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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I love reading all the newsletters I get from auctionbytes. I have learned a whole bunch just by reading over the newsletters.
There are times that I wish I could share my comments in some of your blogs, but I guess I am way on the other extreme of most of the sellers/buyers on ebay.
Is there any one left that sees the changes on eBay positive as I see them????? ha ha!
At times I find it disturbing to read so much negative from people in regards to eBay and I just keep on posting and forget about it. I feel most of the changes eBay is doing now will just make it so much better. Am I crazy or what? :o)
David
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Note from the Editor: This letter is about eBay's new fees for optional feature upgrades.
http://pages.ebay.com/sell/August2008Update/FeatureFees
If you wanted to use some of these features before on a standard 7 day listing, say pay the addition 10 day fee, you wouldn't have to pay for the "upgrades". You just pay the .40 10 day fee and that was it. But if you want it to be 30 days FP Core, they double or triple it. So they just surcharge you to death. Kinda like buying a cheap printer but the cable cost twice the amount
http://pages.ebay.com/sell/August2008Update/checklists
At the bottom it says coming in 2009 remove email address from listings, but umm there's some major players saying its coming next month
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Hi Ina,
Have you checked this out?
I am finding that using the featured plus is not putting our listings in the featured area. We have to pay 29.95 for the Pro Pack to get raised search results.
This best match search is really messed up!
http://tinyurl.com/5gkxlx
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Re: "eBay Focused on Reducing Shipping & Handling Charges"
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/cab/abn/y08/m09/i02/s02
Does eBay realize the issue with shipping and handling is driven by sellers trying to recover fees they incur to list & sell an item (paypal fees, etc.)? Listing and fvf's are what drives higher shipping costs.
If a seller sells a cd for 4.00, they are looking at costs of at least 2.50 to sell the item (paypal, listing, fvf, packaging costs). There's also a big difference between a casual seller v. a professional seller (latter probably gets shipping discounts on volume).
I also think ebay should add a dsr for "did you receive a good overall value for the price you paid". All they did with dsr's is copy Amazon...sheesh. If I pay 10.00 less for an item, even with higher shipping charges than I might find elsewhere, I've still saved $10.00 over what I would pay at retail.
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Hi Ina,
Not sure if this email will reach you but has anyone pointed out some of the finer prints that Lorrie Norrington mentioned in her latest announcement? Please note the highlighted excerpt, taken from eBay's announcement page
http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200808.shtml#2008-08-20070116
>>>
Updated seller standards - minimum DSRs
Finally, we're instituting a new minimum Detailed Seller Rating (DSR) requirement, as a way to further improve the customer experience for everyone on eBay. As of November 1, 2008, sellers will need at least a 4.3 across all four DSR categories, over the prior 30 day or 12 month period depending on volume, in order to list on the site.
Today, only a small fraction of sellers fall below this threshold, yet they are responsible for a high percentage of customer complaints, which hurts you and our marketplace overall. We're urging all sellers whose scores fall below the 4.3 threshold to use the next two months to adjust their business models and/or work on improving their DSR scores.
<<<
I cannot believe that DSRs are now used to gauge if a seller is able to sell or NOT sell.
I mean, we are not even able to control the shipping accuracy quote times, as we are at the mercy of the postal services, yet our fate is to be decided by such unquantifiable ratings.
I am a Cross Border Trader (CBT), and I ship my items from Asia to the world via eBay. This will severely affect my business that's for sure.
And what I would like to question is was there ever any thought given to CBT's? Cross Border Trade forms a huge percentage of eBay's market, yet they seem very happy to ignore the rest of the world...? Are they not shooting off their own foot?
It just gets harder.
I hope you can bring some highlight to this.
Many thanks.
Chris
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Hello Ina:
I've been selling on Ebay for eight years and with the new DSR changes coming it may put me out of business. I have 100% feedback yet my DSR for shipping is 4.5 so my search status has been lowered. Ebay seems to not realize that shipping prices from USPS have gone up across the board. I usually charge anywhere from $8.00 - $15.00 depending on the weight of the item. I sell mostly clothes, shoes and vintage boots.
The boots can be heavy and since I send everything USPS Priority with Delivery Confirmation I think my prices are fair as I make no profit from shipping. I wrote to them but as usual received no human response. When I sell an item I send an invoice, once they pay I send them a note stating when their item has been mailed-they also received a personal note from me in their package. I cannot do anymore than what I do now unless I physically call & deliver the item.
I wish you would do an in depth story on why Ebay keeps changing their policies and making it harder and harder for the small sellers such as myself to continue selling on Ebay.
Thank you-
Melody
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Ina,
Hello, I receive your newsletter and thought I would share this interesting info with you.
Compete.com has some interesting info about eBay Vs. Amazon # of visitors. eBay is showing a severe decline and Amazon is quickly gaining. eBay visitors really started to decline in March....
eBay
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/ebay.com/?metric=uv
Amazon
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/amazon.com/?metric=uv
Combined...
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/ebay.com+amazon.com/?metric=uv
Regards,
Jason
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Hello Ina,
I have commented on your recent editorial regarding payment changes on eBay. We posted in the PP discussion boards the following topic. We have since been suspended from eBay for 7 days for listing this in to many threads which was against eBay policy.....PP -vs- Check or MO a True Discussion eBay & PP Welcome to Answer .....
We sold for nearly 10 years on eBay and took payment by checks or money orders only. We never had a problem and had a 50% repeat buyer status. Since eBay says checks or mo's are not safe explain my seller record and repeat buyers.
