eBay

scodot · ‎07-10-2018

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

pb*bikes · ‎07-11-2018

My sales are getting worse. 3 small sales in 48 hours. Usually 10-12 a day. With all of the things they found wrong on my account yesterday, SOmething isnt working right.

In case you missed it. I do over 10k a week, Im at 3700. My store subscription was opted out and overcharged for $50 a month for 9 months. Then yesterday, after bulk editing, Im not being found with those who offer free returns in search at all. CS tried several searches, even though my items are showing that I pay for returns. A buyer in china skirted my block and ebay doesnt know how. They were showing as blocked and even though its site wide, my individual items were showing that I offered cheap first class hsipping, even though its unchecked and Ive never offered that in 10 years.

paudoh-16 · ‎07-11-2018

@pb*bikes wrote:
My sales are getting worse. 3 small sales in 48 hours. Usually 10-12 a day. With all of the things they found wrong on my account yesterday, SOmething isnt working right.

In case you missed it. I do over 10k a week, Im at 3700. My store subscription was opted out and overcharged for $50 a month for 9 months. Then yesterday, after bulk editing, Im not being found with those who offer free returns in search at all. CS tried several searches, even though my items are showing that I pay for returns. A buyer in china skirted my block and ebay doesnt know how. They were showing as blocked and even though its site wide, my individual items were showing that I offered cheap first class hsipping, even though its unchecked and Ive never offered that in 10 years.

PB, that is a big drop. We went from $7000 in two weeks down to a $98 sale. I'm not even sure there's a single area working without problems. I don't know. It seems like a hack to me. A very wide spread one doing what it's meant to do.

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Throw me to the wolves and I'll come back leading the pack.

hioctane62 · ‎07-11-2018

@paudoh-16 wrote:
I'm not even sure there's a single area working without problems. I don't know. It seems like a hack to me. A very wide spread one doing what it's meant to do.

Their billing dept. ALWAYS works correctly, except for the frequent "glitches" that take extra money from sellers and gives it to ebay.

paudoh-16 · ‎07-11-2018

@hioctane62 wrote:
@paudoh-16 wrote:
I'm not even sure there's a single area working without problems. I don't know. It seems like a hack to me. A very wide spread one doing what it's meant to do.
Their billing dept. ALWAYS works correctly, except for the frequent "glitches" that take extra money from sellers and gives it to ebay.

I tend to agree with you there

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Throw me to the wolves and I'll come back leading the pack.

grayirongolf · ‎07-11-2018

I'm pretty sure its been hacked. eBay **bleep** off the wrong person & they dropped a seed thats sprouting into a site wide problem.

castlemagicmemories · ‎07-11-2018

@hillbillymedia wrote:
@ed8108 wrote:
@the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth wrote

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.

That is Absolutely correct

EBay appears to intentionally play seller against buyer.

Some policies encourage rather than discourage scammers.

Some bad buyers and sellers appear to be treated as a protected species.

Etc.

What are some of the advantages for ebay to have dysfunction present ?

Example:
Good seller vs bad seller
Sellers fail to form a large cohesive group to advance their interests in opposition to ebay interests.

Stockholders are educated to believe certain policies are necessary because of the threat of internal and external enemies that ebay faces.

We were discussing something similar on another thread. Ebay is attempting to remove the "human" aspect out of selling by replacing it with automation. I have been able to "fix" any problem I have encountered with a buyer by simply talking to the buyer kindly and careingly and simply asking them what they would like to see done to resolve an issue. It seems ebay has discouraged that option and is removing that option from me. Communication IMO has always been the cornerstone of any good relationship. Instead of communicating it seems there is disdain between seller, buyer and ebay. IMO ebay is doing this in an attempt to controll as much of the transaction as possible.

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You provide great customer service. It's impressive when a seller does this.

castlemagicmemories · ‎07-11-2018

@paudoh-16 wrote:
@hillbillymedia wrote:
@ed8108 wrote:
@the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth wrote

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.

That is Absolutely correct

EBay appears to intentionally play seller against buyer.

Some policies encourage rather than discourage scammers.

Some bad buyers and sellers appear to be treated as a protected species.

Etc.

What are some of the advantages for ebay to have dysfunction present ?

Example:
Good seller vs bad seller
Sellers fail to form a large cohesive group to advance their interests in opposition to ebay interests.

Stockholders are educated to believe certain policies are necessary because of the threat of internal and external enemies that ebay faces.

We were discussing something similar on another thread. Ebay is attempting to remove the "human" aspect out of selling by replacing it with automation. I have been able to "fix" any problem I have encountered with a buyer by simply talking to the buyer kindly and careingly and simply asking them what they would like to see done to resolve an issue. It seems ebay has discouraged that option and is removing that option from me. Communication IMO has always been the cornerstone of any good relationship. Instead of communicating it seems there is disdain between seller, buyer and ebay. IMO ebay is doing this in an attempt to controll as much of the transaction as possible.
I think what is being felt and said outside of these forums is entirely different to the representation spread here. A mom and pop business are more likely to call CS when they experience a drop in sales, not here. I never came here before. I'm sure there are millions of buyers and sellers who have never been her. This is eBays forum, not a buyer or a sellers.

As a side note, we had five sales in a space of 3 hours last night, after two weeks of nothing. Magic isn't it. I believe eBay has removed the obstruction for those of us who were down the tubes.

Anyone else get a blast of sales in a few hours?

Welcome to the Board! No offense, but you are on the Selling Board (for sellers). There is also a Buying Board (for buyers). You are right, though, if there is a problem with visibility, the seller may call Ebay CS. While posters participate in these threads, sometimes Ebay Blues (Ebay employees, the Community Team) step into a thread to lend assistance or clarification.

ripcityresell · ‎07-11-2018

@paudoh-16 wrote:
@ripcityresell wrote:
@paudoh-16 wrote:
@luckythewinner wrote:
@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.
I'm really glad you believe all will be well. That should take the sting out of it.