I just wanted to thank eBay for giving it's sellers the middle finger again.

[albany_sellers]

Truly, I appreciate how well you listened to the overwhelming feedback from the overwhelming amount of sellers who asked you to axe the good til canceled idea. I particularly like how you guys tried to frame it in a way to make it look like it's for our benefit.

Don't bother sending out those surveys anymore if you are going to just delete them without even reading them. It's obvious you do not care what your sellers think. Enjoy the extra money from the people who don't realize their listings are auto renewing, at least until they get mad about it and never sell on eBay again.

[albany_sellers]

---

alan@ebay wrote:

---

@greg5000 wrote:

alan@ebay 

brian_burke@ebay 

brian@ebay 

griff@ebay.com 

I'm new posting to Community Boards and this is my first post replying to my own post.  I just wanted to be sure that eBay sees how many members posted helpful, in just a short period of time.

I think the statement "Companies that don't listen to their Customers will always fail"  resonated with all.

Now, with my reply to my own post, our voices resonate to Alan, Brian x2, and Griff.

---

Hi @greg5000 / all, 

Thanks for your continued engagement on this topic. We've posted an update here: https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Good-Til-Cancelled-Update-from-Harry-Temkin-VP-of-Seller/m-p/2...

---

That update does not even come close to addressing the anger and disappointment with this update. The 30 day auto-renewal period was one of the main concerns raised by sellers due to it not syncing with monthly billing cycles? Seriously? Did eBay just happen to miss all the other legitimate complaints that ranked WAY higher?

All you guys did with that update to the GTC fiasco was dance around the issue while saying nothing of any value. Every single reply you guys make is just you guys either avoiding the issues with it and deflecting or making snide comments like "oh, don't you WANT your items to to sell? do you WANT them to just end?"

How about you actually engage in the conversations and respond to the complaints? The sellers have some wisdom for you, and you are just slapping our hands away when you should be soaking in what we say. We DO have some experience, ya know.

[buytodayshipnextday]

ebay aka e-diots do not care. listen up. THEY DO NOT CARE.

they have enough brain dead sellers who just follow the flock & accept the fleecing so it does not matter.

THINK ABOUT IT...

they e-diots will NOT institute an auction payment policy. you can bid & win an auction or make an offer on a BIN or auction item & if accepted you do not have to pay. the buyer solicits you. the buyer makes you an offer which you accept & even with IMMEDIATE PAYMENT DUE selected, their accepted offer cancels that option allowing them to back out.

in the e-diots world  EVERY buyer no matter how much of a scammer they are has 100% feedback. if you allow your kids to misbehave without consequence you create little tyrants and that's what so many buyers are because? THEY GET AWAY WITH IT.

e-diots believe only buyers. buyers can "return," an item & not include a part or portion of it or they can send an entirely different item & when you call ebay further showing proof with photos, the e-diots most always side with the buyer because? THEY HAVE TO ASSUME THE BUYER IS HONEST.

so e-diots, you're calling me a liar?

DO YOU THINK THEY CARE YOU'RE UPSET WITH GTC?

NO! the e-diots allege it creates a higher % of sales. FOR WHO? your friends in china? your biggest super sellers?  they'll never tell you.  e-diots!

[brettyg599]

I second this guy saying ebays AI has very serious issues today as opposed to in the future.  Sometimes the AI cant tell that mens and men's is the same, or size large and large are the same, it no longer pulls from item specifics all the time from what I see, has different results for "medium, M, size M, size medium",  Pretty sure before promoted listings none of these issues happened.  If you notice promoted listings AI does not have the same issues. I am pretty sure it pulls from descriptions even to include items in a search.  They make us pay promoted fees now just to get the good AI that works.  I have called and emailed atleast a dozen times over the last 2 months reporting serious issues with the AI search function that ebay employees themselves have confirmed.  I then talk to managers that confirm it is working as intended.  So basically I have been told search is intended to not function properly by standards someone would use to test it but rather by its tests we dont have access to. Here is a plan to turn things around.  Problem is ebay it will take time.  All your management cares about is 1 quarter at a time without looking at the bigger picture.

Step 1: Make a fee that is competitive with other sites like etsy.

Step 2: Make coding that doesn't take fees from shipping when shipping label is uploaded or printed directly from ebays shipping. This should be very easy to do.  No more excuses about taking money from shipping cost.

Step3: Actually negotiate better prices from the USPS.  If i can buy a 10 dollar shovel and it comes to my house from amazon for free in massive box you can do better.  I am paying 7 bucks to send a 2 pound box within my own state.  Seriously step up, ebay is huge and needs to go to bat on shipping prices.

Step4 Reinstate the 20% off fees for top rated plus.  We literally have to jump through hoops now to be top rated plus and we get half what we used to get.

Step5 Reinstate a basic research tool like Etsy has that allows you to see where your traffic is coming from and what keywords buyers used to find your items (You had this tool also many years ago)

Step6 Cancel this terrible idea to make everything GTC. GTC will kill your nitch business of rare 1 of items that ebay is known for.  If you become like amazon and alibaba what makes you think you can do what they do better than them?  Literally think about that.  It makes no sense.  You can't compete with them.  Think how angry your sales force is that sells on your site, amazon does not have that problem as badly.

Step7 partner with someone like godaddy accounting or a tool so that your sellers have a way to easily track all payments and expenses for taxes.  Making things more difficult for small businesses is not a good long term plan.  Many of us have seen our profits shrink from the added fees to the point of considering quiting.  Adding extra headache and accounting problems gives more incentive to quit.

step8 Your staff needs much better training.  If you call in 4 times with the same question or concern you will get 3-4 different answers.  How does that help? 

