Ebay policy changes

Posts: 4716 · Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 10:58 am

On the CNN video, I saw one of the negs:

Delivery issues following postal strikes, obviously not enough for this person

That sounds Couglish! Could it be?..........

Posts: 5905 · Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 11:52 am

See, I wouldn't necessarily mind so much about the ability to not leave negative feedback if I was fully confident that Ebay would actually help protect me, however based on my previous experiences, I have zero confidence of that happening. The worst part though with the way the system is now is balancing legitimate feedback versus retailiatory feedback.

I still really believe that a large portion of the feedback problems lies squarely on the shoulders of the mutual withdrawls and the abuse of that system as it allows people to try and bully others into withdrawing legit feedback left. I think that if you eliminate it in all but the most extreme set of circumstances, that you will fix a large part of the problem as it sits right now. I say this because, it will again force people to be a lot more accountable for the actions before and while they are leaving feedback. You know, kind of like they are adults and they are out in the real world...

Posts: 5905 · Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 11:55 am

Beyondthebreach wrote:

It seems to me that the best "solution" to the whole "broken" feedback situation is pretty obvious. A long time ago, ebay should have just made it so that all feedback between a buyer and seller remains "hidden" until both parties have left feedback. If there is more than one transaction, then all transactions must have feedback left.

If 90 days pass, then that transaction is considered closed - if one party hasn't left feedback by this point, they are out of luck.

It's not perfect, but it is a heck of a lot better than what ebay has come up with so far . . .

Anyway . . .

I have seen this before and I don't think its a good solution as it will allow scam artists a full 90 days before they can be exposed pubically for what they are. Think about how sellers like jonb7839 would have benefited from this type of thing. He wouldn't have to ship out anything and for a full 90 days as long as he wasn't responding to the negs he was piling up, no one would be the wiser. It would be an absolute nightmare.

Posts: 408 · Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 12:43 pm

Hi all, just a few quick notes of recommendation to small-time sellers (which I used to be, but don’t have the time for anymore): I believe that with these changes, eBay is no longer a viable venue for small individual transactions. Sure, it’s great for buyers, but when the sellers actually lose time and money to post their items, there’s no room for a personal touch. It’s going to be all about the Power Sellers now and their buyers.

Locally, some of my friends have been having success with Craigslist, even on gaming esoterica and other oddities. It’s by no means perfect but if you’re in a decently-sized metropolitan area, you might want to dabble.

My personal recommendation for individual gaming items: private sales. I know the Acaeum has been gradually becoming a venue of this nature, because it allows fee circumvention and it works. (Aside – it only works when there’s trust on both sides, which is rare, but is not a problem here.)

A few people I know who sell games of all kinds have actually been doing all of their business through booths at conventions, pooling together to defray costs. Two man the booth while the other two go play / eat / sleep, and switch off. It’s a bit Wild West but apparently it’s quite lucrative. Some are even prowling other booths for unintentional bargains and adding them to future stock, or even the current booth.

From personal experience (roughly 2004-2006), Half.com works well for diversified “common” media. By that I mean books, music, and videogames. Amazon works fine too. The caveat for these is that your stock might have to sit for awhile before it sells, so have a good storage area set aside.

If you’re not an established Power Seller and you absolutely, positively have to sell on eBay, the only viable method I can see is to sell lots, never individual items, and make your procedures as international-friendly as possible. If you have good international buyers, it’s still a win-win, because they can afford to bid high and still get a deal, due to the depleted dollar. If you go this route, expect your customers to fall into three categories – Power Sellers, internationals, and bottom feeders. I expect profit margins and to be exceedingly small, especially since people with deeper pockets might be able to pick your lot apart and piece it out at a potential loss … basically using you to put yourself out of business. As I said, no longer viable.

