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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Re: eBay Bans Sale of Ivory
Ina,
I hope ya had a nice holiday season and will have a wonderful New Year.
Seems like us sellers certainly cannot catch a break. This ivory thing is so far over the top it's insane in how "PC" this new policy really is. Now we have a good $5k-$10k in antique pre-1920s hand carved ivory items which, unless we find other venues for these pieces of art, are almost worthless.
I simply cannot believe how eBay has INCREASED it's political pandering. It was bad enough with Meg's political ambitions (at which she will likely fail horribly, based on the fact so many people have somehow been negatively impacted during her reign at eBay). Now we have this new ban and it's just hard to understand eBay's apparent cavalier attitude toward loyal sellers.
Modern ivory items have been banned from the site for a long time, but what, exactly, is to be gained from now including the narrow scope of items previously allowed in the banned list.
Consider, for example, there are some hand carved ivory chess sets from the 20s-60s (or older) worth 10s of thousands of dollars, now they are suddenly not OK to sell? It simply makes no sense unless there is a political motivation for this change. Worst part is there was no mention of the pending change...in fact had your email not mentioned the ban I would have been caught even more flat footed than we just were tonight.
I suspect, along with the political aspirations & motivations of one at least one eBay board member, this ban also has to do with the flooding of new/fake/modern ivory items coming from eBay's precious Chinese market.
Opening eBay directly to the companies in China pretty much destroyed several categories of antiques and collectibles already. When involved in the eBay Voices program, I strongly suggested eBay tread very lightly in regard to items from China as China had a long history of reproductions/fakes of antique items which would ruin many categories if the site were flooded by these fake items. The best safety net collectors had at the time was these fakes had limited market access as there were only a handful of well known US based distributors as well as a limited market due to the appeal, historical significance and value of the real thing.
Anyway, I just had to vent as there was no blog article about this policy change and well, it's about as out of left, errr, maybe "right" field as I have seen from eBay in a long time. Once again eBay US sellers and US citizens are being forced to comply with laws/restrictions of other countries while conducting business inside US borders.
Thanks a BUNCH for listening and...well, keep up the great service you offer all us peons out here.
Sign me a very concerned member of the eBay Mom 'n Pop Community who still remembers the original values and eBay's mantra of "People are basically Good"...
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Great job, Ina, on the THE EVERY PLACE I SELL concept.
With eBay headed for the last round-up and losing sellers faster than they will ever admit, we are going to see more people splintering to various free-listings sites (as they should be, even with a slightly higher FVF) and their own websites.
How eBay found so many feet to shoot themselves in will remain one of the great e-commerce stories of the 21st Century.
Have a great New Year!
Best,
Phil
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I think the post to this by Allan Kraig sez a lot why auctions are failing. (Link).
I agree, I have been involved watching & waiting to the end of an auction only to get sniped at the last 3 seconds ... I use bidtopia a lot & just 2 nites ago was involved in an auction that went 10 minutes over time with bidding still going hot & heavy .. I know allan kraig personally & can get eBays response to bid extentions.
Pete
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Dear Ina,
Just a couple of comments-Ebay cut off the 800 number with which we could call in as power sellers, and your updates suggest its going to be even more difficult to get any help. I have not had any emails saying we cannot accept money orders or checks (although I did remove this from my selling instructions a couple of months ago) have you heard if they have promulgated this.
Re-the interview with Jeff Jordon. You know I really did not find it a bit interesting. Why do we sellers care about someone who used to work for Ebay-no questions as to why all these drastic changes, he is not going to say anything derogatory, just telling us to be patient- patient for what, more drastic changes. So he had a great time there, if it was so great why did he really leave. The answers to your questions came across as Poor Ebay has their hands so full, so busy at Ebay,so dedicated etc., etc., they are so concerned about how to get everything right, it was sort of pukie actually like pure syrup. I found nothing I could hang onto that gave me hope that Ebay might go back a little and change this darned feedback nonsense.
These buyers know just exactly how much they can push us. They know we cannot say much otherwise they can ruin our business with the stroke of a pen. We need some straight talk from someone who knows what is going on, but I guess that's just wishful thinking. This is not a put down, but it was just useless information.But maybe its just me.
Regards
Shirley
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Hello, I was wondering if AuctionBytes knows why ebay doesn't offer FedEx as a shipping carrier in their auctions.
