Very well said including your suggestion on how they could decrease fees for long-term sellers. I retired early from my RN job due to health issues in 2017 and began online selling (NWT women's fashion) in 2019, so I am basically a newbie, but I couldn't agree MORE with your point.
Sites or platforms such as eBay simply would not exist if it weren't for the sellers. That is a fact.
Since Covid, it seems like ALL sites/platforms have become flooded with sellers wanting to make 'fast money' (inadvertently believing that it is easy to do so!) which has created more sellers than buyers, making it even harder for us to sell our items. I also believe most reseller sites encourage & advertise selling WAY more than buying, when it really needs to be the other way around.
The majority opinion of resellers on various forums I follow is that sales in ALL categories have declined, especially in the last two years, and it is gradually getting worse. That is very frightening for those of us who depend on the income from selling.
So eBay, please think about this: with less buyers and decreased sales in general, whether as a result of fee increases, financial hardship, or the economy, you guys (and all other reseller sites) should be doing everything you can to help sellers not just sell their items, but also make a decent profit like you have for the last 25 years.
And if reseller sites like eBay are experiencing lower profits, then figure out a way to deal with it like we (sellers) have to! Cut back somewhere within the company, have the high-paid executives take a temporary pay cut, etc. ANYTHING would be better than being greedy and taking it out of sellers and/or buyers pockets! That is ridiculously wrong! There must be someone working there with enough common sense to understand that increasing fees for the sellers to make more money for yourselves WILL NOT WORK! You have been profiting from both the sellers and buyers, but eventually the sellers will move on to something else, which equals no sellers/no buyers/no profits/no eBay.
I am also not sure that the main focus right now should be on "making things easier" with all the "improvements" being implemented by eBay as stated in the January update. We all know that it takes money to accomplish those things, but I believe we were told about them in the hopes that sellers would just accept the fee changes thinking "well they have to increase fees to cover the cost of all the new stuff they are doing for me". To me, it shouted "pretext", hoping to pacify us into thinking that the fee increases are justified!
Every business has to make money, but to continually increase selling fees, especially for years-long sellers, is illogical & unbecoming. Any smart business owner will tell you that continually evolving to keep up with the ever-changing technology & times is simply part of the cost of doing business, therefore, it should automatically be incorporated into projected profit/loss margins RATHER THAN passing it off/putting it on the hard-working, loyal sellers who literally MADE EBAY what it is today.
Just something to think about.
All that being said, I want to thank you eBay 🤗! I am truly and incredibly grateful to be able to sell my items on such a well-known and trusted site...now if only you could simplify calculating (or somehow standardizing) the shipping fees! Lol 🙂
Sheri