If you are listening ebay, sucking more money from sellers when ebay already has the highest fees by far is gonna be the kiss of death. Seriously board members if you are watching HIGHLY consider new management.  This guy is gonna be long gone when all the cards fall.  I guarantee he is already applying for new jobs.  He will leverage the little bit of success he has showed for shareholders into a better job before his policies totally unwind ebay.

[brettyg599]

I have also been told the algorithm is prioritizing selling items quickly, even quicker than the 90 day kiss of death it currently uses.  Look at your items that have been relisted longer than 90 days, their views will be almost nothing.  I took several lululemon tank tops listed last summer and relisted them from auctiva for the same price.  These had id say average 12 views in a 7 day period.  All of them received over 30 views in the first day once I relisted them and several sold.

They really are trying to make it hard to get a fair price for any item you sell.  I don't think that is what they want.  What they don't realize is profits are so small now sellers will be forced to quit.  Then what for them?  My guess tons of incentives to bring sellers back.  Oh that would be the day

[clu3]

I don't have a store.  Now I will never have a store.  I'll use the 50 available listings (for as long as that lasts).

I'm thinking of all the time I'll have to do something else.

[krys888]

I’m doing the same thing! Trying to find a program that will let me export my listings so I don’t have to redo them in a new platform.

[lilbama911]

Perhaps Ebay isn't giving you the middle "finger"  but a tool to increase sales.  The following is an excerpt from the blog  "Why You Should Always Use eBay Good-til-Canceled (GTC) Duration When Selling on eBay".   

crazylister.com/blog/use-good-til-canceled-on-ebay/

"This is the part I realized many eBay sellers were missing – If we would have listed with anything but the ebay Good Til Canceled duration, ALL of our gained “Recent sales history” would have been reset once the listing ended!
When you relist an ended listing, the “Recent sales history” is not being carried over to the relisted listing!"

[krys888]

Are you kidding? We’ve read Harry’s update and it does NOT address anything in this thread! It does NOT address any of our concerns! Its just more ebay talking AT us instead of with us! Posting this link to Harry’s speech is just more insult. His speech does NOT answer or acknowledge any of our concerns! NONE!

[nuttynana2017]

I agree. I'd like to have the ability to control my own listings!! I don't need or want eBay to do that for me. HELLO EBAY???

[krys888]

They would rather rule by fear and hate than by respect and engagement.

[ebbrat]

We expressed those same sentiments when we and other high-end stores pulled out. We had many years of experience, kept a perfect fb rating, didn't sell junk and had a huge portion of happy repeat buyers. We hoped it would hurt them, killing our market and driving us out of business. It didn't phase them.

Now this situation is more global, impacting thousands more sellers and markets than back then, so maybe the drop in numbers will be more effective to catch their attention. I hope so. But it would be a first for ebay to revert policy due to seller pressure.

[hoarder-disorder]

When I first started selling here, the effective rate Ebay charged was less than 5% of any sale. Now it's over 20%, for all the "helpful" upgrades, rules, and creative ways to give the seller a morsel, and rip them off through the back door with ever more fees.  This is just the latest shameful insult, requiring GTC for all BIN items within one's store.  This coming year I have to look into other options, if I am going to stay in this business, the work and the fees, it's just too much like working for the company store.  I have seen the bevy of messages regarding this change and all the others over the years. The complaints from their Sellers amounts to a hill of beans.  They are dismissive and take their biggest asset for granted.  Some Ebay  blogger provides some cheery news about some change that will "help"  without providing a shred of evidence to back up the claim.  So far, the help and upgrades they provide are basically figuring out sneaky ways to charge the seller more while providing some other service of marginal utility for "free".  The amount of changes over the years, reversals to their own policies, is mind numbing.  Hey guess what...we are going to save you a nickel here.... they will tout in bold letters...Yeah, but in the small print or details, they are grubbing a dime from you somewhere else.  I would suggest that anyone with serious business aspirations in the online marketplace look for alternatives, this ship is taking on water. 

[a_dame_and_her_pets_collectibles]

Yes they will. And I'll be one of them changing over.

[maximuslouann]

The psychology of an item ending prods buyers to react.  The "Good Till Cancelled" mandate removes this btetter hurry  element from our ads.  The Buy It Now with the option to Allow Offers was the best niche for my egg sales.  Perishable items such as eggs are not a good fit for long durations.  Please allow choices for the seller.  Thank you for providing a market place for our products.

[cumberlandgapshop]

I believe all of the errors the algorithm has, being dysfunctional in so many ways, one would think they would repair the NOT VISIBLE along with all the other problems. Why do they keep screwing up the algorithm? FIX THE MANY PROBLEMS.  An Anti-trust issue comes to mind too. When buyers are searching for the lowest price, many of the lowest price is either not visible to the buyer or they only scroll so long. They use ludicrous comments, such as other listings with less words (can’t remember at the moment what it exactly says, but this is the gist) so buyers are being ripped off. I have some great products with the lowest prices, but one way or the other mine are not coming up as the lowest price. I have friends and family nationwide who I talk to on the phone, they are computer savvy, exact titles and they don’t show up OR if they do, when they click on lowest price, then mine goes away altogether. SO, if they want to fix something do it in favor of the BUYERS! For the last several years, they have lost buyers hand over fist and they want to know why.