E-Bay's misguided control.

[prostock]

Back in the late 90's I was in the first wave of e-Bay sellers, and it was key to keeping my business afloat . . . being as seasonal as it is. However, over the years e-Bay has been finding ways of controlling sales in a way that they will most benefit. (so they think) However this highly successful e-commerce business is being dragged down to the bottom by their greed. Even a fool like me can see they are nothing without sellers. But, the sellers to them are expendable and the bottom of the food chain. This is not surprising given this sinful world (country) we are living in. They can't see forward by watching their back.

[craigstevensstudio]

ebay by its own policies will be religated to selling junk.   people will go elsewhere.

[craigstevensstudio]

how ebay treats its sellers ( like dirt) and its LACK of customer service will be ebays downfall.  (just watch!) 

[craigstevensstudio]

sellers will leave ebay, and go to other platforms.  (i did after 16 years of selling)   ebay needs to get its head out of its butt.     treat sellers like crap at your own expense ebay.    (you will pay for it,  us sellers will have NO LOYALTY  to you and will watch you fall) 

[craigstevensstudio]

welll said,   BRAND NAME your store.   that way when you are forced to leave ebay you can take your cutomers with you.   (many have found this out the hard way )    depending on these large companies for your living is a death sentance.

[cardxcraft]

Did you read where I mentioned Iannone trumpeting vertical strategies?  This is not referring to the use of Ebay platform; he's talking about our "stuff".  But, I digress because many of the problems at the moment are economic.  (Bad Economy+Too much Product)=Buyers Market

As I mentioned previously and other posts: diversify and settle in...the economic storm is coming.

[5594shelleys]

Really. I no longer share that I sell (or that is what I was doing until this May) on eBay. Too embarrassing.  

[ittybitnot]

 that way when you are forced to leave ebay you can take your cutomers with you

@craigstevensstudio 

Way ahead on that one.  However, I voluntarily left eBay.  I also voluntarily left etsy after 9 years because my "reward" for building my business there was mandatory lifetime enrollment in their "offsite promoted listings" @12% per sale.   No worries.   Yesterday's sales:  Mercari 3,  FBook 12, website 26.  Advertising costs:  ZERO   Fees only to process the funds PayPal or my Merchant account, though I do pay about $2.99 a month (paid a year in advance) for the website.  One can submit their listings to Google shopping for no charge.  

[bonjourami]

Good for you!

[bonjourami]

"Really. I no longer share that I sell (or that is what I was doing until this May) on eBay. Too embarrassing."

Looks like you are doing very well here with all your listings and sales, but that is' embarrassing' you?  Sorry, I dont get it.

[ittybitnot]

Good for you!

@bonjourami 

Thank you.  Though eBay was my "first love" as far as internet sales went, I found it NOT productive for making money to wait around until conditions improved.  As a battered spouse, I recognized the symptoms for what they were.  Not all diversification attempts were over the top successful, it took a long time, and persistence.  

Though I feel "complaining" has its place, action is better.  It is not easy to make the decision to "pick up your toys and leave the sandbox" when one is afraid of the unknown. 

[bonjourami]

Agreed, the unknown is always scary..but Im glad it worked out so well for you..good to hear a success story in here instead of all the carping. Tho Im not selling right now, if I was as miserable here as some of these posters, I would have left a long time ago.

[rugerskick]

The fact is, both buyers and sellers (good ones of both), are critical to ebay.

However ebay is very myopic and only thinks one of them is critical.  One is always good, one is always bad.

Its well known thats exactly how it is.

They are already paying the price for their short-sightedness.

They don't even realize a sizeable percentsge of sellers are ALSO buyers.  Somehow they don't even care about this doubly-profitable uber demographic.

[rugerskick]

The reason is that reviewing a video doesn't potentially lead to a negative judgment to a buyer, like reviewing a case could.

[dbfolks166mt]

Ebay would disagree with you, and say without buyers they are nothing.Sellers come and go..hopefully buyers will stay if they have a positive Ebay experience.

In reality this is like the chicken and/or the egg argument. EBay is an ecommerce site and they need both buyers and sellers to sustain their business but the bottom line is the sellers are the ones that directly generate eBay's revenues.

     EBay could operate a short time with 0 buyers and no sales and still earn revenue from store fees and other revenue sources but the model would not be sustainable as sellers would rapidly depart in the absence of buyers. 

[bonjourami]

True enough, but from all the seller complaints, we all know Ebay is buyer centric, and probably always will be.