eBay is getting so sad & desperate...

[scodot]

This is more a rant than a question but I feel at some point eBay has to start cultivating and doing something for their sellers. This year has been nothing but efforts to exort more money from sellers and for sellers to take the brunt of all the unreasonably expectations from eBay. I make all of these statements below knowing that I have an option to use eBay or not and my team is working diligently on getting us off eBay. eBay won't understand until enough sellers leave and they have no product to bring in buyers. For every buyer you try to keep with your unfair policies you are going to lose a seller that brings in thousands of buyers with good products. I could have 500K inventory listed on eBay if I wanted but because of their complete disregard for sellers I only maintain about 150K in inventory.  How can that be a successful business model.

I have reached out to eBays customer service multiple times and have been promised call backs from eBay leadership and not one was ever kept. As the CEO of a multi million dollar company I feel I deserve enough respect not to have to call a $10 customer service rep. to discuss my unhappiness with eBays performance. Everytime I speak with eBay customer service rep they can't even defend the idiotic policies that are being rolled out by eBay leadership this year.

1st eBays new return policy...

Beginning in April eBay basically admits that sellers can fraudulantly open up item not as describe return requests and customer service can not correct it if it is wrong. Then coincidently eBay decides that we are going to start charging sellers an additional 4% if they have too many item not as desribed returns. Clearly eBay is trying to inflate the number of item not as describe returns so they can charge this additional 4% fee. How unsavory is that? The billions they make each year and they go after their sellers like this. SHAMEFUL!!!

2nd - Free return policy

In follow up to a replacement return request that we received, we were required by eBay to ship out the replacement before the item was returned. Subsequently the post office lost that return and the item has never been received back. After calling eBay we were told that eventhough eBay required us to ship the replacement item before the original was received back we are responsible for the item being lost as we agreed to the return postage being sent. So if a buyer buys an item and the post office loses it the seller is responsible and if the buyer returns the item the seller is still responsbile if th eitem is lost. So again eBay has no accountability for their terrible and unfair seller requirements. Many other ecommerce platforms offer free returns because the platform is resposible for the return after the transaction occurs. If you are going to force sellers to offer free returns I want to know how many returns a buyer has sent back through eBay before I agree to do business with them. eBay has this information but won't share it with the sellers that actually own the products so we have to do business with everyone and hope eBay weeds out those that abuse returns. Keep in mind I own all my merchandise and should not be penalized if I cancel an order because I don't want to do business with an individual.

3rd New eBay Payment Processing

eBay can't roll out even simple quarterly updates without impacting everyones sales. In april I lost almost $15K in sales due to an eBay system update. Atleast this last incompetent roll out we got an apology (usually are told nothing is wrong). Costed sellers unimaginable lost sales but we got a generic apology letter (Senior Leadership at eBay should have lost their jobs). That leads me to this point. eBay can't manage their platform no one has any confidence that they can manage payments as well. No one likes Paypal but guess what we get our funds with very little exceptions. The batch process eBay is offering is horrific, I have already had to cut ties with a payment provider that used batch processing. The delay in funds with batch processing is completely antiquated technology and causes tons of aditional man hours within accounting department (Reconcilling sales). Real time processing is the only acceptable option and I still wouldn't want eBay or some flunky of a payment processing team doing it.

All in all eBay you are truly letting down your sellers..I may be a small fish in a big pond ; but I have a good pulse on the industry and you are in for a rude awakening. Without sellers like myself on your platform you won't get all these new buyers you want so badly. My recomendation is buy your own stuff and sell it on your own platform and then you can lose all the money you want with your unfair seller policies. Big box stores don't even come close to these types of policies for their customers and you know why? Because they would go out of business if they had to adhere to these types of represive seller policies. Clearly ebay does not care about the success of their sellers so it is time for us to take our great inventory to a market place that actually appreciates what we have to offer and treats us as if the want our business.

eBay leadership thinks they are smarter than everyone else, trust me your not!

Thanks

[paudoh-16]

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@scodot wrote:

This is more a rant than a question but I feel at some point eBay has to start cultivating and doing something for their sellers. This year has been nothing but efforts to exort more money from sellers and for sellers to take the brunt of all the unreasonably expectations from eBay. I make all of these statements below knowing that I have an option to use eBay or not and my team is working diligently on getting us off eBay. eBay won't understand until enough sellers leave and they have no product to bring in buyers. For every buyer you try to keep with your unfair policies you are going to lose a seller that brings in thousands of buyers with good products. I could have 500K inventory listed on eBay if I wanted but because of their complete disregard for sellers I only maintain about 150K in inventory.  How can that be a successful business model.

I have reached out to eBays customer service multiple times and have been promised call backs from eBay leadership and not one was ever kept. As the CEO of a multi million dollar company I feel I deserve enough respect not to have to call a $10 customer service rep. to discuss my unhappiness with eBays performance. Everytime I speak with eBay customer service rep they can't even defend the idiotic policies that are being rolled out by eBay leadership this year.

1st eBays new return policy...

