Ebay policy changes

Posts: 2504 · Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 8:43 am

bspaul41 wrote:

Not sure if this has already been mentioned, but I just hit upon a new ebay feedback policy. (at least it's new to me) I went to leave a powerseller neutral feedback (totally justified mind you) and got this message:

"You cannot leave negative or neutral Feedback for this PowerSeller within 7 days of the transaction. In the mean time, email the seller or request additional contact information, such as a phone number, to resolve any issues."

WTF??? So I guess this means if you are a powerseller, you have some kind of temporary immunity from neutral and/or negative feedback? This seems like a very twisted policy. Ebay wants us to leave feedback. When I go to do so, it prevents me from doing so. Then it puts up this roadblock. All this policy does is annoy me and make me want to turn my neutral into a negative, in six days from now. Giving me seven days is not going to change my mind or make me contact the seller. They deserve at least a neutral and they are going to get it.

More and more, I'm thinking that all the previous people are right about ebay. Anyone else get hit with this lame policy?

That happened to me as well. I received an item from a powerseller a few months ago that I paid almost $10 in shipping costs. Once I received the item I realized that they only spent $4 to ship it and pocketed the rest. Wouldnt have bothered me that much if they had put the item in a box with some packing material but they just stuffed it in an oversized envelope. When I got the item it was damaged. I sent the seller a noxious email communicating my displeasure at being obviously ripped off. I waited a day for his response and when I got nothing, I went to leave negative feedback and got the same message you did. It bugged me but it also gave me additional time to wait for a hopeful response from the seller with an option for reimbursement. Of course it never came and I ended up leaving a nasty neg anyway.

It is just Ebays way to give the two parties involved time to let cooler heads prevail and settle their problems. I dont think it is a bad idea but they shouldnt make it exclusive to Powersellers IMO. The really funny thing about it all is about a month later the dumbass seller gave me positive feedback. Go figure. Rolling Eyes

Posts: 70 · Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 3:45 pm

First, I’ve noticed the quality of items I acquire via Ebay has gone significantly down. I’ve had to file four disputes in the past two months. Before these changes I had filed only two disputes between 2000 and 2007. I’m starting to question if Ebay is even a good place to buy stuff on a regular basis.
In any case, I'm still through with Ebay as a selelr. I'm going back to direct mail to old customers, e-mails to those who want them, convention flea markets, and live auctions. You’ve got to be careful at the live auctions though. As a seller you can really take it in the shorts if you’re pushed into a no minimum price situation. However, if you bring enough stuff you can usually negotiate with the people running the auction so you neither sell $20 items for $1 nor wind up paying a commission based on a $20 minimum bid that never came. I’ve still not found an effective on-line replacement for Ebays fast sales and high fees but I’ll go for slow sales and low fees.
Unless Ebay cuts back to the early days of “sell what you want, how you want; we’re just providing a forum for you to do it in” then I’ll never (sell) there again. It's not about trying to deprive Ebay of my business, it's a simple matter of Ebay not being worth the stress.

Posts: 1276 · Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 12:41 am

Noticed something interesting today -- they are not tagging users by sign-in. If they want you on the "beta test" they're doing it by IP. How do I know? Well, I experimented...

First, I normally use Firefox to browse about and it is set to not accept cookies from 99% of every website, and the ones it does, are for session only. It also blocks every script and plug-in. So, eBay didn't install or add anything to my PC, and I wasn't logged in.

As a "guest" I noticed the search functions were a little weird. So, I dumped any cache I might have had, ensured there were no eBay cookies or add-ons anywhere in my system (even removed every reference in the registry!) and reloaded the browser.

Same thing.

Then, as I'm scrolling about, I see I've been selected to join their beta. I click the Opt-Out link and then, wham! Everything is back to normal... and I'm still not logged in, so they're not assigning the change to my eBay account.

I shut down Firefox again and re-open. Log in, and... lo! The search function is exactly how its supposed to be!

Of course, I could be completely wrong.

Posts: 37 · Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 1:13 am

Kingofpain89 wrote:

That happened to me as well. I received an item from a powerseller a few months ago that I paid almost $10 in shipping costs. Once I received the item I realized that they only spent $4 to ship it and pocketed the rest. Wouldnt have bothered me that much if they had put the item in a box with some packing material but they just stuffed it in an oversized envelope. When I got the item it was damaged. I sent the seller a noxious email communicating my displeasure at being obviously ripped off. I waited a day for his response and when I got nothing, I went to leave negative feedback and got the same message you did. It bugged me but it also gave me additional time to wait for a hopeful response from the seller with an option for reimbursement. Of course it never came and I ended up leaving a nasty neg anyway.

