How do I stop caring? Advice needed to salvage an eBay business.

[rabbitation84]

Sorry in advance for the long read. I've been a full-time eBay seller for over 15 years, and a member for almost 21 years, exclusively selling used auto parts. In this time, I've seen a lot of change. It seems like just yesterday we were upset about the removal of buyer feedback, and fees of 6% were just too darn high...those were the days. I had no return policy, but still accepted returns to anyone who would ask. Buyers were happy. If there was a problem, I'd always fix it. My feedback stayed at or near 100% and I sold items at a lot higher prices than others. All of the work I did- detailed cleaning, detailed photographs, and detailed descriptions paid off. This work takes a ton of my time- most of my work time actually. I (still) might take an hour researching a part before I list it, to make sure the buyer gets the right one.

Fast forward to current time. I just finally got my money back from eBay for a $130 fraud case where the buyer shipped me his junk parts, that had serial numbers to prove it. 6 or 7 phone calls and a police report later. I know it wasn't worth the fight because time is money, but I just lack the ability to let it go. That used car salesman is still buying AND selling on eBay. From what I read here, this happens to pretty much every seller who sells in volume here, especially higher ticket items. It's happened before to me, and many others have "tested the waters" before I called them out. And it's only getting worse. Most of my returns used to be remorse returns. Now most of them are "Not as described" or something else bad, and 95% of those can be proven fraudulent just through messages. A buyer can start one of those returns and then write "sorry, ordered by mistake" in the box, and I still get a ding on my metrics and have to pay shipping twice. That exact thing happens constantly. They have clearly learned how to game the system to get free return shipping. Most of them likely mistake me for a huge business that just writes off all of those costs, and they probably don't really know how it affects a small business.

At this point, I've given up on eBay fixing any of this. I have 2 choices. The first is shutting down the whole business for good, and jumping into a new career. I'm 36, and have done nothing but sell on eBay since I graduated from college. Maybe I need a fresh start. If you work for someone and still get paid every week, but start having more and more money come out of each paycheck, and you're constantly demeaned by little demerits for things you have no control over, you'd probably consider that a toxic work environment. You may have worked a job like that or known someone who did, and quitting that job turned them into a new person. Sometimes you don't know much of a toll a job can take on you until you're freed from it.

The second choice: Stop caring. I have many competitors that seem to be making bank "not caring." They may pay an extra 5% to eBay and they probably have 20 returns open at any given time, but at some point...who cares? Their descriptions are vague and maybe non-existent, their pictures might be terrible, and they don't even bother listing parts compatibility or any other specifics. Their feedback is terrible. They sell stuff cheap and sell a ton of it. Used auto parts have a huge profit margin, so you can make a lot more money by selling in volume and spending the least amount of time cleaning/listing/packing the stuff. I could never bring myself to list like this because I'm a perfectionist. But I've hit a wall and realized I may have been avoiding the inevitable. Nobody reads the descriptions anyway, because eBay gives them no incentive. And I'm losing sales to the bargain basement sellers anyway. So how do I not care? Honest question. How do I not stress out every time I see 2 messages in my email because it's probably another scam return? How do I not care about getting scammed out of thousands of dollars per year? If I'm going to stop fighting, it's not going to be to be submissive and accept way less money every year. I just want to do less work per item, to sell more volume, and then it'll make sense financially. Has anyone went from perfectionist to...the opposite? I need advice on that.

[downunder-61]

All I can really say is that not all buyers are bad.

You, like everyone else here only gets to read the horror stories (buyers and sellers) because the success stories are never (or rarely) shared here.

I have been selling on eBay for 15 or so years, never had a negative feedback and only 2 buyer returns, both of which were genuine and refunded without return because it was my stuff up.

You came across a rotten buyer, but there are thousands among thousands of good ones, please don't let the bad apples spoil your whole barrel.

Stick with it, your feedback per sales is exemplary

[donsdetour]

Well when eBay was founded the feedback system was to protect users: sellers and buyers.

Of course eBay was only a venue then: its not just a venue now.

Thing do change:

Switched items and other claims against seller :

In use auto parts this does seem to be an escalating problem.

[katzrul15]

We could be twins.

Well, minus the age and I work a FT corporate job I hate. Lol

A steady stream of income should eleviate a lot of stress, right?  Not in my experience.  There is a reason it is called "work" and not "fun time for a paycheck".