Beginning in April eBay basically admits that sellers can fraudulantly open up item not as describe return requests and customer service can not correct it if it is wrong. Then coincidently eBay decides that we are going to start charging sellers an additional 4% if they have too many item not as desribed returns. Clearly eBay is trying to inflate the number of item not as describe returns so they can charge this additional 4% fee. How unsavory is that? The billions they make each year and they go after their sellers like this. SHAMEFUL!!!

2nd - Free return policy

In follow up to a replacement return request that we received, we were required by eBay to ship out the replacement before the item was returned. Subsequently the post office lost that return and the item has never been received back. After calling eBay we were told that eventhough eBay required us to ship the replacement item before the original was received back we are responsible for the item being lost as we agreed to the return postage being sent. So if a buyer buys an item and the post office loses it the seller is responsible and if the buyer returns the item the seller is still responsbile if th eitem is lost. So again eBay has no accountability for their terrible and unfair seller requirements. Many other ecommerce platforms offer free returns because the platform is resposible for the return after the transaction occurs. If you are going to force sellers to offer free returns I want to know how many returns a buyer has sent back through eBay before I agree to do business with them. eBay has this information but won't share it with the sellers that actually own the products so we have to do business with everyone and hope eBay weeds out those that abuse returns. Keep in mind I own all my merchandise and should not be penalized if I cancel an order because I don't want to do business with an individual.

3rd New eBay Payment Processing

eBay can't roll out even simple quarterly updates without impacting everyones sales. In april I lost almost $15K in sales due to an eBay system update. Atleast this last incompetent roll out we got an apology (usually are told nothing is wrong). Costed sellers unimaginable lost sales but we got a generic apology letter (Senior Leadership at eBay should have lost their jobs). That leads me to this point. eBay can't manage their platform no one has any confidence that they can manage payments as well. No one likes Paypal but guess what we get our funds with very little exceptions. The batch process eBay is offering is horrific, I have already had to cut ties with a payment provider that used batch processing. The delay in funds with batch processing is completely antiquated technology and causes tons of aditional man hours within accounting department (Reconcilling sales). Real time processing is the only acceptable option and I still wouldn't want eBay or some flunky of a payment processing team doing it.

All in all eBay you are truly letting down your sellers..I may be a small fish in a big pond ; but I have a good pulse on the industry and you are in for a rude awakening. Without sellers like myself on your platform you won't get all these new buyers you want so badly. My recomendation is buy your own stuff and sell it on your own platform and then you can lose all the money you want with your unfair seller policies. Big box stores don't even come close to these types of policies for their customers and you know why? Because they would go out of business if they had to adhere to these types of represive seller policies. Clearly ebay does not care about the success of their sellers so it is time for us to take our great inventory to a market place that actually appreciates what we have to offer and treats us as if the want our business.

eBay leadership thinks they are smarter than everyone else, trust me your not!

Thanks

---

My goodness. I don't even know what to say. Very well and eloquently stated. It just boggles the mind that eBay management can't come through with their promises of return phone calls. A company of this size and no one is looking at the performance of these so called "managers".  

Your email has certainly given me the push to do what I already knew I would have to do. The sheer and utter ignorance to sellers, whether they are large or small account, is consistent and continual. We are not large sellers by any means, but were comfortable drawing in five figures every month with happy customers. I never thought we could possibly hit 2 weeks and a $98 sale!

Our returns increased dramatically this year as we implemented the free returns on January 1st. What a disaster. We were of course assured that if we handled the returns without eBay having to be involved, all would be fine. They knew exactly what they were doing. Push the free returns, elevate the returns for the seller. Invoke the extra extortion 4% FVF. 

We are sellers. We know how to sell. We've sold successfully on other sites and had been able to have a much more satisfactory relationship with our buyers. We have changes in the works and hopefully, next year at this time, this will all be a bad dream.

Thank you for your comments and your insight. My partner and I very much appreciate it.

[luckythewinner]

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@scodot wrote:

 eBay won't understand until enough sellers leave and they have no product to bring in buyers

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Or to put it another way ... eBay understands that enough sellers are staying.

[paudoh-16]

[paudoh-16]

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@luckythewinner wrote:

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@scodot wrote:

 eBay won't understand until enough sellers leave and they have no product to bring in buyers

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Or to put it another way ... eBay understands that enough sellers are staying.

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Lucky, have you ever lost 15 grand in a month? One would think that deserves a little kindness and understanding?

[ripcityresell]

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@paudoh-16 wrote:

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@luckythewinner wrote:

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@scodot wrote:

 eBay won't understand until enough sellers leave and they have no product to bring in buyers

---

Or to put it another way ... eBay understands that enough sellers are staying.

---

Lucky, have you ever lost 15 grand in a month? One would think that deserves a little kindness and understanding?

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What was unkind about his statement? He basically said eBay does what they do because they know that there will be many other sellers to replace us. Sorry that OP is losing that much business, but the cold hard truth is that eBay doesn't care.

