eBay

ducks2k · ‎03-03-2019

Doesn't anyone at eBay think about these policies before forcing them on everyone?

I list fixed price 7 days because I am not around every day of the month, and a few years back, eBay got all fixated on fast turnaround times on shipping. 100% feedback rating in the thousands was not good enough to be a top rated seller, I had to ship fast too.

7 day fixed price is tolerable for a week when I will be home. I match it with 7 day auctions and do eBay 1 week a month. If I have to drop fixed price listings, eBay just loses that many sales per month. I guess they don't care what actually sells - all that is important is the listing fee. Well, they will lose that too, from me.

Ebay is the best auction sales platform around, but they seem to be actively trying to fix that. If I want Amazon, I will shop Amazon. Ebay is not Amazon, and they should stop trying to be.

Over the last 15 years, eBay has gone from being a fun place to buy and sell, to being a (not so) cheap knock-off of a convenience store. I can't recall any significant improvements in the seller side of eBay in the last decade. Each change seems to be for eBay's benefit.

Howard

ducks2k · ‎03-04-2019

wes - read the actual post. Ebay does not gain any listing dollars by calling them 30 day listings and having a cycle that is separate from the calendar month cycle of store subscriptions, with their monthly "free" listings. About the only thing I can see that benefits Ebay, is to continue to have these listings cycle on random 30 day cycles, rather than all of them rolling over on the 1st of the month. There are some much more significant problems with the new policy than just the 30 day/calendar month problem, but that is just one more bit of evidence that they did not think through the ramifications before deciding to implement this policy. Making the 30 day "expiration" sync up with the store subscriptions would not have been any harder to implement than the direction they chose to go.

weschurch · ‎03-04-2019

They are certainly set up to profit on this if sellers do not cancel the items before renewal

4stringfiddle · ‎03-04-2019

This is Ebay's way to make you fill your store to capacity then make you pay if you want to list more. Notice they give out free listings anymore for store owners.

4stringfiddle · ‎03-04-2019

This is Ebay's way to make you fill your store to capacity then make you pay if you want to list more. Notice they give out free listings anymore for store owners.

ducks2k · ‎03-04-2019

I am much more concerned with the loss of fixed price listings that actually expire - dead. Another thread on this same subject has some screen shots of someplace where it appears like you can opt out of the automatic relist, but I just can't find where those screenshots came from, and the verbiage in the seller announcement suggests that there is no way to opt out, or maybe I'm just reading it wrong.

For example, this is now the 4th of March. I'm traveling on the 15th for a week. Normally, I would select 250 items from my personal inventory and list them for 7 days fixed price and another 250 at 7 day auction. Everything will be complete on the 11th and I have 4 days to get paid and ship - normally not a problem. I can even prepare the mailings on the 11th and drop them in the mailbox when I get notification of payment. For April, I have absolutely no interest in having any of those 500 items automatically relisted. I will choose a different 500. This new GTC auto-relist is no benefit to me at all. All I can say is that eBay better provide a "select all GTC"/"Delete"/"Confirm" option so I can do what I need to do.

Since the seller announcement says "mid-March", I GUESS I can handle March as usual, but I have no idea what I will see in April.

suncatchers-and-more · ‎03-13-2019

If you read nothing, just spam the survey below with your thoughts about GTC. Yes it's for buying as none for selling was given:

https://connect.ebay.com/srv/survey/a/myebay.buying

If you want to read:

Just got off the phone with a selling specialist. She was not 100% convinced and advised me to switch to auctions. I politely explained to her I see auctions on items in my category go for more than 30% less than fixed price. eBay stands to loose a lot more on sales if I need to be auction-based.

She said to write that the following program was not acceptable using this form. Yes it's a feedback form about buying because there is no form for selling!

https://connect.ebay.com/srv/survey/a/myebay.buying

Here's what I would like instead:

1. Someone from eBay responding to posts especially top read ones. Blizzard's been doing it for more than a decade. (I told her this but the more support the better!)

2. More ways to contact real people. While I appreciate the front line representatives, sometimes I get someone who is quiet or hard to understand. There are so many companies that have an online form. I particularly like Crayola's "have a colorful day" in all their messages.

3. Exchanges - if a buyer wants to exchange an item, they need to send it back for refund and then buy it from a different listing because otherwise eBay automatically refunds them. Buyers hate having to buy from a public listing because someone else could buy it first.

4. Transparent Global Shipping Program fees. Just had a buyer just say they couldn't buy the item due to shipping on a $54 item was $32. I logged out and the shipping was under $15 for their country but I couldn't buy it without creating an account in their country. To see the real cost, I had to have it in my shopping cart which required an account.

nkpina2014 · ‎03-14-2019

@slippinjimmy wrote:
@ducks2k wrote:
7 day fixed price is tolerable for a week when I will be home. I match it with 7 day auctions and do eBay 1 week a month. If I have to drop fixed price listings, eBay just loses that many sales per month. I guess they don't care what actually sells - all that is important is the listing fee. Well, they will lose that too, from me.

Day 1, list as GTC.

Day 7, end the listing and go away

Next month......repeat.

Problem solved.

New problems created:

you as a seller must manually end the auction (thus using more time)
your auctions no longer receive the search bump from "about to end" algorithms

So... maybe you can go away with things you don't understand? How difficult it must be to not comprehend that removal of options is always a bad thing. GTC exists today; there's no good reason to remove Fixed Price Listings. Those that like and use GTC can do it today; those that don't have another option. Forcing everyone to use GTC for the sake of using GTC makes zero sense. Especially when it creates more problems.

nkpina2014 · ‎03-14-2019

@slippinjimmy wrote:
I know one thing about my own eBay buying habits, virtually everything I buy is from a GTC listing. I bid and won an Auction a few weeks ago, the first Auction I've bid on in at least 10 years.

