|
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.
Ina,
Please let your readers know eBay won't support modern versions of any Netscape product or Opera with advanced functionality. According to our web stats 22% of our viewed items are done by Netscape browsers and 17% by Opera so 39% of our shoppers domestic and International will be unable to shop as easily and may already be experiencing difficulties. As always eBay has provided us as sellers big Christmas Shopping Season surprise. New features always mean glitches and instead of doing this transition suring the spring or summer or after the holidays sales period they launch it now.
http://pages.ebay.com/help/newtoebay/browser-recommendations.html
"Netscape Navigator is no longer supported by eBay. eBay is currently not supporting advanced functionality on the Opera browser."
Please note I am sending this from Netscape 7.2 email so I too will have to covert to a new browser.
Have a Lovely Weekend,
Lee
********
Ina,
I enjoy your newsletter and look forward to receiving them. They contain so much useful information.
I have been selling and buying on eBay since 1999. I have read and heard a lot of complaints about eBay's fee, eBay catering to corporations, etc. I'd like to share my complaint with you.
When I first started "eBaying" and for a couple years thereafter I enjoyed the personal aspect of buying and selling. You would get an actual email from sellers when auctions ended not an automated invoice from eBay or paypal. Emails would be sent when item shipped or was received. In my opinion eBay and paypal are partly to blame. In an attempt to simplify the selling/buying process they have removed the majority of the personal aspect. Sure some buyers and sellers still send out emails when auctions ended or items are received. However it is nothing like it was a few years ago.
Thanks for letting me vent.
Keep up the great job with the newsletter,
Donnie
********
Hi Ina,
RE: "This transaction has been reversed"
These are words you don't want to read when getting your daily emails.
This month it has happened twice to my business. The reason per PayPal, "it has come to our attention that you may be the recipient of potentially unauthorized funds."
I've been a long time Power Seller of eBay and have never had any reversals due to unauthorized funds until this October. Both packages were mailed to a confirmed out of state addresses and paid with PayPal. PayPal has been very difficult to deal with in regards to one transaction which was mailed by Priority Mail, with Delivery Confirmation, Insured, and with a Green Return Receipt. Funds have been taken out of my PayPal account. Both my PayPal sellers protection program claims are being reviewed.
I am thinking other sellers must be noticing an increase in these type of activity. Regardless, I highly recommend all sellers re-examine the Seller Protection Policy of PayPal. Besides shipping to a confirmed address and following all the other Seller Protection Policy rules, I especially recommend the following:
If using the USPS and on PayPal transactions of $250 or more, be sure to purchase a United States Postal Service Signature Confirmation. Although, not specifically called for in the PP Seller Protection Policy, it seems to be what they want for signature proof of delivery.
This has caused my business/shipping policy to change. We are now holding shipments to apartment addresses for 6 days (be careful because PP policy states that items must go out in 7 days), this also applies to business addresses. The PP Policy is not clear if this is 7 continuous days or business days. We are assuming continuous days. Also, we will hold shipments if a user tries to rush the transaction. Our new shipping policy is then weighed against the users past history with us and buyer's eBay feedback history over the last two years.
It is impossible to stamp out fraud, but hopefully, my experience can help some eBay sellers save money and grief in the future.
Best Regards.
********
Ina:
I'm sending this note to you just in case others have written to you about the same issue; perhaps you can establish if this is a pattern.
I had my EBay Power Seller status taken away about two months ago. Today I receive an Ebay Power Seller Welcome packet! By the way, I never received such a packet when I originally became a Power Seller!
In the packet of materials is a welcome letter signed by Meg; a certificate of accomplishment; and other information about being a Power Seller.
Get this...in the section about Ebay Stores, it states, "Reduced Selling Costs - Pay just 2 cents for each 30 day period and 1 cent for the Gallery Picture"!
Of course, I tried to enter the Power Seller area of Ebay, but the gates were still closed to me.
This is a prime example of "adding injury to insult". To lose my Power Seller status as a direct result of EBay's abrupt business decisions...only to receive a Power Seller Welcome packet with old, outdated information! Ebay... "A ship without a rudder"? ... Absolutely.
Ebay Seller
********
Hi Ina,
I have an idea for a story that I would like for you to consider. I believe this and similar issues effect a large number of ebay sellers like myself.