Since Jan, we have had a bad rash of what you're experiencing with Buyers.  Never had that the 16 yrs on here prior.  It was consuming me and stressful.  More stressful than FT work.

@nuclearomenand @ittybitnot's posts to me on here were really helpful.   

We have about $40k tied up in inventory on any given day.  We also sell on Amazon. 

Most companies look at quarterly results, annual results, 3-5 year snapshots. 

Am betting if you look at your overall results vs short-term, yours, like ours/others, paint a different picture.

How do you not care?  You should care.  Don't change that aspect - that single quality is likely partly responsible for why you are successful at this.

Change your approach to Risk Transfer and stop underwriting your Business Risk to a Zero (0%) loss ratio.  In the current business online climate, it is no longer a viable plan.  Too much beyond your control.

Control what you can, maintain TRS and implement TRS+ on listings if it is feasible.  Use what few Seller protections available and do your best.

Good luck!!

[randysauto01]

I too sell used auto parts exclusively. I have the fortune however to work for a well established wrecking yard. We have 2 locations with over 1800 vehicles. So I won't try and sell you on the premise that I know how you feel. My boss owns all the inventory, I just make an hourly wage and do e bay full time for him.

I got asked if I would be willing to step away from my counter sales job that I have done for 15 years, and to take over our ebay and ecommerce sales, both of which I knew nothing about, had never even bought an item on ebay, much less tried to run a store.

Ebay was in bad shape, they had hired a 20 year old kid who knew how to sell on ebay, but didn't really know much about the used part industry. As a result, our matrix across the board suffered greatly. 

It took awhile for me to learn all the do's and don'ts and the nuances of e bay selling. One of the toughest things to wrap my head around, is just as you described, the scammers, and e bay's inability, or lack of desire and common sense, to help sellers out.

I care greatly about the success of our e commerce sales, and hope I can contribute to the prosperity of our overall business.

A suggestion for you, since you have a wealth of knowledge and experience. Perhaps look around your area for local wrecking yards that you may persuade to getting into selling on ebay. You could easily promote yourself as a huge benefit. You can share with them your passion for this particular field, show them your success, and hopefully convince them that you would be a huge asset to their team.

We have been in the used auto parts and towing business for 40 years, and it wasn't until a few years ago that the owner hired a GM to kind of shake things up and re energize and modernize our business.

I can tell you that a man in his mid 60's (the owner) would never have though of or would have attempted to sell on ebay, to much that he didn't understand.

There are a lot of wrecking yards out there that are old school, but aren't dead set on expanding into online sales, they just need the right person to come along and show them that it can be done, and that you are the one to do it.

Best of luck to you man, I hope your decision, whatever it may be, works out to be whats best for you.

[frodobagginskennedy]

I was a District Manager for a large retailer for years.  I oversaw 20 different locations/Managers.  Iwent 24/7 nonstop.  It was just who I was.....plus I sold on e bay as well.  I was all in and that was the only wayu I knew how to live and work.  Not having any kids I was pretty much a workaholoic.

In 2008 e bay was going through a lot of changes.  Every day something else dramatic changed.....from CEO down.  I jusmped through all of the hoops to be TRS +, power seller, one day handling etc.  

I got a phone call one morning saying my direct supervisor who was a male version of myself, 24/7 no vacation etc just passed away of a heart attack at the age of 52.  **bleep**!?  He left his wife and 3 kids.  He didn't even have time due to his schedule to get around to getting that extra life insurance we had talked about a couple of months before.

Needless to say my entire outlook on life changed in a matter of 5 minutes.  Right then and there I decided I was going to step back from e bay for a bit.  I had my 5th back surgery the next month and was medically retired 2 months later.    I took stock of what was really important to me.  My hubby, extended family, my furbabies and learning to enjoy myself not all about work anymore.

I took 2 years off from e bay.  Came back with the attitute to give the BEST Service I could manage BUT I no longer chased all of e bays little "programs".  I have 3 day handling now bit still ship within a day most of the time.    If a customer wants a return fine.  I no longer fight "due to the Principle"  Just take the return and move on.  Luckily I have very few returns.  You are in a market that unfortunanetly breeds returns.  You just need to get your mind set that it is what it is.  Offer 30 day free returns.  Maybe it will stop some of the scammers.  

