In every issue, readers soundoff about issues important to them. From feedback to payment services, from increased fees to posting policies, AuctionBytes Soundoff gives you a chance to air your views.

Re: eBay Rolls Back Major Store-Search Initiative
http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m03/i29/s01

Ina,
I have a different view why Ebay is changing it back. I trade on ebay with a store and normal ebay auction style listings. Before the change, the way to drive traffic to my store was "to list as many auction style". With the change I did not need to list as many auction style listings and ebay lost listing revenue from me, although my sales via store increased and my total sales stayed the same. In my opinion, this is the unexpected or "unintended consequences", the incremental additional fees for VF in the stores did not match the lost listing fees. Ebay lost listing revenue as a lot of store owners probably the same. A number of customers said to me that they are glad they found my store (a better buying experience) this in contradiction to what ebay is telling the community.

http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=2000114170

Keep up the informative work.
Best wishes,
Jan

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This is dirty pool!!

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Re: Store search roll back. Seems to me that it would behoove eBay to keep it as is since it makes more money from store sales. I don't quite get how this put anyone at a disadvantage.

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In the last editorial, I commented on another high-profile seller shutting its business on eBay: http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y206/m03/abu0163/s01 It really struck a chord with readers.

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Just a comment on yet another biggie ebay seller going down the tubes. The reason, I think, this is happening is quite easy. eBay just isn't the great buying atmosphere it used to be. I've been selling on eBay since 2000 and I can tell you my niche has virtually dried up! Vintage designer purses - where there used to be last minute bidding wars, I've been lucky to break even.

This trend is probably apparent throughout all categories and I've noticed this downslide for the past 9 months at least. People don't even bid until the last few hours or minutes. Newbies want something for nothing and complain about minutiae.

My latest is a guy with 4 feedback who complained that the new 2 GIG of RAM he purchased from me didn't look like the picture. (I inadvertently pictured laptop RAM in the auction - the only and only time I have used ebay photo service in years.) I only had one of those to sell - my son had purchased the wrong thing for his computer so gave it to me to sell. In essence, what this guy wanted to do, was purchase my item, return it to the company it was originally purchased from and get money back - which would've been more than what he paid for it on auction. How clever of him.

The newness and uniqueness of eBay has worn off and grown old and boring to buyers. Going shopping is everyone's cardio - and you can't get that on eBay. Deals on a lot of things - yes. But in the end, the scammers and fraudsters have deeply cut into eBay's unique atmosphere. It used to be fun and exciting - but now, it's changing yet again. Ebay's own greed has done that as well by driving sellers elsewhere.
Just my humble opinion.
Mindy

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Ina,
I wonder if the reason a couple of powersellers have gone bankrupt has anything to do with the raising of fees. I'm a powerseller, and our sell-through is less than 20%. The fees increases really kill us. Regards,
Juli

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Hi, Ina.
You said "Selling on eBay has, to me, always seemed like it was designed for "lean and mean" business models."

So many sellers fail to understand this concept and court disaster almost from the moment they sell their first item. IMO ebay's wild popularity with shoppers rests on 2 things:

One - Lower than retail prices for virtually all products (in many cases, lower than wholesale)

Two - Availability of a vast array of products, including truly rare items (which tend to bring very high prices because ebay reaches true collectors)

When sellers fail to recognize that the prices they realize are almost certainly going to be far lower than a retail store and tailor their purchase prices and expenses to meet that level of return, they virtually guarantee disappointment at best and financial ruin at worst.

In other words, if you can't get your product for a very low price and cut your expenses to the bone, there is no way you can make a "real" profit on ebay. I sell antiques and collectibles and frequently tell people that I make my money when I BUY, not when I sell. No matter how nice the item is, what great condition, how great it would look on your auction page - if you pay too much for it, you won't be happy with the results.

The same is true of expenses. If you have every conceivable bell and whistle, your auctions may look great, but if those bells and whistles aren't bringing in enough extra sales at good prices to cover their cost, your net profit will disappear. People sometimes tease me because I care about the $.25 difference between starting an auction at $9.99 or $15.00, but pinching every penny is the only way I've found to control my expenses so that my bottom line keeps me happy. It is possible to keep your total ebay/paypal expenses below 12% of sales each month, but you don't do that by using high starting prices, reserves, and accepting separate Paypal payments for items being shipped together.

Without prior experience owning retail businesses, many ebay sellers initially think they're making REAL money when people begin to send them payments for their ebay items. They then list more and are thrilled to get even more payments every day. With all that cash flowing in, it is easy to lose sight of the basic reality that any merchandising business follows: Either you work like a fiend and watch your cost of goods sold and expenses like a hawk, or you WILL fail.

A seller may feel successful when shopping for warehouse space, hiring employees, and adding the latest electronic equipment, but true success in raising the bottom line is much more likely to come from hours of drudgery researching results of prior auctions, developing and tweaking the clearest and most cost-effective business policies, and researching and writing the clearest descriptions.
Carol

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Hi Ina:
Our company wide gross margin on ebay drop-off is 33% and is on the rise. Why does it seem to you that eBay is designed for "lean and mean business models"? We started out as lean and mean, but we continue to add overhead and infrastructure in order to increase revenue and gross margin.

It is my opinion that companies who do not invest in overhead and infrastructure are at risk of failing because they are not investing in adding value for the bidders. If you don't add value, it becomes a pure price game and you go out of business. I would be happy to discuss this in detail if you are interested...

