Tyler,
I wanted to jump in again as the explanation might be plausible if someone is selling commodity items and saying they are selling some $75 item for $25 (what a great bargain), but the search will clearly show hundreds of other sellers all selling it for between $20 and $30.
That seller will not last long!!!
What has been lost is the history of EBAY and what makes it unique compared to other venues. EBAY is basically a great place to find bargains on customer returns, used items, specialty items, collectibles, surplus, etc. There may only be a few of the items I sell (if any) on EBAY or anywhere else, and there is no defined prices for my item condition. It may take months and sometimes years to find the right buyer. I just relist them every 30 days until they sell. This policy will not work for all these sellers.
In my case I have a monster warehouse and 6 semis full of open box or customer return or surplus/liquidated Truck Accessories. Nearly $500,000 at my cost. I open and verify every one and verify it is perfect and complete and the only thing wrong is the shipping box. This is very time consuming and keeping customers extremely pleased is very difficult with the EBAY rules already. But I have done it for over 16 years. I list as new-other! And have about 500 of the 30,000 plus items on EBAY Listed at any gioven time. Rarley do I have a competitor for my items as they are all selling brand new, and I am selling open box/new other. I typically set my normal price a few bucks below the lowest competitor new price as the item is new and complete and what is in the box is identical to new. And then run sales of about 9-15% off to move these 1 only items using sales manager. So I am never inflating prices, just offering great bargains and can do this based on the way I purchased the items. And the lucky buyer gets a bargain! Extremely rare I ever have a "new sealed in box item".
But now I will only have these bargains available 15 days a month as the other 15 days are waiting period, eventhough some of these items have been Listed for over a year. And periodically I drop the price a few bucks and put it back on the 15% sale as time goes on. That will rest the waiting period. It takes time finding a buyer who is trusting enough to buy a open box item even if my feedback is 100% and has been since 2002. There are scam competiors that ship broken, incomplete, mis-advertised open box items. This hurts me as thier reputations affect us honest sellers.
I am sure other sellers who are selling in specific categories or selling "New-other" or "used" items will get destroyed by this policy as well. It seems aimed at the commodity "new" sellers who may be in some cases false advertisers, but is entrapping large swaths of legitimate promotion manager sellers. We use it as a strategy to find buyers.
Please pass this info along to management. Short term at least consider reversing this for items that are not in the "Brand New" condition categories (new-other, used, refurbished, parts, etc, are not going to be commdity items and abused), and maybe some of the other situations that have been mentioned (collectbles, ???).
There is no chance of any significant abuse in these condition categories that are not Brand new and unopened.
Lastly I was serious last night, and I contacted several liquidation companies and auction houses today about disposing of my $500,000 worth of truck accessories, and retiring solely due to this policy. It is simply that catostrophic for my type of business model and it would not be worth my time and money to sit on this and struggle only being able to sell things 50% of the time and lose 50% or more of my potential watchers or hits.
That inventory represents about what could be $3 million in EBAY sales once I get it all Listed and sold. It may take 5-8 years to get rid of most of it on EBAY. But it would be lost revenue to EBAY. I am just a small fish, and it sounds like there are many more fish like me who cannot afford to lose 50% or more of our sales due to a policy that is intended for something we are not doing.
I'll hang and be patient for a week or so to see if this can be reconsidered, but we cannot wait long before we have to make other permanant plans that may not include EBAY. So please pass on the information from me and my fellow sellers, I think we are telling you we want to stay but cannot afford to with this policy. And thanks for your efforts.
