eBay

tahoe-sports · ‎12-28-2018

I'm not sure where if this is the right place to post this, but Ebay's return policy is baking in a bank/market failure scenario.

If you don't rememberthe 2008 banking crisis, we were facing a collapse of the banking and financial system because banks provide other banks with liquidity and are interconnected within the financial system. If there is a run on one bank, it spreads to the entire financial system. This occurs because banks don't keep sufficient reserves to cover their losses and are the source of liquidity for other banks.

Ebay has baked in the same contagian risk by requiring returns without requiring reserves. I got hit with this today. I got returns on my biggest orders over the last few days, which I strongly suspect are fund raising efforts by sellers desperate to pay off their own returns and in turn, return reserves used up. I had to make returns to raise cash to cover my returns. None of this would occur if sellers were not required to offer easy returns (liquidity). In essence, I was required to provide liquidity to another seller, and another seller was required to provide liquidity to me through the return system. I was their bank and someone else was mine.

This is a bad and very dangerous buisness policy. I'm hoping someone on their staff looks at this posting and knows a canary in the coal mine when they see it. Ebay needs to require reserves or allow sellers to opt out of the return policy to prevent sellers from becoming unregulated financial institutions and all the risks that comes with that. The threat of cascading returns rippling through the entire system is real and it needs a real solution.

castlemagicmemories · ‎12-28-2018

So you pass the problem on to the next guy and the ripples of returns flow through the system.

Your passing the problem on to the next guy does not mean that the next guy is going to do that. He may have planned so that he doesn't have to do that, thus no ripples of returns will be flowing through the system. Your passing the problem on doesn't mean others will do the same thing. No one in this thread has said they would do that.

And if you open too many cases, you can lose your MBG coverage and will be buying at your own risk, and your buying privileges may be restricted.

autopartspuller · ‎12-28-2018

This is simply a lack of resposibilty for yourself. This is NOT an Ebay issue. This is a YOU issue.

I had a couple large returns in December. I understand that ANY item could be returned. So I dont touch the funds until after it is recieved. Then I leave at least 50% of the funds for all items sold for 30 days. This ASSURES that I ALWAYS have the funds for refunding.

It is part of doing business to manage ALL parts of it. This includes expecting returns during big return times.... IE any gift giving time of the year.

luckythewinner · ‎12-28-2018

@vsoivj_0 wrote:
This is true, however there is no such thing as an unlimited supply.
Even if you have millions waiting in line, if you abuse your source one day the run will dry out.

The ability for buyers to steal items from sellers via fraudulent SNADs has existed ever since eBay introduced the Money Back Guarantee in 2008.

That was a decade ago, and at the time there were a lot Chicken Littles running around this board telling us the sky was going to fall and selelrs would all leave because fraudulent SNADs would drive them all away. But the sky didn't fall then, and it won't fall now because of returns.

I would need 100 fingers to count the various reasons people on this board have given over the past decade to support their prediction of a mass exodus of eBay sellers or the demise of venue.

danif52 · ‎12-29-2018

Just because you take part in less than honorable practices, doesn't mean the sellers you returned things do as well.

This is all on you for not having a real contingency plan and banking on being able to return items.

Also, you have two BUSINESS days to refund. Weekends and Christmas didn't count, and you can do an electronic transfer from your bank any time. I know because I had a transfer from my bank to PayPal clear on Xmas.

This isn't on eBay, PayPal, the banks or anyone other than yourself.

I get it, it was the holiday season and we all tend to spend more than we intend. But as sellers, we need to remember the money from sales isn't truly ours for 180 days, so we need to keep enough in reserve to cover at least several of our more expensive sales.

Failure to do so shouldn't harm another seller financially.

danif52 · ‎12-29-2018

@castlemagicmemories wrote:
So you pass the problem on to the next guy and the ripples of returns flow through the system.

Your passing the problem on to the next guy does not mean that the next guy is going to do that. He may have planned so that he doesn't have to do that, thus no ripples of returns will be flowing through the system. Your passing the problem on doesn't mean others will do the same thing. No one in this thread has said they would do that.

And if you open too many cases, you can lose your MBG coverage and will be buying at your own risk, and your buying privileges may be restricted.

This is why eBay and PayPal needs to limit the number of returns any one account can make, even if the seller does offer free returns.

They also need to join in the programs that other outlets have that share info about chronic returners(is that even a word? lol).

This whole thread reminds me of a lady I used to know. She would spend extravagantly on her kids for Christmas. We're talking several thousand dollars every year. But she would only allow the children to open the cheapest of the toys, over the next week or so she would return the more expensive items that way she didn't have that huge credit card bill.

She did this every year till her kids got to big to believe that 90% of their toys arrived broken.

luckythewinner · ‎12-29-2018

@danif52 wrote:
This thread reminds me of a lady I used to know.

