eBay

cyclebitz · ‎06-23-2020

While a lot of recent great changes have happened at eBay, I am still mad at the way eBay overstepped boundaries by deciding for sellers how to handle returns and refunds.

The vast variety of sellers on eBay, from kitchen table sellers to large corporate retail operations and everything in between, with an assortment of products even Amazon can't match, I strongly believe this one size fits all approach is a horrible decision.
While eBay certainly should run it's own business 100% the way management sees fit, as a marketplace facilitator, an online place connecting buyers with sellers, it is simply not eBay's place to decide how sellers should run their business.
In particular I am referring to taking away our choice as sellers to charge restocking yes/no. That should be our decision to make and not eBay's. The explanation from eBay that supposedly it is not standard practice to charge restocking is laughable. It is and always has been standard practice .. just not all retailers have it.
Even for my own company (our brick store and several websites) I am not saying I always want to or should implement a restocking. I am saying it should be my choice as seller to communicate to buyers that yes or no, this particular item or this particular transaction carries a restocking.
It is supposed to be a free market .. unless someone oversteps boundaries 🙂 and if fees are clearly displayed prior to purchase, buyer can decide to yes/no purchase from this vendor.

The way I see it, eBay is playing nice with our (sellers) money and is overstepping boundaries.

Are you reading these posts Mr Sweetnam?

bimm_corp · ‎06-23-2020

@jthomasracing

>95% of buyers are great but the 5% that want to return and you pay postage both ways are my problem. I DO NOT >OFFER returns because of them.

eBay doesn't care whether you offer refunds or not. If a buyer wants to return an item under MBG, EBay will send them a return label paid from your account whether you like or permit it or not. It dosen't matter what you set as your selling/return policies. eBay doesn't give a darn what you think. It's do it their way or the highway. Sellers ALWAYS lose when a buyer claims an MBG return.

bimm_corp · ‎06-23-2020

@atikovi

>Kitchen table sellers don't even belong on Ebay.

Who died and left you the judge as to who should sell on eBay.?

mam98031 · ‎06-23-2020

@atikovi wrote:
@cyclebitz wrote:

The vast variety of sellers on eBay, from kitchen table sellers to large corporate retail operations and everything in between, with an assortment of products even Amazon can't match, I strongly believe this one size fits all approach is a horrible decision.
Kitchen table sellers don't even belong on Ebay. Craigslist or Facebook is a much more appropriate venue for stuff like that.

And just where do you think Ebay got their start???????? Wow!! There is room for everyone here.

mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999

chapeau-noir · ‎06-24-2020

Kitchen table seller here (and proud of it) objects. I prefer to be called a "table topper" if you please. And I belong here. The more people like me irritate the elite of this site staying here with our garage sale/consignment goods and manage to be able to keep up, the better I like it.

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”
— Alice Walker

#freedomtoread
#readbannedbooks

atikovi · ‎06-24-2020

@fashunu4eeuh wrote:
@atikovi Wrote:
“Kitchen table sellers don't even belong on Ebay. Craigslist or Facebook is a much more appropriate venue for stuff like that.”

I see you are a small seller yourself, with used car parts as your main category. Nothing wrong with that, it’s great, just find your statement surprising in that light.

What does that have to do will selling kitchen tables? The cost of shipping them is probably many times what they are worth. Only feasible with local pickup and much more appropriate to list on Craigslist or Facebook where local pickup is the default transaction mode.

soh.maryl · ‎06-24-2020

What "boundaries"?

Has everyone forgotten that it's eBay's site, so it's eBay's rules? We can play by their rules or go home.

For instance, if eBay should decide that they will not allow the listing/selling of green T-shirts, yellow tablecloths or little red wagons, it's their decision to make.

2010byandsel100 · ‎06-24-2020

They are not literally selling kitchen tables.

what was meant were small sellers (not in stature) selling items from their houses and boxing up the items on their kitchen tables.

atikovi · ‎06-24-2020

@2010byandsel100 wrote:
They are not literally selling kitchen tables.

what was meant were small sellers (not in stature) selling items from their houses and boxing up the items on their kitchen tables.

OP wrote, "kitchen table sellers". To me, that means sellers of kitchen tables. I've never used my kitchen table to box my items, but that's just me.

2010byandsel100 · ‎06-24-2020

It's an expression for a small seller.

that is why you are getting the responses about ebay being built by small sellers when you say they should be on craigslist because you are thinking they are mailing actual heavy tables.

atikovi · ‎06-24-2020

@2010byandsel100 wrote:
It's an expression for a small seller.

that is why you are getting the responses about ebay being built by small sellers when you say they should be on craigslist because you are thinking they are mailing actual heavy tables.

Careful now, don't want to offend any midgets here.😀

luckythewinner · ‎06-24-2020

While eBay certainly should run it's own business 100% the way management sees fit

Agreed.

The way I see it, eBay is playing nice with our (sellers) money and is overstepping boundaries.

The boundaries are the use of the eBay site. There are plenty of people posting on these board who claim that how a seller conducts his business reflects on the eBay site as a whole.

2010byandsel100 · ‎06-24-2020

I did note that I meant 'small ' referring to annual sales, not stature, in post #22 😁

asdbsir_0 · ‎06-24-2020

@cyclebitz wrote:
Agreed and I made clear in my post that charging restocking fees is not what we generally do and should be doing. But it is about my and your ability as sellers to do so if and when you need to.
We have to offer returns on pretty much all our listings but some products are much more problematic than others and margins vary widely.

I couldn't agree more on the problematic returns on certain products being far higher, I have one in particular that results in a return ratio of close to 1/10 (and please no comments, I am well aware of the problem)... That being said my solution is to raise the price on those particular items until my costs are covered, also doing that reduces sales which in turn reduces returns.

And some people may feel that restocking fees would only punish those buyers who are constantly "using" our products and then returning them when they are done but guess what, now the way things are *everybody* pays for the high cost of returns.

Simple solution, many a large business have been doing things this way for years.

Why car parts are so expensive at the B&M stores?

asdbsir_0 · ‎06-24-2020

I got cut off...

Why car parts are so expensive at the B&M stores?

Yup, if you guessed customers returning "rentals" and items used for "troubleshooting" and backyard mechanic error (as in the part worked or the problem lies elsewhere b.c the installer either couldn't figure out how to install it proper OR they thought it was defective since the car still won't work, not that the part is bad it's the fact they are installing it wrong or they are replacing the wrong part!)...

There are a few more, such as returning the old broken part as "the one I bought is defective" hehehe very clever that one, I can't think of any more right now but those are a good start.

So here's the deal, if B&M's are making bank why should I lose out?

They've been around a lot longer, seems to me they came to the same conclusion I'm coming to, my prices are apparently too cheap if people can afford to disrespect the product. Also by raising prices I relay the problem to the lowballing sellers, everyone with prices lower than mine now gets their fair share of problem returns, you see it truly is win-win because now I have more "teammates" who will soon be helping me with the problem.

Wait until they see what I've been dealing with!

Oh hay, are you one of those sellers per chance?

Yeah I've started threads about this in the past, now it's your turn.

lol