Ebay's Policies and Treatment of Sellers is designed to eliminate them at any time they want

[rugerskick]

All of the recent/latest changes to sellers on this site towards sellers are negative.

Ebay is becoming more and more unnecessarily adversarial and punitive towards sellers.  The latest changes will be dinging a sellers account for things totally beyond the sellers control.  Unlike Amazon who has now changed to  allow feedback for the seller, and separate feedback for the delivery experience.  Further, buyers writing provably false statements in their feedback do not make the short list of reasons ebay would remove that feedback.  Buyers provably lying in feedback is an acceptable thing for ebay, they are 100% ok with it. They have very much restricted seller support, we can't trust what we are told when we experience problems.  They lose transcripts and records of prior conversations of problem issues.

Yet ebay tries to pass off they care about sellers and want better relationships and are working to make ebay a better place for sellers.  Their actions do not match the words.

All of these changes are being put in place to provide ebay more and more metrics they can point to, in order to plausibly justify getting rid of a seller any time they want.  Also to make it easier to drop them to lower seller levels where higher fees and less ability to sell will impact a seller, with the hopes that if they stay, they will make more off them on whatever they still can sell, or that the seller just decides to self-remove themselves from the site, saving ebay the trouble.

You may ask why would they do this?  How do they benefit?  You can ask that question for any of the latest adversarial and punitive changes they are implementing against sellers.  I say its because this is the way they want to handle things with sellers.  Its because they are going more and more anti-seller.  That's why they are doing this.  How do they benefit to any of the negative anti-seller policies they are putting in place?  They are just as irrational as my proposal above.

Ebay has decided to funnel blame and negative consequences, no matter where they come from, squarely onto sellers.  Buyers lie about item problems, seller takes the hit.  Carriers deliver late or lose the package, seller takes the hit.  Ebays vero list doesnt have a company on it seller has no clue about, seller takes a hit.  Ebay provides bad or incorrect information to the seller and the seller follows that information, it doesn't go the way sellers expects based on what ebay told them, ebay customer service doesn't take the hit, the seller takes the hit.

This is what ebay is doing.  Anything going wrong on the site with orders, the standing ebay policy is "the seller takes the hit."

We all know and see this is what is going on.  Unnecessarily adversarial, and punitive, towards sellers.  This is driven from leadership.  It won't change until leadership changes.

[downunder-61]

What really blows me away is how members here (and I am one of them) are pretty much the best eBay customer service they could get, and it's all FREEEEEEE for eBay, makes me giggle at times, but here I am.

My pet hate is seller's getting dinged for INAD's when we all know how some buyers will do anything to avoid that return shipping fee.

[chapeau-noir]

I don't see any of this as against sellers so much as for saving overhead for eBay on customer service and attendant services. They want as much automation as possible, and because eBay has so many sellers, it's really of no concern to them. But I don't take an of it personally.

Also, I've had people lie like a dirty-azz rug in Etsy feedback and Etsy has never cared. Etsy CFO once said that they don't care about seller churn, because they have so many sellers, so they implement the policies they want.

It all comes down to pleasing the shareholders - and that's the case for any publicly traded company. Which is why I hate it when a good site or company files for IPO.

[sapphire_studio]

It's scary trusting a corporation with your livelihood where they have the power to shut you down.

I used to sell on Amazon and all it took were two different companies to lie and say my products weren't authentic to try to get rid of competition. Even when I got them both to send retraction letters to Amazon (after I showed them that they were authentic) Amazon didn't care and kept me suspended and $12,000 of my money that I never saw again.

I think I'm going to build my next wave of inventory (pokemon cards, jewelry, stickers, and silver) on my own website and use a plug-in to cross list on eBay and send business cards with my ebay sales to direct all my customers to my website for a cheaper prices and have eBay be a supplement rather than the foundation of my business, so that I own my customer base and no one Corporation can destroy me.

[robbie31415]

Not as bad as Walmart and Amazon marketplaces. Even more buyer centric and will 🪓 you pretty fast if you don't be very very good.

[chapeau-noir]

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@sapphire_studio wrote:

It's scary trusting a corporation with your livelihood where they have the power to shut you down.

I used to sell on Amazon and all it took were two different companies to lie and say my products weren't authentic to try to get rid of competition. Even when I got them both to send retraction letters to Amazon (after I showed them that they were authentic) Amazon didn't care and kept me suspended and $12,000 of my money that I never saw again.