I just finished reading Part 3 of the glacierbaydvd interview and the comments he made about Trust and Safety hit home with me. I started my ebay business 5 years ago in my garage. Just last year, I purchased a 10,000 square foot warehouse. I will have between 1.3 and 1.5 million dollars in revenue this year. Half of that comes from ebay and the other half comes from my website www.JillianDistributors.com
I am contemplating shutting down my entire company at the beginning of next year. Unlike the issue with glacierbaydvd, my problem isn't with profits. I am simply fed up with the issues surrounding Trust and Safety. Dealing with this department has made my ebay experience unbearable.
I know by the nature of their job, enforcing the rules, they aren't going to be the most favored group at ebay. From my perspective, I have no problem with following the rules; I have a problem when they refuse to clearly state what the rules are. Here are a few examples with the most recent first.
One: Two months ago, I had numerous items ended for excessive shipping. The items had a starting bid of $9.99 with $29 shipping that included shipping to Alaska and Hawaii. I called Trust and Safety and explained that if this item shipped to Alaska and Hawaii the actual cost to ship would be $35 - $54 depending upon the zip code. The rep verified this info and cleared me to start listing the items again.
Two weeks ago, I had the same items ended for excessive shipping again. This time, ebay suspended my selling privileges until I completed a tutorial on fee circumvention. I completed the tutorial and immediately called Trust and Safety to explain these listings were already cleared. The rep refused to clear the items again or even acknowledge the items had been cleared previously. I was told to fax the information and I would get a response in 24 hours.
Forty-eight hours later, I called to request a response. I explained I didn't want to start listing again until I had a final answer. The rep explained I should wait a week and then call back if I had no response. Explaining that I couldn't just shut my business down for a week got me nowhere.
Almost two weeks later, I finally got a response. This trust and safety rep felt shipping was too high even though shipping would exceed the amount charged if the customer was in Alaska or Hawaii. In response to my question concerning how much I could charge, I was told ebay doesn't set shipping amounts. It was up to me to determine what was reasonable. ......This is a little like saying, "Your breaking the rules, but I am not going to tell you what they are".
Two: I sell a leather waist bag / fanny pack. This particular bag is made to hold a firearm. I finally gave up listing it after it was removed numerous times for being a violation. I called Trust and Safety several times and it was cleared only to be removed again. I've noticed this is a big problem with Trust and Safety. Most of the reps don't agree with each other. Even when one makes a ruling and notes your account, another rep will disagree and still take action on the account.
Three: One of my favorites happened last year. One of my accounts had approximately 5,000 positives. The overall rating was 98.8% and I was getting around 1,200 feedback a month. For a reason Trust and Safety refused to explain, I was being threatened with suspension for what they claimed was seller non-performance. I jumped up and down, asked why, and directed trust and safety to my account with over 12,000 positive feedback and a 99.1% rating. This got me no answers. I still have no idea why I was accused of seller non-performance.
The resolution was I had to show every single transaction where I had received a negative and neutral was resolved. These guys had me contacting buyers from 2 years earlier using Square Trade. I had to fax the square trade dialogue to Trust and Safety and they decided if the transaction could be considered closed. I spent 2 hours a day working on this for nearly a month. I still have 100's of pages I faxed to Trust and Safety.
Finally, I realized there would never be an end to this! Since I was actively selling over 1,000 products a month on this same account, I was still getting 3 - 5 negatives and neutrals each week. It wasn't sufficient that I showed the past transactions were resolved, they wanted proof these "new issues" were resolved as well.
Out of desperation, I finally called Power Seller Support and explained what was happening. I can't remember his name, but this guy was great. He didn't seem to believe what I was telling him at first. He called me back to let me know he was talking to his manager in Power Seller Support. They both agreed that the piles of paper I had already faxed showed the old issues were resolved. They also agreed since I was actively selling, I would never get all issues 100% resolved. A few days later, he called back and told me I had been cleared. There was no need for me to fax any more Square Trade conversations showing resolution.
Of course Trust and Safety disagreed. They sent me an email saying so and insisted I keep showing the new issues were resolved as well. I just ignored the email and luckily, I haven't had any more problems.