It is just Ebays way to give the two parties involved time to let cooler heads prevail and settle their problems. I dont think it is a bad idea but they shouldnt make it exclusive to Powersellers IMO. The really funny thing about it all is about a month later the dumbass seller gave me positive feedback. Go figure. Rolling Eyes

I have also had some similar problems, and have filed disputes with Ebay and Paypal (months long or more processes), but unfortunately they're not competent enough to resolve the issues (at least not in my cases...and they were really obvious overcharging and even double-charging on shipping, and not disclosing their intention to ship out media mail, etc.). They were really a waste of time, and very insulting on the phone. I get the feeling Ebay/Paypal sees their dispute process as an obligation to make it appear they have some sort of official manner in resolving issues.

I had mentioned to another person some weeks back that if you've paid for the item using your credit card through paypal, you can take up the dispute through the credit card company. They're a million times more objective and efficient at resolving a dispute than Ebay/Paypal. I can't remember what they're usual last date of filing a dispute is, but I want to say it's at least 60 days or maybe even 90 days. You can even request partial refunds (if it's a shipping dispute, etc). Just print out or save the auction pages as pdf's after you've bought anything, and keep all the emails from the sellers, so that you can forward those to your credit card company for the dispute. You won't be able to put them out of business on Ebay, but at least you'll get your money back.

Mike.

Posts: 1002 · Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 3:07 am

Mike, I think mine is 120 days on my C/C that I can do a charge back.. a lot longer than ebay thats for sure

Brette:)

Posts: 3999 · Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2008 12:07 pm

bspaul41 wrote:

Not sure if this has already been mentioned, but I just hit upon a new ebay feedback policy. (at least it's new to me) I went to leave a powerseller neutral feedback (totally justified mind you) and got this message:

"You cannot leave negative or neutral Feedback for this PowerSeller within 7 days of the transaction. In the mean time, email the seller or request additional contact information, such as a phone number, to resolve any issues."

WTF??? So I guess this means if you are a powerseller, you have some kind of temporary immunity from neutral and/or negative feedback? This seems like a very twisted policy. Ebay wants us to leave feedback. When I go to do so, it prevents me from doing so. Then it puts up this roadblock. All this policy does is annoy me and make me want to turn my neutral into a negative, in six days from now. Giving me seven days is not going to change my mind or make me contact the seller. They deserve at least a neutral and they are going to get it.

More and more, I'm thinking that all the previous people are right about ebay. Anyone else get hit with this lame policy?

Why were you posting a negative within seven days, bspaul41?

The seller must have done something pretty bad to warrant such a fast negative response.

Not saying you were wrong. Did you try some sort of resolution of your issue before posting a negative? A negative posted within seven days does sound a bit hasty.

This is the first I have heard of that policy, but I can see the logic behind it. Allowing their most valuable sellers seven days of grace before someone hammers them with a neg seems like a pretty reasonable policy. Ebay has not prevented you from posting a negative. They have only required you to wait a couple of days longer to do it.

What did the seller do (or not do) to rate an immediate negative?

Posts: 377 · Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 9:47 am

Don't know if anyone has seen this part of the new feedback system. Not sure if it means that buyers can change a positive to a neutral or negative or just upgrade bad feedback.

"We will provide buyers with the ability to revise Feedback left for sellers.

Everybody makes mistakes—buyers and sellers alike. Buyers should be able to change Feedback if they make a mistake or if the seller rectifies a problem in a timely manner. Unlike Mutual Feedback Withdrawal, buyers will be able to revise the Feedback, with this new process not just withdraw the rating.

There is a difference in the buyer experience when a buyer receives the item as expected the first time, so, we will limit the use of the tool so that sellers who make fewer mistakes can be differentiated from sellers who make more mistakes."

Posts: 1104 · Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 1:30 pm

Just saw this in their latest eBay Canada newsletter. I've highlighted the important parts:

Quote:

Why is eBay.com setting limits on shipping charges lower than my actual costs to ship?
eBay.com based the maximum shipping & handling charges on recent US transaction data of what sellers from the US and other countries are charging and what US buyers have said is reasonable. We know that what US buyers consider to be reasonable will be less than sellers' actual costs in most cases for Canadian sellers. However, we believe that by offering US buyers at least one shipping option that they deem reasonable, Canadian sellers may increase their overall sales and conversion.

Dear eBay,

Believe me that I mean it from the bottom of my heart when I say this:
FUCK YOU.

