Good (or Bad) News for eBay Sellers

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Ebay is no longer in the top 10 of internet sites. It is trying to impress too much control over sellers, its fee structure is steep, and they have a large banned items list. Have you ever tried to list a vintage Balwin piano, that has ivory keys, or a dozen quail chicks for ranch re-population? If you had, you would have discovered that ebay cancelled your listing, charged you all the fees anyway, and warned you -if you listed a banned item again, they would suspened you. There is an ebay alternative that allows these legal, but banned items, lets you list them for free, and charges very low final value fees. It is ealtbay.com, and paypal is not necessary! Use this site to sell those difficult items that can't even be listed on Ebay.

Frank Simmons of TX 7:35PM January 21, 2011

What ebay doesn't realize is that they have become cost prohibitive to sell on. Most of the remaining sellers are professional bootleggers because those parties are the only ones that can still turn a profit. All these changes are going to hurt ebay because it solidifies the stigma that is already plagued to the eBay brand. You are more likely than not to receive counterfeit goods on the site. Now with the ever increasing fees, legit sellers are leaving and the counterfeiters are staying. They don't care if they loose an item and have to do a full refund without getting it back, with an 85% markup, they can afford it. In reality where profit margins are razor thin, you can't afford to do that.
Ebay will crumble when it gets to the point that even the bootleggers have left, if bootleggers can't turn a profit, ebay won't have any sellers left except for the big brand names like buy.com and those. But Amazon is far better than any of the major retailers that ebay has, and Amazon is also a seller so they can fulfill the orders quickly. They also offer Fulfillment programs to the sellers of the site so sellers products can be housed in an amazon warehouse and Amazon employees package the items when they're bought.
So to compare and contrast:
Amazon is known for being reasonably priced, they're strict on sellers so they don't have the plethora of horrible sellers that ebay has always had, they offer a fair playing field for both sellers and buyers. Come on, they have a limit to the amount of claims a buyer can make in the lifetime of the account (5 lifetime!) and they still maintain the best customer service of all online retailers. Their focus is on customer satisfaction and they hold their sellers to that focus. The quality of buyer is much higher as well. The buyer gets a much better/professional buying experience. The seller has more of a level playing field to work with and isn't held hostage to the useless opinion of the buying party. Amazon is profitable for sellers.
Ebay - carries the stigma of getting fake merchandise, rude sellers who may or may not respond to you, as a seller it's almost a guarantee you're going to get ripped off, and buyers can file claim after claim stating INR while leaving negs stating such. In reality there is no courier in existence that would make this many misdelivery problems and still be in business, yet ebay can find no "evidence" of abuse. Constantly lowering insertion fees while raising FVF fees on the back end resulting in higher overall costs and reduced ROI. You get no shipping compensation and are encouraged to offer free shipping. The auction format will die soon, and ebay will be completely useless at that point, at that point the transition will be complete, but everyone will have gone to Amazon already and found the better selling and buying experience that ebay is incapable of delivering.

B Miller of AZ 3:39PM September 11, 2010

I love the energy I feel when people discuss Ebay. I love the passion that comes through in what they say. Unfortunately for Ebay the emotion and excitement seems to be headed in the wrong direction. Many different reasons surface: greed, arrogance and favoritism to name a few.
But maybe the biggest mistake is not listening to their partners, their customers. What problems can't be solved by working together to uncover the best and most beneficial ideas for everyone? Why does the company exist? Shouldn't it be to create the best environment for buyers and sellers to meet and succeed.
There's an old saying that Bruce Springsteen sometimes mentions in concert "Nobody Wins unless Everybody Wins". I believe there are silver linings and opportunities in all these problems, let me know what you think and we'll all share ideas and prosper.
Larry Braccio
BuyersLooking.com

Larry Braccio of AZ 9:16AM May 15, 2010

Like many others I hate the way ebay and their other company paypal manages to get 30% of my profits. I have investigated other auction sites also. But the bottom line is that ebay has a monopoly as far as buyers are concerned compared to the other sites. I reach a higher number of buyers so am more likely to sell 1/2 to 2/3rds of my weekly listings which is enough to help pay my bills. I am not able to sell much due to bad health.
I use another site to list my items on ebay. It was free but now I pay $9.95 a month, well worth it. All my pictures are free and I'm allowed up to 24 images per listing and my fee covers around 10,000 images per month. The customer service is great and they really do seem to care. I can schedule my listings, the pictures are larger than ebay image hosting and I have a choice of free templets. They have helped me cut some of the high costs for pictures and scheduling. The name of the site is Auctiva.

