Time to flee fleabay if you're a seller....

[ajkula66]

http://pages.ebay.com/sell/update08/rew ... ov=004KO#4

Gotta love these two...

In a small number of cases (fewer than 5% of all payments on eBay), PayPal will hold payment funds until either the buyer has left positive Feedback or 21 days have passed without a claim.

and

Buyers will only be able to receive positive Feedback

Usually, it's buyer beware. But this time, more and more, fleabay is turning into seller beware...

[rkawakami]

As noted here:

http://pages.ebay.com/sell/update08/basic/index.html

I can see this fee structure adjustment leading to even more outrageous shipping and handling fees for those sellers that are trying to recoup their eBay fees. Ugh.

Meg Whitman, come back!

[KristianJ]

Doesn't seem that the fees for Australia's branch of eBay are changing...yet; I hope they don't.

Seems though that the FVF only goes up by a few dollars on an item sold for $1000 based on my rough in the head calculations (which of course would add up if someone sold plenty of items), but still, I doubt that there's a real need to up the fees, and provide a couple of utterly ridiculous stipulations in the process.

[goofyGAguy]

5.25% to 8.75% is quite a jump, isn't it?

[rkawakami]

My calculator says that's a 67% increase for auctions that end up at $25 or below. The tiered fee structure isn't as bad as it first seems. Sure the insertion fees will be slightly discounted ($0.05 for auctions starting at $24.99 or below; wow!), but for a laptop that ends up selling for $200, the FVF will change from $7.00 to $8.31. This appears to hit the "nickel-and-dime" sellers harder (those < $25) than the higher value items (where the rate change is from 3.25% to 3.50%).

edit: Here's another link at eBay which gives more details about the upcoming changes:

http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200801.sht ... 1-29054823

[chiral]

As of last week I am a platinum powerseller, having sold more than $280,000 of merchandise in the last year on eBay. As it is the buyers can hold the sellers hostage because a negative hurts a seller far more than it hurts a buyer. Also, buyers who pay via PayPal backed by credit card to do chargebacks for up to 6 months after they pay for the item, long after feedback is left by the seller.

I predict the new game of "bid what you need to win, then demand a discount or you'll leave a neg" game.

I have closed my eBay account. But some sellers will put up with it because it is true that the venue is so profitable that it is STILL worth it (for many products). eBay just wants to maximize their profit. I don't see how you can blame them. They have a product that is more valuable than they first thought. Why not charge the hell out of it?

[goofyGAguy]

The retards at eBay said:

Sellers may only leave positive feedback for buyers (at the seller's option).

This is a load of crap!

[Phazer]

Not trying to start a flame war here by any means. But as a predominant buyer only, I hate the way sellers won't give feedback until the buyer does. The "only" criteria for the seller should be....was the "payment process" to your likeing? I've had a few sellers give feedback to me before I even received the product and I was really impressed because this happens so seldom. Yes..I leave positive feedback immediatly if the product is as expected. If there is a problem, I make multiple contacts with the seller and I "always" give the benefit of the doubt in all correspondents. I just believe that eBay has been taken over by too many greedy sellers and it has lost it's innocents of long ago. Someone would be smart to start up a new one and limit it to only private sellers. I know this is just a pipe dream and I'll continue to buy, (and occasionally sell) but not without long and hard thought over what I'm looking at. Usually I skip right over "stock" photos and look to see if the picture was taken in someones kitchen, garage, or basement. I myself would rather but from someone with low/small feedback than someone with a bazillion feedback.

Just my .02 worth. . . .not that anyone cares.

[aaa]

Not trying to start a flame war here by any means. But as a predominant buyer only, I hate the way sellers won't give feedback until the buyer does. The "only" criteria for the seller should be....was the "payment process" to your likeing?

To counter:
a) Customers can be unreasonable too, even though it's probably pretty rare. Yes, there are also lots of scamming buyers. Just try selling any popular electronic and watch the Nigerian offers roll in.

b) Alot of buyers don't leave feedback at all... no way to know if everything went OK or what.

c) Who cares? Most sellers don't care as much about buyer feedback, and those who do usually require a teeny minimum of 5 or such.



It just occured to me, now it will take days for those Nigerian bidders to be removed by eBay, instead of the far faster process of them being pummeled into the negative feedback range.

[goofyGAguy]

b) Alot of buyers don't leave feedback at all... no way to know if everything went OK or what.

I can relate to that.

