Why I stopped seller here.

[3brothersdeals]

Have seen several posts like this lately. Thought I'd throw mine in.

Started here Oct. 1998. Closed my store and left Sep. 2018.

I was always about the money not the 'fun' of selling. Profit was all that mattered to me. I could pretty much endure anything ebay threw at me including JD's reign of terror that saw so many good sellers suspended. Just show me the money. But after almost 20 years, no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get past the extortion penalty fee of 40% (soon to be 50%) for returns from scammers, liars and thieves with ebay playing judge, jury and executioner just so they can line their pockets with undeserved and unearned income. I just couldn't do business anymore with such a corrupt policy in place. ebay crossed the line from a barely tolerable and questionable company to dishonest one.

Add to that the postal increases, fee increases, pay-to-play schemes, broken search engine, forced best offer, endless glitches, broken AI, scams, counterfeits, China, abysmal outsourced customer service, manipulation at every turn with ridiculous and nonsensical changes that seem to come hourly. All with a reward of hidden listings and dwindling to no profits while piles of unrelated ads increased in almost every single space of my page.

In short, ebay has over time become everything I abhor. A narcissistic and smug monopoly that has lost it's soul and resonates discord, hatred, bias and greed. I just couldn't take it anymore and have gone to other more friendly and profitable venues.

Best of luck to those who stay.

[cashvaluerecovery2011]

Did you really put that in question form? Yes there are many more appealing competitors to choose. Monopoly or not.

[shop_giftworthy]

I think many sellers have complaints about ebay for various reasons, depending on which new policy directly impacts their sales.

Personally, the yarn sellers in China have impacted mine to some degree. They can sell a ball of yarn for a dollar, with free shipping, you just have to wait a month for the slow boat to bring it. Worth it to save the money. 

Another thing that I believe impacts sales volume is the ads on your listings. When I view my listings on my phone, and scroll down to the bottom, there are several off-ebay websites advertising the same product, and I have no way of knowing how many potential buyers leave my listing and buy elsewhere, while ebay collects the click fees and doesn't pay me any portion of it, when legally, they should. I paid for my listing and put the effort into creating it.  But they created the policy of "your only remedy is to stop selling on ebay" and updated the user agreement.  They used to let these off-ebay sites advertise their lower price of the identical product I was selling in that listing and at least they have changed that.  I called them up and chewed them out for it, and I'm sure other sellers did, too.  It would be nice to have access to the click through rates on my listings that buyers are using to buy my product from someone else off ebay, but that info is "confidential", I'm sure. I'm pretty sure if I rented retail space in a shopping center, the shopping center manager isn't going to place posters on my front door advertising lower prices for the same products at a different store in another shopping center and encourage customers to shop elsewhere, and tell me to like it or lump it.  It's anti-trust.

Then there's the drop shippers. I don't mean real drop shippers, who have contracts with warehouses full of product, advertise them on ebay, take the orders, and let the warehouse ship them. I mean the illegal ones here on ebay. The ones who put up a storefront, make a duplicate listing of your product, raise the price and when a customer places the order, they then order it from you and have you ship to the customer. This is illegal, folks. Some ebayers believe this is just a sales practice and totally okay, because they gave you a sale. It isn't okay. They legally have to have a contract with your express permission to upsell your products for you.  I've got one blocked after I noticed that they were pulling it on me. Here's what happens, they buy the product from you after the customer buys it from them - you ship it fast, arrives in great shape, whatever, you did your job and the customer's happy, right? Sure, they're happy with the drop shipper who sold it to them. They don't know who you are. They won't return to your store to buy more product, they go back to the drop shipper and next time they do, that drop shipper might order the product from someone else. You don't get that repeat business. I sell consumables, and repeat business is important. When the customers uses up their product and needs more, I want them to come back to me. And to refer their friends.

I mentioned that subject here in the community to an ebay rep and they stated "it's against ebay's policy". Against ebay's policy, my foot. It's against the LAW. View the website for the Federal Trade Commission. But guess what? The guy's still here on ebay, doing it. Operating a business with what appears to be a ton of different products, and he doesn't have any. Just drop shipping off other ebayers, has an "anchor" type store, I think, and ebay won't shut him down. Even though he's operating illegally, and they know it. I've called and reported it, and the ebay rep told me they have other reports on the same store, and that was months ago. He's still here, because ebay wants the fees. Ebay gets their FVF on his sale, and when he buys the product from another ebayer to drop ship - ebay's getting paid double on one product. Also illegal. In the end, it hurts the consumer, because they're obviously overpaying. They would have saved money had they gone to me first. And they would have found me quicker had he not been on ebay cluttering the site with his illegal listings.

So... what do you do? Keep chugging along and do nothing. Or organize. There really needs to be some sort of sellers' coalition or group with legal representation that ebay would have to deal with every time they try to update the site in areas that impact sellers and their income. There's enough sellers to have coalition in every state. 

Complaining here really accomplishes very little, if anything. Legislation and legal representation accomplishes more. In my humble opinion, if you're paying ebay for their services to advertise your product, you should have some rights in how it works, as a matter of good faith. We're not employees, although ebay appears to be trying to move us in that direction. "Managed payments" is one step toward being 1099 contract employees. I won't sign up for it. They say that they'll be requiring all sellers to use that service, which also anti-competition and anti-trust. They're planning to do it by 2021 - no doubt giving them time to get legislation passed that will allow them to do it.

Just because this site is their baby, doesn't necessarily mean they can diaper it any way they want to. There are limits and laws governing trade and commerce. They're just a service provider, like your cable company, and you pay them for their service. Expect them to give you your money's worth. If there's something you disagree with, call them up and tell them. Loudly. 😄

Have a wonderful day and I hope everybody has a huge selling weekend 🙂 

[this*old*attic]

Yes, but it’s soooooo much easier to gripe on the boards and call opposing views cheerleaders, than it is to organize, get political and actually fight for change.