@isaiah53-57 wrote:
@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:
I've sometimes considered using Free Shipping for some items, figuring it helps me with people who filter by Free Shipping. But--IF these numbers are close to ebay's numbers---I'd say that would be a wasted effort.
Thoughts?
I agree - wasted effort - And its too bad since I have about 10 years of my most valuable, highly coveted sneakers, action figures, comic books, sports cards, lego sets, Pokemon cards, stamps, fishing gear, etc, etc that I would like to start moving - I have always used ebay and have not branched out much to other venues - I just quit selling here when they tick me off and this is round 3 and quite possibly the final round if they don't do something dramatic to fix EVERYTHING.
Not only has the search become a bust, but the cost to sell here is outrageous, already pushing 20% of your selling price while they simultaneously attempt to make "promoted listings" a necessity.
With my margins and my high demand items, (which would eventually get search hits even without promoting), I could continue selling with a frown, but I absolutely refuse to continue selling here due to their Money Back Guarantee. The idea that ANY SALE YOU MAKE could turn bad and you are simply s#!+ out of luck is utter lunacy - Who came up with this mandate? With the money they are raking in per sale, I believe that guarantee should be on ebay if they want to try to attract new buyers with a money back guarantee - If it was, I would offer a guarantee of my own - that they would make a mad attempt at clearing the site of fraudsters and scammers right quick.
I just cant believe it when I see people posting on this board that they just lost a $500, $1000, $2000, $7000 item on here... Do they not know that they have virtually no recourse? From experience, I believe the fraud level here is nearing an out of control state - I dont know that for sure, but I do know that everyday single day more bad actors become aware that ANYTHING is for the taking here...
Free shipping? Think most buyers these days realize they'll be paying for it somewhere or another.
In as far the 14-20% fee's I can tell you having been part in a brick and mortar game store we've have been absolutely thrilled beyond human consciousness to rake in 80% and we carried current as well as retro games back to Atari 2600 and not garbage either. Try more like 60-65% by time all said and done.
Money back guarantee? Easy, don't accept charge cards. Problem solved. Other than that every customer on the planet has a money back guarantee in online orders. They simply need know what to say. The chargeback will always side on the consumer and cost the merchant a minimum of $50 atop the loss. I'd a merchant account for near 10 years, in mail order when chargeback take place? Well, I can't recall one instance where we EVER got the product shipped back, not one. Card processor says what happens, not the consumer, not the merchant and get to pay out $50 minimum for the priviledge of aggregate processor making the decision, not you're bank, not their bank, not you're merchant account provider, none of them. You can dispute the chargeback, $25 every time the he said/she said goes to and fro.
As to fraud, well I could tell you some stories such as the time we'd a fella order day after day on our online store. Literally, hundreds of dollars a day of games and everytime cards went through. So we call our merchant account folks, they tell us "Do what you want." You can ship (got two working days do so, no exceptions) or refund the charges... Oh by the way, don't get the 2.5% commission back when refunding and oh, by the way, the refunds have a fee associated to. All stolen credit cards, literally nobody cared. If we'd shipped the stuff be out the stuff, be out the money, be out the fee's of card processing... Have ANY IDEA how difficult it is to prevent against online purchasing fraud? Ask the FTC, 8.8 BILLION of it in 2022.
eBay may mistakes just like any business does but blaming eBay for things completely out of their control just makes no sense. You want change, then start at the root of problems being banks and every entity in the path of card processing makes money coming or going. That'd be a good start. Remove consumers ability or LIMIT it when making claims against merchants ok, good with that. Or... eBay could require sellers get their merchant accounts and believe you me, 50%+ of the sellers loose them in less than a year.
We sold Pokemon cards in our store, magic the gathering and more... Again if we could get an 80% return that'd been amazing! We paid $1400 a month in rent for a little storefront before even figuring utlilities, snow plowing, store fixtures, costs of card processing and equipment on and on. 80% is DREAMY!