[rkawakami]

I too am mostly a buyer. I think I've only sold about 10 items on eBay; flash cards and amateur radio gear. So I agree that the only thing that a seller can leave as feedback is how well (or not) the buyer communicates and pays for the item. For my sales, I left feedback before shipping the product. Like Phazer, I rarely encounter this with my own purchases. Withholding feedback as a seller until the buyer leaves his/hers is one of the things that I read in the "eBay Hacks" book, but that I did not agree with. Also, I do not have separate buyer and seller eBay IDs. My understanding is that most high-level eBayers engage in this type of separation, as chiral has pointed out one reason why this is done ("a negative hurts a seller far more than it hurts a buyer"). My personal feeling about this is that you can't get a clear picture of your trading partner unless you see how they operate on both sides of a transaction.

Communication is high on the list with me. If I have a problem with an item, the seller is contacted and given plenty of time to respond. Most of the time things are settled very quickly and to the satisfaction of both sides. The two times I really wanted to leave a negative, eBay canceled the seller's account before I could. A recent transaction which resulted in a neutral was played out for well over a month. A camera I bought for work was never delivered:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0167299554 (JE3462HR Chromachip camera for $30)

My neutral feedback: "LostGR8DealPaid11/1EMail&Phoned7xIn40DaysToldWouldShip11/30Refunded12/14&NoStory"
(I like using all 80 characters in my feedback ). Interestingly enough, this seller did leave feedback right after I paid for the camera. In my mind, he did not deserve a negative since I was refunded but the lack of communication needed to be noted.

If eBay makes changes to the feedback system where comments like this cannot be left, then it's a step backwards for buyers.

[ajkula66]

I've been on both sides, and will say that I've experienced some serious cases of abuse from buyers, as well as fraud attempts. In all honesty, I'd say that I've been far less pleased with ethics on the part of certain buyers I've had, than of the sellers I've dealt with. And the new set of regulations is only going to make this worse, and by a huge margin.

[dsigma6]

The retards at eBay said:

This is a dark day for eBay sellers.

[jdhurst]

I purchased some used electronic equipment from a reputable business via eBay some time ago. They sent me an email with a new DVM at a low price that I wanted to buy. They sent me an eBay link with the Buy Now price as agreed, so I did. All went well.

Time passes. The same outfit recently sent me another email with a used power supply I am thinking about. The link: Google Checkout.

More dark days for eBay if they keep up these antics. ... JDH

[RealBlackStuff]

Alternatives to fleabay in no special order:

http://ebid.net/

http://esyll.com/

http://www.isell.com/

http://www.satisfaction.com/

for your 'green' stuff: http://www.wxtrade.com/

http://ez33.com/us/index.php

http://ubid.com/

http://www.ziing.com/

http://www.webidz.com/

That should keep you going for a while.
Next step, alternatives for PayPal:

http://www.tprweb.com/public/440.cfm
(BIDPAY is no longer operating, see Ray's post below)

http://www.auctioncheckout.com/

http://www.easycharge.net/

Good for a laugh and some lies: https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/websc ... n3-outside

http://moneybookers.com/app/

Google Checkout - A Great Alternative to Paypal
If you are an online merchant then why not start accepting payment via Google Checkout? The Bay of E does not allow Google Checkout & If you try & integrate the payment system into Ebay you will get a warning message along the lines of "Google Checkout is banned by Ebay as a payment option" But what you CAN do is invoice your winning bidders via Google Checkout... simply click the number of bids your item received that has sold, then click "Show Email Addresses" once you have your winning bidders email simply "send invoice" via Google Checkout..

AND UNTIL JAN 2008 THERE ARE NO FEES WHAT SO EVER FOR RECEIVING MONEY!
THEREAFTER IT WILL BE 1.5% + 15P PER TRANSACTION - Much better than Paypal's 4%

[rkawakami]

Next step, alternatives for PayPal:

Oohh... that reminds me... if anyone is using (er... USED) BidPay in the past, you may want to log into your account before you can't do that anymore:

Urgent Notice

Effective December 31, 2007, BidPay.com, Inc. will be discontinuing operations. We regret any inconvenience to our users and thank you for your patronage over the years. Please note the following important details about the shutdown. Please plan accordingly.

· Effective IMMEDIATELY, BidPay will no longer accept new BidPay account registrations.

· Effective IMMEDIATELY, banner insertions for new auctions will be disabled. That means that any attempts to add “BidPay” as a payment option in auctions will not be effective. Accordingly, you should offer alternative forms of payment.

· Effective 5:00 P.M. PST, December 25, 2007, BidPay will cease accepting payments.

· From January 1, 2008 through 11:59 P.M. PST, January 31, 2008, registered users will have read-only access to their BidPay account information.

