Do you think its possible..........

[fabelous_records]

Basing from numerous laments from buyers conveyed here on the board claiming among things; seller suddenly becoming incommunicado, articles sold not as described, sellers inability to communicate or unwillingness to accept fault etc. could be the basis why eBay is more gracious giving more favors to buyers because there are more despicable sellers than buyers?  What do you think fellows, ladies?

[coolections]

YES. Unhappy buyers causes a loss in revenue for the company and it's job is to make money. Ebay does a pretty good job at eliminating those who cannot and will not deal with their customers. It's business and not personal as you seem to be making it out to be.

[luckythewinner]

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@fabelous_records wrote:

Basing from numerous laments from buyers conveyed here on the board claiming among things; seller suddenly becoming incommunicado, articles sold not as described, sellers inability to communicate or unwillingness to accept fault etc. could be the basis why eBay is more gracious giving more favors to buyers because there are more despicable sellers than buyers?  What do you think fellows, ladies?

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I disagree completely. 

eBay cannot force a buyer to pay for an item. 

eBay cannot force a seller to ship an item. 

eBay cannot force a buyer to return an item. 

The only thing eBay can do is refund a buyer from the seller's PayPal account. 

IMHO eBay's policies have nothing to do with the relative numbers of bad buyers and bad sellers, and they have everything to do with which of those two parties they have leverage over. 

[couldabeenworse]

Basing from numerous laments from buyers conveyed here on the board claiming among things; seller suddenly becoming incommunicado, articles sold not as described, sellers inability to communicate or unwillingness to accept fault etc. could be the basis why eBay is more gracious giving more favors to buyers because there are more despicable sellers than buyers? 

No.

Crooks are crooks.  The same people that scam as buyers now would scam as sellers if it were easier.  Buyers receive more protection because everybody involved in eCommerce (from merchants to Internet Providers to payment processors) has a huge vested interest in consumers feeling safe when they shop online.

[futuretomorrow]

This is an interesting question. I'm surprised this thread doesn't have more input because the last 2 years ordering from sellers has shown you may be onto something. If I hadn't be around for 14 years to know there are amazing sellers here and I had to go off of the last 2 years alone? You'd get an award for exceptional observational analysis.

I've had sellers ship me shoes without a box when they said it inluded the box. Get in touch with them and it's "what do you need a box for? You're going to wear the shoes right?" or, the box looks like their dog wouldn't let them pack the order in peace. I've been scammed on "rare cards" that after spending some time with me started to seperate and reveal I was sold two cards glued together, making it definitely "rare" but not the kind I thought I had bought. Then there's the sellers that like to print labels thinking they're beating eBay's system (uhmm..it needs to be actually scanned?) and don't ship until days later.

I've had sellers send me SNAD items and when I asked them about it I get responses like "We were out of stock so we sent you the next available color we had". I remember politely giving one seller a few years ago every opportunity under the sun to right a serious wrong but with each new message they became increasingly insultive. That was the only negative I have ever felt great about dropping on a seller because they did not deserve to sell here. 

I'm now more than cautious in how I wade through comments like "eBay always sides with the buyer" because in my experiences alone I'd say there's a reason for that. Some of the better CSR's have also provided some interesting use cases they've seen first hand and I can't put it past a desperate seller to try. So while I can't personally quantify the accuracy of your hypothesis, it's beyond a great question maybe more of us should consider as to why some, not all rules but some have ended up the way they are. Things just don't happen "because" if one understands simple motivation, action and reaction.

[awishingwell]

I think it is about so many new unexperienced sellers - being here 19 years (other ID) I've watched the old crowd disappear for one reason or another - death (not quite so funny) - retirement - just got tired of the baloney - whatever. Also the chinese factor drove alot off. There's not so many kind old dogs here anymore to guide the youngsters. They probably learning as they go - problem is ebay is so harsh to sellers they perhaps don't last long enough to learn the ropes of customer service. Then there's the scammer factor driving even the newbies off.

[dilo-8873]

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@awishingwell wrote:

I think it is about so many new unexperienced sellers - being here 19 years (other ID) I've watched the old crowd disappear for one reason or another - death (not quite so funny) - retirement - just got tired of the baloney - whatever. Also the chinese factor drove alot off. There's not so many kind old dogs here anymore to guide the youngsters. They probably learning as they go - problem is ebay is so harsh to sellers they perhaps don't last long enough to learn the ropes of customer service. Then there's the scammer factor driving even the newbies off.

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I agree! It is disheartening when you have been a good seller and you have to deal with the unfriendly seller policies that are now in effect. The good sellers will be leaving and all that will be left is the bad sellers, causing eBay’s reputation to not be a good buying venue.

[hillbillymedia]

I had my 16 year anniversary on ebay just a few days ago. I`ve bought here more than I have sold and met a ton of great people. I have only really had a handfull of issues over the years. I have had some disappointments with purchases over the years. Most of these disappointments, I have taken at least some, responsibility for. I have bought from folks with low feedback (ex. less than 96% or less) , with no feedback, folks that have provided bad pictures, no pictures or one liner descriptions. Why? because the item was very cheap and I have kept my expectations extremely low because of it.

I`ve seen buyers leave negative feedback because they didn`t enjoy the DVD they purchased, because their item didn`t come with batteries, or because the 99 cent item they won from china failed within a day, week etc. I`m not sure what these folks expected. I had a nice lady complain to me once that the new, sealed, (PG rated) DVD she bought from me had an (R) rated preview. Did I fail as a seller because I didn`t disclose this? I wasn`t even aware of it.

Bad sellers usually, at minumum, get bad feedback to show their failures for the whole ebay community to see. I can`t tell you the amount of complaints I have seen on the buying boards about a seller and click the sellers feedback only to find their feedback below the norm. One lady complained of a seller from Thailand shill bidding but said she would still buy items from the seller if they`d only put them up a reasonable "buy it now" price WHAT! I asked her....so are you saying you`d buy from this crook if the price was right? Her answer...yes she would!!

Ebay boots bad sellers on a daily basis and I`m glad of it. They give good sellers a bad rep. On the flip side, not all buyers with money are "good" buyers. I can`t tell you the amount of buyers I have seen that abuse the systems that are in place to insure their satisfaction. Has ebay ever booted one of these abusers?

[retrose1]

Back in the 90s/mid 2000s ebay needed sellers to bring merchandise to the site, because without merchandise there would be no buyers, so of course ebay bent over backwards for sellers.

Now that ebay has, in some cases, a million of some items listed on the site ebay doesn't need sellers as much as they need buyers to move the stuff.  So now ebay will do anything to keep the buyers.

The problem is that ebay has become way too big to monitor everything so they choose what to monitor and since they need buyers, they will monitor sellers.  And as long as the sellers are willing to pay to stay, putting them on equal footing as the buyers as far as ebay is concerned, ebay will keep what makes them money.  But as the number of sellers outnumber the buyers, ebay will start purging sellers from the site - and unfortunately ebay ends up purging the good with the bad and there is nothing with the customer service attitude and experience out there to take the good ones place.

One of the main reasons buyers have problems with sellers is because they buy not bothering to check out the sellers and buy because it's too good to be true or they impulse buy.  If they bother to take a minute to seriously look at the seller they are buying from, they will see that it's better to buy from someone else.