I would like to see a pink answer how my taking pp -vs- check or mo is better given the selling record I have achieved by taking check or money order only. I am not looking for a evasive answer designed by eBay talking about if a buyer offers to pay by chk or mo it is ok. I am asking the pinks and eBay to explain to me given my record why checks or money orders are not safe for me and why pp is safe. I have looked at the discussion boards regarding pp and the nightmares sellers & buyers are having with it. I have had no nightmares with checks or money orders and given that 50% of my buyers continued buying with us tells me they had no problems as well.
Some may say what about the other 50%. Look at what we sold which was old documents. We sold to collectors and people who collected genealogy regarding their families. The other 50% falls into the genealogy category where a buyer would fine a single item pertaining to their family which they purchased for the family record and not as a collector. eBay or PP....There is nothing offensive about this post and we welcome your answers, so please do not delete this.....
Interesting enough it is ok to accept paper payments in the pornographic section of eBay but not PP there....Why is this?
Enjoyed the editorial,
Regards
John
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So this new rule may be the thing that bothers me the most. If your DSR in any of the 4 categories falls below 4.3 you will be blocked from selling. I am not close to this on any but what about the people who get 10 people a month to fill out DSR's in the feedback and they leave (8) 4's and (2) 5's. That gets you blocked from selling. It seems absurd when you look at how they describe 4's:
How accurate was the item description? 4 is accurate
How satisfied were you with the seller's communication? 4 is satisfied
How quickly did the seller ship the item? 4 is quickly
How reasonable were the shipping and handling charges? 4 is reasonable
How can you suspend a seller for meeting and satisfying buyers expectations? Shouldn't they change this rule to under 4? eBay will lose a lot of honest sellers with this rule.
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check out this guys numbers, I have seen buyers with great feedback getting bounced out
http://tinyurl.com/5joyqj
Ina, Thank You for looking at this & I hope you can maybe give some input on what crazyness is going on here, In this one thread from SC, there are 2 long time sellers with feedback over 99%+ , I think 99.2% & 99.4% I think but its been hours since I looked at both & I seller restricted with it looks like a 30 day notice .. But their DSR's are all above 4.4?? What is going on at eBay ..
I see so many sellers with DSR's & feedback well below this standard but yet in the last week there has been about 50 of these 99% & higher sellers I have seen booted off .. Is something broken & a bot throwing these guys off automatically from eBay .. I see people being thrown off like crazy but it seems most outside people or news orginization don't get the gravity of the situation .. This is some peoples only form of income like myself , Peoples lives are being ruined & their future hang in the balance .. If a car manufacturer got rid of people like this it would be front page news, But it seems nobody thinks people loosing their lively hoods because its "on line" they get treated as if this is like a video game gone bad? .. I feel like I am in the middle of the street trying to scream , my mouth wide open & nothing is coming out .. There are 10's of thousands of sellers, many whose whole lively hood is only eBay on the edge of losing the only security they have .. and nobody seems to even raise an eye brow ..
Thank You,
P
http://tinyurl.com/6mn7w4
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Ina,
In Ebay's wisdom they have removed the "Other" shipping method making it impossible to use Fedex as a shipping method. I use the US Postal Service Flat Rate Box whenever possible. But with items that are a bit too big and heavy I use Fedex. UPS has damaged or lost too many items over the years so I prefer Fedex. I was with Ebay Live help this morning to try to figure a way around this Ebay fiasco with No success. You have to put a shipping cost in the ad or use calculated shipping which means UPS or USPS. Ebay on one hand wants sellers to reduce shipping costs to buyers and on the other hand make it impossible to do. The US Postal Service is way too expensive for heavy bulkier items. Another mess Ebay has gotten me into. I've been a full time Ebay seller with great success on Ebay with constant 90-100% sell thru's for the last 8 years. I left a podcast of this same issue. I hope Ebay fixes this blunder...
John
Note from the Editor: Here are some links readers may find helpful:
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y08/m03/i25/s03
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y208/m04/abu0212/s02
http://tinyurl.com/5qt3bk
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Has anyone ever asked why ebay allows power sellers to sell obscene items in the regular section but refuses to list minimal "adult" items from the little sellers? Ebay cannot assert that they don't know because such items are repeatedly reported but the reports are ignored. Lord, we pray that Google will start an auction site soon!
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Note from Editor: Included with this letter was a screenshot of an error message from eBay, "PayPal payment option required for items which ship to the UK."
Hi Ina,
There was NO notice that this would happen. I will have nothing to do with paypal under any circumstances. Therefore ebay has effectively forced me off. I will no longer sell anything on ebay. Most likely I will be using Blackwellsliveauctions and maybe a few other places. This will have a lot of other international sellers looking for other venues.
Joyce
Hi Ina,
The live chat dingalings at ebay told me I was mistaken - paypal required for UK. According the the info below they are wrong. I will NEVER use paypal - so it looks as thought ebay has effectively terminated ME. I did get a re listing up using their site and not Auction Zealot which is what I usually use to list items. That went up with a lot of problems.
Since they are supposedly trying to reduce shipping to free - a joke - using their listing tool the shipping is actually more than I would charge.
There was no notice of any kind regarding this must use paypal. I ship internationally and will not pick and choose where things go - they can go to any buyer that pays wherever they are.
I'm still looking for other venues along with a lot of other disgruntled sellers. All suggestions are welcome.
Thanks Joyce
I'm not sure why eBay told you that the error message is not from eBay. The error message can be clearly seen on the error list on their developer website: http://tinyurl.com/64gwr9
When examining the error message itself, it can be seen that you need to have a PayPal account in order to list items to the UK: "PayPal payment option required for items which ship to the UK"
