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Do you know about the Ebay Boycott May 1st and Beyond??

M menana2uMember
love_from_nana@yahoo.com Please join me and MANY other sellers in boycotting Ebay beginning
May, 1 2008 and lasting until Ebay makes a change! Ebay has become
unreasonable and is pushing many of its best sellers out the door in
favor of sellers with bad business practices, simply because of money!
The specific reasons for boycotting Ebay are outlined below. Let's
make our voices heard and demand change!On February 18, 2008 Ebay
implemented changes that make it nearly impossible for the average
seller to continue selling on Ebay, due to drastic fee changes and the
inability to leave an honest feedback. At least one Ebay official has
been quoted as saying that Ebay has become too much of a flea market
and the goal is to become somewhat of a "high-end" mall. This new
"goal" of Ebay's will affect not only many of its most loyal sellers,
but buyers who come to Ebay looking for hard to find items or specific
collector items. Ebay as we know it will no longer exist unless we
make our voices heard.

Ebay Changes:

FEEDBACK—Sellers can no longer leave an honest feedback about buyers.
If a buyer doesn't pay, demands a payment method that the seller
doesn't accept, lies about not receiving an item, or any number of
other scenarios, sellers can only leave a positive feedback. Ebay has
taken away the ability of the seller to warn future sellers about a
bad buyer. We know that whether online or in a bricks and mortar
business, all businesses have customers that cause trouble and are
simply dissatisfied no matter how many hoops a seller might jump
through.

Feedback older than twelve months will no longer be displayed. Many
sellers have built their business through blood, sweat, and tears and
have worked extremely hard for many years to build their feedback. Now
Ebay has taken away the good seller's reputation. Ebay was built on
feedback, allowing users to see what kind of reputation a buyer or
seller has can be the ultimate push to make a purchase. If you checked
someone's feedback and saw nothing but glowing reviews for several
years, you might be more likely to purchase an item from this seller
over a seller who fails to ship products, or inaccurately describes
their products. With Ebay's new rules, feedback is essentially
worthless. Checking feedback for buyer is completely inaccurate since
a seller can only leave positive remarks, and feedback for sellers is
inaccurate due to limitations on the duration feedback can remain.

Detailed Seller Ratings-- Better known as DSR's, Detailed Seller
Ratings will now be linked to Ebay's search. Sellers who have higher
DSR's will have their items appear higher in Ebay searches. This is
unjust and unfair to new sellers who have NO DSR, and to established
sellers who may have had a personal emergency which caused a delay
in shipping, a buyer who doesn't leave the DSR, simply because they
don't understand it, or don't care to take the time to rate a seller,
or any other number of scenarios. If a seller's DSR is rated 4.0 out
of 5, under Ebay's new rules, this seller is considered "Bad". Their
items will appear below others in search results.

PAYMENTS HELD—Sellers who accept Paypal will be subject to having
their payments held for up to 21 days under Ebays new rules. That means some will have to pay for shipping up front out of your pocket. If a bad buyer says they don't receive then you won't get any of your money. This
applies to sellers who Ebay deems "risky" AND items that are listed in
"risky" categories. Things like video games, cell phones, and
televisions. If payment is held, a seller must ship the product, with
NO MONEY in hand, and rely on the buyer to leave a positive feedback.
If the buyer fails to leave feedback, the seller must wait up to 21
days to receive his or her money. This pushes sellers who drop ship
completely out of business. These sellers must pay for items BEFORE
they are shipped. Having their funds held for up to 21 days
essentially causes seller's to close their business. In what other
retail environment does the buyer get to receive their products before
the seller gets paid. Just try that at Wal-mart, walk in and say "I'm
taking this and if I like it, and I think you deserve it, I'll pay you
within 21 days." I'm sure you'd end up in the back of a police car.
Sellers who have less than 100 positive feedback are also considered
risky. Ebay is attempting to "grandfather in" it's power sellers and
prevent anyone new from being successful on Ebay.

Sellers who receive too many negative feedbacks in a certain time
frame are also subject to payments being held. If you have problems
with a shipper (as many of us have), if you can ship an item due to
Ebay and Paypal holding your funds and lose your status with a
dropshipper, not only do you get rewarded with your payments being
held, you are pushed out of business.

