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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: "AuctionBytes Covers eBay Live 2007 Conference in Boston" (the section on the documentary pre-screening)
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y207/m06/abu0192/s02
Dear Ina,
I was one of the recipients of the free movie tickets to Trader's Dreams. My daughter went with me & both thoroughly enjoyed the movie. After the movie, we met with the directors, discussed the movie & we each received a signed poster. Frankly I felt very honored & was disappointed at the lack of turn out. Thank you so much for the opportunity. It will be long remembered.
Patti
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Hello Ina:
I don't know if most of the buyers/sellers are aware, but Ebay has gone back to posting current items a person is bidding on. This neat feature was restarted within the past month. I find it a useful tool to check on friends activities so I don't bid against them. (that's really super good friends) Also useful to check on bidders you are familiar with and bid against you or a new bidder you don't know ( and can see what he/she bids on and a range of how high) through watching activities on Ebay; This can help you establish your final bid or if necessary, put in a Snipe bid. I would guess this could help Sellers also in some way but I don't know as I only bid. Happy Hunting.
Respectfully yours,
Bob
PS: By checking on what the people who normally bid against you are bidding on, you may see an item you missed and can now place a bid.
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Buyer asked us to lie on customs forms claiming an eBay purchase was a gift. Also insisted that even though she paid via PayPal, and PayPal requires shipments (and this was an international shipment no less) be made utilizing a trackable method, that we merely send her an alexandrite gemstone via ordinary airmail. We refused to break the law, refused to violate PayPal policies, filed a mutual rescission (not even an NPB). We got derogatory feedback for refusing to falsify customs declarations. We went to eBay Power Seller Support (how they can condone derogatory feedback for refusing to violate the law, right?), and they refused to remove the feedback. I guess violating customs laws and ignoring PayPal policy is more prudent than risking adverse feedback?
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Ina,
I have discovered 2 glitches which have been noticably affecting my ebay business and certainly other people's. The first of which has been a problem for over a year, and the second is relatively new.
I have roughly 400 items in my ebay store. Every week I have to take about 150 to 200 of them and give birth to standard multiple quantity 7 day fixed price format in order to gain valuable search engine exposure. Lets say I have 10 widgets in my store and I send 5 of them directly from the store listing to a standard multiple quantity fixed price listing. Then the store quantity is automatically reduced to 5 as it should be. The glitch does not appear until the 7 day listings end, and I need update the original store listings with the unsold quantities from the 7 day fixed price listings. If I (or anybody) go to the unsold items folder in the my ebay page, and click on "relist as store inventory" button for the above described widget, I will then get a screen which says "store quantity will change from 5 to 10" I click continue and PRESTO, the store item quantity is updated. ...BUT If I sold 3 of the widgets and I click on the "relist as store inventory" button, it will then tell me "store inventory will change from 5 to 7". This is where it gets tricky, if you click OK the store inventory will be updated with the ENTIRE 5 from the fixed price listing and show a quantity of 10 even though the prompt tells you that it will only be adding 2.
This is frustrating as I have to manually revise the original store listings for ALL ITEMS from the 7 day Fixed price listings. THIS IS A PAIN. We should be able to Click on the bulk button and send them all back correctly. ( I did this once, and I had to manually count my entire inventory to fix the store quantities)
The second problem has been occurring for about 2 months. I discovered it because the first problem leaves me needing to revise the store item once again as it reflects an incorrect quantity. On some of the store items when I attempt to revise the quantity it gives me an error message asking me to "Please provide the correct information in the highlighted fields." and will not allow me to complete the revision. The "highlighted fields" are the shipping boxes which I DO NOT touch when making the revisions, and it only happens on the listings which randomly show up with the new style super java revision page. The only way to revise the store listings is to end the item and relist it with the proper quantity. Not only is the site not working as state/programed but ebay is sticking their hands in our pockets to revise a store listing.
The third problem may or may not be a glitch, but if a store item no longer exists for the unsold fixed quantity, clicking the "relist as store inventory" button should create a new store item with a default quantity of the unsold quantity, but instead creates a store item with the original quantity from the beginning of the fixed prioce 7 day listing. This could pose a problem if all items in the unsold folder were selected and then the bulk "relist as store inventory" button was pushed.