[paudoh-16]

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@ripcityresell wrote:

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@paudoh-16 wrote:

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@luckythewinner wrote:

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@scodot wrote:

 eBay won't understand until enough sellers leave and they have no product to bring in buyers

---

Or to put it another way ... eBay understands that enough sellers are staying.

---

Lucky, have you ever lost 15 grand in a month? One would think that deserves a little kindness and understanding?

---

What was unkind about his statement? He basically said eBay does what they do because they know that there will be many other sellers to replace us. Sorry that OP is losing that much business, but the cold hard truth is that eBay doesn't care.

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I'm really glad you believe all will be well. That should take the sting out of it.

[lyan9337]

For every seller who comes here to whinge about bad sales, there are hundreds of thousands that are obviously doing well.

Yes, some of it is eBay, but much of it is failure to adapt

[luckythewinner]

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@paudoh-16 wrote:

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@luckythewinner wrote:

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@scodot wrote:

 eBay won't understand until enough sellers leave and they have no product to bring in buyers

---

Or to put it another way ... eBay understands that enough sellers are staying.

---

Lucky, have you ever lost 15 grand in a month? One would think that deserves a little kindness and understanding?

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I agreed with the OP. 

On the other hand, I do not agree that you are the arbiter of what constitutes an acceptable response on this or any other topic.  

[paudoh-16]

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@luckythewinner wrote:

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@paudoh-16 wrote:

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@luckythewinner wrote:

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@scodot wrote:

 eBay won't understand until enough sellers leave and they have no product to bring in buyers

---

Or to put it another way ... eBay understands that enough sellers are staying.

---

Lucky, have you ever lost 15 grand in a month? One would think that deserves a little kindness and understanding?

---

I agreed with the OP. 

On the other hand, I do not agree that you are the arbiter of what constitutes an acceptable response on this or any other topic.  

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Way to completely miss the point. Your opinion, like mine is nothing more than that.

[luckythewinner]

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@paudoh-16 wrote:

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@ripcityresell wrote:

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What was unkind about his statement? He basically said eBay does what they do because they know that there will be many other sellers to replace us. Sorry that OP is losing that much business, but the cold hard truth is that eBay doesn't care.

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I'm really glad you believe all will be well. That should take the sting out of it.

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secondchancemedia said that he is sorry the OP has lost business, and echoed the OP's sentiment (and mine) that Bay simply doesn't care. 

He never even remotely suggested "all will be well" - in fact he pretty clearly implied just the opposite. 

Way to completely miss the point.

[the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth]

Back a few years ago any seller who hit below standard was kicked off the site with no recourse. At least with this 4% thing they're giving sellers a little leeway to claw themselves back.

BTW Ebay doesn't like buyers any more than they like sellers. They run tests, run the numbers and take the most lucrative path. It just happens that buyers are harder to replace and they're the ones with the money.

[paudoh-16]

We all will have to wait for the second quarter numbers. As mant hsve saud, if negative growth is mentioned, the stick holders will know.

I feel for those suffering right now. My partner and I are not tethered to ebay for groceries or any kind of necessity. We are financially set. This is nothing more than an extra we really don't need but we have enjoyed the experience.

That being said, we are humane enough to know how many are suffering, have been devastated. How in good conscience can we not care about them?

What does it say about those who don't care?

[hillbillymedia]

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@paudoh-16 wrote:

We all will have to wait for the second quarter numbers. As mant hsve saud, if negative growth is mentioned, the stick holders will know.

I feel for those suffering right now. My partner and I are not tethered to ebay for groceries or any kind of necessity. We are financially set. This is nothing more than an extra we really don't need but we have enjoyed the experience.

That being said, we are humane enough to know how many are suffering, have been devastated. How in good conscience can we not care about them?

What does it say about those who don't care?

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No doubt ebay`s bean counters have weighed it all out to benefit their bottom line and to hell with anyone else. If the bean counters are anticipating any loss, ebay will just run promos like crazy to pad the bottom line.

[paudoh-16]

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@hillbillymedia wrote:

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@paudoh-16 wrote:

We all will have to wait for the second quarter numbers. As mant hsve saud, if negative growth is mentioned, the stick holders will know.

I feel for those suffering right now. My partner and I are not tethered to ebay for groceries or any kind of necessity. We are financially set. This is nothing more than an extra we really don't need but we have enjoyed the experience.

That being said, we are humane enough to know how many are suffering, have been devastated. How in good conscience can we not care about them?

What does it say about those who don't care?

---

No doubt ebay`s bean counters have weighed it all out to benefit their bottom line and to hell with anyone else. If the bean counters are anticipating any loss, ebay will just run promos like crazy to pad the bottom line.

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There is only so much that been counters can do before stepping over the line. Sure businesses can pad numbers from overseas money but then It's negative growth. I truly do feel sorry for those who don't see the writing on the wall.

All the supporters, all the nay sayers are not going to stop this bleed. It's started. Don't care about who believes or who doesn't. The markets dictate and they are all starting to say the same thing. Kupbens apology did not go unnoticed. Sorry.