I think I'm going to build my next wave of inventory (pokemon cards, jewelry, stickers, and silver) on my own website and use a plug-in to cross list on eBay and send business cards with my ebay sales to direct all my customers to my website for a cheaper prices and have eBay be a supplement rather than the foundation of my business, so that I own my customer base and no one Corporation can destroy me.

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Honestly, I wonder at these people who build whole big businesses on here with warehouse, employees, etc. Talk about building houses on sand.

[downunder-61]

and send business cards with my ebay sales to direct all my customers to my website

That is how I started my  website, been up and running 5 years and all off the back of eBay. Probably took about 2 years and a lot of SEO and I kept eBay up until I was able to stand free, and finally making more than eBay was for me, a lot of hard work, but so worth it.

Nothing like being the actual OWNER of your OWN business and running it to it's best potential with no outside interference......

I say go for it because you won't be sorry.

[comicscauldron]

I sell comic books , games and other collectibles and i also have my own website. I have lots of followers at Instagram and i am also planing to start live sales. It will be dificult because of the labguage (i am from Mexico) but i will work hard to makes it happen.  Cant depend on Ebay the "Bad buyers experience program" has been created to suspend the international accounts . International accounts costs money to Ebay so they will keep just a few countries . 

[richard1rst]

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@chapeau-noir wrote:

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Honestly, I wonder at these people who build whole big businesses on here with warehouse, employees, etc. Talk about building houses on sand.

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Edna St Vincent Millay:

Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:

Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!

[chapeau-noir]

And so castles made of sand,

Fall in the sea

Eventually.

(Jimi Hendrix)

[richard1rst]

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@chapeau-noir wrote:

And so castles made of sand,

Fall in the sea

Eventually.

(Jimi Hendrix)

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For me, at least, It has never been about the final outcome or destination. Entropy eventually wins. It has always been about the journey. The need every day to don my armor, draw my trusty sword and slay dragons is what keeps me young.

In the mid 60's I consciously decided to take that road less traveled knowing full well the risks.  I have had some good days, some bad days, some incredible highs and some depressing lows. But even if I had known all that then I honestly believe I would still have taken that road.

It is like that old Dog Sled poster - unless you're the lead dog the view never changes. Precisely because tomorrow is questionable is what makes today exciting.

The trick is to put away a little every day so that even if it all fell to pieces tomorrow I'll still be here (and by "here" I mean alive and solvent not necessarily "here" on eBay).

(And, parenthetically, eBay is not my only venue).

[mam98031]

Small sellers post that they feel this way most times when there is a change.  The fact is if Ebay did not want Small Sellers, there would be no small sellers.  There is no legal requirement that they have to let us sell here.  They can shut us down anytime they want.  They don't have to play games to get some frustrated enough so they leave.

Ebay doesn't do that because small sellers are about 80% of their sellers.  So we are a force that is noticed.

Whenever Ebay makes a change, not everyone is going to like it.  That doesn't mean they made a decision to personally go after you.  It is just the fact that with as many members as we have on this site, it is impossible to make a change that everyone likes.

[worldwide_ship]

My pet peeve has always been feedback. Buyers often make false accusations or even flat out lie on their negative feedback. In the past, if it was egregious ebay would remove it. Now they only remove feedback if it's extortion or foul language. 

For example, I just received a neutral feedback because I refused a buyers low ball offer. They paid full price, then left a neutral saying "Item is as described, but seller was rude" and ebay refuses to remove it!  

[luckythewinner]

Ebay's Policies and Treatment of Sellers is designed to eliminate them at any time they want

This is common knowledge. The User Agreement you acknowledged says this in plain English: 

 "we reserve the right to refuse, modify, or terminate all or part of our Services to anyone for any reason at our discretion."

https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/member-behaviour-policies/user-agreement?id=4259

Ebay has decided to funnel blame and negative consequences, no matter where they come from, squarely onto sellers. 

eBay did this in 2008 when they introduced the Money Back Guarantee. 

[kabilab]

This thread contains some excellent advice to pursue in business. Were I not age-81 and on e-Bay to liquidate both business and personal items, the establishment of a website would be appealing.

As I have been self-employed for six decades, it is easy for me to roll with changes; it is not that I like, simply roll. If the time comes when I no longer like the taste of e-Bay peaches, I will cease shaking the tree. 

A final thought: The business order of delivering satisfaction must be shareholders first, then buyers and, unfortunately, sellers. Buyers, as an example, have a much lower tolerance for being malcontent.