This whole thread reminds me of an unfounded conspiracy theory.

Remember, it started with the OP suggesting that there are so many returns that other sellers would have to start making their own returns just to cover their own losses from returns ... until the number of sellers doing that becomes so great that the whole system collapses.

But the OP's conspiracy theory assumes that this site is chock full of sellers who:

have a high volume of returns
lack a viable business plan to absorb them
buy so much on eBay that are in a position to raise cash through returns
lack the ethics that would stop them from doing it

Clearly the OP meets all these criteria, but I don't think they are shared by nearly as many other sellers as he thinks. IMHO the "contagion" he sees looming will be stopped because the majority of seller don't share all these traits.

vintageista · ‎12-29-2018

I DO NOT agree with the scenerio set up by this seller, but then I don't deal in enough high$ merchandise for this to become a problem to me, obviously he does.

I DO NOT want eBay or Paypal or any other enity to have more CONTROL over MY MONEY than they already have, which in my humble opinion is TOO MUCH!

I DO AGREE that eBay helped create this problem when they changed the rules on the time allotted for refunds on returns. It used to be a week or so, now they have shortened it to 2 days...which IS NOT enough time to secure funds from another institution, if needed! NOT even enough time to be able to inspect an item before refunding if you happen to be away for more than 2 days.

I was away 4 days over Christmas to visit family, had 2 returns delivered during that period and had to refund them from a remote computer before I had a chance to inspect! What if I didn't have access to a laptop or remote computer??

What if there was a problem with an item that I wasn't able to inspect & report??

TWO DAYS is an UNREASONABLE PERIOD OF TIME FOR MANY REASONS and eBay is exercising TOO MUCH CONTROL over sellers to demand that short of a time period!

Of course, it is no skin off their back, so THEY DON'T CARE, and it CATERS AGAIN TO THE BUYERS who want their money back as soon as possible! Can't blame them, but it all falls back on the SELLER AGAIN...AS MOST OF EBAY'S POLICIES DO! Creates an UNFAIR playing field which eBay has definitely become!

autopartspuller · ‎12-29-2018

@vintageista wrote:
I DO NOT agree with the scenerio set up by this seller, but then I don't deal in enough high$ merchandise for this to become a problem to me, obviously he does.

I DO NOT want eBay or Paypal or any other enity to have more CONTROL over MY MONEY than they already have, which in my humble opinion is TOO MUCH!

I DO AGREE that eBay helped create this problem when they changed the rules on the time allotted for refunds on returns. It used to be a week or so, now they have shortened it to 2 days...which IS NOT enough time to secure funds from another institution, if needed! NOT even enough time to be able to inspect an item before refunding if you happen to be away for more than 2 days.

I was away 4 days over Christmas to visit family, had 2 returns delivered during that period and had to refund them from a remote computer before I had a chance to inspect! What if I didn't have access to a laptop or remote computer??
What if there was a problem with an item that I wasn't able to inspect & report??
TWO DAYS is an UNREASONABLE PERIOD OF TIME FOR MANY REASONS and eBay is exercising TOO MUCH CONTROL over sellers to demand that short of a time period!

Of course, it is no skin off their back, so THEY DON'T CARE, and it CATERS AGAIN TO THE BUYERS who want their money back as soon as possible! Can't blame them, but it all falls back on the SELLER AGAIN...AS MOST OF EBAY'S POLICIES DO! Creates an UNFAIR playing field which eBay has definitely become!

It blows my mind how many people dont grasp the idea that customer service is about the CUSTOMER... ie the BUYER.

Retail is a buyer based business. There is always things to sell. The business isnt there without the buyer. Although it is the essenitial basis of supply and demand, the supply (the seller) in this case outnumbers the demand (the buyer) due to the high volume of compitition.

The higher the volume the online location, the more buyer based they are, because they have no need to cater to the seller.. they have them... they want to keep the buyers.

Life is not fair. Acceptance of this on all levels is vital in living a less stressful life.

danif52 · ‎12-29-2018

It blows my mind how many people dont grasp the idea that customer service is about the CUSTOMER... ie the BUYER.
___

I couldn't agree more. If a seller can't take the time to refund in 2 business days its not the buyers problem.

I know of one venue that refunds as soon as the carrier scans the return label.

I see so many sellers up in arms over policy changes, without realizing that they may be the reason the policy changed.

Buyers are tired of sellers who offer returns yanking them around when they try to use said policy.

I get that sellers want the better best match placement and tsr plus for free returns, but they need to honor it without complaint.

I read these boards and at least once a week I see a seller who doesn't want to honor a return.

And almost daily I see sellers who think no returns means they don't have to honor the MBG.

Yes buyer have become more hostile, but when they have a legit issue and get accused of being a liar, scammer, or otherwise doing nefarious things, it's hard to blame them.