There is no universal solution, and will not be until someone who can swallow colossal foundation costs (Google? Microsoft?) finally decides to create a full-fledged eBay rival. Given the taxation / leadership volatility in the US, the tanking economy, and the obvious fact that eBay is a wounded whale thrashing around and doing anything it can for a buck, I don’t expect this situation to change in the next 5-10 years. (Maybe 10, but even if a rival site were established, it would take a long time to build up the critical mass of users that would bring eBay back to the realm of competitive sanity.)

Good luck!
Cool

Posts: 1346 · Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 12:50 pm

If eBay is serious, they should recognize that the changes have killed the hope of new power sellers, unless they reduce the requirements dramatically. I know my fiancée recently became a silver rated power seller despite not having sold a single thing for nearly 6 months. Since power sellers tend to have the highest volume, one would think eBay would want more of them, so they can get larger amounts of smaller fees rather than fewer amounts of larger fees... I dunno. I guess I'm stupid.

Posts: 2616 · Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 1:11 pm

darkseraphim wrote:

I believe that with these changes, eBay is no longer a viable venue for small individual transactions.

Dark!

This has really hit home with me in the last couple of days. It's just not 1998 any more, I guess ... which, eBay-wise, is mostly pretty sad. The ability for a seller to just "jump right in" and start making some money with extra stuff, things just sitting in the garage, pieces of a collection, etc., etc., are long gone. The eBay of 2008 is all about Powersellers, drop-shippers, absurd fees, and new rules and regulations that show a real, honest-to-God disconnection from reality.

darkseraphim wrote:

If you’re not an established Power Seller and you absolutely, positively have to sell on eBay, the only viable method I can see is to sell lots, never individual items ...

True dat.

Gaming-wise, unless it's an item that has proven it can stand on its own (say, at least a $40 average sale over the past year), it's looking like pure foolishness to list individual items. All of that time and effort, just to have a too-large chunk of the "profits" (if any) taken away through various fees ... no thanks, eBay.

Gaming-wise, it's going to be almost all mixed lots for me. And I doubt I'll be the only seller to be forced into this corner.

Posts: 2616 · Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 1:19 pm

Deadlord39 wrote:

CNN has a writeup on the lack of ability to give buyers negative feedback. Seems it is getting a LOT of attention.

Those videos always load so slowly on my machine ... can someone summarize it for me? Please, please tell me the overall tone was critical of eBay. Smile

Posts: 4543 · Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 1:21 pm

Quote:

[quote="darkseraphim"]Hi all, just a few quick notes of recommendation to small-time sellers (which I used to be, but don’t have the time for anymore): I believe that with these changes, eBay is no longer a viable venue for small individual transactions. Sure, it’s great for buyers, but when the sellers actually lose time and money to post their items, there’s no room for a personal touch. It’s going to be all about the Power Sellers now and their buyers.

I agree....Ebay is definitely pushing aside the smaller "mom and pop" type seller. This isn't necessarily a terrible thing. Many bad experiences in buying games comes from "dabblers" who are uninformed about gaming items and think a single, dog eared book from a boxed set is a "complete, near mint" gaming item, or they figure if they ship one day a week that's fine, or they can't be bothered to actually check the items to see if there are maps in them, etc. Unfortunately, a lot of good people will also be caught in this net.

Quote:

Locally, some of my friends have been having success with Craigslist, even on gaming esoterica and other oddities. It’s by no means perfect but if you’re in a decently-sized metropolitan area, you might want to dabble.

CL's is an interesting venue....you never know, kind of like perusing a bunch of garage sales.

Quote:

My personal recommendation for individual gaming items: private sales. I know the Acaeum has been gradually becoming a venue of this nature, because it allows fee circumvention and it works. (Aside – it only works when there’s trust on both sides, which is rare, but is not a problem here.)

Private sales are a great solution to rares or harder to find items...but a place like the Acaeum is not the best venue for getting rid of a bunch of more common gaming items. This is where larger venues like Ebay excel. But yeh, for the rarer items, there is typically someone here looking for that item. If you know what the item typically sells for anyway, it makes sense to cut out the middleman (ebay in this case).

