In every issue, readers soundoff about issues important to them. From feedback to payment services, from fees to posting policies, AuctionBytes Soundoff gives you a chance to air your views.

Send your letter to the editor by emailing ina@auctionbytes.com with "Letters to the Editor Blog" in the subject line. (Remember to include your name as you would like it to appear.)

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Here's an ad that eBay is running......advertising free shipping......if I was a shopper I might think that shipping was free all over eBay.....it isn't....maybe 1/3rd is.....and this is an open door for buyers to be misled and then take it out on the seller by leaving poor DSR's about something they never promised. I understand this probably means for the Daily Deal, but I don't think that's true either.
Franci

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Hi Ina,
I'm a great fan of AuctionBytes! I just want to tell everyone the best thing eBay has ever done for me is hire Donahoe! Ebay's asinine policy changes forced me to pretty much leave eBay to list elsewhere and get my own web site.

I now list on Bonanzle and have my own site at shamrockgardenantiques.com. Needless to say I haven't got as much traffic as I had at eBay but it takes time to build a following. Although I am selling less because I'm new, I am profiting about the same as I did with eBay. No listing fee, final value fee, the site even hosts my pics so I don't have to pay an image host.

It cost me $200 for someone to build my site and Iwill pay $50 per year for my domain name. Nobody tells me how to run my business in any way shape or form. I can service my customers any way I want. Of course I'm honest, etc, but if I want to accept chickens as a form of payment I can!
Regards,
Fed Up With eBay

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Hi Ina,
Ebay has once again found a way to alienate sellers. This way is to stop shipping insurance. Ebay is stating that it is the sellers responsibility to purchase the insurance and get the package safely to the buyer.

Really! Years of buyers paying for their own insurance, and all of a sudden it is time for the seller to pay for the insurance, only on ebay of course.

Ebay's anecdote is for the sellers to add the cost of the insurance to their sale price.

What is really happening here? Why would ebay be tinkering with shipping insurance? The answer is increased final value fees for sellers on ebay.

Many sellers fell into the free shipping trap of offer free shipping and ebay will increase your search visibility, that was a half truth, it barely increased your search visibility, it played a very small factor in search standings.. The fact is, it raised your final value fees quite a bit because almost all sellers rolled the cost of shipping into their price. It also masked ebay's problems for a little while longer as those extra profits boosted a troubled bottom line.

Ebay wants to get final value fees on that shipping insurance, Ebay wants sellers to roll that cost of insurance into your price and ebay will collect final value fees on that also.

Many sellers offer insurance, many sellers find it a must to do business on ebay or anywhere without shipping insurance, and now ebay needs those fees to make things a little better looking for investors. If sellers on ebay would stop free shipping, ebay bottom line would have a drop that would cause major changes at ebay and management would be changed, because right now that increase in the final value fees because of free shipping,are masking the problems at ebay, created by the ill advised changes that started in 2008, continued in 2009, and continue to chase sellers away who by the way were buyers also and many will not shop ebay now.

Ebay has totally immersed itself in deceptive business practices, half truths, bad customer service, selective policy enforcement, high fees, and a bias that allows fraudulent buyers to rule, is and will be ebay's failure.

This is the way it should be looked at is, suppose ebay made no changes in May of 2008 and continued not to change, suppose they reduced listing fees to .ten cents and kept final values fees at about eight percent, Lets suppose they kept the feedback system and let that police the site, with a few changes that monitored both the sellers and the buyers, and lets suppose that ebay had a real resolution service which supported sellers when a buyer did not read a description.

Ebay would not have lost good sellers who were buyers also and things would be better on ebay, on the other hand many of us who are finding life better at atomicmall, bonanzle, and our own websites may not have moved, so in some ways it is a blessing that ebay's management is horrible.

Now all ebay has is Paypal holding it up, and the lawsuits that are pending will hurt that Paypal profit. It will not be long and investors will see through the smoke and mirrors and changes will be made at ebay but it will be too late.
Sincerely,
John

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Also visit the Letters to the Editor Blog, here are links to letters published from August 9 to present:

Picture Pack Promo Set to Default (August 20, 2009) Link

Wanted: Accounting Tool for Ecommerce (August 19, 2009) Link

No Compensation for PayPal Outage (August 16, 2009) Link

"Fed up with eBay" Celebrates Independence (August 12, 2009) Link

eBay Already Testing New Best Match Search Criteria? (August 11, 2009) Link

Charging Seller's Credit Card for Lost eBay Disputes (August 11, 2009) Link

More on eBay Traffic Woes (August 11, 2009) Link

First Item Sold Online Followup - Winding Down on eBay (August 9, 2009) Link

Issue with PayPal Online Postage (August 9, 2009) Link