and 1/3 are sniveling pieces of crap who dont belong behind the wheel. Same goes for Ebay sellers and buyers too. YOU have a higher satisfaction rating than a store like Target or Bloomies. I am sick of depressing people people looking at the down side of everything while other people are cahsing in! I am going to use the new rules to bring up my game. I have stopped taking money orders and checks and saw NO decrease in bidding activity infact all my auctions are UP. Thank you new CEO dude whoever you are cuz the Megster never did as many cool TV spots about shopping victoriuosly like I see now, everywhere. Overall I see alot to be happy about. Mucho advertistising, more bidders, new rules, more confident buyers EQUALS WE ALL GAIN. I think alot of Ebay Sellers (not all but a disproportionate number ) are losers who couldnt hack real world jobs and never got along with coworkers either. Those are probably the morons whining the loudest about the new rules because they whine about everything anyway and are so happy to have something new to moan and groan about. But if it werent for all the fraudulent jerks out there who scam people (like at least TWO people out of 10 that I personally bought from) then there would be no need to do this. So people have just as much right to be worried about getting scammed. And you know Burly as a seasoned business person, with 5000 transactions that jerk off customers are part of the cost of doing business. Home depot takes returns on dead plants. DEAD PLANTS!
PLANTAS MUERTOS!!That means if a dork cant remember to water a plant and kills it, he can drag it back to Home Depot and they accept it. Its part of the cost of doing business. I had a whinning witch complain that I didnt combine shipping on 4 items for her. I never promised combined shipping on ANY of my auctions and specify payment in 7 days. Which she failed to perform. Even worse, they were all different sizes and the auctions were two weeks apart I didnt want to deal with her. She sent me a harsh insulting "on the rag" email. And I LOVINGLY KISSED HER BUTT!!!!!! I No Burly, I didnt just kiss it, I put rose scented lotion on it, massaged it and then KISSED it. Its called part of the cost of doing business. You might think because I only have 50 transactions completed I am a newbie but I brokered used PC hardware for 5 years before doing this and spent 5 years working for PC display manufacturers calling on retail chains. When I brokered I took apart dot.coms and sold off everthing from Herman Miller workstations to servers. Business principles apply whether its EBAY or Walmart. Trying to make a difficult challenge advantageous to yourself is not my idea. The cream always rises to the top and some people are like corks and there is no way to keep them down. And my WORST day selling on Ebay is better than my best day in outside sales peddling someone crap and someone elses dream. Moreover kissing FRY's and Comp USA butt is far nastier than kissing my Ebay midwestern housewife customer's BIG FAT grain fed heinies.. Much nicer..... I have my chapstick handy and my posting photos and I am ready to kick butt. So I hope more of you boycott and "strike" so I can drink all your milkshakes!!!!!!!!!
I will throw this out there if anyone wants a legitamate reason to crack heads at EBAY. Their policy on worlwide business. If I search for something EVRYTHING comes up from all over the world. If someone in the UK searches, only their stuff comes up not US UNLESS they request world wide vendors. THAT is a microcosm of our countriy's trade imbalance. WE SHOULD BE ABLE tO shuck our stuff at them just like we get theirs. I want to a shot at being CHEAP FOREIGN LABOR TOO!!! Heck with the dollar only 1/2 the Euros value and 1/2 the value of the British pound we should be kicking butt in EUROPE. THAT THAT!!! THAT IS something worth wrestling with Ebay management for! Not this sniveling other other crap. If you little girls ever stop whining about pennies then you'll have time to chase after the PHAT money

Cheers,
Kat

Then I guess you feel most of us are whiners here then. I've been selling for 11 years, 7000 transactions, 3000+ 100% feedback, and I think eBay is the greediest, shittiest, bottom feeding company there is. They prey on the sellers constantly, taking every advantage there is. You haven't been around long enough Kat to take your licks yet, but some day, you will, and you'll know what it feels like to be treated like shit, and thought of as "noise".

