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
"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:
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
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'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
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.
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
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.