Quote:

A few people I know who sell games of all kinds have actually been doing all of their business through booths at conventions, pooling together to defray costs. Two man the booth while the other two go play / eat / sleep, and switch off. It’s a bit Wild West but apparently it’s quite lucrative. Some are even prowling other booths for unintentional bargains and adding them to future stock, or even the current booth.

Unfortunately not as many dedicated gaming conventions as there were years ago...but working a comic book convention in Jan I surprisingly made a few sales of some used gaming stuff I brought along.

Quote:

From personal experience (roughly 2004-2006), Half.com works well for diversified “common” media. By that I mean books, music, and videogames. Amazon works fine too. The caveat for these is that your stock might have to sit for awhile before it sells, so have a good storage area set aside.

If you don't need the money anytime soon, this isa good option.

Quote:

If you’re not an established Power Seller and you absolutely, positively have to sell on eBay, the only viable method I can see is to sell lots, never individual items, and make your procedures as international-friendly as possible. If you have good international buyers, it’s still a win-win, because they can afford to bid high and still get a deal, due to the depleted dollar. If you go this route, expect your customers to fall into three categories – Power Sellers, internationals, and bottom feeders. I expect profit margins and to be exceedingly small, especially since people with deeper pockets might be able to pick your lot apart and piece it out at a potential loss … basically using you to put yourself out of business. As I said, no longer viable.

Selling in lots does seem the best method ifyou are not a "professional" seller or a power seller. Sadly this will probably start limiting the numbers of new Power sellers...but I suspect this is part of Ebay's plan anyway.

Quote:

There is no universal solution, and will not be until someone who can swallow colossal foundation costs (Google? Microsoft?) finally decides to create a full-fledged eBay rival. Given the taxation / leadership volatility in the US, the tanking economy, and the obvious fact that eBay is a wounded whale thrashing around and doing anything it can for a buck, I don’t expect this situation to change in the next 5-10 years. (Maybe 10, but even if a rival site were established, it would take a long time to build up the critical mass of users that would bring eBay back to the realm of competitive sanity.)

Good luck!
Cool

Everything's cyclical....in five years we may be awash in money and lighting cigars with $100 bills, I remember the awfulness of the late 80s compared to just a few years later as the internet began to boom. But this aside, Ebay is what it is. The days of the old RPG marketplace were great, obviously a certain level or trust had to exist (especially on the buyer's part), but they probably are't going to ever come around again.

Mike B.

Posts: 2616 · Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 1:29 pm

Xaxaxe wrote:

Those videos always load so slowly on my machine ... can someone summarize it for me?

Never mind ... I loaded it up and gave it a look.

Typical eBay company line, with the only difference being the English accents of the interviewees. My loss of faith continues ...

You know, 10 years from now, someone will have written a real, researched, professional history of eBay, and there will be an entire section devoted to what a disastrous decision it was to put all of the power into buyers' hands. The cynical part of me wonders if that section will be entitled "Beginning of the End."

Posts: 406 · Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 1:51 pm

Can anyone confirm whether UK sellers will get the same store price reductions and free gallery upgrades as US sellers? I checked both notifications (admittedly a week or so back) and there was no mention in the UK version.

Posts: 406 · Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 1:53 pm

As for tax, I gasp every time I open a monthly pay slip. It's absolutely staggering how much tax we pay here in the UK. My eBay activities are strictly linked to my collecting hobby. I use eBay to fund that collection and have always been happy to reach break-even or thereabouts. My volumes are so small I'm not exactly going to wine and dine on the proceeds. It's easy to start off with one or two items on eBay and then get sucked into the whole selling process. Now I guess I make a small profit each month and in a few month's time my collection will be paid off. So fine, maybe I owe the tax man a tenner once I take my purchase costs and other costs into account. If eBay is going down the road of suggesting that I ought to register as a business and bring on all the bureaucracy entailed, considering I have a day job it's obvious what my course of action is going to be. I know they're not saying this right now and the new rules only apply to power-sellers. But that's for now, what comes next? It's fairly obvious they're showing small sellers the door. Fine by me, I turned over my power-seller status today (don't know why I ever accepted their invitation on the first place - vanity I suppose), will be ceasing all buying activities, will be going over my numbers and adjusting sale prices down so I end up with net zero. Then I'll close down the eBay account. And I suspect a lot of small sellers will do the same, which is eBay's goal. I doubt they want to be hassled by HM greedy b*****d either but that's not going to stop the vultures from feeding.