Oh sure, there are TON of bad sellers on eBay selling hoards of garbage clogging up the aisles. I completely agree with you there. I'd like to see many of them gone, but I don't sell what they sell. I don't resell wholesale junk, I don't sell antiques, and so on. I sell lots of unique one of a kind finds from attics and garages and basements, and I've done very well for myself over the years. But I'm sick and tired of being taken advantage of by eBay. Nickeled and dimed to death. Stupid rules and policies, and so on. Go someplace else? Can't. Simple fact is there is no place else. So, I'll keep selling here, and hopefully still do good. But I have no reason to be happy with eBay taking a 40% rise in fees when they constantly report record earnings. They have no reason to tax us more, and then treat us like shit.

That's enough. I've said my piece. That's MY opinion, and I feel my tenure gives me the right to this opinion.

[quote]Then I guess you feel most of us are whiners here then.

Yes. As a matter of fact , I do.
Newsflash my friend, they are a FOR PROFIT corporation. their job is to make lots of money and make their fat rich stockholders happy.
They are not a 501c3 (nonprofit org) here to help you get rich. So expect them to behave in a self serving AMORAL fashion like most corporations(think energy, insurance healthcare-they are about profit not people. Watch a Michael Moore movie).

If you owned a retail establishment you would be whinning about the cost of your lease, your triple net and your illegal immigrant overhead. And you still wouldnt be getting the incredible access and visibilty of the entire UNITED STATES OF AMERICA! The 40% increase in fees you are complaining about is still pocket change compared to what your costs in doing business would be if you had a retail location because Ebay is STILL a bargain compared to that. The fact that you have had 7000 transactions and are still worrying about "being nickled and dimed" makes me question the profitability of those 7000 transactions. If they had a sweet PHAT margin you would be invested in EBAY stock and rejoicing in souless business that drives up your stock price just like most stepford stockholders do. So you are essentially doing what I said, whinning instead of figuring out how to make your business and transactions more profitable. Your money should be made on the BUY and not on the sell. For example, my brother haggled a guy down on an 8k car down to 1600$. True story. He will make a PHAT wad of cash when he sells it regardless if he gets 5, 6 or 7K because he is my daddy's son and papa didnt raise a fool. He made his money before he even sells it. Apparently you are NOT doing that. So lets brainstorm (what a think tank this could be)and help you figure out what YOU can do to make YOUR sales better regardless of what a bunch of souless Ebay corporate drones decide. Then we can all buy their stock and profit from THEIR work. Ebay sellers SHOULD be buying Ebay stock so they can control the meat puppets instead of shaking an impotent fist at them. I, for one intend to buy as much Ebay stock as I can with whatever I earn so I can have a real say and tell them at a stockholders meeting what I think. THAT is being positive, THAT is taking control of your situation instead of taking the crumbs they want to give you. THAT is being proactive and THAT is acting from a position of strength and not fear or worry about being nickeled and dimed as you put it. "Striking" from a company that hasnt even employed these people is retarded and powerless and cutting off your nose to spite your face. I got 16 auctions closing today so I gotta start packing up my stuff so all my customers love me like the 7000 that love you.
I love you too Jeff.

No offense to you, but I'm glad you think you've found your "someplace over the rainbow". Sadly, many of your peers don't agree with you, and one day may you will, or maybe you won't, feel the same. Time will tell. It doesn't matter to me. I know what I've been through, put up with, and so do the other "whiners". You have NO idea the incredible FUN it once was working as a "partner" with this company, and how over the years it has stabbed us in the back. Somehow over the years they forgot who made them, and who their customers were.

Yea, eBay is a for profit company, I think we all knew that without your reminder, and yes, they behave as you say. Unfortunately they wrap it in a candy coated spin that's a little hard to swallow after all these years. Kinda makes you want to vomit.