I was using DHL and now that they've gone out of business I have opened a contract with FedEx.
USPS costs too much and UPS breaks my fragile items.
Anyway, do you happen to know why they don't offer Fedex as a shipping carrier in ebay shipping calculations? FedEx charges by distance whereas DHL did not, so I need to change my flat rates to calculated... especially when I offer 2 day and overnight express.
I know I can probably enter a shipping calcuator within the auction but that's not as clear to buyers as ebay's regular shipping calculator.
Maybe if we made some noise they would consider adding them.
Thank you!
Linda
Note from the Editor: Readers interested in this issue might find this interview with Rafael Zimberoff of ShipRush interesting.
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This is on the Clothing Board. All of a sudden eBay starting taking down eyeglass case listings.
Link
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Hello Ina,
Another seller scam on eBay ................
Though I've reported boastful remarks made by several sellers on the forums, their seller IDs as well as their listings, eBay Trust and Safety seemingly does NOT care to take action or to probe into the collection and illegal charging of sales tax by sellers who do NOT hold any state sales tax permits or licenses. They boast and brag that eBay allows a seller to charge without proof of permit & yet, other online sites do not allow the free lance generation of additional $$$$
Can nothing be done to put a halt to this illegal activity? It's catching on like wildfire & it's WRONG!
Thank you kindly,
Jan
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Very deceptive. Last few weeks the paypal screens have been changing and last week I got a notice that for my convenience they're gonna STOP sending confirmation emails. But I just processed an ecrater order, and before I shipped it said CONFIRMED ADDRESS. then AFTER I shipped, paypal is saying its an UNCONFIRMED address.
I checked w/the buyer. She's had her paypal account for 2 years and its confirmed. She didn't add a new address or anything.
This kind of misrepresentation of pertinent information is why paypal needs to be a regulated financial entity.
- is the year ebay is going to let PAYPAL be the problems. Paypal overall has been relatively perfect with little change and grief. Now that they have enough buyer/seller adoption then can club us just like how they did it to us via ebay
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Dear Ina,
Everyone loves "something for nothing" but everyone who believes that can be done, is sorely mistaken.
1-Sellers must pad the selling price to cover postage. They can say Free but it's not and everyone should realize that.
2-I don't object to padding my prices to cover actual postage but costs can vary greatly based on buyer/seller locations, so that formula doesn't work well.
3-Our Free Shipping is Very Profitable for eBay and Costly for Us.
1-Ex:An item offering Free Shipping sells. We have postage padded in the price. eBay gets to charge the full Final Value % on the total. So eBay gets a bite of the postage, we tried to pad into the selling price.
2-Payment with Paypal-After eBay gets their % (of our shipping costs too) Paypal also gets to charge another % on the full amount, taking another bite of the shipping charges we tried to pad into the price.
3-By the time eBay and Paypal collect their fees, we have nothing left to pay our shipping costs.
(A) FREE SHIPPING is great for eBay. Consider how much extra income is generated for eBay, by charging sellers 8% of shipping costs too.
(B) FREE SHIPPING has no real benefit for Buyers who are paying a higher base price, so they can believe they are getting Free Shipping.
(C) FREE SHIPPING is terrible for sellers. We pay much higher Final Value Fees. since we padded the Free Shipping into the sales price. There's also an Income Tax issue of balancing these numbers that no one has considered.
I was livid Christmas 2007, when the Free Shipping was so heavily promoted by eBay, I had no choice but to bite the bullet. Again this year, the site looks like an Orange/Yellow billboard with all the FREE SHIPPING listings.
If ALL sellers would unite together and refuse to offer Free Shipping, we could get eBay's attention. The only time eBay listens is when something affects their bottom line.
SELLERS-Please stop offering Free Shipping.
To add insult to injury, eBay has removed our options to accept payment with a Cashier's Check or a Money Order. No reasonable person can make a valid argument that those payment methods were not safe. Those options cost the seller $0.00 but there was no profit for eBay or Paypal, so those options had to go. What's next?