Posts: 406 · Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 2:03 pm

As for eBay's ridiculous incentives for power-sellers, it's not the visible feedback that's going to hurt. It's the star rating system. How anyone can base real financial measurements on such a ill conceived method is astonishing. What's to stop me giving glowing positives to a seller and then slating them on the stars - just for a laugh? How can you have an incentives scheme that's open to such potential abuse? Because I don't have many sales I can usually tell when somebody has slated me behind the scenes - or I could until recently. One buyer sent out the usual 'Great - fantastic - A+++' stock message and then I noticed my averages had dropped across the board. He must have given me one star in every category even though his item was as described, delivered next day and at a knock down price. Some buyers like leaving feedback in one hit, maybe weeks after the sale. We're trusting buyers to even remember if the postage was cheap or the item as described. In other words we are expecting them to give feedback whilst the purchase is fresh in their minds. Otherwise they're going to be guessing and they'll probably go 4 stars across the board to be on the safe side. That's if they even bother at all. And I'm sure people will also bang in 5 stars without thought provided they don't have cause for complaint. This system measures nothing and probably took 10 minutes to knock up in some eBay backroom. Is the star rating system going to be made compulsory? And isn't it likely that dissatisfied customers (including the ones you can't please no matter what you do) are going to be more eager to make a point than somebody who's happy just to have their item and can't be bothered with the follow-up? And doesn't it fall on eBay to help out - like actually displaying the postage costs etc on the main feedback screens so you can make a real judgement when leaving feedback? How many have come to leaving mass feedback and bothered to click through all the item details to recall whether they really did get good value for money? There will be a lot less sellers getting discounts than people think. In other words, all this amounts to is a fee increase from eBay. What a convoluted way to try and hide what is surely just a case of pure greed.

Looks like eBay is gunning to become a virtual Bluewater (UK shopping centre) rather than a place where the public could trade anything from junk to lucky finds on a small time basis. That's sad with the only possible consolation being the gap in the market that will be created. Hopefully somebody with a little more respect for their customers will step up.

Posts: 4716 · Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 3:14 pm

It was basically factual, Xax. However, the people they interviewed (aside from eGay employees) were pretty critical.

Posts: 1007 · Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 7:01 pm

Actually if you want to have your eyes opened go have a look at the discussion boards on ebay. I almost never look at them but I decided to yesterday.. they are a real eye opener, some of the things they are saying Shocked

.. they are mostly seller orientated by the looks of it, we buyers don't really care to bother with such things.. the comments they make are well worth a read.. I suppose you have to remember that there are bad sellers and bad buyers out there.. there are people of both sides that are out to rip off people, its these people that ebay need to get rid of without penalising the good sellers and buyers. I'm sure things will change again in the future as things are fine tuned again with feedback...

Brette:)

Posts: 2616 · Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 7:15 pm

Deadlord39 wrote:

That sounds Couglish! Could it be?..........

Seriously, it does sound like him! And the entire video was filmed in the UK, it appears ...

If we could ever confirm that Cougie was on CNN, I'd never stop laughing.

Posts: 318 · Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2008 1:50 am

serleran wrote:

If eBay is serious, they should recognize that the changes have killed the hope of new power sellers, unless they reduce the requirements dramatically. I know my fiancée recently became a silver rated power seller despite not having sold a single thing for nearly 6 months. Since power sellers tend to have the highest volume, one would think eBay would want more of them, so they can get larger amounts of smaller fees rather than fewer amounts of larger fees... I dunno. I guess I'm stupid.