I've faced these issues for the last five years. I don't mind following the rules, just tell me what they are. The major issues revolve around rules that are open to interpretation. The reps in Trust and Safety don't agree on them and as a seller I am supposed to come up with a solution to please them all. I for one have had enough.
I can't continue to deal with the stress of knowing the outcome of the $500,000 I have invested in my business is basically determined by the mood of an $8 an hour worker in a cubicle with a God complex. I feel like I am finally done.
By comparison, Power Seller Support is one of the best departments in Ebay. Even when I don't like their response, it is always clear, timely, and I am left feeling like a valued member.
It is just the opposite with Trust and Safety. They are extremely slow to respond, (usually 1 week or more), rude, and when you finally get the response it doesn't contain a clear-cut decision. Whoever runs this department should be canned.
There have been some good things about my ebay experience. I went from a guy with no business experience or web design skills to managing over $100,000 a month and building my own website from scratch. I have learned so much about business and ecommerce over the last 5 years. I owe this much to ebay. I just hate the way things are going over there. Unless, something changes I plan on cashing out the equity in my building and liquidating my inventory at the first of next year.
Thanks for a great place to read about auction news.
Brent
********
Re: "eBay Feedback Farms Planted with One-Cent eBooks"
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m10/i03/s02
Hello Ina,
I read your article on 1 cent books with interest (AuctionBytes 3rd Oct). Whilst I am sure that you are correct these are being used by fraudsters and those wishing to boost feedback there is another reason for selling 1c or in the UK 1p items and that is simply to get hold of peoples e-mail addresses to add to the sellers e-mail list. Compared to some of the other list building methods this is a very economical approach.
The legitimate way of doing this is to offer a 1cent book and then when a purchase is made you send a thank you e-mail which also contains an offer of some kind of free downloadable gift, e-book or software. If the buyer responds to this offer than can legitimately be considered to have opted into your list. Of course the less than scrupulous operators just add the buyer to the list when they make the initial purchase.
Another example of misuse of e-Bay aquired e-mail addresses that I came across recently was somebody using them to distribute "chain" e-mails. The copy I received originated in the UK and asked you to send £3 to 5 e-mails addresses on the list (via Paypal) and then knock off the top name and add your to the list and send it to your contacts. Chain Letters are illegal in the UK but because it is on the Internet I don't suppose anyone will do anything about it and to be fair I don't think eBay can be considered responsible so it is just something else to be aware of.
Always enjoy Auction Bytes keep up the good work.
Best regards,
Dave bromley
www.ukauctionline.co.uk
********
Hello Ina,
I recently purchased an EZ Cube Photo Studio from Karen & Skip McGrath, and while doing so, had occasion to chat a little while with Karen. Amongst several things we discussed, was her suggestion for me to subscribe to your Auction Bytes Newsletter, which I subsequently did, and happily so.
While perusing this site, I clicked on to the Auction Site Seller Fees chart, and was surprised to find out how many other online auction houses there are besides eBay. Although I intend to take advantage of this chart to explore some alternate online sources, it occurred to me there is a 5th column wanting from this chart.
I suggest this 5th column would contain some, or all (but not exclusive of) the following stats for each auction house:
- Number of registered users
- Dollar amount of gross annual sales
- Average number of items listed on any given day
- Amount of listing categories
To me, this additional information would provide the seller with the tools to better evaluate and rank any of the listed auction houses, in order to make a more advantageous decision.
I hope my recommendation is of some value to you, but most of all thank you for providing this great site.
Regards,
Al
Note: This reader is talking about the "Cool Tool" chart on auction site fees (http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/pages/sitepricing).
********
Regarding the call for information about Click-to-Call usage:
Hi Ina.
As for click to call features, they have absolutely no appeal to me. Actually to me they seem inconvenient and to me they also eliminate some of the control that a seller has over their time in the old black and white email format.
Duane
and
Hello Ina,
I love your AuctionBytes Updates and look forward to reading them when they come! I have a Skype button in my eBay store but have not had one person use it..... Thought it my help on a personal service level. I have skype working through an "actiontec" box which allows me mobility around my home with a cordless phone so I am not glued to the computer.
Best regards,
Keith
********
Hi, Ina. Excellent website, by the way.
