I'm really not sure what were paying for. I preface this by saying there is nothing more disheartening than having an issue to only be mocked by the "cheerleaders" about somethng were doing wrong. Sure, we dont always do everything right but we've done 3 million in sales here with over 24 thousand sales.
Im not sure what we've been paying for lately. We all know now that ebay hides our listings as they say to drive a 'positive buyer experinece" but we know this isnt true. Many of us were/are buyers and see how hard is it find anything which is the opposit of a positive experience. We know what we speak as weve spent over $100,000 dollars a year for more than one year and almost $200,000 one year. Due to Devins reign of terror, we cant find our own items and just stopped spending money here. Ebay was so concerned about having x number of buyers that they literally chased away some of their best buyers and their family members.
My point today is really about whats happening today and yesterday. Were paying $300 a month for store, yet weve had a blackout since 7 o'clock last night. The one message we received was a buyer saying
"Did I order 1 or 2 ? First one said transaction complete a few hours later it was gone, Ebay sent msg problem with it. Reordered it, hours later got msg was a problem with it. Checked card statment 2 charges to you on it. I only need 1 set of them."
A very cheap purchase that now I have to convince the buyer he only ordered one as hes seeing 2 charges. My job has been to be an apologist for a terribly poor working platform with terribly short sighted rules in place. I understand companies need to make profit and I understand some corporate raiders were knocking at the door and I understand this destroy the sellers for profit business model needs to end.
I was having the same issues yesterday as everyone else. First I received a payment from paypal but, nothing in ebay for several hours.
We cant make a single mistake here without being terrified of having our fees raised even though we have a stellar track record and spend more time fighting to keep that, than actually doing what weve always done, which is create an awesome store. Yet ebay constantly has issues and we pay them handsomely for that. We sign crazy terms of service becasue of captured market or we shove off all of the work weve done over the last decade. We didnt sign up for this **bleep** and we certainly shouldnt be charged when they are only creating problems and dont even have to show our items. That wording about driving a better buyer experience so some items may not show up in search should absolutely be illegal. They could park every listing of yours or an arbitrary amount of your listing yet still charge for the entire month because some person or algorythym doesnt think you add value for the buyer. You could have a perfect rated account with 24,000 sales like ours and they will create a great buyer experience by showing the customer someone with far less standards.
Were not rewarded for good service anymore and that makes zero sense. The people running this company are greedy and they are breaking people for fun. Ebay was extremely profitable for us and demand for our products is higher than ever. our investments are huge, supply is diminishing and competition hasnt gotten much worse.
This company is morally bankrupt and gets on by screwing over its sellers who may have been some of its best customers. After years of helping to build ebay into something awesome the greedy shareholders demand a company squeeze those people until they break financially and/or mentally. Those loyal people who offer something that can only be found on ebay in many cases.
What happened under Donohue and Whitman pails in comparison to the nonsense under Wenig. Back then with all of the changes we could still build a business, grow, and profit. under Wenig, were treated like bad children always waiting to be punished and ripped off. Also not knowing if our items will come up in a search that we once came up in due to our seller standards. It must have people not listing new or good stuff as it seems to be a waste of time these days.
I hope we get a new administration that allows us to retroactively challenge this corruption. TOS that makes the marketplace not responsible for all of the terrible stuff they do to increase share price by few dollars for people who only have a hand in pushing bad policy, in bankrupting a once awesome company.
I digress.
Yesterday I sent 4 screenshots to cs. My store search wasnt working for anything. One search term should have pulled back 204 items like it did just now and it pulled back zero. By the time cs gt back to me, one wanted more info of course and the second one said it must have been a browser issue. So they either had no idea that all of ebay was in tatters yesterday or its the second time blaming something on the browser that magically works fine today. It feels like they dont pass on messages of issues to all of cs to keep deniability as we know thats a frequent tool. How many times have many here been talking about an issue and ebay cs says 5 dfferent things?
Wouldnt cs wide messages alerting that there may be an issue be pretty easy. Color coded perhaps for confirmation so they know what the customers are talking about.
If you are going to deny everything I said or just write something snide, first answer the question of whether you are paid in any way through any company to answer on these boards. I know people have been accused and of course noone works directly for ebay but there are companies who will tow the line for companies acting inappropriately toward their members. Some of these answers are so obvious that someone is answering on behalf of ebay with insider knowledge. This stuff will come out at some point. Just dont bother answering in the negative if you are working by writing your words. Sellers come here with real grievances and some very evil person thought it was ok to employee people to gas light and deny things going on vs. just fixing a terrible platform. It doesnt matter who that person works for if they are working by being on these boards.
Devin and the shareholders destroyed this company and they will walk away with more money than theyll ever need with piles of small businesses that did everything they asked yet still were just farmed for monthly fees. From what I read, ebay is one of the most hated companies out there and doing some of the dumbest things for short term gain. And stop calling Elliot activist investors, theyre corporate raiders and they cant grow companies organically, so the make their money off of destroying peoples livelihoods.
Weve had zero contact aside from the issue I mentioned of the person seeing 2 charges and getting 2 error messages yesterday (that will come back and haunt me Im sure). Its been 15 hours of no sales or contact. We have almost 5000 in demand items listed, many of which noone on ebay has. Even when sales are terrible blackout status, we still get the lowballer questions and offers. Were getting none of that.
The new CEO should reverse course on many of these terrible changes and ebay should sell off stubhub and classifieds and hopefully someone can get back to growing this bsuiness for ebay vs faking it with complex tricks. Wallstreet says to sell the most un-educated people the most complex financial instruments is how you make money. Thats how the psychopaths and narcissists do it anyway. The one side makes a few bucks, the other gets destroyed.
I really believe the government may change and the doors will open up on how harmed people were and by who. People should behave better as this corruption may be nearing its end.
We should definitely be getting some free months since instead of ebay fulfilling what we signed up for, they just changed it to they dont have to do what youve been paying for for years, which is showing our listings and then we'll do the selling.
Back to no sales and No communication and back to paying for a broken store. I think its time to start my career as a youtuber about ebay like Rally Roots and daily refinement. Ive got numbers and growth to show growth for 10 years and then a cliff last June. You cant adapt to changes when you dont know what they are and they wont tell you because they dont know or they dont want you to its just a money grab. People steal from you and then act like its your fault is adding insult to injury.
Were customers of ebay but, were treated like employees when its fitting.