So I wish you luck. Perhaps you'll make it to PowerSeller one day. I was once, for 5 years, and I worked long, and too hard, to keep it and it meant nothing. In fact, I felt like a slave as I kept getting emails threatening to take my status away if my sales didn't improve. Of course the sinking economy after 9/11 had a lot to do with all of this, and it's never really recovered since. So, like a mindless Borg, I worked harder, for nothing. I was finally glad the day that title went away. It was a relief.

So best of luck to you.

Interesting. A few days after they announced the changes I sold all my ebay stock. If you pay attention to what people are saying (on the stock boards) you will find that ebay is changing directions and going after large volume sellers - like the deal with GM. I seriously doubt many of the powersellers will even be able to get a discount based on the misleading information about the star system. Ebay tells the buyer that 4 stars is good, then tells the seller it's bad. I won't be selling there come May. There's a whole lot more to this than the fee increases and the feedback rule.

Extremely interesting JeffS and I totally agree with you re how ebay treats people. Respect your point of view katkos but who/what are you so angry with/about?

Originally posted by member_8880:
"Everyone is certainly entitled to their opinion. But I believe you'll have a much different opinion after you sell a couple thousand items."

You are absolutely correct. I have not sold nearly enough to be called an "experienced" seller, compared to others, but I have enough experience to know how disgusted I am at eBay. At first glance (and by the hype spouted by eBay execs) the coming changes look great. Buried deep within the new information are a lot of startling and nasty details.

The most blatant "falsity" is the decreased fees statement. So what if they decrease the listing fee by a nickle? What they buried deep in the new policies is that the FVF has been raised by more than 3%? That is a lot of nickles at the end of the sale. But we've become accustomed to increases in fees no matter where we do business. That issue alone would not have caused the mass exodus from eBay that we are now seeing. It's going to get very ugly.

Buyers are already trying to "extort" from sellers under threat of negs, not knowing that the "no negs for buyers" hasn't started yet. eBay is already pitting buyer against seller.

Not ALL buyers are bad, just as not ALL sellers are bad. But the playing field won't even begin to be a level one come May. The *newbie* sellers on eBay will be educated in good time. But not to worry, the thousands and thousands of fleeing eBayers will have built up all the other auction sites for you, so you will have an established place to go to when you take off the rosy glasses and see reality.

If you are interested in more FACTS, please visit http://forums.delphiforums.com/boycottebay/start.

Just a little of the shape of things to come:

Are you aware how the DSR (star) rating system is going to be used against sellers when the new policies to into effect in May?

How eBay's policy states that any DSR above 4.0 is "acceptable" as a good rating, but how the new "scarlet letter" ((see below) was used against a seller who's lowest DSR was 4.6?

About how those ratings tie into the "Best Match" search results that will also be applied?

How buyers will see a notice in red (which is now being referred to around the web as the "scarlet letter") in the listing which says "This seller is rated low for ***." It's already been "tested" on real auctions and the seller wasn't even aware it was there - shot down by eBay. And did they refund the seller's listing fees for this? Of course not. (And by the way, that seller is taking legal action.)

That scarlet letter will be on YOUR feedback page and has nothing at all to do with your perfect 100% positive rating. It's all about the DSRs.

I have a 100% FB score of 630 unique bids. I've actually received a total of 860 positives, but they only count "unique" bids. Now even the unique bid system will be going away when they implement the new "rolling feedback" policy, only showing your FB for the prior 12 months.

And before you say those sellers who receive the "scarlet letter" are bad sellers and deserve it, I will tell you that is the canned answer that eBay has been spoon feeding all of us since the announcement of the changes came at the end of January. But it is not true.

Example: I sell a lot of books. If I ship by the least expensive method, Media Mail, it can take the post office up to 10 days to deliver. I have watched my DSRs go lower and lower and lower in the shipping time category, and this is going to ultimately put my listings at the very end of every search, no matter that I have a perfect FB score, or when my auction ends, or any of the other "fair" search results.

