feedback change petition

Hi Ravenov,
Petitions have been done before and they never work. The ONLY thing that would work is if every single seller left and that ain't gonna happen. Gotta hit Ebay where they'll feel it, in the pocketbook. No sellers = no buyers = bye bye Ebay. Won't happen.

Although I do know many long time sellers who have pulled all their auctions & inventory and moved it over to places like Amazon, Ioffer, etc. But they'll probably be back...sigh..it's really sad

Member_8880 is absolutely right, Petitions, Boycotts, "seller actions", are useless. eBay is NOT going to deviate from this plan. Not now anyway. To eBay we are "noise" (that's a quote from John Donohugh) and this noise will eventually die down. It ALWAYS does. Now, maybe eBay will go back on these ideas in a year or so after they have hard data that proved it didn't work, but don't count on it.

You're not going to beat this. Don't waste your time.

Miss M and JeffS sorry to disagree, but no one thought a little Tea Party in Boston would work either!
Vive le Revolucion!

quote:

Originally posted by TazFromPA:
Miss M and JeffS sorry to disagree, but no one thought a little Tea Party in Boston would work either!
Vive le Revolucion!

So, you're saying that by 2/20 these new rates will not go into effect, and on 5/1 there will be no changes to feedback?

OK, let's wait and see.

Not saying that at all Jeff. But also not going to stand like a cow on its way to the slaughter house.
One voice makes little difference but one voice combined can make a difference.

After having been through this over and over and over again for the last 11 years, I can safely tell you that nothing makes any difference. eBay will do what it plans to to until "hard data" tells them it isn't going as planned. You could argue that the "hard data" is the influence of that "little voice" and maybe it is.

I do plan to stand around and do nothing because I'm tired of wasting my energy and getting upset over things I can't influence. What it boils down to is I make less money. So be it.

And, as a buyer, I better not be crossed. My opinions will be heard in the appropriate sellers feedback now.

Well I 'signed' it and sent a suggestion to eBay via their own link on how to improve the site

Will it do any good, probably not, but if there is even the slightest chance then I have contributed to it I thank effbay for the encouragement I now have with higher FVF's and a crippled feedback system to move to a decent UK site.

They also reduced the differences in costs between setting up my own site and paying them, it seems many others are grateful for that too.

I see the UK site, while getting similar "fee reductions" like the US site is NOT getting free gallery images. Why do you suppose that is?

Also your FVF fee increases are different. Do you suppose they end up the same after you do the conversion between currencies?

quote:

Why do you suppose that is?

Well JeffS, quite simply ...greed, the exchange rate according to effbay is 1 penny GBP = 1 cent USD so we often end up paying nearly twice the US rates anyway.

The way the 'reductions' take effect from my basic calculations are unless you meet at least bronze seller value sales or volume rates then overall it costs more on most things except oddly single media items. (Probably trying to encourage sellers here).

We did have a free gallery fee holiday something like October to December but that has ended.

Greedbay you are pushing your luck this time !

quote:

Originally posted by ChooChooGuy:
We did have a free gallery fee holiday something like October to December but that has ended.

We did too, and that's the "hard data" eBay uses to collect statistics to back up their claims. Things like "gallery pictures mean a higher sell through" and "we can prove it since we gave it away for free and sell through went up". If you ask them to show you the data, oh no, thats "confidential". Same thing with lowering the insertion fees, which they did a few months ago for a month. That arms them with the same data "see, more things were listed." Show me the data? "Oh no, that's confidential."

We willingly walked into the trap under the guise we were saving money. Which WE WERE because the FVF was not altered, so during these "collection periods" eBay was 'taking in less'. Now it's time for them to make it back.

Don't EVER assume a "promotion" is because eBay is doing you a favor. They use it for data collection to back up their bullshit plans.

quote:

Originally posted by TazFromPA:
Miss M and JeffS sorry to disagree, but no one thought a little Tea Party in Boston would work either!
Vive le Revolucion!

The difference is, eBay had already planned for, and expected, a decline due to the sh*tstorm this has caused:

quote:

Mr Donahoe believes he now has a prescription for this. Over the next few weeks, he said, Ebay would announce a series of changes to its fee structure and to the way its search engine sifts through its millions of listings and chooses which to present most prominently. He warns that this is likely to attract bad publicity in the short term, as some sellers who lose out complain and competitors try to sow confusion. It will also dent the company's earnings this year, with growth falling to about 12 per cent as the company changes its pricing formulae. Yet it was the only way, he added, to promote the site's best sellers and lure more buyers.

http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto012420081906254756

They knew all of this would happen, and are prepared to take the hit, so no amount of boycotting or petitioning will change it.

quote:

The difference is, eBay had already planned for, and expected, a decline due to the sh*tstorm this has caused:

And do you not think King George III thought ahead? Obviously not well enough.He did not send enough Redcoats to deal with a bunch of POd tea drinkers!
All the kings men and all the kings horses?
Can FeeBay be rattled? Depends if enough people are willing to quit drinking at their fountain.
$3.10 for gasoline. Quit driving and watch it drop! Quit selling and watch FeeBay drop to their knees!
SUPPLY and Demand people! Simple economics.
QUIT Being sheep and saying Wah! Wah! "I am but one preson, I can't change anything!( You are absolutely right! (The POWER of UNITY is amazing though)
POINT BLANK: Many of you are sheep and YOU WON'T try to change anything!
WAH! WAH! FeeBay raised their rates again "I won't be able to make any money" Wah Wah what am I going to do?
Wah Wah Gee, I cannot change it so I may as well suck it up. Hmm Maybe if I buy for less and scrimp on packaging and pay the GREAT KING FeeBays ransom I can make a living!
Get a Fracking life. Grow a set of stones or be a worm!
I am almost ashamed to admit my lineage comes from the Revolutionary period of the States.
My family members have fought and died in many wars for this country and been involved in various levels of government including Washington DC. This country is slowly killing itself with its "Who Cares and I Cannot make a difference" attitude.

