Wonder if eBay ever grasps the reality of their situation?

[chipper01work]

Ebay has been doing a lot of crazy things lately to try to be more like Amazon such as product reviews and now showing how many other of the same items are available. They even include that the others are "new or refurbished". This is a blatant copy of Amazon and just another attempt at trying to copy the success of others.

I wonder if ebay ever realizes that Amazon is Amazon because of Jeff Bezos and eBay is what it is because of those making the decisions at eBay? eBay thinks the future is to be like Amazon. I have news for them, as much as I really don't care for Bezos, if he decided to compete with eBay with a full blown sister site to the main site ran as an auction platform, the employees at eBay would soon find themselves in the unemployment line.  eBay cannot and never will compete with Amazon. Jeff Bezos would clean eBay's clock for them if he decided to compete with them. If eBay and Amazon switched leadership today within 10 years eBay would have a higher stock price than Amazon due to Amazon stock falling and eBay stock rising. The difference in the corporations is because of leadership and not product line. 

[rolenboy01]

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@mistwomandancing wrote:

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@gramophone-georg wrote:

I don't think most sellers here have any problem whatsoever with providing exemplary customer service. The problems come when ebay sets up roadblock after reoadblock and glitch after glitch to prevent the seller from offering that service, then blames the seller for what eBay did.

Case in point: Forcing IPR on BINS even when the seller WANTS to provide combined shipping for the buyer up front.

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???  That never happened to any of my accounts.  When did they roll that out?  Or are you just grabbing something out of the air to illustrate your point?  I'm not getting what *roadblocks after roadblocks* you are saying eBay has put in your way to prevent giving great service to your customers...?

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eBay's glitches have relisted items I no longer have thus angering their precious buyers how is that any of the sellers fault? If the USPS faisl to deliver something in the time eBay states it should be the buyer is angry again at me the seller for something beyond my control yet eBay tells them to be angry at me over it which is very outlandish.

[myangelandmyprincess]

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@missjen316 wrote:

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@myangelandmyprincess wrote:

All businesses, companies, sellers, etc. make errors people aren't perfect computer programming isn't always perfect.  What makes a good company is how these mistakes are handled and rectified.   eBay can copy any and all business models they want to trying to be "better" since it works for that company.  And that's exactly what they do. The constantly change things trying to fix it and make nit better.  When the easiest thing to do would be have amazing customer service so that when an error or mistake happens from any of their business model choices it's fixed quickly and easily.  Have a perfect business model doesn't exist and eBay needs to quit chasing that.  What makes a business a good business is how the customer service handles the mistakes.  If eBay never fixes that nothing else they do will matter IMO 

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I completely agree BUT.....IMO eBay wants the SELLER to provide the exemplary customer service. They want the seller to kiss the ground the buyer walks on and give them the sun, moon, stars and whatever it takes for the buyer to have a positive buying experience. That's about all eBay is concerned about when it comes to customer service. The seller is not treated like ebays customer even though they pay the fees to sell here. In fact eBay considers the buyer to be ebays customer but all responsibility falls on the seller and eBay does not provide anywhere near good customer service to the seller ever. And in a lot of cases to the buyer.

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But they don't even provide that great of customer service to buyers.  They don't give them correct information.  They lead them down wrong paths.  If they want sellers to have excellent customer service they should lead by example.  If they provided excellent customer service to sellers and back them up when they should sellers would feel safer providing excellent customer service for their buyers 

[ersatz_sobriquet]

Yes, forcing IPR on bins is part of the latest seller fall update. 

[gramophone-georg]

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@mistwomandancing wrote:

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@gramophone-georg wrote:

I don't think most sellers here have any problem whatsoever with providing exemplary customer service. The problems come when ebay sets up roadblock after reoadblock and glitch after glitch to prevent the seller from offering that service, then blames the seller for what eBay did.

Case in point: Forcing IPR on BINS even when the seller WANTS to provide combined shipping for the buyer up front.

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???  That never happened to any of my accounts.  When did they roll that out?  Or are you just grabbing something out of the air to illustrate your point?  I'm not getting what *roadblocks after roadblocks* you are saying eBay has put in your way to prevent giving great service to your customers...?