You can still care about your legit customers but do NOT let e bay consume you.  

Best of luck!!

[rabbitation84]

I really really appreciate the responses. In regards to the buyers- yes- most of them are excellent, and they far outnumber the bad ones. I've had a lot of people go out of their way to say thanks or show me a picture of a car they're working on, and it means a lot. Even hearing nothing from them ever again is an excellent transaction. It's tough though, because the bad ones are REALLY bad. I recently had a nasty one leave me a negative because their postal worker made them pick their package up at the post office for some reason, and then they swore at me when I nicely asked them to remove it. At least eBay removes those now, and it only happens about twice a year, but it takes days and a call or 2 to make it go away. I've never been given a negative feedback after being given a chance to rectify a situation and failing to do so. Usually it's just a miserable person who drops it before making any contact. Most "bad" buyers aren't trying to pull an outright scam for a large some of money, and they may not be doing anything wrong intentionally. However, all the constant large and small problems from them just pile on, and eBay's rigid system doesn't allow for me to even deal with them.

For looking at things from a business perspective: I've been trying to streamline things for 15 years and have had a lot of success. For instance, I now pay more for my inventory from one place, but can get it all in a day instead of three, saving time and getting better quality items. However, I've kind of exhausted pretty much everything I can do in terms of innovation by now. I would be fine with that, if not for slowly sinking profits because of buyer abuse. Hell, I'd be fine to give that amount up in fees if it didn't come with all the stress. I can only see every dime lost as money right out of my pocket. If I were to lose $100 on a legitimate lost package, I'd be mad for about 10 minutes, but I can't stop stewing about $100 lost to a scammer who eBay is doing nothing about. So all I can think of is to do what every other traditional company does- cut costs by cutting quality. There's nowhere else for that money to come from, and I have to be paid enough to deal with the toxic environment. Otherwise it's no longer worth it. I experimented by selling 4 dirty console lids that had been on my shelf for years, because I didn't want to spends hours cleaning them. I was very clear about them needing a deep cleaning. They sold quickly and I had no issues. It felt very lazy, but it worked. I dropped TRS+ years ago when the discount was cut in half. I thought it would kill my sales and I was ready to let the ship sink, but it didn't seem to change anything. Long story short, shipping in 1 day was too tough when combined with spending whole days buying inventory. Not worth it for me. I don't want to stop caring, but it always seems to work when done in small ways. If I had $5k in losses but made $10k more, I might be able to deal with all the problems a little better.

Regarding the wrecking yards- I've been asked by 3 yards and recently by someone who intends to open one. I've said no every time for different reasons. One yard still has an opening and it's the only one I'd consider. I thought about doing it for a shake-up, but realized it's a small yard, and they wouldn't be paying me much. There's just not enough valuable inventory to make it worth it for them and for me.

Many thanks to the people who offered advice here- I really appreciate it.

[rabbitation84]

I should also add that I'm experimenting with shutting down for the summer. The last 2 vacations I've taken, I've had buyer problems before I even reached my destination. There might not be a problem for weeks, but by the second day of vacation there are 3 returns, a charge-back, and someone swearing about an item that shows up as delivered. I never get a break. If you don't move fast enough, eBay will do it for you, and you won't like the results. It never used to be like this. So when I finally get to take a trip this July that was planned for last year, I will have had my store shut down for at least 2 weeks so I hopefully won't have any problems to deal with. I'm thinking of extending it much longer, and making/saving listings to list after a certain point. I can even box everything. Dealing with no buyers for a few months but still being productive may give me a refresh.

[nickelsanddimes2015]

Don't give up!!! You have a great account with awesome pics and descriptions. Don't let a couple of bad apples ruin it. I have streamlined my listings because before I would put every detail and unfortunately people don't read so I stopped and just put in the basics it took me a while though to get used to that. Your right there are **bleep** sellers on here with horrible feedback but to be honest I have talked to tons of people that use ebay and they didn't even know what feedback was and never looked at it until I mentioned it to them. Don't change who you are. I hate messages too I cringe every time one come in lol.

[katzrul15]

@rabbitation84 

Dealing with no buyers for a few months but still being productive may give me a refresh.