Wow, that's some serious lies. You, as a buyer - don't know that you are buying from a GTC listing or a relisted Fixed Priced Duration listing. The only thing visible to you is the remaining time before it either ends or it gets automatically relisted. They appear the exact same to a buyer.

To a *seller*, they are vastly different. Ebay has admitted that "stale" listings receive lower search priority. The age of a listing is never reset with a GTC listing. Moreover, GTC listings do not receive a "NEW LISTING" search bump. When a GTC item gets relisted, it uses the total age of the listing rather than resetting it as a Relist would. Furthermore, if a seller ends a GTC listing early, the seller then misses out on the "ABOUT TO END" search bump as well. To a seller, these are important facets of selling. And that says nothing about the extra time investment to manage GTC listings to ensure no double-listings or that listings won't go over listing caps for the month.

So at this point, I think you have absolutely zero idea what you are talking about.

ducks2k · ‎03-14-2019

@nkpina2014
"Day 1, list as GTC.
Day 7, end the listing and go away
Next month......repeat.
Problem solved."

For the third time in this thread. Wonderful solution! (sarcasm).

Day 7 - log in to seller page. Select listing, end listing, confirm, REPEAT 250 times (an hour or two). Go away. Next month....repeat WITH DIFFERENT SET OF LISTINGS

The new GTC becomes possibly acceptable IF EBAY PROVIDES - Day 7 - log in to seller page. Select all active listings. End Selected listings. Confirm. A minute or two total.

There is a MUCH simpler solution. Ebay just leaves things exactly as they are. If the seller selects GTC for a listing, it operates in the fashion that eBay is mandating. If the seller chooses a shorter listing period, when the listing is done, it is done. Why is this so difficult?

ducks2k · ‎03-14-2019

slippinjimmy is making the same mistake that eBay is. They both assume that all buyers are the same ans all sellers are the same and all merchandise is the same. I have 15 years of buying and selling experience for one very specific class of items - hunting and fishing stamps and licenses. Over the years, eBay has changed the rules various times and I have had to adapt, but I am very clear as to my desires for listing durations and the way buyers in my interest area act. I could go into detail, but selling collectable stamps is simply not the same as selling light-bulbs or printer toner. It is eBay's job to provide me the tools I need to sell in the manner I wish - not to make one-size-fits-all. If I see areas where GTC is beneficial TO ME, I will choose it.

nkpina2014 · ‎03-18-2019

@ducks2k wrote:

@nkpina2014
"Day 1, list as GTC.
Day 7, end the listing and go away
Next month......repeat.
Problem solved."

For the third time in this thread. Wonderful solution! (sarcasm).

Day 7 - log in to seller page. Select listing, end listing, confirm, REPEAT 250 times (an hour or two). Go away. Next month....repeat WITH DIFFERENT SET OF LISTINGS

The new GTC becomes possibly acceptable IF EBAY PROVIDES - Day 7 - log in to seller page. Select all active listings. End Selected listings. Confirm. A minute or two total.

There is a MUCH simpler solution. Ebay just leaves things exactly as they are. If the seller selects GTC for a listing, it operates in the fashion that eBay is mandating. If the seller chooses a shorter listing period, when the listing is done, it is done. Why is this so difficult?

Just an FYI - slippinjimmy was the one that said that about the "7 day...go away.", not me. I'm fully in disagreement with the GTC policy, and having to end/relist every 7 days is atrocious for functionality that was operating perfectly fine previously.

mynewfindstore · ‎03-18-2019

We have mostly one of a kind items that most of the time people will not be searching for specifically on Google. They usually search by brand and style or color/size with brand. I don't see how GTC will help us, in fact I think it will hurt us with everything re-listing automatically, items fall further and further in search each month items don't sell. I try to keep things fresh by manually re-listing items and changing details/titles and prices. We have made way more sales that way. I don't see how just letting GTC listings go and re-list on their own will be helpful to us. I may let a few go (with watchers) and see what happens. We have very few variation listings and most of those have hardly any sales history.

cashvaluerecovery2011 · ‎03-18-2019

If fees was not the reason to do this then why not just stop charging for auto relists? If the reason to do this is to help increase sales through better searches then wouldnt this create more income to ebay via fvf giving more reason to just not charge listing fees for auto gtc listings? Remember it was only a year or so ago when search worked great before promoted listings screwed up how searches worked for many of us. Its beyond obvious this is about relisting fees. 1 rep in these forums means nothing regarding informing sellers. This is clear by how many people showed up to the boards today having no idea this change was even happening. If this wasnt a mobey grab........lol.......ebay wouldnt be grabbing the money. The sneaky quiet inception just proves my point.

greg5000 · ‎03-18-2019

I'm one of eBay's best Buyers since 2010 and I Fully Agree with ALL of the Sellers posting about concerns with GTC being forced on them. I was just about to set up a Sellers Account, but I have no interest now, due to numerous Technical Issues and now seeing this issue. I also have no interest to buy anything based on what I'm seeing and I'm in solidarity with the Sellers until the GTC issue is fixed.

If Millions of Sellers leave the platform, millions of Buyers will also leave, as they'll have less and less to buy. Many of the Sellers posting here with concerns Are Some of the Best That eBay Has!

And .... Almost everything I've purchased (hundreds of items) was in an auction listing.