Wake up people and take control before we lose all sense of self!
George Orwell (Even though a "fiction writer" was a great prognosticator as was Edgar Cayce. Go further back for some Nostradamus. Anyone care to discuss M*b*s? Anyone even know the reference and can connect the dots?
Sorry I am going to leave the stars blank for all you Googlers! Have fun!

Well, I'll say this: the amount of attention this is getting from media and such is pretty impressive so far.

Honestly, I pick my battles, and this change just isn't going to affect me as much as some other sellers. I just don't list enough there for it to make much of a difference, and while I think the feedback change thing is just silly, I don't think it will affect me much either.

eBay is putting a pine-scented air freshener on a turd, basically. They're trying to BE Amazon, but the two sites are just apples and oranges, so no amount of superficial changes are going to make it so. Amazon can get away with things like no buyer feedback (or at least buyer feedback that doesn't matter), because fraud is almost non-existent there.

I seriously hope for the best, because I know there are many people who need eBay, and I do think that they've been treated like crap by eBay. So, while I sincerely hope that the boycott/petitions do make a meaningful dent, realistically, I don't see it happening. They're too smart not to have thought ahead on this one.

I would rather see sellers put their energy into migrating their businesses onto other selling venues. There's a lot of opportunity out there - eBay's not the only fish (nor even the biggest) in the sea.

Boycotts and strikes will not work because there are always scabs. You make a hole, and somebody else will jump in and take advantage of it to make themselves money at your disadvantage.

Steve, you can call us all the names you like. NOTHING, and I do mean NOTHING is going to change. The only way it will change is if the numbers next year show it isn't going as planned. Seller beefs mean nothing. Do you actually believe every seller is going to stop selling for a month to "show them we mean business". Did anyone ever think a gasoline boycott to "show them we mean business" would work? I still need to go to work every day. Stop being naive. Boycotts, protests, strikes, they don't work. We're not unionized here so there is no collective that can be put into motion.

No offense to you, but if you don't want to suck it up, and feel you are a sheep, then fine, go someplace else.

eBay is a business, and their mission is to make money for their investors and stock holders. That's it. They aren't trying to benefit the sellers, just make money. I think we all know this.

These fees, and how they affect you personally depend on your selling model. I have a friend who lists a lot (100+ month), uses gallery, and has a very low sell through (20%). Of the few items sold, he makes a nice sum. For him, the new fee structure will save him money every month.

I sell a low volume of listings, say 20 per month. My sell through is about 90%, I never used gallery and my average final price is $25-50. I'm looking at a considerable fee increase of about 40%.

Every seller is different.

Also, all the noise is being directed toward the feedback changes, and little is being said about the fee changes. The feedback changes are nothing to me. I'm not afraid of getting negatives now, because nobody in the past every gave me one. I don't buy the "bad buyer" scenario where all these bad buyer zombies are going to come out of the ground and start giving sellers negatives for no reason. If you read between the lines, although you can't leave a negative for a buyer, there are going to be new controls and standards that buyers will be held accountable to. You got a buyer threatening you with feedback extortion? You can report him and he'll be suspended if it becomes a pattern. Were you lucky enough to get a negative from some buyer that was playing games? Well, if/when he gets suspended that negatives goes away. That never happened before.

Time to get back to selling.

Unfortunately, you guys are right. Nothing is going to change. When all the rest of you are boycotting, I'm going to be selling . No seriously, most of the items that I sell are such high-margin that the fee increase doesn't really matter to me, it's not a matter of losing money or making money. It still sucks that I don't get as much, though.

It's true, the uproar will most likely amount to naught, but actively complaining is a way to feel as if we're doing something.

I personally signed a petition to Google yesterday, begging that they create an auction site (and that the coordinate with the likes of Auctiva to make the transition easier for all).

On this front, I would love Auctiva to work to begin allowing cross-platform sales. I WANT to be selling in other venues, and I want to be doing it with the ease that I've only recently discovered Auctiva brings to the process.

We can expect no changes from eBay. Maybe we can hope for them here?

John Donohuge refers to us as "noise".

That's all you need to know about how you're thought of.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Shantyhag:
I
I personally signed a petition to Google yesterday, begging that they create an auction site (and that the coordinate with the likes of Auctiva to make the transition easier for all).


Could you post a link to sign that Google petition? I would love to be able to sell on a Google auction site! Thanks!

quote:

Could you post a link to sign that Google petition? I would love to be able to sell on a Google auction site! Thanks!

Sure, Susan_kk,

Sorry for the delay. I came about it through an Auctionbytes article, but I think that I found it again. Here's the link:

http://groups.google.com/group/auctionplease

Shanty

Here are the correct petitions...one for buyers and one for sellers. You can sign them both.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/new-feedback-policy-unfair-for-sellers

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/ebay-buyers-concerned-re-feedback-changes