Strange, that . . . I got an e-mail supposedly from Ebay saying that I was a silver-rated PowerSeller.

Odd thing is, if you look at my feedback -- I've never sold anything on Ebay!

Posts: 1573 · Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2008 10:10 am

sleepyCO wrote:

Strange, that . . . I got an e-mail supposedly from Ebay saying that I was a silver-rated PowerSeller.

Odd thing is, if you look at my feedback -- I've never sold anything on Ebay!

That is a phishing scam dude. There is lots of 'em out there trying to dupe people into thinking it is an ebay email.

If, by chance, you followed the link and logged in, you need to change your password ASAP!!!

Posts: 87 · Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2008 4:39 pm

Plowing through this thread, most of the comments stem from the seller's POV. Most right on the mark, but they completely miss half of the equation.

From the POV of a buyer, the feedback changes are just wonderful. Now eBay feedback will actually be useful.

Without the Mexican standoff, where sellers hold the buyers hostage with retaliatory fb, we'll actually start seeing some honest feedback that isn't artificially inflated.

Not saying that all sellers do that, or even most -- and regular Acaeum members have enviable eBay reputations -- but enough eBay sellers game the system to make it a problem. Ebay's finally addressed the issue.

So many times, when reviewing a seller, you can't go by their numbers. You have to laboriously go through the pages, counting the positives with negative or mixed remarks. That's just plain silly, and indicative of the problem. Not to mention all the negs that are never left because the buyer fears retaliation. Until now, eBay fb has been a gimped tool for the buyer, particularly the occasional/casual buyer.

C'mon, everybody here buys too! Smile

Won't realistic fb make life simpler?

Posts: 5905 · Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2008 5:22 pm

red_dawn wrote:

Plowing through this thread, most of the comments stem from the seller's POV. Most right on the mark, but they completely miss half of the equation.

From the POV of a buyer, the feedback changes are just wonderful. Now eBay feedback will actually be useful.

Without the Mexican standoff, where sellers hold the buyers hostage with retaliatory fb, we'll actually start seeing some honest feedback that isn't artificially inflated.

Not saying that all sellers do that, or even most -- and regular Acaeum members have enviable eBay reputations -- but enough eBay sellers game the system to make it a problem. Ebay's finally addressed the issue.

So many times, when reviewing a seller, you can't go by their numbers. You have to laboriously go through the pages, counting the positives with negative or mixed remarks. That's just plain silly, and indicative of the problem. Not to mention all the negs that are never left because the buyer fears retaliation. Until now, eBay fb has been a gimped tool for the buyer, particularly the occasional/casual buyer.

C'mon, everybody here buys too! Smile

Won't realistic fb make life simpler?

And how exactly am I now supposed to determine if a buyer is an asshat that is going to do nothing but cause me problems, so that I can premptively block them. If I can't see what other sellers are saying about them I will have no idea and have no way to protect myself. i am plenty capable of determining who I beleive is telling the truth and who is full of shit, its usually patently obvious when you look at patterns of behavior. Now that option is gone.

Posts: 87 · Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2008 5:38 pm

Well... If they're a non-paying bidder, that problem's easily remedied.

As for the others, isn't the occasional asshat customer a part of selling? I remember when I used to work in a grocery store, I would have loved to pre-emptively block jerks from entering the front door.

"i am plenty capable of determining who I beleive is telling the truth and who is full of shit, its usually patently obvious when you look at patterns of behavior."

Of course. But the casual buyer won't be as skilled or patient as you. That's who eBay is appealing to in the changes.

Look, I'm not trying to start an argument. Plenty of good points made in this thread. Smile

I just wanted to point out that all is not gloom-and-doom. Sellers will adapt, and probably see higher sale prices, since eBay will better retain buyers.