FEES—Ebay wants sellers to think that the fees have DECREASED… and
they have, but only on the front end, with listing fees. On the back
end, they have INCREASED dramatically. While Ebay dropped insertion
fees by about 5 cents, the final value fees have been raised by up to
66%! I would say that is an INCREASE! Ebay will no longer refund
reserve-auction fees. Previously this fee was refunded if the item
sold; now the Ebay conglomerate pockets this fee. Sellers who have an
Ebay store now, not only pay their monthly fees and listing fees, now
they are subject to final value fees being increased by up to 12%.
This is causing many sellers to go under and close up shop. Those
sellers who also accept PayPal are charged fees of up to 2.99% for
accepting payments. This is causing many sellers to actually LOSE
money each time they sell an item on Ebay!

Ebay has become too greedy, their greed has caused many sellers to go
belly-up. Let's make our voices heard and make Ebay realize that
without us, Ebay doesn't exist!!! For more links on this see my about me page on ebay my id is menana2u Hope you will join us in this boycott.
Original Post

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choochooguychoochooguyMember
quote:
At least one Ebay official has been quoted as saying that Ebay has become too much of a flea market and the goal is to become somewhat of a "high-end" mall.

Don't remember seeing many car-booters selling in our local 'malls' when they opened.

The eBay long term sellers knew no longer exists it is now a large profit making company who can do almost as it wishes to maximise shareholder returns.

So time to move on . . .
J jeffsMember
quote:
Originally posted by ChooChooGuy:
So time to move on . . .

There really is no where to move on to. Not yet.

Meanwhile my sales are in the toilet. Almost nothing is selling, or selling for very low prices. The "look counts" are high, just no bids.

I sold an item last night for 99 cents. Yes, I listed it for 99 cents hoping to spark interest. It sold with one bid, paid by paypal.

My take? 24 cents. 15 cents to list, 9 cents FVF, 51 cents to Paypal. This is really worth my time. No more 99 cent items.

Meanwhile I need the money to pay bills. everything is in unrest. Am I being paranoid? Is all this yelling causing the problems, or are people just not buying because they have no money? I can't say.

I can still say that all the other "alternate" web sits are worthless.
choochooguychoochooguyMember
Hi JeffS

Oh dear getting rather pessimistic aren't we Frown

I realise that you have many years of experience and I have only been on greedbay since 2005 but I am going to say it anyway.

Look at it this way, a lot of sellers probably still won't know about or care about the proposed boycott, most buyers will probably not know anything about it or even notice a variation in the number of active sellers when it happens.

Sales are more like to slump through many economic reasons, national or personal, seasonal fluctuations and fads, I doubt buyers are thinking *!@*!! greedbay lets stop buying through greedbay as the sellers are being fleeced.

It really depends on what your products are to how many of those factors will affect you.

So if sales are slow and it certainly seems that way to me lately, even very patchy does that not mean that there is nothing to lose by listing on some cheaper sites especially if greedbay STR is dropping to match minor site STR's for your wares.

Therefore what I am doing is finding sites that are cost effective even if STR is low and now sorting out how I can blog and advertise my presence on these minor sites, there are plenty of examples appearing on these forums and Tazbar’s.

If a minor site does not appear in the buying publics mind (and most do not) then we need to jump on to social networking sites tell people how wonderful our wares are and then tell them where they can buy these essentials they did not know they needed. I am thinking more like the advertising companies I depise all the time Red Face

All this is quite alien to me but I’ll be damned if greedbay is going to ruin my chances of being my own boss in the longer term. Razz

Further effort is required to send mailshots to my greedbay regulars, custom dispatch notes giving information on where they will find a much bigger choice of my wares.

Basically we have had it too easy on greedbay and many new greedbayers will jump in taking what they see as the norm and going from there. Isn’t this analogous to road traffic, when I started driving you could lterally park anywhere virtually no traffic queues, but now, arrrgh, so now I find it all rather tedious and rather walk or take the train. When our lad starts driving lessons soon all this will be his ‘norm’ goodness knows what it will be like on the roads in another 40 years, I certainly will not be around to care !

So, in summary, if STR on greedbay is sinking, makes the STR on other sites more attractive especially as they have lower fees but we on the otherhand must promote ourselves much more aggressively, greedbay does that for us, they know this hence they can force the fees up at will as most cannot or will not promote themselves.