Most of us in Pesa pay ebay in excess of $1000 per month in seller fees. If I paid a $1200 car payment for a new mercedes, and It wasn't working right, the problem would be fixed immediately, if I had a problem with my mortgage company, they would fix it immediately, but ebay..... they could care less about us. Let's face it we give ebay as much money as we would spend on a new Ferrari or a Luxury home!!
This problem causes me as well as other people many hours work a week revising individual items, and now its even more difficult because store items have to be ended and the relisted to change the quantity as well as costing 6 cents a pop. (IT ADDS UP). I have reported this problem several times to ebay stores support and have not had it addressed or corrected. One time, an ebay phone person was candid enough with me to tell me that my problem was not an it priority because there was a workaround (Manually revising listings for 10 hours was the workaround) I asked her what type of issue was a priority and she said" for example.. if people are unable to relist items in a certain category" hmm anything which affects ebays income is a priority problem.
I hope that someone from ebay reads this who has the power to take action with the programmers and have these problems addressed. I also hope that it may help one of you catch a possible inventory nightmare before it happens.
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Hi Ina,
I read your newsletter every day and wanted to tell you of the plight of a group of eBay auction template designers and the theft of our IP on eBay. We have exhausted all avenues to get eBay to support us. We are now raising funds from our group members to pay for lawyers.
Read more here: http://ideaswoman.com/stolen-templates.htm
Thank you for your time,
Gayle
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Ina-
Just curious, but how about reporting on actual seller paid attendance at eBay live this year? It seems eBay is marketing it more this year than they have in the past - for example, about every 3rd time I log in to my account I am taken to a splash page to "hurry before it sells out" and other reminders. My personal opinion is eBay live was probably pretty neat a few years ago when eBay had the appearance of being seller friendly, or maybe I've become more cynical since being a user for almost 10 years now, primarily as a seller. However, Boston doesn't seem to be that cheap of a place to travel to or stay in a hotel (at least it wasn't when I lived there briefly in 1993). For some reason, the tone of the eBay "push" gives the appearance they are hurting on paid attendance as compared to prior years.
My two cents. Keep up the newsletters, I enjoy them!
Regards,
Bill
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To whom it may concern,
Lately, I have been reading the community board on eBay and discovered there are so many negative thoughts about selling on eBay for one reason or another. To show others there is a positive side to the eBay world I am sending you my story about my eBay journey along with my photo.
I do hope you will consider publishing my story.
Thank you,
Suzy
Hello my name is Suzy of Katiebug Auction & Sales my husband Randy and I live in the beautiful town of Siloam Springs Arkansas. I started selling on eBay in March of 2003. It all started when my husband needed a kidney transplant. I organized a fund raiser yard sale everything was donated from all over the response was over whelming. The fund raiser was a huge success but I had so much stuff left over and knowing my husbands medications was going to be expensive I turn to eBay to sell the remaining items.
My husband's transplant was a success and he is doing very well. I continued to sell on eBay as I mentioned to help with the very high cost of his medication that he will have to take for the rest of his life.
After I was able to sell all the donated stuff I have left from the fund raiser I began selling for others as an eBay trading assistant from that I was able to purchase additional merchandise and boom I have a business and named it Katiebug Auction and Sales. The name was created shortly after the birth of my first granddaughter Katie.
eBay came out with a program a few years ago "eBay University" to teach others how to become an educational specialist to teach eBay. I was excited about this and sign up. Now I teach eBay to individuals and businesses sometimes for free paying it forward as they say for all the help I got when I was doing my fund raiser.
Selling and teaching eBay has given me many surprises along the way. I have met so many people who have an interest in one way or another about the world of eBay. I even do eBay selling for my employer at my 9-5 job it's amazing what I am ask to list for sell and purchase.
As with most sellers on eBay I am always looking for new techniques and relaying this information in my blogs so I can continue to help new sellers and buyers. Who knows where eBay will take me next I can't wait.
