eBay Admits to Competing With Sellers - Plans to resell eBay International Shipping (EIS) Returns

[mybigsale]

And that is why this quote from Chad Stewart, Director, U.S. Exports at eBay, caught my attention discussing the mechanics of the new eBay International Shipping (eIS) program.

“Those [returned] items come back to our hub in Chicago, at which point we are then preparing those items to be sold again on the site. So those items will not be destroyed unless obviously they’re somehow come back to us destroyed. But the vast majority of these items end up just finding another home with a buyer within the United States as we try to list those items on the site as well.”

eBay Admits to Competing With Sellers (eseller365.com)

[vintage-camerastuff]

The buyer is refunded by ebay.  that is why ebay will recoup money by selling the items.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@mybigsale  ebay has no plans to list the items directly on ebay: items go to third p[arty liquidators. A third party liquidator can choose to list them on ebay. Or not.

This is not something that bothers me. It does not put me in direct competition with the Marketplace itself.

[valueaddedresource · Accepted solution]

---

@mybigsale wrote:

---

@buyselljack2016 wrote:

to add:

Also seems the statement that the "items come back to our hub" is a misstatement.   Why would they ever leave the hub?

---

These are not the rejected items. These are items that have been returned for whatever reason. I believe sellers keep their money and eBay keeps the returned items.  Makes sense eBay will want to recoup money by reselling items.

So you are saying eBay has claimed they are not going to resell EIS Returns?

---

@mybigsale  the way it was presented on the podcast made it sound more like eBay would be directly selling the returned items on the site themselves, thus competing with sellers, which is not true.

What is really going to happen is eBay will sell the items to liquidators who will then do with them as they please. As others have pointed out, this is not very different from how GSP handled rejected items, it's just now expanded to also include returns.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Monthly-Chat-with-eBay-Staff/Monthly-Chat-May-10th-at-1-00-pm-PST/m-p/... 

Liquidated items are transferred to a 3rd party approved vendor, who sells items in their brick and mortar establishment or on eBay through their approved Seller account. Once the item is sold, eBay takes ownership of the item and packages that cannot be shipped forward, returned for issues or are considered restricted are transferred to this vendor. This is not considered direct competition as eBay is not directly reselling the item.

When asked for more details, they even said there is no way to know for sure if those items will ever end up back on the site and in fact the higher value items most likely will not.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Monthly-Chat-with-eBay-Staff/Monthly-Chat-May-10th-at-1-00-pm-PST/m-p/... 

A seller will not be informed which vendor the item goes to or if it was sold as an individual, bulk or brick and mortar. Chad and Griff are correct, that a Seller can buy the item back, but only if they find it on the site if it is posted by the liquidation vendor. eBay will not inform Sellers of its location for sale as many of these items will be liquidated overseas and will not be returning to the US. Items posted on eBay by the liquidation vendor will be lower value items and will be DDU transactions. DDP and high value items will be liquidated overseas in bulk and Sellers will not see these on eBay as they are sold to licensed resellers by the liquidator.

[mybigsale]

I don't care if eBay resells the items. They should recoup their money.

I do care if eBay starts selling items on eBay in competition with other sellers.  eBay can easily control the market (on eBay) for any item they decide to sell. eBay can allow competition. eBay can block all competition.

I currently purchase all my boxes from the eBay sponsored store. They aren't the best boxes or the cheapest boxes. I buy them because eBay takes some of my store fees and only allows me to use the funds to buy eBay sponsored boxes.

If eBay sells the same item you are selling they can easily force the purchase of their item first. eBay owns and controls the eBay marketplace.

[valueaddedresource]

---

@janet9988 wrote:

Just think about how much information ebay is gathering from sellers when they hold their money and request documentation showing the sellers supplier and purchase receipts. Now ebay can sell that information to anyone to compete against that  seller.

---

@janet9988 they don't even need to do that - eBay has access to tons of data and has been selling it in this manner for a long time.

One of the most egregious examples of this in my mind was in 2014 when then President of eBay Marketplaces Devin Wenig was quite proud of himself for selling all of eBay's search data about collectible/nostalgic consumer trends to overseas firms making cheap knock offs to compete against the real thing.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/08/why-ebay-tells-chinese-manufacturers-what-you... (paywall)

"We send [manufacturers] data about what people are looking for on eBay and they respond and turn it around incredibly quickly," president of eBay Marketplaces Devin Wenig told me. "We have a really big China export business to Europe and the United States. And they respond very, very quickly to consumer taste, whatever it might be. It's really remarkable to see how quickly the manufacturing base adapts to the demand signals they get."

In other words, that red wool-blend Cross Colours hat on eBay might not be the relic from 1989 it appears to be, but instead a newly manufactured replica. (It is, of course, against eBay's policy to sell counterfeit items.) Yes, there's a huge and thriving "new vintage" manufacturing sector built around—and tailored to— your online searches.

I've often thought what eBay should really say is "we don't compete against our sellers....but we're happy to put our thumb on the scale to help some sellers over others when it financially benefits us to do so." 😉

[gone.c-33]

---

@vintage-camerastuff wrote:

The buyer is refunded by ebay.  that is why ebay will recoup money by selling the items.

---

My bad, that was meant to say why wouldn’t eBay try and recoup their money 

[nuclearomen]

---

@mybigsale wrote:

I don't care if eBay resells the items. They should recoup their money.

I do care if eBay starts selling items on eBay in competition with other sellers.  eBay can easily control the market (on eBay) for any item they decide to sell. eBay can allow competition. eBay can block all competition.

I currently purchase all my boxes from the eBay sponsored store. They aren't the best boxes or the cheapest boxes. I buy them because eBay takes some of my store fees and only allows me to use the funds to buy eBay sponsored boxes.

If eBay sells the same item you are selling they can easily force the purchase of their item first. eBay owns and controls the eBay marketplace.

---

@mybigsale i understand, but ebay isn't selling the items, they aren't amazon, they do not get involved in managing and storing merchandise. 
As for the boxes, the store benefit isn't even worth it anymore.