This peasant is revolting Big Grin
J jeffsMember
Mr. Choo Choo, I asked once before, what is your name?

Anyway, even if the fees were 5 cents, the 99 cent sale would have been a waste of time. Even if I got the entire 99 cents, it's still not worth the effort to box, label, and take to the PO. For eBay to take 75% of a sale value isn't even a joke, or a crime. I don't know what it is. No wonder there aren't many 99 cent sellers anymore.

The value of all the types of items I sell is very depressed right now, and I'm not sure why. Yesterday I went up in the attic to pull down some stuff that was collected years ago, but never sold.

Old technical books that used to sell for $25-50 a copy. Books over a hundred years old that used to sell for $50+

What do I find? Multiple copies of these books listed, selling for under $10, most unsold. I remember when my copies were the only copies listed and were desirable. It's like now they are garbage. How depressing. Many of my items follow the same pattern. I have a lot of material in the attic and garage collected over the years, which essentially is now worth nothing or close to nothing.

I don't think these items would have any more value elsewhere. In fact, they wouldn't even be seen or sought for, because there is no traffic.

The eBay changes, in general, haven't done anything to dampen my desire to sell. All they do is take a little extra money away. But all of a sudden the sales ain't there. They WERE there in January, now they're GONE. Over the years, the "to sell" months were January through June, September through November, with Jan-June being the BEST months to sell in. Not this year.

It's very disconcerting, and yea, I'm sorry if I'm pessimistic. At the current moment, this is worse than the months following 9/11, which I thought were bad times.

I don't want to list on sites that have 0% STR. I don't want to keep material siting around "ready to pack" just in case it sells 5 months from now. I have 3rd party software (Auctiva) for managing all my activities. I have nothing for these other sites, only the sites themselves. Extra work/effort I don't want or need. I built my own infrastructure around selling on eBay, and semi-automated it with Auctiva utilities. I don't want to work manually. I'm used to taking an item out, photographing it, listing it, and having it gone in 10 days. If it doesn't sell, I put it back in some box and forget about it for months. I can't do that if I list a ton of items spread across multiple sites where it might sell in 6 months. I'd never find the item to package it!

So yea, I'm disgusted right now.
Last edited by jeffs
choochooguychoochooguyMember
Just call me Choo or something else that won't get censored Wink

I have had loads of old hardware and software engineering books all of which cost double here in the UK compared to the USA but technology moves on at an increasing rate so now the shipping alone rights them off as being of any value to sell.

I am going to be very blunt here and say that "Extra work/effort I don't want or need" is the way to become extinct and personally I tend to give up on people with that attitude, however I will just consider you said that in the heat of the moment.

Greedbay owes us NOTHING, ZILCH, ZERO and why on earth should they, they have moved on from the original concept and will NEVER turn back.

I too have built an infrastructure with the Auctiva tools and created macro loaded spreadsheets around selling on greedbay. Now I am expanding them to incorporate further sites and using as much of Auctiva tools as possible to support listing on other sites.

If you persist in your present attitude you are in for a rough time because there are not any good Samritans to financilally help us out, anymore than for an ailing brick built store.

I should have site diversified earlier, I have two choices, become aggressively proactive in marketing myself, or become an employee again.

The choices for you must be similar from what you said earlier about bills to pay.

We are spolit with greedbay and Auctiva and while you and no doubt others take this view then you will continue to bloat greedbay until they bleed you all dry.

And regards "I'd never find the item to package it!" you obviously need to spend more time on inventory control.

Most of what I do has been told in answering many others on these boards even over the last week or two.

So if what I said offends, sorry, but I think you need a shake up Smile
M menana2uMember
Choo Choo Thank you for all your help.You seem to be really nice and helpful.I do hope the STR picks upat some of these places. I had used Auctiva on ebay too and I will really miss using them. I even sent them a email to ask if there was anyway to use Auctiva anywhere else. You know what the anwser to that was. I don't really know what kind of links I can leave here, so if either of you would like more info on this you can go to my ebay about me page my id on ebay is menana2u I wonder if Auctiva will ever decide to be used at other sites? I had just ask if you could use the store on here stand a lone without someplace else....no...I had figured right... Ya'll have a great evening......Brenda
choochooguychoochooguyMember
Hi Brenda I am sure that if greedbay starts to sink CEO Jeff here will quickly turn his attention to alternative sites, it is quite logical what he says and coming from a software engineering background myself I can fully appreciate his reasoning.