Jack Reynolds
QuikDrop International

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Ina,
In my opinion, the high profile, large volume sites given time will fade, for they have no choice. I give eBay just about five more years of meaningful growth, and then it will begin to slide down hill in volume and profits - and it will not be able to put the brakes on quickly enough, for they are a company that does not listen to the dealer side of the market place.

We are a small po-dunk company, and have learned we cannot afford all of the goodies of a brick and mortar store. The profits are just not to be had on the internet, especially with the greed of companies like eBay. Eventually internet retailers - through auction sites, will have to assess their profits very closely. The volumes look great, but the profits are sliding, as the result of a, "charge for this and charge for that," mentality.

No business can sustain a constant raising of the costs to do business, when the competition is fierce. We have tried on several occasions to market the more common goods in mass volume. We can do it. However, the profits are not there, for the charges to do business are too high - using a common goods venue. We now try to stay with the rare, the unusual, the collectable, the bizarre, the antiques, etc. Still no super big profits, but more dollars for us than fighting for price over this little gizmo and that little gizmo.

Between the constant changing rules at the big gorilla site, and the constant raising of prices, it takes a full time person to make sure we obey all the rules and to analylise the sales data. Now we are looking at a couple of extra employees that are adding costs to this company beyond what we can stand.

Since we are a, "mom and Pop's," business we are not going to keep reaching for the big volume months, for it can be a case of - the larger the volume, the smaller the profit. If this is true of our size company, I cannot see why it is not true of any other size company. Ebay began to build on the small dealer or even just a home owner wanting to downsize and get rid of "just stuff." But, today they have taken that base, shoved it out of the way, gone after the big guys, and eventually it will bring their house without a loyal foundation down.
Larry

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I think ebay has lost the reason that it first started with. It has got so big and greedy they have terrible public relations with their sellers. The stupid note-sending back and forth is terrible you spend hours sending these notes and get no place. They think every one is a computer wiz and should understand them. One Phone call would clear up things in just a few minutes. For example, I was unable to understand how to put Norton program on my computer so I called and they walked me through putting it on my computer and it took a few min and it was done - and Norton is a lot bigger then ebay.

I have to switch to blackthorn and am unable to get any help from ebay. They send me all kinds of instructions and I do not understand any of it but one phone call and I would be up and running as I would understand directions on how to do it.

When they first started it was simple and they did have phone help for those of us who were handicapped but not any longer. I think some should remind them of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 as they are not in touch with helping any one with disabilities when it comes to help on the computer.
Al

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Many eBay sellers are extremely frustrated that eBay's bulk relisting tool in Selling Manager has been broken now for nearly 4 weeks. No expected fix date has been announced, but sellers have been told they can relist their items singly. This, or course, is much slower! eBay has finally acknowledged the issue but says a fix is days away. Many sellers in the discussion forums at eBay are pretty frustrated. You can view one of the threads here:
http://forums.ebay.com/db1/thread.jspa?threadID=2000089027

Just thought you'd like to know.
Kind regards,
Lisa

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Hi Ina,
I'm not sure exactly when Ebay Express is set to roll out... but I found on my Preferences page that I had been opted in. Reading their guidelines...I qualified, so they opted me in. Besides being qualified (as I'm sure most seasoned sellers are) one of my selections was that I would ship to "unconfirmed" addresses. http://pages.ebay.com/sell/announcement/overview/express.html

Since I don't sell high dollar items, this hasn't been a problem for me and most of my buyers have always had confirmed addresses. I do limit what countries I sell to though.

My main concern is that it offers sellers NO Paypal Seller Protection and sellers might not be aware of this if listing show up on Express.

I'm sure there are many other sellers who think that unless they specifically list on Express, their BIN listings won't be included in Express. That's what I thought anyway.

I've opted myself out...it says next to the opt-out button that it can take up to a week for the opt-out to take effect.

My other main concern is that, as we've seen in the past, anything new on ebay is usually full of bugs. Buyers will be able to BIN with several different sellers and make ONE payment. I can just imagine the mess with sorting ONE payment to possibly a dozen sellers. :o http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200603.shtml#2006-03-24112746

Btw, nice articles on the Paypal security Flaw. Regards, Kathy

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Re: "PayPal Security Flaw Makes eBay and PayPal Users Vulnerable to Phishers"
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m03/i24/s00

Thanks for posting that article. I received one of the fraudulent Paypal emails yesterday, and could not figure out how a phisher had gotten my name. The email looked legitimate, and the link used was very close to a Paypal address, beginning with www.paypal.com. I did forward it to paypal spoofs, so I found out fairly quickly that it was fake, but the use of my name had me worried. And now, I have my name AND a relatively new (and clean!) email address in the hands of spammers. Ugh! Kristi

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Hi, hope alls well.
I recently purchased a t.v on ebay, it was on buy it now. then payed through paypal, all postage + insurance sorted. The next day the seller had refunded my money and said "he put the wrong buy it now price."

I really want the tv and at the original price paid, can I do anything???
Hope to hear from you soon, Rob

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Paypal's announcement of reduced fees in the UK is misleading as most users will not be receiving as much as 6000 GBPounds. They should be asked how many accounts would benefit!!

The table they give simply highlights how expensive paypal is. Whatever the percentage they take they also add the 20p fee each time.

It is time for us all to find an alternative but sadly we are too busy running our own businesses and so just accept this situation.

Please send out an SOS to established financial institutions to try and set up an alternative.
Andrew