Marila Landrum of MS 11:47PM December 05, 2009

After all most 10 years of selling on eBay with a 100% rating, eBay cannot solve a simple problem I have in-counted. I have tried 20 live helps and numerous emails but its a 100% joke, no care no substance, so its goodbye to eBay you have killed me off with out caring.

jason warran 2:46AM August 12, 2009

eBAY only encourages those sellers who can afford to list all their items at higher prices so eBay can get richer and richer by ripping-off listing fees plus Final Value Fees normally 8.75% or more. eBay also encourages those sellers who can afford to get a eBay Store for U$19.99/month or more.
I listed more than 30+ items for sale at 1 cent and got my account restricted twice.
Finally I decided to switch to other good ebay alternatives like Amazon, eBid and Bonanzle.
eBay Store owners can sell any damn fake goods without any kind of fear of getting their account restricted. So if you are planning to rip-off eBay the best way to start with is to scan all eBay Stores for fake goods and keep complaining eBay continuously about those stores selling fake and illegal products.
eBay is an economical EPIC, that ruins many good businesses.
eBay is white-collar Economical CRIME to dump fake and illegal products to delivered right at door-step.
If you are smart enough can make millions out of eBay by keeping your eyes wide open.

Alex Guerezza of CA 3:47AM August 04, 2009

Being retired and wanting to supplement my Social Security I had heard about eBay I started as a enthusiastic seller some six months ago. It was a dramatic learning curve. I even paid an eBay rep for four hours of help.
Now my first commentary on my experience would be - It seems like eBay must have saboteurs working within the company that have as their single mission the desire and intent to screw up the buying and selling process and destroy the company. It seems every week that eBay institutes small and large tweaks that are supposed to be designed to improve the Seller and buyers experiences, but they do predictably the opposite. In just six months it has become a nightmare. I think these change are wrought by partially blind kids with MBA's who have zero practical experience and ride around in a chariot in the clouds, sailing paper airplanes into the sky with their latest written hot help idea.
The overall Fees are excessive. I have paid over 35% in commissions to eBay and Pay Pal selling about $6,000 worth of books and other stuff.
eBay used to have "Live Help" which they don't tell you about in the tutorials. That vanished a few days ago. "Live help" or "chat", was a popup screen which allowed you to type in your question and the eBay techie to respond hopefully with a solution. Today I had a urgent question about all my listings and had to click on Contact instead. I was presented with a series of questions of which none were related to my problem. After jumping through hoops and 3 dozen unrelated questions I saw the magic - "Chat box or E-mail them menu." I clicked on Chat and a chat menu screen popped up. The little wheel spun round and round and then Lo and behold - "Connection Lost" Immediately another box popped up for me to take a Customer / Seller Survey. The questions all wanted o know how happy I was - They didn't have a place to click for foaming at the mouth.
After the stupid survey, I tried again to get chat. In fact I saw the "Connection Lost" 8 times before I gave up. Oh! Yes, the survey box popped up each time. My emotions should have melted it, but I just closed it.
Other problems
You used to be able to say you accept as payment, Money Orders Checks etc:, which was for those that did not want to pay --- PalPal a commission for processing their purchase. Guess what as of last week- you can NO LONGER tell buyers you accept MO's or checks. Buyers have to use Pay Pal and pay their fee to process their purchase. I as a Seller also have to pay Pay Pal a commission - besides all the fees I have to pay eBay.
eBay overall is extremely non intuitive in almost every way.
If you interested in trying to find out how much you spent selling a particular item, it is a challenge and NO tutorial or help is provided.
continuity.
There are dozens of other things I fault for which I think eBay is walking backward, but there is not room enough here to list.

Ron Ford of IL 6:16PM December 13, 2008

I stopped using PayPal a long time ago. On two different occassions, customers filed false claims against me, and nobody did ANYTHING to assist me. Every time I tried to contact a REAL person, NOBODY was available. To make a long story short, PayPal snatched MY money from my account, and returned it to these idiots. So not only did I lose the money, I lost my merchandise as well.
Now, some brainiac at eBay insists that I use PayPal, or some other sort of "electronic" payment system. I did just fine with accepting money orders or cashier's checks. While some customers found this a problem, others thought it was just fine. WHY you ask? so THEY CAN HAVE COMPLETE CONTROL OF YOUR MONEY, as well as tagging on their little fees for every single move you make.
Take this and add it to their new FEEDBACK policy, I hope to see these greedy bastards go DOWN IN FLAMES!!!

Mike Penman AKA thehaneyplace of MI 8:08PM November 02, 2008

Since the ebay feedback changes have taken place I have noticed an increase in buyers complaining about perfectly good items and sometimes using the negative feedback as a type of extortion technique against me.I have always taken care of my customers,if somebodys not happy with a purchase I always offer 100% refund..this isnt working anymore,I have recieved rude emails from buyers asking for partial refunds because "I wasnt completly satisfied with item or not as described" and these buyers have sometimes stated "you want to protect your feedback rating..dont you?" This feedback change is driving many sellers away from the eBay selling platform, I will soon be removing all my listings,cancel my account and sell elsewhere..Does eBay even care about us sellers that helped grow the website to what it is today..I guess not,Dont sell on eBay any more its a waste of time.

cfactor of CA 3:32AM September 21, 2008