Hopefully Auctiva will build a stand alone store we can use Smile

I think the STR's will pickup but it will take some while, whatever happens we all need to make the most cost effective arrangements, this will be different for each of us. We also need to review it regularly, brand loyalty is one thing but slavishly accepting without questioning is another. Smile
J jeffsMember
"however I will just consider you said that in the heat of the moment."

Nope, I mean everything I said.

"Greedbay owes us NOTHING, ZILCH, ZERO and why on earth should they, they have moved on from the original concept and will NEVER turn back."

I don't see it that way. I don't see any concept that has changed. The only thing they owe me is the services I pay for. It's not their services that are failing me right now, it's other elements, as I explained. eBay will continue to be a place to sell. I don't understand everybody with the thinking they've been "abandoned". I haven't been abandoned, The web site is still there, it just costs a little more (and if things were selling, I could absorb that increase). There have been NO policy changes whatsoever that change how or what I sell (the new feedback policy doesn't bother me one bit), and I refuse to believe that any are coming. What isn't working, for whatever reason, is the "want" of the items I'm selling. Maybe it's just a bad week, but it's been a bad month, and now we're into march.

"I too have built an infrastructure with the Auctiva tools"

Yea, you and pretty much everyone else has created your infrastructure using the FREE tools. Not so here. I'm paying $200 a year for the software to integrate with eBay to make my life as easy as possible. I've got 8 years of selling data in an eBud database spreadsheet. I've got 8 years of ePoster listings and photos of everything I've sold since 1998. It's useful data to me. I'm rather hesitant to abandon it.
A auctivajeffAuctiva CEO
quote:
Hopefully Auctiva will build a stand alone store we can use

We'll have something late this year. I'm always a little hesitant to give dates when it comes to software as they have a bad habit of slipping. I'd also hope to make some type of headway with eBay on some ideas I have over the next 4-6 months. One cool thing is they have at least been asking me recently for some ideas. That's better than before. All you guys using Auctiva is really making them pay attention to us finally Smile
quote:
It's useful data to me. I'm rather hesitant to abandon it.
Would it help if we were able to import your Auctiva Poster saved listings into our current site? I'm not sure how much longer the classic site will make it. At the current pace I'd guess at least a year, but sales could just tank at any time in this business. eBay controls that for us somewhat. When they send sellers a packin they chase away our customer too.

The eBud tool is so awesome. That's a tough one to replicate in a web browser so I'm not sure what to say there. There are still a lot of features it has that we don't have in the web based version. But it's sort of been our guiding force in how we wanted to have our post auction management be.
M menana2uMember
Cool Thanks for the reply and the info. I hope it is sooner rather than later. I will keep my eye out for it.If it was here today I would be the first to try to be on board. As a matter of fact I emailed support the other day through my store (vacant right now)here www.shoppingatnanas dot com . I know the email I got back was just to tell me it had to be used with ebay. I was just praying not. Thank you again for the info and I know myself and others I know will be watching for it....Brenda
choochooguychoochooguyMember
quote:
All you guys using Auctiva is really making them pay attention to us finally
Well CEO Jeff that is good news, even if I withdraw from selling on greedbay I will be following events here Smile

quote:
Yea, you and pretty much everyone else has created your infrastructure using the FREE tools
no point in getting bitter with me over that, it is cost effective for me and flexible !

quote:
I'm paying $200 a year for the software to integrate with eBay to make my life as easy as possible.
In which case JeffS you are going to have to be more proactive in marketing yourself for that to remain cost effective.

Well CEO Jeff has offered an option and sounds like a warning about the long term future of eBud.

The rest is down to storeroom organisation, surely there must be some facility in the eBud tools you are using to help with stock control. An organised store is essential to avoid upsetting customers when you cannot find what they bought.

We have had it too easy now lets come out fighting for sales and not with each other Smile
J jeffsMember
quote:
Originally posted by Auctiva Jeff:
Would it help if we were able to import your Auctiva Poster saved listings into our current site? I'm not sure how much longer the classic site will make it. At the current pace I'd guess at least a year, but sales could just tank at any time in this business. eBay controls that for us somewhat. When they send sellers a packin they chase away our customer too.