Suzy
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Dear Ina,
I hope you are doing great, I am doing worst than the past years on ebay, it is me or is everybody in general? Is it the eaconomy or the on line business going worst now?
I appreciatte your comment.
Have a great weekend!
Francisco
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Hi Ina,
Just a little bit of feedback about your website: The animated ads on your website are driving me nuts!
My browser has the ability to either show animation cycles ONCE or CONTINUOUS. It does not have the ability to stop animation cycles on demand. Since there are sites I visit where it is necessary to see the animation (which may be very short, thus one cycle is not enough), I have to leave my browser set to continuous.
In that circumstance, it is really hard to read your articles with things wiggling, shifting, changing, moving, mouths "talking", flashing, etc, etc. Really, really annoying.
Just my 20 cents worth.
Jay
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Re: "eBay "Feedback Farms" Planted with One-Cent eBooks" (October 2006)
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m10/i03/s02
Ina,
You want to see who uses this? Think of a major event (i.e. like the Super Bowl) where a lot of tickets are scalped (legally & illegally) on Ebay. Search for tickets to this event. Find the sellers whose offers are too good to be true. Notice that they are offshore or using Xoom or some other non-Paypal payment service or both. Check their feedback. It will all have come from feedback farms. Note that feedback farms work both ways - both the seller and the buyer get the positive feedback,...
Enjoyed your article.
Jon
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Hi Ina,
I had been a fan of yours for years and read you letter faithfully. Whether you read this or not I just wanted to get this off my chest.
Meg must really think sellers are idiots. Why doesn't she get into the "Core" of the real issue of why sellers don't use the auction format! The listings fees are to high and the sell through rate obnoxiously low!
Apparently, she's no longer is worried about losing eBay's magic. It doesn't take a over paid CEO to get to the root of the problem and that is the price gouging sellers take on every listing. Especially, for bells and whistles implemented in their listings.
Wake up call Meg..REDUCE THE LISTING FEES. I can tolerate the Final Value fee..if the item sells. But, I will NOT...pay the listing fee for Core auctions for products $24.99 and over with the low sell through rate.
As you can see I am not a Power Seller, nor do I have any desire to be one. I prefer the profit to go into my pocket vs. paying for a title. I have enough titles and non start with an ( S. )...no that is not a mistake.
Not to discredit the PS's. For the most part the PS's reserve the right to be Power Sellers. They have the capacity to buy wholesale, especially in large quantities to under cut their eBay competition. Unfortunately, the books and eBay ( is ) SUCKERING ...people to invest money that they don't have to aspire to be Power Sellers.
Whether or not these people aspire to be Power Sellers or trying to make a buck to survive in accordance with eBay's propaganda. They are losing their money...whether it be for retirement or to better their lifestyle when they are bombarded into thinking wholesale is the way to go and get rich on eBay. With all the hype they aspire to be a Power Seller. But, how many eBay fish ( the sellers that aspire to be Power Sellers) are swimming backwards and will never spawn (eggs fertilized by cash) by buying wholesale only to put most of their gain back into eBay for fees?
I sell a limited amount of items through my store and hold off on all other items until there is a reduced listing fee promotion. Meg constantly insults sellers with some outrageous attempt to save her behind with the stock holders. She might be able to baffle the stock holders with this bizarre half baked idea to promote "Core Listings" but, she will not get the support from the majority of sellers.
Suggestion: Please take a poll. Would you rather have listing fees reduced or Final Value fees reduced?
What benefit is the seller going to receive if the item doesn't sell, Meg? Oh, yes...eBay still makes a lot more money. Why? Because chances are the item will not sell in the first 7 / 10 days. Apparently, she thinks the majority of us are so stupid we will get into a listing frenzy.
The magic left when Pierre left. Now not only is the auction venue over priced there are unintelligible eBay police that crawl out of the woodwork reporting items that they feel are not acceptable in accordance with eBay's policies along with the same unintelligible eBay employees that remove listings on the recommendation of the eBay Secret Service.
