@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:
prettywoman,
I see your point. Your question really is: If something caused the flow of Chinese merchandise to the US to completely stop, what would ebay do? I think that's nearly impossible to answer with any real accuracy, because so much would depend on why the merchandise stopped coming, and the effect of the "why" on the overall economy. One seemingly obvious point is that consumers (and ebay) would have to depend on other sellers. And other products? Hard to say. If trade history in general is any indication, if the ban was aimed at Chinese products being exported to the US, it is very likely that Chinese sellers (or others) would set up warehouses in Canada and elsewhere, and China would ship to Canada, and the products would be shipped to the US via Canada (or some other foreign country).
A whole different scenario if Chinese production comes to a halt because factory workers are sent home due to the virus. But whatever the cause, the effect would be profound, because China is such a large global trading partner for not just the US, but many other countries as well.
Thank you for an intelligent response. Finally, a few people are getting it. Perhaps it is my fault that I was not clear about this, but yes, that is exactly what I was taking about. I think you have a very valid point about the probability of Chinese sellers just shipping their goods to Canada (the same way they have been doing it before, and also to the UK, Australia, etc.) and just list them as "Ships from..." I often see the same pearl earrings, for example, same pictures, shipped from all those countries. Unless all other countries would also ban the imports, there would be some way for those items to be advertised on eBay U.S.A. I did not think about this.
I also know, a lot of people think eBay U.S.A. can never go back to how it was in the beginning, and maybe this is correct. Maybe it is just wishful thinking, but I think eBay could separate its marketplace for China - the same way it did with ebay.ca and ebay.au and ebay for Germany, France, etc. Then those who only want American sellers could do that here, and those who wanted to search for Chinese sellers' items could log in to eBay China. Just a thought.
I was recently looking for genuine leather satchels here. Although I have entered leather for material and satchel, for style, and even vintage once, before anything else, I was shown all kinds of artificial material bags made in China (it is easy to see because of their mannequins presenting those bags), many of which were not even a "satchel" style. Page after page. Hundreds and hundreds of them. One really has to be inventive to locate now anything that is true vintage or genuine silver, genuine leather - and some may not want anything else but Vegan, that is fine, but they may still be looking for vintage or some specific brand that is buried under an avalanche of these other listings. Masses of these products - often with the same generic photo - are offered from abroad and the only difference is that some cost a few pennies less. Meanwhile, if you are not careful, you may lose hundreds of listings if you fail to save those elsewhere, like Auctiva and the similar services and you go over the 3 months period you can list those. Assuming eBay has this restriction in place in order to free up its servers, why not store the Chinese listings on another server and do away with the silly 3 months rule?
One of the reasons I so loved eBay in the beginning was the unique items it offered. There is nothing unique in mass-produced, ill-described and look-alike items. I think it is quite irresponsible and gives eBay today a rather bad reputation that could be changed, if they wanted to. But do they? If I wanted to shop on Alibaba, I would, it is just that I do not wish to and when I shop here on eBay, I am looking for the unique items. Maybe I am one of those Dinosaurs that have strange buying habits or selling preferences, but I cannot imagibe stocking and selling those items, either.
PW
