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.
You can also read the AuctionBytes blog, which has a place for reader comments under every posting (http://blog.auctionbytes.com).
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Ina,
First, I'd like to say thanks for creating a wonderful website. I've personally become addicted to the vast amount of current auction information available.
We have been conducting business, primarily on eBay, with great success since March of 2003. As the economy turns down we are seeing sales plummet and with the increased fees and changes to the eBay feedback system, we simply are being forced to search for other venues to market our goods.
I'd like also to voice a suggestion for embattled ebay sellers. Simply boycott the feedback system when it changes in May. We will no longer leave ANY feedback regardless of whether we receive it after the change date. We hope that other sellers will realize that this will negate the effect that eBay is pushing for without it actually taking money out of their pockets by boycotting listings (and sales). If buyers receive NO feedback at all they will not be inclined to leave feedback either. The feedback system will fail.
Regards,
Ed
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I am very, very concerned about the way eBay is going to hold sellers' funds AT ITS SOLE discretion (their words) for 21 days. This goes into effect March 14. If PayPal were a bank, this would be illegal. Are there no laws governing PayPal? Ebay is also saying sellers must take PayPal or some other type of merchant card. This should also be illegal. Please investigate and consult with anti-trust firm which is handling the lawsuit against ebay and PayPal. Sellers also need clarification of this new requirement re PayPal/merchant card.
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Just an observation from a long time fan. For most of the time I've been reading your newsletters, you were pretty obviously neutral and reported what you found out about.
Since the announcement of this last round of changes, I think I'm seeing a bias toward the negatives that have been causing the outcry to the point that while I certainly do read your newsletters for the straight reporting, I'm beginning to ignore the content that is basically your opinions which is a shame since they were good to use when considering how to handle the various things that crop up in any business.
eBay certainly may have shot themselves in the foot with feedback & fee changes but they may have also gotten things more right than they were. Too soon to tell.
An example was the survey with the 1600 or so responders. Certainly the majority were negative toward the changes but I saw no mention that the numbers would be skewed since satisfied sellers would be much less likely to take time to respond.
At this point, your info is a lot like eBay - not the only game in town but certainly the biggest but if there were a good option, I'd be strongly considering it.
Newt
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Hi Ina:
What do you make of this?
http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?messageID=1012324744?
Patricia
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Dear Ina, in Australia we have "bank deposit express". This is a feature which gives buyers our bank details so they can do bank transfer (wire to wire)
We used to be able to just keep a setting in preferences to show details.
eBay have lately (1 month or so) been pulling a nice little trick to stop showing the details to push buyers into PayPal.
Posted here about it but not sure how long the post will stand, I have a copy if you need it.
http://forums.ebay.com.au/thread.jspa?threadID=500076173&tstart=0&mod=1205280306401
Regards,
Paul
Update:
http://forums.ebay.com.au/thread.jspa?threadID=500076493&tstart=0&mod=1205529215078
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Hi Ina,
If you go to Ebay's clothing category it shows that there are 2474993 items found in: Clothing, Shoes & Accessories .
That equates to 49k pages of 50 items. If you plug in a page number of anything above page 23,000 to 49,000 at the bottom of the page you get 0 results.
This would appear that Ebay is overstating the items in this category by over a million items so medved can pick it up.
Regards,
Ron
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I've read your interviews re: Amazon with great interest, especially since my category is closed to new sellers (jewelry). I thought you might be interested in a survey I recently took.
This past weekend I received an invitation from Amazon to complete a survey. It was obviously sent to me as someone who has previously bought from the Amazon site. As I completed the survey it became clear to me that the focus was to see what I thought about Amazon's checkout system being used / implemented on private websites vs just on Amazon (or Amazon sellers / marketplace, etc). All of the questions were directed at comparing Amazon's checkout vs Paypal.
Seems to me that if, indeed, Amazon offers it's checkout system as a seperate product (seperate from actually selling on Amazon in any way) that they could give eBay a real run for their money. Another nail in eBay's financial future? Not to mention, competition for Google.
Just thought it all very interesting and thought you might want to follow up with Amazon. Sorry, I took no screen shots, etc.
Sue
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Hi Ina,
These are my thoughts as a result of the boycotts and eBay changes.
1) Boycott
I have never participated in a boycott and, as an eBayer since 1998, I've seen plenty of them. My sales were hot during the whole time period. Was it a "success"? I think the whole thing was nuts - another kneejerk reaction.
2) Changes - fees
I was happy at the proposed changes. I am even happier now, 10 days into the new fee structure.
I run a store that currently has about 1000 listings. Prices range from about $5 - $50. I before ran almost entirely store listings. Now, with the lower insertion fees and removal of gallery, I can run fixed price and auction listings, which get me more visibility AND lower fees (even the higher core FVF's are lower than the old store FVF's). Plus, the increased visibility has brought me a jump in FAQ's and new customers. I love FAQ's because I can make a connection with a potential customer, which often results in a sale.