I pulled the plug on my ebay store yesterday.
I've been considering doing so for a while now, and here's why: I started out on ebay by selling "yard Sale" things from around the house. I found that it is amazing what folks will buy. I decided to open an ebay store, to save money on fees. This paid for itself for a while. I thought, maybe upgrading to Featured Store will bring in more sales (since basic stores were rarely found in a search).
I stepped out on faith and upgraded the store. $49.00 a month now. I soon learned it wasn't a wise decision. No increase in sales. As I suspected, when searching for my products, they still didn't show up in the search then, either.
Back to a basic store. Funny thing. Since then the Traffic to my store decreased dramatically. I have been "paying" ebay to allow me to give my items away for too long.
Off With His Head!!!!
That'll teach me to downgrade.
You really need a high volume, low cost product source to make it with a store. If you do not start out with a Featured or Anchor store, ebay will starve you out.
Well, no more. ebay decided for me when yesterday, I received notice of a listing they pulled in violation of the "excessive postage" rule. Well get this!
In an effort to expand my product base, I suckered into buying a membership with a certain "ebay certified wholesale drop shipper". First off, don't ever, ever, ever, ever fall for this. This "drop shipper" tells you how much the supplier's price is, their "drop fee" and how much their shipping for the item(s) will be.
I listed their items in my store, and, unless I watched the "drop shipper" inventory closely, their items would go out of stock, discontinued, etc.
But what burned me most of the time, would be keeping an item listed for some time, only to sell it and find the "supplier's" shipping charge had increased.
Long story short...to prevent this I added $2.00 to each listing's "shipping" in the "ebay certified supplier's" "List your item on ebay" page.
You guessed it, they pulled my listing in violation of their laws.
So, if you wonder why you can't get other than a canned reply from them, personally, I believe they are going through the basic stores and farming out folks like me who don't "Pay the King his share".
Woody
********
Ina,
Much like their insistence that their studies of fraud indicate that it's less than 1% (which really has got to be the biggest piece of fiction from any company), ebay never mentions how they got their data, never releases their data and it's never done by someone outside the company. We're just expected to assume that they are telling the truth.
I would absolutely love to see the data gathered on any of their studies, whether it be fraud, (in any of its forms, to include bootleggers of all kinds) or anything else.
In your Glacier Bay interview, GB hit the nail right on the head when he said ebay doesn't want you to grow big. DUH! The bigger you grow, the more money you receive, and that means you might be able to shift away from ebay and build your own site with your own store not on ebay. Once ebay has you, they would prefer you stay there. However, it's fairly clear that in the long run, it's far less hassle to have your own site. The comment on what is and is not allowed strikes me as similar to the FCC rules, where they can fine a broadcaster or network for "indecency", but yet cannot provide an actual definition of what is or is not indecent, leaving it nice and ambiguous, and therefore insuring confusion.
As far as the "just a venue" line goes, you can say what can and cannot go on your venue. They do it all the time. You can pay with Paypal, you can't pay with anything that ebay doesn't own. You can't list bootleg items. You can't list firearms. You can't link to anything not ebay owned. You can't have excessive shipping charges.
So to imply they can't tell you what can or cannot go on their "venue" is clearly untrue. Further, the "just a venue" line has been proven to not hold up when they're sued for having fraudulent items on their site. Technically speaking, that could be applied to nearly anything.
Your internet provider? Just a venue to provide service. Your automobile dealer is just a venue that handles certain items from auto makers. The taxi is just a venue to get you to work in the morning.
It really would be nice occasionally if these inconsistencies were pointed out.
Greg
********
Ina,
First off, thanks for doing what you do and being the one to bring Randy's thoughts and concerns into the open. That's the biggest problem in this country is that nobody wants to speak up because of fear or it's so hard for the average person to find a platform to be heard from. I am a 9 year vet of eBay so it was awesome to read what he had to say!!
I personally see both sides of the GlacierBay thing. I really understand alot of what Randy is saying but on the other hand, nobody ever forced him to sell on eBay. I really would love to see eBay scale their fees. I don't think its fair that I pay the same as some dude in his basement. We are a Titanium Powerseller and our fees last month were over $15,000 so I would think that I would be considered a good eBay customer. Now, nobody held a gun to my head and told me to sell on eBay either but until they feel the heat nothing is going to change.