Now, I could offer ONLY to ship by Priority Mail. Then I would receive (I assume) very high DSRs for shipping time since that only takes 2-3 days to arrive. But it would tank my "shipping cost" DSRs. How in the world is a seller supposed to win under conditions such as that?

And that is the least of the problems these changes are going to make. I could go on and on (and if you think I already have, believe me, you haven't heard the tip of the iceberg) but there's no point. I STRONGLY URGE everyone to do some research. You can do it on eBay but they have so vaguely worded the new policies that it amounts to nothing more than double-speak. Get out into the internet and look around. There are forums and videos and news reports EVERYWHERE. The site I put in above is a forum started when eBay kept banning people from using their accounts based on something eBay didn't like. They kept pulling posts from the boards and removing auctions (again, no refund of listing fees!). We were forced to go off-eBay to even talk about the changes - whether we supported them or not. I thought America was the land of free speech, but apparently it is not.

This debate can be fought into eternity. Time will tell. I sincerely hope I am wrong, but I doubt it.

Deb

Just wanted to congratulate you on your post Justa, certainly was an insight for me. I think I've learnt more about what's going on with ebay on the auctiva site than on discussion boards on ebay Australia - although you can't air your grievances too much or they'd pull the thread. I can't for the life of me understand why they want to make it so difficult for Sellers - that's how they make their money. It really makes no sense to me at all, a bit like their ad on Australian television - you have no idea what the ad is about or who it's for until the end when ebay is flashed across the screen. The next few months will be very interesting indeed!!

Hi Mum -

Thank you for the great response! I would say to you that the eBay forums - whether in the states or in Australia or on the moon - are going to give you NO pertinent information due to, as you pointed out, posts being removed, etc. To get REAL, TRUE, HONEST information, you have to go off-eBay to places like this site.

I've been in on the boycott (can't you tell?) from the time the announcements were made. I am leaving eBay for good, I cannot tolerate such sneaky, lying, underhanded people. But I continue with the boycott (and trust me, it isn't even close to over yet) because I feel very strongly about the giant crushing the little guy. And that is exactly what's happening here.

Through the various forums, etc., that I am part of, a consensus of a sort has been reached: The REASON behind all of this is because eBay no longer wants the "flea market" sellers, even though that is the very reason many people go to eBay to shop. So they have structured a new policy that eventually will prevent every "undesirable" from selling there. Of course, they would be sued left and right if they came right out and stated that they were going to rid themselves of the riff-raff (it would be discrimination), so they have made it so that eventually - and in a very short amount of time for most of us - we will no longer "qualify" under their policies to sell on eBay. And THAT stinks.

If you haven't heard, they're taking on big, new clients (GM, Sears), and catering to the top 200 Power Sellers. I believe, though, the the Power Sellers will also eventually become unwanted and will be treated just like we are today.

They forget who built their company into the mega giant it is today. We likely won't take them down, that is not the goal. The goal is to BUILD the other sites, make them a competitor to eBay. And that WILL happen.

I don't know how things are over there, but here in the states we are ORGANIZED. Keep your eyes open in the coming months, we are not anywhere close to stopping our NOISE.

I would also invite (and urge) you to check out the link I posted earlier (http://forums.delphiforums.com/boycottebay/start) and also one at www.myspace.com/boycottebay. You will really have an eye-opening experience in either of those places.

Good luck to you, and again, thank you for the warm response.

Debbie

quote:

Originally posted by JustaCrazyMom:
but here in the states we are ORGANIZED. Keep your eyes open in the coming months, we are not anywhere close to stopping our NOISE.

Organized? I'm sorry, are you kidding? There is no organization to this boycott. Huge numbers of people, both sellers and buyers knew nothing of it, and still don't.

Not only that, the numbers did not drop all that much no matter what spin you want to put on it. The boycott (or continuing boycott) was/is a waste of time, just as all the others in the past have been.