3) Changes - quality
I have long wished for eBay to clean up the site in terms of rotten sellers and security. I believe that this first step of rewarding powersellers and raising the bar with fee incentives, which is so infuriating people, will have pretty much a passive result that they wanted - mass exodus of people.
Yes, some good sellers will leave. But I expect that many more of the marginal ones will do so. The smart, long-term sellers are figuring out ways to make the new structure work.
I think one huge fault of eBay since I have been here is its passivity in tolerating bad sellers. I buy A LOT on eBay and have seen my share of breakables packed in dirty, smoky newspapers, no packing slips, aggressive/defensive seller communication and worse. eBay should have had very strict standards in place from the start instead of just believing that "most people are good".
In fact, most people do not know how to run a business! Yet eBay gives amateurs and angry people a place to launch their stuff in their marketplace with no guidelines or quality standards, and almost no consequences for rotten behavior.
eBay's like the well-meaning hippie parents who don't want to impose rules on their kids. The kids end up running the place, like those control-freak sellers who have furious terms of sale and no quality standards. The parents end up smiling and trying to stay good buddies, like eBay's ever-friendly policies don't people off the site who drag the quality down.
4) What I hope for
I'd like to see this be the first step towards an eBay 2.0, which is a clean and quality site. No "make your own TOS, write whatever you want in your listing". eBay should be a place where management sets the standards for quality and sellers have to meet it or be gone. Lots of buyer complaints? You're gone. Are you abusing buyers? You're gone.
I'd like to see buyers - all new users, really - undergo a phone number verification as happens when selling even books on Amazon. More buyer education. Less buyer freedom to leave any feedback whether an item is paid, or refunded or not.
I hope management keeps raising the bar. Next, for entry. Then, to stay there. eBay can become the "go to place" for quality, not a junkyard of bargains from clueless, anonymous usernames who may or may not exit.
Donna
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Hi Ina,
I just wanted to give you a quick note on how DSR affects Canadian sellers and my conversation with our eBay rep. Basically, our low DSR rating is on our shipping charges. The problem is that many of our buyers are from the US and it may only cost $6 or $7 to ship an item within the US where is costs us $15-$20 to ship the same item to that US customer.
There is no way we will ever have a DSR rating that meets eBay's standards, we will lose our account rep, placement in rankings, etc. We aren't overly concerned as our eBay rep changes every 6-8 months but no one at eBay was able to give a solution to our concern except to say, offer free shipping. Well, we sell an item for $150 with $50 shipping no problem, put the price to $200, and we don't sell a single unit.
Just thought I'd pass on this info to you as you'll see almost every large Canadian seller fall out of a powerseller status due to DSR on shipping rates.
Love the website and all the work you and your team do, keep it up!
Will
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Hi Ina,
I have been reading some of the letters and I am at a loss to understand why these people put up the the "crap" that ebay is dishing out. Why would any spend about $67.00 for skype when Vonage and other voip products are $25.00. If you continue to use skype you deserve to be "taken".
I have been selling on eBay since 1999 and have seen sell through rates plummet. I have gone from listing 100+ items a week to 5 per week now that the new prices are in effect. I stopped using reserves years ago and until now only used gallery pictures for items in the $100.00+ range. I have never used much of eBays system since is is always screwing things up. I send my own invoices, take my own credit cards and now I will put the money that ebay wont be getting into advertising my website - www.unusual1.com.
I cannot list "name" items or ivory or tortoise even though the US Government says I am qualified to do so and give Cites cert. I am an appraiser and an expert witness - who is ebay to tell me I don't know what I am looking at and cant sell it. I am starting to list things on Blackwellsliveauction.com. Since I do sell consignment items I will continue on ebay on an extremely limited basis - by request of a client.
It is long past due that ebay takes a loss - the only thing they care about is eBays bottom line. There s absolutely no regard for he sellers or the buyers. I am really hoping for a major exitus of sellers so the buyers will also look elsewhere.
Regards,
Joyce
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Ina,
I think I speak for a number of your readers in saying eBay has gone too far. We the sellers can take a lot of crap, and have been, but charging upwards of 10 percent of the final sale value of our inventories is rather disheartening. As a business practice, it strikes me as arrogant and unprecedented, except in highly monopolistic markets.
So I aim to explore other auction sites and, sadly, know very little of the B Tier. Please write an article for that eBay-jaded sect of your readership. One that explores a "best of" look at alternative auction sites.
In other words, where's the next biggest market?