Which brings up another issue as to why sellers or buyers are allowed to have more then one Id. Especially, when the Id has had no activity for years. Makes you wonder! How legal or ethical is that? Not only that the boards are filled with these double identity eBay cowards that are too afraid of using their original Id whether they are a seller or a buyer to add a comment which is normally negative to the post unless it is favorable to eBay. Now whether this is one of eBay's paranoia systems for spying on sellers or not...this should be stopped.
What legitimate right does someone have to voice an opinion with an Id that is over a year old or most times showing 2 or more years with less then 10 transactions? Even if legit..they really haven't experienced eBay! I don't care if they are a buyer or a seller. Let's get serious...these cowards with the two Id's with no transactions for years are posting on the boards and to be realistic there's no seller that is that much in love with eBay to verbally for the most part abuse the new or the experienced eBay seller.
To conclude: I started subscribing years ago to your Newsletter because I believed you were a sellers advocate for eBay. I don't know what your position is now.
I receive your letter now and basically glance and delete. I don't know if you are burnt out or if it's just a matter of greed ....what you have to say I can find the same thing on eBay in the announcements, Blah...Blah...Blah
WHAT'S GOING ON WITH YOU WOMAN?
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Dear Ina,
I've been running some auctions against an eBay compadre who lists auctions with such a disparity between shipping and sales price, that after _ auctions, the seller has still not achieved powerseller status.
They don't pay final value fees proportional to the sale, nor listing fees proportional to the value of the items they sell, because they deflate the selling price and inflate the shipping fee beyond what I would call a reasonable amount.
For example, one item sells for and the shipping fee is .
I collected auction numbers on two occasions and sent these to eBay, reporting the inequity. As far as I can tell, except for a pro rata thank you email, eBay has not done a bloody thing about this seller.
One is left to ponder whether it is not simply best to imitate this method of selling and maximize profit, as well as gain an advantage over ethical sellers who play by the rules. Who says the good guy always loses? Are they right?
What do you think about this?
Supposedly, eBay is "cracking down" on this sort of thing, but through this narrow window, I see no evidence of this. I suspect they are grasping desperately onto the back of the eBay information-flow dragon just to avoid falling off, and have no energy left for enforcing rules, like proportionate shipping fees, that are inherently subjective and very difficult to quantify in order to provide general seller guidelines.
I wonder how other sellers work with this. Are ethical sellers losing out on eBay? I'm curious about your opinion, and that of your readers.
Thanks for your attention.
Yours truly,
James
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Ina Steiner,
I'm just a small business against a 500lb gorilla EBAY, and I believe that there are 1000s of other Sellers who Feel the same way that read your news letters.
Last year I noticed other Powersellers getting away with violating ebay's own policies with unethical sales tactics & other types of scams. Like 1 cent or very low starting prices with all the cost in shipping.
So I started reporting them & to date ebay has done nothing to stop certain corrupt powersellers even thow I have filed 1000s of complaints. They even went as far as to cancel over 400 of my listings in good standing. Their reasoning was that I emailed Bill Cobbs Office to many times after being told not to. They sent me an email with 3 contact times. We all know the real reason was to stop me from filling more complaints against their Protected Corrupt powersellers that list 1000s of items in violation daily. Scams on ebay hurt all of us in the long run, when customers get over charged from these powersellers they don't come back to ebay, & in my case I sell the same products & it gives my company a bad name.
To date ebay has not refunded what I paid for my listings that they canceled & it seems no one, not even the Better business bureau will stand up to them, as a mater of fact I reported ebay to the BBB of Silicon Valley and they reported my complaint as Ebay made a good faith effort & I Refused, Yet ebay did not even try to work with me at all. To date they keep adding more charges. So I went to there BBB of Silicon Valley web site & ebay and Paypal have a special link on there front page ?? Later I was told that ebay is on the board of directors for The BBB of Silicon Valley.
I feel like its time that Small business owners like myself stand up, Ebay is a great program if the trust & safety dept was not corruptly allowing certain sellers to get away with violations, yet canceling their corrupt powersellers competition. Who knows if ebay stopped allowing their protected corrupt powersellers to get away with not paying there ebay fees , they might be able to lower fees ?? Last year I added up how much just one corrupt powerseller was getting over on ebay fees with there listings , it came to over $1000 a day.