We are currently selling on Amazon and doing about 5% of what we do on eBay. The goal is to get to 20%. We aggressively market to customers for return business. And we are looking into other things like GoogleBase and Overstock and Ubid.
eBay can charge what they do cuz they are the biggest game in town hands down and always will be. Just like WalMart is the biggest game in town and always be. Target can get a small % of WalMarts business but not all of it, just like Amazon can take some of eBay's.
What I would like to see happen is that they scale the seller's fees more for the larger sellers and charge the buyers a small annual fee that allows them to purchase items on eBay. I get this idea from Sam's Club. Let's face it, everything on eBay is pretty much way below retail right? So why not make the buyers feel like they are actually a part of a good thing, and in the process validate the buyers better and weed out some of the deadbeat bidders. Just think, $9.95 annual membership fee and take that times 80 Million = A BOAT LOAD OF CASH!!
A man a long time ago told me something that has stuck in my head..."Your profit is in your buy and not your sale" If you think about it, it makes total sense. I don't know much about the DVD business but I'm sure it's a cut-throat business. I sure hope Randy was not paying $12 and selling for $15 cuz that's no good. I learned that the hard way in the NASCAR Collectible business. You got to make a profit. At the end of the day that's what it's all about. I also learned that you cannot put all your eggs into one basket. We have decided now that we have processes in place from purchasing to inventory to shipping that it is now time to expand our business into other product lines. It only makes sense.
I hate to see what happen to Randy but I also think we need to learn from it. I can tell alot of his frustration is from anger which is understood but Randy needs to take the knowledge he has and make the best out it. PLEASE RANDY, do not write a book. I was at Barnes Noble the other day and there was seriously an entire shelf of books on selling on eBay. These books make it seem like it's so easy to sell on eBay which in reality it is, but in reality, how many of them sellers actually understand business and profits?
That's one good point that Randy brings up is that when someone like that comes in and thinks cuz they paid $12 and sells it for $15 that they just made $3. Its people like that, that hurt the entire marketplace. It's a free world and free enterprise but come on. I personally have seen that in the flea markets, collectible shows, and now in the ecommerce world. When you make it too easy for anyone with some extra time and money to come in and start selling, this is what happens.
Thanks for letting me vent some and I hope that something I said makes sense. I would love to hear your response if you can.
Thanks much
Ron
********
Hello Ina,
I ran across this post on Ebay's Stores Board and it is so appropriate to what is bothering Ebay's sellers and buyers that I thought you might like to print it on your site (with the poster's approval, of course). You'll find the post and interesting answers to the post in this thread:
http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=1000365393&tstart=0&mod=1160852525533
I think its time that Ebay be held accountable for the mis-treatment of its sellers.
********
Hi
We are just beginning to see the power of e-bay fraud, I think. Here's our experience this week as ebay lambs being led, prodded and pushed to financial slaughter!
- My 15 year old son bids on an expensive electric guitar. With an hour to go he sits expectantly in front of our computer. With one minute to go, he bids the $25.00 required to improve his bid, and instantly is told that he has been outbid and the auction is over. Sorry!
- About 30 minutes later we get an e-mail at our e-mail address (obviously...but how did the writer get this?) saying in effect that we have a "second chance" to buy the guitar because the "winner has decided not to buy the guitar."
- Suspicious, I check the e-bay website and discover that it is a huge mistake to write directly to a seller because of fraud.
- Since then (2 days ago) we have had seven more e-mails, increasingly more legitimate with the e-bay logo, buttons for their entire site, warnings against the very thing the e-mail is asking us to do (to write directly) and so on.
- As each more convincing e-mail arrives, each from a "different" address but all claiming to be from the "seller," we are, on one hand, more uncertain about the fraudulent aspect of the event, and on the other hand, more and more impressed by how far and deep the scammers are prepared to go to get our $2400.00. Needless to say, the guitar is attractive and $500.00 less than other similar ones on the ebay site.
What advice do you have regarding this "second chance" business? Why does ebay even do it? Legitimate sellers, losing one "winner," could simply re-auction the item...
Jim
|