And your Sanity back - we took last summer off due to the pandemic and our Counties all being purple at the time - essential travel only.  It was bliss.  Hard to get into a rhythm again at the end of the summer, but man was it nice to not list, not deal with buyer crank emails and most of all, just have the days to do whatever I wanted vs what e-bay needed.  Having weekends off was a vacation all its' own!

Enjoy your vacation & get some terrific R&R!!

[pikabo-icu]

I love all the replies from people..

I haven't much to add except:

Never allow the world to change YOU. I mean eBay or any other thing in the world..

The worst thing that can happen is for a caring person to become complacent or jaded... It's a loss to eBay and a loss to society.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men (and women) to do nothing." ~Edmund Burke

Stay true to yourself.. Protect your heart by reminding yourself; it's only business.. As long as YOU do the best you can, that's all you can do.. You can't do any better than your best..

Have a grand day.. CHEERS

[glasser]

You are getting at what I think is a core issue on eBay right now. It used to be our competition was other eBay sellers. So a seller like you had the advantage of doing everything right and the system worked. Bad sellers either improved or disappeared. 

In short, you could distinguish yourself from the competition.

But now eBay--not us individual sellers--want to compete with Amazon, Walmart, StockX, and whoever. So they make rules that force everyone into the same box. So what makes you different? They want a race to the bottom on price and everyone committing to one-day handling. The fraud issues, based on these boards, appears rampant and worse the then days past.

Managed Payments has allowed eBay to make financial and customer service decisions  on your behalf virtually without recourse. 

eBay is no longer just a venue. They have their fingers in everyone's business. 

All that said, if you are doing well. Keep on going. Make changes as you can to adjust. As a couple of other posters mentioned, take a break and maybe consider dropping your standards like shipping time a bit.  I sell antiques and collectibles and do 3 day handling. No one cares. You get stuff faster from me then any other auction house in America. eBay doesn't understand my competition and the rules they make that apply broadly to everyone don't fit every market.

I see this nearly daily on the boards: eBay needs to stop following (amazon, etc.) and return to leading and disrupting. That's the foundation this built on.  Before 1995, it be extremely hard to start a used parts business like yours. eBay leveled the playing field making entry easy. The rest is up to the seller.

[flyingmvp]

Some of the car parts sellers here (used and new) are running their own selling websites, it helps them to maintain the same care, effort and enthusiasm they had (I know personally two of them) when they were still considering Ebay to be a true partner and not just another listing venue.

Do you have your own website?

[dugoldstuff]

All I can really say is that not all buyers are bad.

You have no active listings, no sold listings and no feedback.

I don't understand.

Do you just post on threads and not buy or sell?

[onlinecentral]

Your percentages will vary from mine.
21% for Postage
12.55% for eBay FVF's and Managed Payments + $0.30 Swipe fee.
1% for Honest Returns, The buyer pays return postage.
0.4% for Dishonest or Incompetent Returns. I pay the return postage.

We all have costs of doing business. Adjust your thinking so that those costs are coming out of the buyer's pocket. You are the middleman passing some of the money along to other parties.

Every business has shrink. An employee drives the forks of a towmotor into a pallet of merchandise. Food spoilage. Shoplifting. In our eBay businesses, the shrink is returns.

For the Honest Returns, we lose the original postage. We can relist that merchandise and make profit from the next buyer.

For the Dishonest Returns, we lose postage both ways. Maybe we can not relist the broken merchandise.

The point is, out of the 1.4% total returns, I lose some postage and can relist 95% of the merchandise. Therefore, my loss is 0.2% or whatever.

Postage has more than doubled in the past 15 years. I didn't shut my business down because of that fact. I passed the cost along to the buyers.

Returns skyrocketed when the eBay Money Back Guarantee was introduced in 2014. The buyers could print return labels. All of the returns were Dishonest at first. Within 2 years, the percentages matured into the numbers above. Every year I start a new Notepad file and enter details of my returns. My percentages have remained constant for years.

I encourage you to go through your old Paypal files. You can look back 7 years. Sort the dollar values by ascending or descending order. The negative values will be returns. Compare how many you have had for several years and confirm whether they are increasing or not. A recent $130.00 sale that goes wrong will certainly make you feel that returns are increasing.

I have grown a thicker skin and have less stress about returns.

Let me compliment you on your Evaporation rate. For 90 days 710 sold and 189 listed. All too often I see sellers with hoarding problems.