The other sites everybody has been spouting about are also useless. I don't have the time, inclination, or patience to use them. I need to sell things, and I need to make money. eBay still has the traffic and the sales, even though I now get a smaller piece of the pie. That's life.

No disrespect meant, but the boycott, strike, exodus, or whatever you want to call it ain't workin'.

I had my first auction since the new fees went into effect close last night. The take was disturbing, but that's life. It's still more money than I had if I hadn't run the auction.

Don't get me wrong, I'd like to see a viable and strong competitor to eBay, I just can't afford to be part of the "movement". And if you think that any other company becomes as strong as eBay (in some distant future) isn't go to repeat the exact same pattern that eBay has demonstrated, you need to wake up.

Never forget: It's all about the money.

quote:

Organized? I'm sorry, are you kidding?

Sorry, got to agree with JeffS here (don't always ), it happened relatively on the spur of the moment, you cannot rally 100,000's of sellers in a matter of days, and without the support of the big boy power sellers (who are not going to pay their staff to pull 1000's of listings each for a week long boycott and then pay thier staff to relist them all again) without good notice assuming they wanted to participate.

This needed to be organised well in advance and there was plenty of time before May before feedback changes cut in.

Can't say I noticed more than a slight dip in active listings, sure more activity on other sites, probably due to sellers spreading their eggs amongst other venue baskets which is what I am doing, but like me they cannot afford to stop on greedbay just yet.

As I have said on another thread here, fees are proportional to STR, and the bottom line is money, for greedbay, you and I !

Greedbay is no longer an online market place for the individual they are now courting GM one of the biggest companies in the world how does your turnover and products compare with them, it is a sign of the future growth plans of greedbay.

And didn't I see a mention about Sears in Auctionbytes, isn't that a major US store, courting them too ?

Eventually greedbay will be torn between satisying the commercial giants and their own shareholders, I wonder who will win when the cards are down, oh to be a fly on the greedbay boardroom wall when that happens

quote:

Originally posted by ChooChooGuy:

Sorry, got to agree with JeffS here (don't always )

I wouldn't want you to always agree. It makes for healthy conversations.

Now, what do I care about GM and Sears? I could care less if eBay is courting them. They don't sell what I sell, they are no competition to me.

I am still free to sell whatever "junk" I want on eBay, and nobody is throwing me off. It just costs a little more now. The "flea market" aspect of eBay will NEVER die, you can't kill it.

The new fees suck. Sure. Last night I had an item close at $17.50. I decided to look in my invoice log to see the fees.

I found a pre-hike item that sold for $19.99 had a FVF for about $1.05. My $17.50 item had a FVF of $1.53. Yea, that sucks BIG time, but hey, I SAVED a nickel on the listing fee. Wasn't that great?

The point is the items still sell. I still make money. Every other alternate site would not have sold this item because nobody would be looking for it there.

Time to move on, get back to selling, take the hit, and forget it. GM, Sears, Junk pushing PowerSellers? Who cares?

Feedback? Who cares? Stars? Who cares? My feedback and stars are good now. Why should they all of a sudden change? I don't expect any problems with buyers, and if I get the random bitchy buyer, I'll deal with it then.

quote:

The "flea market" aspect of eBay will NEVER die, you can't kill it.

The main point of my last post comes down to, they write the rule book, apply and break the rules as they see fit and all they have to do is :-

1) have enough volume suppliers of new goods and say from now on "new items only"
2) hike the fees so that selling under say $10k worth of items a month is unprofitable

Job done fleas exterminated, meantime us fleas find a more profitable dog to eat

Yes, you could kill it that way. I don't think that's going to happen though.

Jeff -

I'm sorry you feel that you have to just be passive and accept the pap being shoved down your throat by eBay. And I truly wish you well there. But I wouldn't hold out much hope.

As far as unorganized, you are correct when you say huge numbers of eBayers did not know of the boycott. The announcement was thrown at us at the end of January, and we spent weeks trying to communicate on eBay's community boards but they kept pulling posts and banning members. If we even mentioned the NAME of a banned member, then we would also be banned. It felt as if we were practicing shunning of other members.