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I AM  "the customer". I'm a buyer. The experiences I'm relating through personal experience have happened to me AS A BUYER. 

IPR on BINs

Being told "This seller does not offer combined shipping" at the "request invoice" stage when they DO.

Calculated shipping telling me my zip code is invalid... sometimes

"Sorry, this function isn't available right now. Please try again later"

"OOps! Something went wrong! Please try again later".

And on, and on, and on. None of this is done by sellers, BTW.

I'm here as a buyer to tell sellers that this site has serious issues that are causing buyers problems with buying and paying for YOUR items. If you don't want to hear about it, just ignore it and go on your merry way like eBay seems to be content with doing.

The biggest food for thought here is the FACT- not pulling it out of the air- that I don't encounter these issues when I shop anywhere else. Not on any of the auto parts suppliers sites, not on any of eBay's competitors sites.

Chew on that for awhile.

[mistwomandancing]

Thank you, georg. 

I've never run into any of those buying problems here, so am more than a little horrified to know anyone else does... let alone that it may be MANY potential customers who have this much difficulty trying to buy here.

I've run into trouble once trying to shop online at Kohl's and an order of basic household supplies from Target or Walmart, delivered.  I do realize that they are microscopic in size compared to eBay, but perhaps that doesn't matter to the programming or whatever directs all of this.

Sorry you experience this trouble trying to buy from eBay sellers.  That would definitely be pretty frustrating.

[gramophone-georg]

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@ersatz_sobriquet wrote:

Yes, forcing IPR on bins is part of the latest seller fall update. 

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I have a record seller in the Netherlands I buy a lot of records from.

Two weeks ago, I bought about 10 and went to request the invoice. Up popped the big red banner that the seller doesn't offer combined shipping discounts. I know better- this isn't our first rodeo.

So, I send him a message. Few days go by, and all I get is the shakedown "Pay up, Foo!" notice from eBay. So I finally contacted him about it off eBay (we also both belong to an antique phonograph group).

He'd been waiting for me to request an invoice. He also never got my message.

He went round and round with eBay who told him it's a glitch, it's on the buyer's end, yadda yadda yadda (as if the buyer programs his own "end" of eBay).  Poor guy was at his wit's end. I finally remembered about the "seller additions and subtractions" line on the invoice from my selling days and walked him through that. Worked fine.

This past Sunday, I see he has some new stuff I want so I buy one and suddenly there's no "confirm" page so I can keep shopping... eBay wants payment. NOW.

Well, I wanted six more items!

So, I had to contact him AGAIN and round and round he goes with eBay telling him his account is fine and it's all on the buyer's end. FINALLY after three days of garbage a rep tells him that YES, there's a new policy that they just implemented this new quarter on BINs under a certain amount that require instant payment, no input from the seller wanted, thank you very much!

Here's the rub- these are $5-15 dollar records, with shipping on each one being $28.00 from NL to USA. Now, of course seven records can travel for a couple bucks over the price of one, but eBay wants to charge me $196.00 shipping!

"No problem", he says. "I'll just refund you the excess shipping".

But But But... I have to educate him that eBay won't reimburse him the FVFs they are going to charge on the ENTIRE amount, so this won't work! In fact, I don't know if PayPal will credit the fee on a partial refund... will they?

So, we're at sort of an impasse here as far as me buying from this seller on eBay anymore. Is it any wonder the "off eBay transactions" are becoming a red alert for eBay? What are we supposed to do here?

I bought just the one item. Stinks for this seller, and all sellers just like him... and buyers just like me.

This has absolutely GOT to be nothing but another eBay money grab. I can't think of any other reason for it. It doesn't benefit the seller, and it doesn't benefit the buyer. It's a money grab on inflated FVFs.

[reallynicestamps]

I saw this article reprinted in th Globe and Mail (Canada).

https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2017-10-05/amazon-s-domination-is-blocked-by-a-delivery-tr...

It's mostly about shipping.

It interests me that AZ started as a site with its own product (mostly books) but is rapidly becoming a site for others to sell on.