(Granted, it only applies on listings made via eBay.com; listings made via eBay.ca aren't subject to the shipping costs limit but are subject to placement penalties if the shipping is above the limit. I also note that it also only applies to shipping within or into the US. So for US sellers $40 First Class Mail is still A-OK! Rolling Eyes

)

Edit: As a buyer, I'm also bitter about this. By enforcing a shipping limit for US auctions (and telling sellers to stick cost overruns into the starting price), but allowing them to charge whatever they wish for international bidders (translation: cost + "handling fee"), they've essentially increased the initial costs of items for all international bidders -- since they'd be essentially paying to ship it twice: once to the US and once elsewhere.

Posts: 377 · Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 1:40 pm

g026r wrote:

Just saw this in their latest eBay Canada newsletter. I've highlighted the important parts:

Dear eBay,

Believe me that I mean it from the bottom of my heart when I say this:
FUCK YOU.

(Granted, it only applies on listings made via eBay.com; listings made via eBay.ca aren't subject to the shipping costs limit but are subject to placement penalties if the shipping is above the limit. I also note that it also only applies to shipping within or into the US. So $40 First Class Mail is still A-OK! Rolling Eyes

)

They are screwing with even more stuff. The US fees are all paypal all the time in October. They've changed the feedback policy again. Neutrals no longer count against a seller. If a buyer leaves a positive then a negative neither count, and if they leave two positives and one negative for a seller then it counts as one positive. (For items ending the same week with a month with an R in it).

Have you seen the new listing format? They've removed half the links from the page, such as being able to contact the buyer from the page. The stream feed second by second countdown is nice but the thing stalls up on me when I try to bid and they keep resetting me back to their 'beta' pages several times a day.

Posts: 4704 · Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 2:01 pm

It gets better. I read an article today that said eBay is chaning the fixed-auction fees. LOWER.
they're certainly closer to the fixed-price model they want to be at.

Posts: 377 · Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 2:14 pm

Deadlord39 wrote:

It gets better. I read an article today that said eBay is chaning the fixed-auction fees. LOWER.
they're certainly closer to the fixed-price model they want to be at.

Fixed prices over auctions is the new thing. And have you run across Buy.com They list tens of thousands of items in the book listings alone. The fee structure for the big sellers is being reduced (so of course they can crush the small time competition). But people aren't coming to ebay for the big dealers, they are coming for the bargains and specific items that the individual small time sellers have.

Posts: 1002 · Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 6:11 pm

wow, this is amazing, alienating more and more people.. how to destroy your business.. I see listing are down down down...

Brette:)

Posts: 1736 · Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 6:55 pm

I am so dreading the new search function coming in here at the end of the month.

Posts: 377 · Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 7:49 pm

red_bus wrote:

I am so dreading the new search function coming in here at the end of the month.

Every new page I've seen is worse than what it is replacing. Ebay's philosophy of the day seems to be if it isn't broke, lets break it really badly.

Posts: 1001 · Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 8:05 pm

JasonZavoda wrote:

Every new page I've seen is worse than what it is replacing. Ebay's philosophy of the day seems to be if it isn't broke, lets break it really badly.

Any amateur can design an auction site, but it takes eBay to really screw it up.

Smaller pictures, colors everywhere, more crowded and busy layouts . . .

Posts: 4449 · Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 1:08 am

For those that missed it, Ebay is pissing on you once again. As of October, they will be setting MAXIMUM shipping amounts in some categories. If this maximum shipping does NOT cover costs.....well, tough luck dude. Part of their continuing campaign to drive smaller sellers off ebay for good.
The maximum shipping charges for books are $4, for Cds are $3, which means you can no longer ship these items only by priority mail, even if the buyer desires you do so, it has to be a option along with the cheaper price. Handling and supply charges (for example, charging extra for a padded envelope) are essentially forbidden at this point in these categories. Essentially, for example, I can no longer sell records because I insist on a priority box to protect the item, not simply a hard envelope.

Quote:

What are maximum shipping and handling charges?
In Books, Movies & DVDs, Music, and Video Games eBay will be enforcing limits on what sellers can charge for shipping and handling. For specific information by category see Maximum Shipping Costs.

Why are you establishing maximum shipping and handling costs?
Buyers have told us that shipping costs on eBay are too high, and this is causing them to make their purchases elsewhere. This is hurting both our sellers and our buyers. Setting maximum shipping and handling costs based on historical date of what buyers have told us is reasonable will keep more buyers satisfied and drive more sales for sellers.

Why were these categories selected?
We are starting with categories where we believe buyer expectations are particularly heightened to free and reasonable shipping. Our goal over time is to bring reasonable shipping limits to more categories.

How did eBay determine the maximum shipping and handling costs for a category?
We based our maximum shipping & handling costs on recent transaction data of what sellers are charging and what buyers have told us is reasonable.