By the time we went off-eBay, yes, time was short. But we are proud of the impact we did have in such a short time. And we can argue until the cows come home, but I flat do not believe eBay wasn't affected. They skewed the reports so badly (and then refuse to "reveal" how they reached the numbers they put out to the world) that nothing from them is accurate.

We now have two more months to continue to gather and plan. We have no doubt that eBay will go on just fine without us. But my point is they will no longer monopolize the online auction world as they have to date. They have come to think there will never be any competition because they are KING. Well, they are WRONG.

As far as traffic to the new sites, you are also correct in that eBay has it hands down over any others. But don't forget that not too long ago, eBay was the very same. And also the only one. But today we have so many more choices, eBay can no longer monopolize the market.

You have every right to continue to sell on eBay, as many others do. There are thousands who have become dependent on eBay as the only source of income, and they are now stuck because, as I said, no other sites have the traffic. YET. The members who are in support of boycotting eBay have NEVER critized those who continue to sell. We do not have that right. We have no idea of their reasons for doing so, and it is each individual's choice to make. Our goal is to get word out to those small, "flea market" sellers who are blindly going about their business, not knowing what is about to happen to them.

I, personally, refuse to "take the hit" and "forget it." And if you believe that your feedback and DSRs won't take a hit, well, more power to you. Many sellers have already reported buyers who are trying to use the new policies to extort, not knowing these policies haven't taken effect yet. I personally am one of them. I've had my problems with buyers, but I also have a perfect FB score. But just like everybody else, the DSRs WILL dump my rank to the bottom. I hope yours stay way up there amongst the elite, I really do.

Good luck to you all.

Debbie

I disagree completely (as you may have gathered by now).

Yes ChooChoo, you are right that things happened on the spur of the moment. But why are you saying it needed to be organized well in advance, and that there WAS plenty of time before May? It isn't May yet. There's still time.

So Greedbay can "court" all the big names they want. Come Christmas, as one poster said it on Delphi, who's going to shop GM through eBay? That "flea market atmosphere" is what brought so many to the site. Now JD is saying he's ashamed of that. I am one of those he's ashamed of and I see my future there quite clearly. It doesn't exist.

Like I said before, I wish you all the best if you continue on eBay. And I really mean that. But I think at some point you will see their foot kicking you out the door. It would be best to be established elsewhere before that happens.

Every issues has its debaters. This one is a hot one. Every one of us is entitled to our opinion. Time will tell all.

Thanks for the "conversation" all, I've enjoyed it!

Debbie

quote:

Originally posted by MJ:
Interesting. A few days after they announced the changes I sold all my ebay stock. If you pay attention to what people are saying (on the stock boards) you will find that ebay is changing directions and going after large volume sellers - like the deal with GM. I seriously doubt many of the powersellers will even be able to get a discount based on the misleading information about the star system. Ebay tells the buyer that 4 stars is good, then tells the seller it's bad. I won't be selling there come May. There's a whole lot more to this than the fee increases and the feedback rule.

You are SO right. Everybody says the power sellers are going to come out just fine yadda yadda. But that isn't true. They are the future "flea market" that John Donahoe so detests. You are wise to move on. Good luck wherever you land.

Debbie

No disrespect, but seriously:

TERMS:

5. John Donahoe’s resignation, if he refuses to meet our terms.

You are not going to be able to put eBay out of business or force a resignation.

To each his own opinion.

But I will say, glad you visited Delphi!

I am just going to use what is the most cost effective way to make some money selling online the goods I want to sell and there is market for, whether it all be on one site, farming buyers on one and mainstream on another or going it alone.

If greedbay don't fit my needs, so what, I go elsewhere and the more they alienate their sellers the more business is driven to their future competitors.

Good sellers can get their regular buyers to migrate with them

Can't argue with a single point.