And AZ is trying to get into shipping for those sellers.

Meanwhile, eBay has carefully avoided that snakepit, except for the Global Shipping Program (spit spit spit) which although it has been badly explained to sellers, has been quite successful, painful as it is for me as a Canadian to admit it. And even there, they outsourced the GSP to PitneyBowesInternational rather than reinventing the wheel, including outsourcing GSP Disputes to PBI, which was smart.

If eBay would stop pushing auctions, and allowed them to die the natural death they will, they would be rid of a lot more of the Disputes that cost them time and money, as well as unhappy members.

[reallynicestamps]

@nawlinsron2

ebay is a mere gatekeeper that hands out maps to the world's biggest flea market.

Yes. That's true.

It is also important to remember that AZ was begun by a guy with a vision, as was eBay.

But AZ's guy stuck around, Pierre Omidyar sold his stake and moved on.

Since then eBay has been run by hirelings.

[gramophone-georg]

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@reallynicestamps wrote:

@nawlinsron2

ebay is a mere gatekeeper that hands out maps to the world's biggest flea market.

Yes. That's true.

It is also important to remember that AZ was begun by a guy with a vision, as was eBay.

But AZ's guy stuck around, Pierre Omidyar sold his stake and moved on.

Since then eBay has been run by hirelings.

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Amazon was a vision. They had a business plan they had faith in and stuck to it through many years of multiple losses.

eBay's first pile of poop stuck to the wall. They never had a real plan, and still don't. If it's anything, though, it's definitely NOT "chasing Amazon". It's chasing AliBaba. Cheap Chinese junk.

Pierre hired Meg because he really didn't know what to do with his success or even understood it, I think. This tells me there was no vision and no plan. It was an unexpected fluke. Poop, meet wall. The worst part of it is that the poop flingers think that because it stuck they are geniuses. No, the wall was rough and the poop was sticky.

Meg famously said "a monkey can drive this train." I don't know about you, but to me that just screams "clueless". Thinking it is bad enough, but actually articulating it? Hoo, boy.

Well, we're on our third monkey and the train somehow still chugs along. Nobody knows to where, exactly... but thar she goes, matey!

[tunicaslot]

But georg the fact of the matter is you're still selling here, I'm still selling here as are millions of other sellers. Your record connection obviously thinks, dispite the glitches, that Ebay is the best venue for his sales or he would have moved elsewhere and you would have pruchased the records from him on another venue.

I hate some policies - I hate the glitches - but we continue to sell and buy here. I do think their IT is pretty inept as we seem to solve 1 problem only to find another - but we have both loyal sellers and buyers that have been here for 20 yrs because in the end ddispite the glitches, scammers, and bad sellers - it works for them. Complaining is only stressing you out - it has no impact on Ebay itself.

As retrose says - we use it and it uses us - and when it's no longer useful to us - we move on. 

[themagicmountain]

Everyone including Ebay is having problems because Amzon is running an ILLEGAL MONOpoly

Jeff Bezos is just a pawn of Wall Street. Wall Street likes the idea of monopolies and control, and they hold his strings

They even gave him a newsaper so he could control public opinion and try to steer people away from monopoly busting, and try to intimidate any legislators who even consider it

Anyone who cares about their small business should be pushing legislators to break up the Amzon monopoly. If small business doesnt fight back, then Amzon will get so powerful that no legislator will even think about monopoly busting

[themagicmountain]

Bezos does what he is allowed to do

and amzon makes its money from cloud services, not retail

Amzon is propped up for the sake of having and expanding a monopoly in retail

control over buyers and wiping out small business

[themagicmountain]

Amzon has all kinds of problems

The money comes from cloud services

But Wall Street promotes Amzon because Wall street wants a monopoly

[themagicmountain]

All small sellers should be pounding on legislators to break upthe Amzon and G%%ogle monpolies.

They are annihilating small sellers

[myangelandmyprincess]

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@themagicmountain wrote:

Bezos does what he is allowed to do

and amzon makes its money from cloud services, not retail

Amzon is propped up for the sake of having and expanding a monopoly in retail

control over buyers and wiping out small business

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I don't think you understand a monopoly