Do the maximum shipping costs include handling costs?
Yes. Handling costs are included in the maximum amounts.

Why are you setting limits on shipping charges lower than my actual costs to ship?
We based our maximum shipping & handling charges on recent transaction data of what sellers are charging and what buyers have told us is reasonable. We know that what buyers consider to be reasonable will be less than sellers' actual costs in some cases. We believe that by offering buyers at least one shipping option that they deem reasonable, sellers will increase their overall sales and conversion.

Are there shipping cost limits for international shipping services or expedited shipping?
No. Maximum shipping and handling costs apply only to the first flat rate shipping service to the U.S.

What can I do if the maximum shipping and handling costs do not cover my expenses for packaging and shipping?
The maximum shipping and handling cost may not cover sellers' shipping costs in some cases. In the event that it does not, you can do one of the following:
When selling a bundle or quantity of items, you can use the shipping calculator to charge actual shipping charges

When selling via fixed price, include all or part of the shipping cost in the item price

When selling via auction:

Continue to list your item with the same start price and a shipping price at or below the maximum shipping cost. Many of our sellers have success with auctions, even at free shipping, because their item looks more competitive to their buyers.

If your actual shipping costs are higher than the maximum shipping & handling cost, start the item price higher to cover your shipping cost. This technique will minimize risk that you will lose money on shipping.

Move your item to fixed price and include all or part of the shipping cost in the item price.

If you are selling a bundle or quantity of items, you can use the shipping calculator to charge actual shipping charges
I'm an international seller. Do the shipping cost limits still apply?
Yes. If you are listing your item on the U.S. site, maximum shipping costs will apply for sales to the U.S. regardless of the location of your item.

As of October, checks and money orders are no longer allowed on Ebay.

As of November, Sellers with DSRs lower than 4.3 will not be allowed to sell or relist on ebay.

And thus it begins....... Evil or Very Mad

Mike B.

Posts: 4449 · Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 1:17 am

JasonZavoda wrote:

Every new page I've seen is worse than what it is replacing. Ebay's philosophy of the day seems to be if it isn't broke, lets break it really badly.

Not to mention that their stock flirted with their all time low today, and has all week. I swear on my life I have never seen a better example of a company trying to destroy itself than Ebay the last 12 months. Incredible.

Mike B.

Posts: 1238 · Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 1:44 am

Quote:

When selling via fixed price, include all or part of the shipping cost in the item price

Just unbelievable, I can't believe ebay actually said this.

Also - as an ebay seller I have to say, and bear with me on this, - " Who really gives a f*** what buyers want?" - Yes free shipping is great, but so is regular oral sex - unfortunately both things cost you something, somewhere along the line Rolling Eyes

.

Are people really so stupid as to think "cool, 5 bucks for my DVD and I get free shipping - that must be better than a buck plus three more for shipping, after all I'm getting something for free" (and as a happy coincidence ebay earn a bit more cash!)

Clearly this is a bit of a rant - I'm sure you know what I'm trying to get at though.

Posts: 4449 · Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 1:58 am

gyg wrote:

Just unbelievable, I can't believe ebay actually said this.

Also - as an ebay seller I have to say, and bear with me on this, - " Who really gives a f*** what buyers want?" - Yes free shipping is great, but so is regular oral sex - unfortunately both things cost you something, somewhere along the line Rolling Eyes

.

Are people really so stupid as to think "cool, 5 bucks for my DVD and I get free shipping - that must be better than a buck plus three more for shipping, after all I'm getting something for free" (and as a happy coincidence ebay earn a bit more cash!)

Clearly this is a bit of a rant - I'm sure you know what I'm trying to get at though.

Yeh, its ludicrous. I just cancelled all my cd and Lp listings, and I'm pruning my books right now (anything large is going offsite to amazon.....and once again I'm sitting here wondering just why it is I haven't switched EVERYTHING to amazon yet....)

All it will lead to is HIGHER costs and LESS choices for buyers....but I think most of them are savvy enough to figure out what is going on here.

I have to say here, as a matter of business, pure and simple, if they stick the Toys and Hobbies category in with this crap I'm moving everything out. I'll have to, or lose enough money it's really not worth staying. Nice to know one day you'll have a choice between Troll & Toad and three other guys who all charge inflated prices for their D&D stuff to cover shipping, and to top it off ship in an unpadded plain brown envelope.

Mike B.

Posts: 1002 · Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 2:37 am

Actually T&T inflate the costs to cover ebay fees, they charge the shipping on top.. (you can see this as the price for things on ebay are that much more than listed on their web site)

Brette:)