and I pretty much agree with you.
"focus their business model on the BUYER and NOT the SELLER"
"holding their top rated seller discounts hostage"
"I guess ebay is focusing their business model on high volume sellers, not us lower volume sellers."
I always start off by saying I like ebay and I do but not nearly as much as I did. Ebay, at one time, was such a great marketplace for individuals and small sellers. Those days are long. long gone. Ebay is understandably a money making business and they now make the bulk of their money from big box brands, large companies and Chinese sellers. That is the bread and butter.
Small store subscriptions have gone from 14.96 to $22, promoted listing credits have been taken away from basic store sellers, postage discount have decreased, top-rated sellers status means nothing, top rated plus seller requirements are not feasible for the little guys, fees overall have increased, we get charged fvf fees on shipping, little control over returns, low visibility, if you do not accept returns or jump through the TRS + hoops your business pretty much dies and you must pay high promoted listing fees just to get sale. Plus, God only knows how much the fees are going to be with the other company since paypal is being phased out since ebay selected another payment processor.
And now that ebay has automated returns and pretty much auto deducts auto returns from your account they will need less staff and put even more $'s in their pockets.
It's frustrating because, in my case, I tried so very hard to achieve the benchmarks and, at one time, I was really proud of it, but you cannot count on anything for long because of the constant, not in favor of the small seller changes so there is really no reward for us longtime small timers.
I still buy on ebay and I still sell on ebay but much less of both. It's a vicious cycle. It is so hard to sell anything now unless you are willing to acquiesce to all the new demands. If you do offer 30 days returns any reason and use promoted listing you are lucky if you break even at the end of the month with the promoted listing fees and such and you open yourself up to higher returns - customers can (and do) now use their items for 30 days and send it on back and get auto refunded.
If you do not give in to the demands your sales plummet even further.
I am still top rated but do not get anything for it (no visibility) because I do not jump through the hoops so in return sales go down even further.
I will miss my top rated number by 3 in three weeks with 97 sales and already received the red exclamation that my top-rated status is in jeopardy. No consideration for all the years of hundreds of sales. Dip under 100 and bye bye top-rated. A few years back, I'd really have cared about that and been crushed.
Not any more. I am more disgusted and truly disappointed.
I've downgraded my store, willingly given up TRS goals, do not offer returns and am doing my best to control costs by shipping in lightweight envelopes, printing my own labels vs costly labels purchases, recycling packing material whenever I can and looking at other selling platforms.
Without even realizing it until I thought about it -- my purchases have nosedived as well. In 2015 and 2016 I purchased hundreds of items each year. In 2017 not as much as 2018 way WAY less. I guess without thinking about it I was getting disgusted and that subconsciously affected my buying decision and I have been shopping more elsewhere. I've actually been shopping on Amazon. I wonder if others are doing the same.
In my opinion, that is a better way to protest - not making purchases - since it seems that many of the smaller sellers also make purchases on ebay. No scientific prooof just what I see. So just don't buy - that will have an impact!
