Posted on 07/11/2010 10:05:06 AM PDT by granite
As of today, there are over 5,600 replies in response to to the original post (click here to read entire thread), the majority of which are complaints from sellers about the lack of sales on eBay. To be fair, the replies are not from 5600 unique sellers, but there is something to be said for any forum topic that stays in the forefront for that amount of time.
Apparently, eBay sellers who have posted in the thread have a laundry list of complaints:
Whatever is going on, someone in management forgot that most of eBay's small-medium sellers are also buyers: alienate one and you have alienated the other, which explains the continued growth of Amazon and the rapid growth of eBay-alternative sites such as eCrater, Etsy, and Bonanzle.
Back in 2007, eBay CEO John Donohoe said: "We had to create a vision of the future so people could let go of a very successful past."* If the current customer dissatisfaction is any indication, management has performed admirably.
* Quoted taken from www.leggmason.com, full speech is available here.
They died from their own popularity.
It seems like as the years passed it got more expensive and more complex especially for the sellers and fees kept going up.
I don’t even go to the site anymore even to just shop and look.
“100% true!! Often the buyer holds the seller hostage to frivolous but costly, demands.
I am looking for another venue to hawk my wares.”
Yes there are professional Scam artists that frequent the site and hold the sellers up for discounts, these people are allowed to go on.
Excellent, You are so correct, I did a lot of camera business there at one time. Just Plain Old Fashion GREED has taken over operations at eBay and I no longer do business there. It simply wasn’t worth the grief trying to fight my way through the no good ,liars thieves and cheats that have made a home there.
The one time I bought a piece of camera equipment on Ebay, it worked out. It was a new in box Canon telephoto lens for about half the retail price. I sold it last year and got almost what I paid for it.
There are some really sad posts on that board. I’m glad I got off the major Ebay selling a few years ago. Ebay has just gone to hell. It used to be fun and flexible.
I’m with you. I won’t pay for anything using PayPal. If that’s all a business accepts, they do not get my online business.
I have had different problems, and always go the extra mile to please the buyer. eBay ALWAYS sides with the scam artist buyers who are looking for a freebie.
I figure they all must be democrats.
I miss the self policing atmosphere of the good old days.
Slightly OT, a few years ago I sold a 67 Cougar project car to a guy in OK. He mailed me a check which was good and I spoke to him on the phone a couple of times. About a month later, I hadn’t heard from him.
I did the usual contact stuff through Ebay, his regular e-mail, and voice mail. I concerned that something happened to the guy. A couple of weeks later, he got in touch with me. He had been laid up in the hospital if I remember right. I was about to call the local sheriff to make sure the guy was still alive. A couple of weeks later, he sent two guys to pick it up and take it home.
Ebay is great to use if you have an item and want to see what it's selling for.. Find your item, bookmark it then return after auction close to see what it sold for. Hopefully, it wasn't the seller who falsely "shill bid" the item up.
Name your favorite Ebay alternative auction site!
Selling on Ebay is the absolute worst place to try to sell your product. There is so much to choose from that you get next to nothing for your stuff if you even get a bid at all. You cannot leave a negative for a buyer no matter how bad the buyer is. The buyer however can leave a negative for a seller no matter if its the truth or not. They remove your listings for practically nothing yet let scammers continue and tell you tough if you get took by one. Suppose you find an item at an estate sale and it is marked on the bottom. You list it and call it by whatever brand name is on it, then someone complains that it is a copy, ebay doesn’t even investigate, they will just remove everyone of your listings and ban your account and keep everything you have in your Paypal account. My daughter is one of the most honest decent people there is and she has so much trouble trying to sell collectibles. Ebay used to be a really good place to sell, not anymore.
Some great buys out there for those who are knoweledgable. No one can be an expert in everything, but most times it’s easy to tell an antique Chinese knock-off. These fakes did have an impact on the real stuff at first, like antique glass, then buyers found sellers they trust and avoid the rest. My last purchase for instance was a ‘print’ that I knew was an original lithograph, worth much more than what I paid. I got it because only one other bidder knew what I did. The others didn’t bother to look.
Out of the 400+ transactions on ebay of mine, 90% sales, I’ve gotten ripped off once and that was recently. It wasn’t for much but it was the principal. I’ve done OK with Canadians.
I will use Ebay as a test lab sometimes such as the CJ I have up now. I doubt it will hit reserve but in the odd chance it does, so be it. It is certainly getting looked at and has 50+ official watchers. It isn’t a prize but it isn’t scrap either.
There is a subscription service called Terapeak that trolls and reports Ebay by item. It works fairly well.
Your mom is absolutely right. My daughter has been selling for about 12 years. I have seen all the awful changes. Used to when you were looking for a particular brand, you would get a list of only that brand, such as Home Interior, now if you search for Home Interior, you will get anything with those words in it. You have to look through pages and pages of Chinese junk to find what you are looking for. Unscrupulous sellers have learned how to work the system. Also they will put .01 cents on all their auctions, then charge 10 times the cost to ship it to avoid listing fees. I absolutely hate Ebay now.
Used to when you could get quality used merchandise on Ebay, a poor economy just made it more sucessful because people were looking for deals. I believe it is all the Chinese junk and scammers and unfair rules for sellers that are ruining ebay.
I collect old Home Interior items. Ebay used to be an excellent place to find the items I was looking for but now the shipping costs are outrageous! The last 2 items that I bought which were very rare arrived broken. They were packed carelessly and the postal service is really hard on stuff. If you want a refund, you only get a refund for what you paid for the item. You just have to eat the cost of shipping and then pay to ship it back to the seller. I just wound up trying to repair one item and the other item, I had to take and get new glass put in it. Its not worth it anymore.
We have the same situation. We have a ‘59 Willys jeep that we tried to sell on Ebay motors. No luck.
I gave up on eBay 2 years ago. Was a powerseller with 12,000+ feedback. Fees kept increasing and rules kept changing, then the stuff mentioned in the article. Took note, and realized I was no longer really making any money.
The$3000 a month they got from me is now a thing of the past.
Your mother is right. eBay is killing their own goose. It stated to fail before the economy tanked so I know it wasn’t that. They just literally piss on their sellers now.
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