Ann
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I just had all my ebay auctions ended for the second time this month, and received a one day selling restiction. The first time everything was ended, I received an email from ebay saying it was done in error and I should relist the items since there was no actual violation. Even some completed and paid for auctions were ended, and the buyers are very upset, as they have received email advising them not to pay or try and reverse the payments if they have done so! I am furious, as this has severely impacted my income, and my reputation, as some of the same bidders have bid TWICE on the items, only to receive an email that their bids have been cancelled and the item removed for some reason that they cannot tell them. A competitor has publicly told me on an non ebay message board that he will "destroy me" by reporting every single item that I list for various made up violations until "something sticks"
The first time this happended on Dec 3, the Powerseller support phone rep told me he would flag my account not to accept any more complaints from this person, but that was either ignored or the guy is using a different account to complain. It took many hours to relist the items since some of the "item specifics" had changed and it was not simply a job to click on relist. Ebay is the only "venue" I know that kills off revenue paying sellers based on false complaints from a someone who never even bought anything from me! This has cost me thousands of dollars in lost revenue and untold tarnishing of my reputation. I received a phone call from my account rep but I was not at home.
I mentioned a problem in the Ebay member forums about ebay ending auctions improperly when no violation was involved, and being in a loop of receiving unresponsive, inappropriate form letter replies from ebay. Within 5 minutes, the post was gone, and I received this email:
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In order for the community forums, which are based on the eBay Community Values, to be a place where all members can feel comfortable interacting with each other, there are certain types of posts we remove when they are reported to us. The guidelines for posting in the forums are defined in the Board Usage Policy. Your post was removed for the following reason: Including profanity, vulgarity, hate speech, disruptive, or hostile comments, or threats of violence in a post.
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Hate speech, profanity, disruption, violence? I did no such thing...I stated a problem that is impacting both and ebay and me...both of us are losing income... and they don't even want to hear about it. I ran a brick and mortar store for 10 years, dealt with all kinds of problems, including taxes, inventory, shoplifters, employees, and even being robbed at gunpoint.
But it was always possible to find a solution to those problems. On eBay there is no procedure except to pull auctions, suspend accounts, and initiate Paypal chargebacks with the seller given no chance to explain anything.
There is no equity for the seller, no chance to have any input, or to ultimately solve any problems in a fair manner that benefits both sellers and eBay.
Frank
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eBay is screwing with DSR's again. There a short thread on Seller Central about it and it describes my experience exactly. I started December at 4.9 or better right across the board.....received great feedback all along and my shipping time dropped to 4.5 and cost of shipping to 4.6....but buyers mentioned specifically how fast and efficient my shipping was......
Link
And, indeed, it's right around time to calculate fees....I dropped from the 20% credit in five days to no credit......cockeyed.
Franci
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Ina and David,
This is a link from Ebay's seller central board. It's about a mother who sold her laptop to buy gifts for her kids and Paypal is holding her money because she only has 18 feedback. She did not use delivery or signature confirmation.
I believe this 21 day hold (or longer) policy opens up sellers to scammers. What's to keep the buyer from leaving her a negative or saying he didn't get it? I'm sure Ebay has checked the legality of this but it seems cruel, cold and insensitive during the Holiday season when the country is facing such serious financial concerns. I suppose John Donahoe's children will want for nothing this Christmas.
There is no way for an average user to contact Ebay but this really bothers me and it seems Ebay should warn potential sellers with a pop up window of the implications of selling a high risk item.
Link
Thanks,
Lisa
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Hi Ina,
eBay does it again, another new feature that does not work as intended. Maybe it's a glitch, or more likely, it's another case of poor implementation by eBay.
This time its the new green "Deals" button. Buyers have observed that many items returned when clicking the deals button are items that are not available.
Maybe they sold out as a result of being featured, maybe the items featured were one of a kind items and the feature does not update sufficiently.
Either way, eBay has poorly implemented yet another feature and the result is frustrated buyers who once again can not find what they are looking for.
Given the current eBay policy of removing posts critical of eBay, I have included a screen shot of the post in the event eBay has Liveworld remove the thread.
Happy New Year!!!!!!
Ric
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Hello Ina,
I am not sure if the removal of honest posts by eBay along with suspension is a priority to you or not but we included a link to google finance where we posted a screenshot showing the removal of our post and hotlink to the screenshot. You are welcome to view this and let me know what you think. I was informed via email that we are currently suspended from eBay for posting this. On another note there were numerous more then 10 posts removed by other posters as well.....Let me know what you think.
Regards,
John
Link