Thanks,
Rob
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Re: "eBay Calls Claims of Manipulation "Outrageous""
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y08/m03/i05/s03
Hi Ina
You need to find an Internet Coding expert as this is another bogus statement. Such a credit would not cause what I saw in the suspect listings... billing and eBay lisings run on seperate servers and run off different coding.
"On Tuesday, Lieberman explained the nature of the glitch. Programmers rolled out code on Friday evening that was meant to credit certain listings that were eligible for free Gallery. The credit was due to them because eBay had promised sellers Gallery would be free for listings started at a certain time of day, and the code had been rolled out 3 hours past the deadline.
Lieberman said the programmers inadvertently caused the Shopping.com listings to appear on eBay.com when it created and launched the script to credit the sellers' accounts for Gallery fees.
Lieberman said fewer than 35,000 listings were affected by the glitch."
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There is a web site, SubliminalMP3s.com that has a Free Subliminal Program, Titled: Get Over eBay - Subliminal Message
My friends and I have had lots of laughs out of this and thought it was actually a good idea following the ebay boycott. As a fond reader of your site, I couldn't resist telling you about it. It is an actual website with real audio with real subliminal messages helping people get over ebay.
Here is the link,
http://www.subliminalmp3s.com/subliminal_messages/ebay_subliminal_messages.html
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Hi Ina,
After getting a phone call from a relative of mine regarding the fee and feedback changes Ebay announced, I've spent the past 2 weeks following the buzz on the Ebay changes. I'm an Ebay powerseller but a small 2-person operation and read the fee announcement very closely when it first came out in January. As a business person I accepted the increase as a simple cost of doing business and recognize that, just as I used to do when I ran a division in a publishing company, Ebay is simply following a business model with it's rate increases.
With that said in a very calm and matter-of-fact business tone, I am absolutely livid with the feedback changes! To limit the sellers' ability to leave negative feedback for buyers makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. I have left very few negative feedbacks for my buyers, but the times that I did, they deserved it. I've never asked a seller to mutually withdraw a negative feedback. There are buyers out there who are just as dishonest as some of the sellers. I've had buyers threaten to leave me negative feedback and I've simply told them to go ahead. I then forwarded their emails to Ebay. I've now taken to forwarding all emails I get from bad buyers to Ebay with a note saying that they need to keep track of buyers as well as sellers.
I just had an experience with a buyer who damaged the item we sold him. Despite this, I gave him a full refund less shipping. I have had a barrage of emails from him and he's left me negative feedback and opened a dispute with Paypal on the grounds that the item wasn't as described. He's left negative feedback and I've reciprocated. It's very clear in our listing that we don't refund shipping. I could have chosen not to refund his money at all but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Now I get daily emails from him and am still waiting to hear back from Paypal. Good thing this didn't happen in May! The only option Ebay is giving sellers is to block all bidders who leave us negative feedback. And we already do that!
Profits are one thing and a good business person can find ways to recoup the fee increase. But reputation is something else and Ebay is leaving sellers wide open for attacks on our reputations, with no recourse.
As for leaving Ebay and going to another site, well, it's just not an option for us. We sell used Harley Davidson motorcycle parts and only one of the top 10 auction sites has a category for us. The one that did had a total of 2 listings. I am working on building a web site to sell from but it still won't give us the exposure Ebay does. I really hope Ebay reconsiders the changes to feedback.
Thanks for the great job you do with Auctionbytes!
Jo
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Greetings Ina,
I've been following AuctionBytes for longer than I can remember and love your articles and website... Your latest article on the eBay - MercExchange patent war is very informative also, but it's title "eBay v MercExchange Patent War: It's Over" really got me thinking...is it over? And for whom?
I've been working on launching my own auction website, coding and developing it myself for almost a year now. There are literally thousands of websites selling auction software with a buy-it now type feature in them, and probably hundreds of thousands of small auction websites. People like myself... who just want to try their hand at starting an auction business delivering an honest service.
My thinking was to build a different kind of auction website, one with different features than eBay. So where does this ruling leave the hundreds of thousands of people like myself who want to or already run online auction websites??
In my mind, allowing eBay to buy these patents, eBay just created the mother of all monopolies... They now control the bulk of online auctions, and at will can shut down (sue) anyone they wish who they don't like. The government allowed this sale? But shutdown some companies purchases all the time because it would create a monopoly. Why not this deal?
I would REALLY like to hear your ideas on what this means for the future of small auction websites. My guess is that eBay, just like Tom Woolston won't sue the small websites...they wait in the weeds until you are a billion dollar auction website then stick you for many millions. What are your thoughts? By the way I had done some research on the topic and found an auction site that pre-dated Woolstons patent but back in 2003 eBay told the guy it was irrelevant to their case.... That mistake probably cost them a billion dollars on Feb. 28th.
Heres the article from that guy...
http://www.brianstorms.com/archives/2002_09.html
Thanks!
Matt
