@themightyquinnbrassandwinds wrote:
I have been on eBay since 1997. That's right, 22 years. It was AuctionWeb when I joined.
I have gross yearly sales on eBay approaching $4 million.
I paid eBay over a quarter of a million dollars in 2018, which, by the way, was substantially more than I took home.
I have watched over the years as my FV fees have climbed from an average of about 3% to 7.15% for my category, and that is just because I have an anchor store. I've watched as the cap on items went from $100 to $250. I watched you reduce the Top Seller discount from 20% to 10%- a move which it took $40k a year out of my pocket. And all through it I have tried to hang on and grow my business.
The final straw came this week when I was informed I have 'Very High' rates of returns due to item not as described.
We all know this new and completely arbitrary standard is just a bullying tactic to get people to offer free returns. Well, I sell musical instruments, and I am absolutely not in the business of providing free rentals for a money and paying the shipping both ways. Even so, there is an awful lot of abuse, and people will list an instrument as defective if they don't like the way it plays, just to get a free return.
Over 3 months I had a total of 28 returns due to 'item not as described'. 18 of them were abusive. And these are not appealable.
But those 28 returns are enough to get me an additional 5% final value fees with no cap. This stands to literally add $20,000 PER MONTH to my eBay bill. Because of a few people who abused returns.
This is ridiculous, and it is also an existential threat to my business.
So I did what anyone n my position would do. I called my Personal Account Manager. He's on vacation without any information for who is covering for him. I called another contact who passed my request for a call to the person covering my account manager. She's 'really busy' and will call me next week.
She's too busy to call a $250k customer who is facing a threat to his business.
Ever since I got a Personal Account Manager (for the second time) 3 years ago, I have been telling eBay what I need them to do to expand my business. eBay has ignored me. eBay is no longer interested in creating partnerships with business and growing online sales-they have instead resorted to the tactic of increasing revenue by increasing fees.
I am leaving eBay after 22 years.
If your gross sales are 4million annually, yet your taking home only 250k and paying ebay more than that in fees, something is seriously wrong with your business model. You must be paying way too much for your product. That's no ebay's fault. The guitars and basses category has a mere 3.5% fvf and FREE listings! Extremely biased considering no other category gets that kind of price break. The rest of us can only dream about fees that low. Your annual ebay fees are less than 6.5% according to your statement of 4million in sales and 250k in fees. In most other categories you'd have paid $366k in fvf alone, not including store fee.
If the 5% would cost you an extra 20k a month in fees, that means your selling 400k a month! Your seriously willing to walk away from that.
With your sales volume, you should have been starting up your own website a long time ago. You'd have been long established by now if you had. You'd have the control your looking for over how your business is managed and the way transactions are handled.
Ebay no longer cares how long someone's been selling here. In fact, I think they prefer new sellers! Many who post to these boards have been here over 2 decades.
I wholeheartedly agree the return situation on ebay is out of control.
I wish you well.