· Customer support services will be available through January 31, 2008 by contacting support@bidpay.com.

[RealBlackStuff]

The sneaky ways of fleabay:
When I signed on to eBay this morning, this is what I found:
http://rtm.ebaystatic.com/0/RTMS/Image/ ... 50x250.jpg

Amazing how they manage to make you think, things are cheaper:
- Lower Insertion Fees and adjusted Final Value Fees

You can interpret this as most people would do:
- Lower Insertion Fees AND Lower Final Value Fees

But effectively it means:
- Lower Insertion Fees and Much Higher Final Value Fees

[ulrich.von.lich]

It has never happened to me but if I sold something but the buyer never paid, do I have to pay for the final value fees?

I've seen some buyers who left neutral feedbacks such as "Good seller" or "Thanks." instead of positive feedbacks. I think those people won't leave positive feedbacks unless they are extremely pleased; I've also seen some buyers who left positive feedbakcs such as "laptop was damaged but the communication was ok", they were probably far from being 100% satisfied but afraid of the retaliation. I guess now we are about to see some positive feedbacks such as "Bad buyer, try to negociate the price after the sale" etc. Maybe we will have to pay more attention to the words not only the color.

In a small number of cases (fewer than 5% of all payments on eBay), PayPal will hold payment funds until either the buyer has left positive Feedback or 21 days have passed without a claim.

I wonder what those cases would be. That's really unfair to the seller. Some buyers never left me positive feedback even after I had done for them. I wouldn't sleep well for the 21 days. And I guess nobody will ever dare to ship stuff to Africa.. or Europe

[Phazer]

And as I sit here waiting for feedback from the sellers for over a week now, and I left positive the day the items were received.

[ajkula66]

Phazer wrote

And as I sit here waiting for feedback from the sellers for over a week now, and I left positive the day the items were received.

Many a seller sucks. However, that shouldn't be a reason for taking feedback privileges from all of us, because, in all honesty, it's our fees that keep leeches running eBay and PayPal alive and fat....

[rek]

It has never happened to me but if I sold something but the buyer never paid, do I have to pay for the final value fees?

No; you can put an unpaid item claim in with eBay and they will refund the final value fee they would have charged at auction close.

[bill bolton]

because, in all honesty, it's our fees that keep leeches running eBay and PayPal alive and fat....

"in all honesty"

The reality in selling of any sort is that it is buyers who keep sellers, and everyone else in the supply chain, in business.

No buyers = no sales = no sales fees for the faciliators.

[ajkula66]

bill bolton wrote:

The reality in selling of any sort is that it is buyers who keep sellers, and everyone else in the supply chain, in business.

No buyers = no sales = no sales fees for the faciliators.

I was not trying to claim differently, since what Mr. Bolton has stated is one of the very basic rules of economy since God knows when, and I'm not about to re-invent the wheel...

However, auction in the "classic" sense if you will (Christie's, Sotheby's etc.), implies fees for both buyers and sellers, although of different nature/structure/amount. No such rules on eBay, which is fine and well, until you put the buyers in the position that they can abuse sellers in so many ways it's not even funny, while keeping the burden of fees on the sellers alone.

[RealBlackStuff]

As of last week I am a platinum powerseller, <snip>

I have closed my eBay account. <snip>

I'd be interested to find out if you are going to another 'market', and if so, which one.

The new price-structure just means that all sellers will/have to increase their prices, to cover the higher selling fees.
Bad business for all parties involved.

[bill bolton]

However, auction in the "classic" sense

eBay has never ever claimed to be an "auction in the classic sense" and that has never been its operating model.

If you don't like the market, go sell somewhere else.

[goofyGAguy]

The new price-structure just means that all sellers will/have to increase their prices, to cover the higher selling fees.
Bad business for all parties involved.

Not trying to be contrary here, but how does one raise prices on auctions?

[rkawakami]

"Shipping and handling" fees.

[goofyGAguy]

"Shipping and handling" fees.

Which will result in fewer sales in the long run.

[RealBlackStuff]

Once more, those who are jumping the eBay-ship, where do you go to?

There's this interesting website: http://powersellersunite.com/
Form your own opinion.

[bill bolton]

Not trying to be contrary here, but how does one raise prices on auctions?

By offering more real value to the buyers, that way buyers will often bid up to a higher price!

This is basic Marketing 101, but value propositions seem to be totally lost as a concept on those eBay sellers who seem to primarily regard buyers as the enemy (as this thread amply illustrates).

Cheers,

Bill B.