Please if anyone else has had similar problems lets stand together & fight this problem. I hear so many sellers tell me that they just go to other auction sites, well Im finding that I cant escape ebay, There listings are everywhere. every search engine. Theres enough money to be made without scaming, So lets stop these scamers & corrupt ebay employees that have been allowing it.
If we don't do something soon ebay will be taking over Google also.
Dan
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The way Ebay treats Google, is the very same way it treats its own buyers and sellers and it exposes a spiteful ethos running through that company.
I found that we were BANNED this Saturday from ebay. I overlooked a £20 bill on a little used ebay site.
Unfortunately it meant that our main store was also shut down.
Without notice and without even asking us to - Please PAY - the odd bill, they shut our account down for "12 MONTHS".
This account had 99% star rating and the other 100%.
We are wondering if ebay can really afford this type of behaviour.
After we were kicked off ebay, we took some of the larger items and put them on Amazon and three of them sold within the hour, at a higher price than we would have gotten on ebay (where on ebay we had several watchers on only two of the items). We find that we are trusted more on Amazon, with the same products, and there people are willing to spend more money.
On ebay, some of the fees are so high that in some areas there is virtually nothing listed. ("But free is not a business model")
As soon as your ebay account gets going (after a lot of hard work) and money starts to come in - it is likely that Paypal will lock your account down for "Fraud". And because each ebay trader is almost forced to use Paypal, Paypal, has become the in-house contributor to ebay's own downward slide, as they are killing off the budding traders, the cornerstone of ebay's revenue.
It is the IBM syndrome; it is not looking at the resource you have, while trying to continually expand at an impossible rate. It is thinking you are so powerful and that it could never end. It is the lack of invention, which in ebay's case, puts Meg Whitman in a position of reaction, with Google, rather action - and the only action being a spiteful one, an indication of the corner that she finds herself in. It is arrogance, the assumption that people - need you, rather than the other way around, and just like they can afford to throw away an honest seller, they can afford to throw away Google Search.
We are developing our own site and we are going to take Google Checkout.
x-ebayer
London
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Ina,
I've been a full time seller on Ebay for 7 years. At first I was very skeptical of the new SYI 3 form. But after listing items the past few weeks I have noticed a great feature. You can list on Ebay and add a second category in Ebay Motors. This has never been available in the past and I don't think most people are aware of this. I just thought it was worth mentioning.
PS: I still like the old SYI 2 form on Ebay Motors much better, it's so much easier & faster to work with but you can list in only 1 category.
John
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Ina,
I emailed you yesterday regarding our inability to print ship labels via PayPal or eBay since 1 pm EST 06/13. As of 12 pm EST today, 06/14, the issue is still not resolved.
According to a PayPal rep we spoke to by phone about an hour ago, PayPal is aware of the problem, the problem is sporadic, and they have no idea when it will be fixed.
We look forward to your coverage of eBay Live and encourage you to ask management, as well as techies, what the plans are to resolve persistent and ever increasing technical problems. Problems that not only negatively effect sellers, but also effect eBay's bottom line. If sellers don't make sales then eBay doesn't get FVF fees. Simple as that.
In addition, we are receiving ever increasing emails from buyers who also feel the effects of daily technical issues. These eBay members are telling us that no longer enjoy the eBay experience and are looking for products elsewhere before coming to the eBay website. Fraud concerns are hardly mentioned. Technical problems and constant eBay changes to "enhance buyer experience" are the main reasons given.
As for Express, buyers are not impressed to say the least and are staying away.
Sincerely,
SJ
Note from the Editor: SJ wrote back: "Follow-up on PayPal problem: Print label issue was resolved about 6 pm 06/14."
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Re: "eBay Tests Extension of Buy-It-Now Feature on Auctions"
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y07/m06/i22/s02
Hi, Ina:
So glad to hear that eBay is going to try allowing the addition of a Buy It Now after a bid has been made. Even if I cancel a bid, I can't do it! It just happened Monday on a high-end painting.
Any news on a free or ten-cent listing day coming up soon? I'm waiting to do a bunch of relists.
Barbara
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