Why the hell is this site ALL ABOUT THE BUYERS?

[jamesboutique]

We have been on Ebay for over 28 years. Ebay has become all about the buyer. They say there is protection for the sellers, THERE IS NONE! All the protection goes to the buyers! We pay on average $1500 in fees. For what? Pictures and listings? We pay for our store. Ebay sucks now. We cannot even return feedback. UGGH!

[godzilla_goose]

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Well why don't I just double all my prices on eBay and make more money so I can put some into a "safe fund" for when I get ripped off. THINK!! Obviously, when you raise prices your sales tend to decline and then your profits lessen. If it just meant raising prices to get more profit everybody would be doing that.

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@southern*sweet*tea

va4vi,

I didn't suggest to you to raise your prices by doubling them. southern*sweet*tea didn't either. southern*sweet*tea, from what I have read, raises their prices 5% to factor in possible "losses".

When so many eBay sellers who post on these forums incessantly COMPLAIN about SCAMMING buyers, what do you expect eBay (or anyone else) to do for YOU and/or YOUR business?

As far as I am concerned, eBay doesn't give a rat's backside about buyers OR sellers. eBay is looking out for eBay.

If you sell on eBay in such categories in which you (actually) sustain a relatively high "nuisance return rate", you really have few options that I can think of.

1) You decide to stay within your preferred category but raise your prices SLIGHTLY to factor in anticipated "losses" (while trying to remain competitive pricewise) OR

2) You decide to stay selling on eBay but you sell a different line(s) of merchandise that isn't (aren't) as prone to "nuisance returns" OR

3) You can complain and complain and complain and complain and complain some more . . . until your keyboard dies. . . . or you run out of meds (or any other "preferred substance" with which to cope) . . . . whichever comes first OR

4) You can quit eBay altogether (to maintain whatever sanity you have left that you value) and find something else to do to make a living.

[gsl-elect]

OMG you are so right!! Sold an item recently buyer claims paypal account was hacked, but paypal says confirmed address and ship item.  Then paypal says if you shipped the item you would not be covered under protection.  Money is on hold until I repsond and I have three choices from Paypal, send back the money, send back the money and send back the money.  I wonder which way this is going to go! They will get their money back regardless of what I do.  

DEFINATELY FOR THE BUYER - HANDS DOWN!!!!

[southern*sweet*tea]

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An expense to cover for bad sales is still coming from your profit. If you did not have to supply that "fund" for the losses you that now say never happen to you, you would have 5% more profit from your sales. "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

I "unsubscribed" from eBay's e-mails today so that I no longer will get eBay's ad's in my inbox urging me to buy ... It's the best I've felt all day.

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@southern*sweet*tea

va4vi,

You STILL don't "get it".

To me, you aren't distinguishing the difference between SALES (which is the top line figure) with PROFIT (which is the desired bottom line figure) in an Income Statement.

When southern*sweet*tea adds a small percentage to the SALES PRICE of the item (at the time of listing), this small percentage "covers" for the anticipated losses from ALL eBay sales for which southern*sweet*tea has made provisions.

In other words, by factoring in anticipated losses INTO the listed Sales Price of the items for sale on eBay, ANY actual (or realized) losses from nuisance returns are already covered by southern*sweet*tea's paying buyers. Furthermore, by factoring in anticipated losses INTO the sales price of the items, this maintains the desired profit margin FOR southern*sweet*tea. Now, IF southern*sweet*tea doesn't actually have any realized losses that were anticipated, then all of that money is "gravy" and goes straight into PROFIT.

If you can't figure it out, think of it this way:

An eBay seller wants to sell using "Free Shipping". As we all should know, there is no such thing as "Free Shipping" since the seller will add the shipping costs INTO the listed price of the item.

Now, IF the US Postal Service should raise its postage rates, it is ONLY prudent for the sellers who ship via USPS to also raise their sales prices of their items at the same time in order to maintain the same level of PROFIT.

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@godzilla_goose

Correct, and eloquently stated, thank you

[luisvelho]

Well allow me to disagree....in ebay.de (germany) I bought a smartwatch last week that was advertised as new, tried to contact seller two times to check, got no answer from him. When item arrived it was clearly (very) used. 

Gave negative feedback strictly following the feedback policy.

The morning after I had an email from Ebay accusing me of being unfair with the customer. Replied to show my surprise with this email from Ebay and the result was that my negative comment was deleted. Wrote another email to complain of that and the result was that the negative rating was deleted alltogether.

Seller is conning several customers by luring them to used item selling them as they were new. 

What does Ebay do ? erases negative feedback from the seller's page, maintining the sellers feedback at +99% levels. Smart.

[the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth]

Feedback should be the last thing you do. You should have filed a not as described complaint first.

That said, it is way too easy these days for some sellers to get deserved feedback removed 

[luisvelho]

As I said I contacted the seller two times with no answer before getting feeback.

Seller's business model relies on the assumption that only a fraction of customers will return used the item they bought as new. This was clear by reading other seller who have not yet seen their messages removed.

So Seller attracts buyers to false new items, and then when byuers complaint the option is only to return the item. In my case, for instance I could not return the item anymore for several reasons. But in any case, even if I could return it, this kind of fraudlent business model should not be an allowed and even less supported and cherished by Ebay.

If you want to report this seller´s  to ebay, this kind of fraudulent malpractice doesn´t also fall in any of the allowed reasons Ebay makes available for a Buyer to report a Seller.