Jeff,

I'm not what you're referring too. The classic "site" really has little to do with the stand alone programs. They are after all, "stand alone". They run on my computer, and the only thing they really rely on is photo hosting from you.

Are you insinuating that eBud and ePoster are going to be discontinued?

quote:
The eBud tool is so awesome. That's a tough one to replicate in a web browser so I'm not sure what to say there. There are still a lot of features it has that we don't have in the web based version. But it's sort of been our guiding force in how we wanted to have our post auction management be.


Yes, it is awesome, and it's why I've continued to pay for it. I've been using it since before Auctiva bought it out from whoever the original programmer was. It's been so many years, I've forgotten.

I've become very used to using this pair of programs, and would be quite unhappy to loose them.
I irishgalMember
I didn't know but I think it's a good idea.I have so many non paying bidders. The 2 weeks or so I have to go through the process of reporting the non payment. Waiting to relist an item. To not be able to warn other seller of their non payment is ridiculous. Ebay doesn't present any warnings to us that they have had say 2 NPB's before you did business with them.
I see a lot of auction sites and i t might take a while for one of them to take off. In the mean time what to do for paying bills.
I irishgalMember
Besides this problem that effects all other sellers I have to consider that another seller copies my images and sometimes descriptions despite watermarks. This problem alone seems to be taking up most of my time. It deters her for 2 hours and she relists with my photo again.She has become my shadow as far as the things she sells. We are both power sellers. I see the images she took with a cheap camera and they don't compare. She knows more about auctiva then I do as she has been here a while. I wish I knew how she lifts my images so I could know whether auctivas program will slow her down.
choochooguychoochooguyMember
Hi, she does not even have to copy them it is extremely easy to link to your imaging host without copying them.

And I have said before more than once now, if it can be displayed it can be copied.

I am not going to say how and encourage others but basically you cannot stop somone from using your images or even your listings except by getting ebay to pull them and I think you already know how difficult that is.

I have also said before that the Auctiva protection will only stop the laziest copier.

You are better off getting on with selling and providing a superior service than your image thief because it is likely she can't be bothered to do that properly either. Customer loyalty can be the deciding factor on who does best.

To have a niche market you have to have a unique item and from what I see it needs to be a talent to create art forms from base materials. Anying that requires selling goods made by someone else will always be competitive.

So you are better off being superior at supplying the goods and stop being so concerned about the image thefts, you cannot do anything cost effective about it and the Auctiva protection will not help you. Frown
M member8880Member
Irish Gal,

All you can do is KEEP on reporting her...whether it be one time or a thousand times. I know powersellers can get away with MUCH more than the average seller because they line ebays pockets, but since you are also one yourself this fact can work in YOUR favor as well. Keep reporting her until they do something.

> And BTW--feel free to neg your NPBs, that policy doesn't go into effect til May.
I irishgalMember
I'm finally catching on to this site. Re doing some of my photo's on a new but cheap scanner.
Watermarking them on the site. I can watermark them with the scanner.

I will be having major surgery around June. I hope if I get through It I will be able to do something but ebay.

Right now I have 8 NPB. A lot of newbys on ebay starting. They can be really rude. I'm glad that at least in April feedback goes both ways.

The only thing I can think to do if someone gives me bad feedback in May is to not give them any feedback at all. Most likely I will be stopping for several weeks to recoup and hopefully when I get back Ebay will have lost so many sellers that they will have to rethink their strategy.

They compare them selves with Amazon. Amazon sellers don't pay a dime to list their items. They may lose more sellers to Amazon.
P pepedogMember
quote:
Originally posted by JeffS:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by ChooChooGuy:
So time to move on . . .

There really is no where to move on to. Not yet.

Hey guys!
A new auction site just opened up a few days ago!
I already posted this in the lounge but wanted to add that I think this site could become a success if we all gave them a try!
Listing is free so what do we have to lose??

They just opened on the 10th...or so and are preparing to go on an advertising campaign.
www.wazooie.com
Owners also own Auction Boutique which has been pretty successful.
I've been a member of Auction Boutique for years and this is why I received the email about their new site.

Wazooie offers running auctions as long as 31 days which is way too long...I think...but maybe a good thing for now while the word is getting out.

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