In any case, if you read Ebay´s policy about feedback there is nothing about erasing ratings.

Quite the contrary, Ebay says it can eventually remove comments if they dont follow feedback policy (which mine did. The comment I left was "Used item sold as new. No communication. Horrible"), but ratings (negative, neutral, positive) will be kept in any case.

So, the question remains, why and with which criteria is Ebay rigging the Seller´s feeback rating and support the activity of fraudulent sellers in the marketplace ?

I continue to say: At this moment, Ebay is definitely not a Buyers site anmyore. It was before, but no longer.

[the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth]

Ebay is not supporting this seller behavior. They allow buyers the recourse of returning the item for a full refund. I don't know how much more you think Ebay can do? Go to the seller's house and check out their item before listing? 

If sellers require intervention by Ebay they are awarded a defect. Several defects and they pay higher fees. More defects and they permanently lose their ability to sell. Feedback should be the last thing you do, after you have exhausted all avenues to fix the problem. If you cannot return and use the MBG then that's on you.

[va4vi]

Am I a couple of steps ahead of you?  Sales and profits run hand-in-hand!!  You can't profit if you don't sell and you can't sell if your prices are high.  It's a trade-off.  Either you go for volume at a less price or higher profit at a higher price but fewer sales.   If  I just raise my prices my sales would decrease and so would my profits.  

As far as dishonest buyers go who abuse the system... I don't believe they care what the price is because they are not going to be paying for the item, so why should they target the lower or higher priced items?  It's arbitrary to them.  They are like a shoplifter - they take what catches their eye regardless of price.  Then there are the pure scammers who are deliberately stealing and know how to work the hierarchy of systems involved,  They will be looking for the higher priced items.  They are out to resell the item because they want money - not your item.  They are far more likely to target you the higher your prices are.  They are looking for sellers with fewer sales who are less likely to detect a scammer... often they approach the newer sellers to do the transaction outside of eBay.... or the pull the "box was empty" scam.  So fewer sales would make you a more likely target.

All in all shoplifting, scamming, abusive return policy etc, methods that rip-off sellers, are NOT part of "business".  They are counter to business because "business" is the buying and selling of goods or services.  Scammers don't buy, they steal.  And everybody should want to eliminate theft.

My issue was that I do not feel eBay even looked at the case, nor looked at any of the "evidence" I provided.  They just rubberstamped in favor of an abusive buyer regardless of the fact that I had all the evidence while the buyer had none.  There is not that much money involved as compared to several other cases I am reading about on these boards... but the system is broken yet nobody is doing anything about it and some sellers/posters think dishonesty is OK.  And yes, sellers are leaving.  I too will slowly leave as inventory sells out.  Little profit, no fun, total aggravation, too time consuming to protect against both dishonest buyer AND eBay who enables scamming without even trying to reduce it.   I don't have to come to eBay to get ripped off.  I can go anywhere for that.  And when sellers leave, they are also lost as buyers.

[dbmm-media]

 28 years?   you must be confused... Member since: May-23-02

[kaylybon0]

if there is no sellers then there woudnt be any buyer. sellers do all the grunt work here list the item and then ship it. and all a buyer has to do is open up a item doesnt match listing discription case and ebay sides with the buyer. so there is no protection for the sellers.

[kaylybon0]

well you need to stop defending ebay and help get some things changed because it will happen to you one day and you will change your outlook on Ebay

[kaylybon0]

if it wasnt for sellers there would be no buyers so Ebay needs to protect the sellers more Ebay makes more money off the sellers with the fees than buyers so let that sink in.

[kaylybon0]

i dont know where you get your info Ebay makes more off sellers than the casual buyer. Ebay gets a larger portion of fees from the sellere than the buyer 

[southern*sweet*tea]

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i dont know where you get your info Ebay makes more off sellers than the casual buyer. Ebay gets a larger portion of fees from the sellere than the buyer 

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WHERE does the money come from that the sellers pay Ebay?

[goodluckselling]

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Do you think that eBay says buyers and sellers meeting on eBay, and then doing the sale outside of e-bay to save eBay fees is "just part of selling online" .   I believe that this is a widespread and recurring problem with eBay's return policy and it should receive the same notice and attention for the enabling of unfair business practices which hurt the seller as the policies eBay institutes to protect itself from abuses. 

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eBay obviously thinks this is wrong but the question is do they catch every one that does it?  The answer is NO and guess what they think about the ones that got away with it?  It is just part of doing business as a marketplace with 25 million sellers.  There really is no other response as they have put into place policies and technology to stop it as much as possible.

• Just like eBay the marketplace makes changes to make it less easy to circumvent the policies
• YOU as a seller on eBay can also make changes to limit your risks. 

You can not continue to operate the same when the entire industry is moving very fast to new technology and ways of doing online business.

A couple of the best new changes eBay has made is the buyer money back guarantee and the refined seller standards.  This has allowed users to browse, shop and buy on eBay with much more confidence than before. 

If you have ever purchased on eBay before this policy you would remember doing a whole lot of vetting the sellers before you paid.  Can you imagine what a nightmare that was for buyers who were overwhelmingly starting to use mobile devices to shop and buy on eBay.  Now it is pretty much the norm to buy from a mobile device, and more buyers return because they were able to complete transactions successfully because of the policy in the way of a better seller pool to buy from.  They can relax a bit knowing eBay has their back.

Good Luck Selling!