Wall Street Journal: Major Gripes Of Ebay Sellers

[tea_past_times]

WSJ: Four Big Gripes of eBay Sellers

Some eBay sellers aren’t happy campers these days — so much that some are flocking to other online auction sites.

Sellers complain the site is increasingly punishing small-scale sellers while catering to larger merchants. What needs to change?

Scot Wingo offers some good insights on eBay’s biggest issues on his blog, eBay Strategies. Here are a few of the biggest eBay seller complaints, according to Mr. Wingo and other seller forums:

Seller fees. Seller fees have risen over the years, and sellers pay fees to both list items for sale and then they pay a commission on any sales made. The percentage of items selling has dropped, which makes it more likley that sellers are paying fees for unsold items.

Sellers can’t review buyers. EBay used to let both sellers and buyers leave reviews of each other based on the outcome of sales transactions. Some sellers feel the change leaves them unable to gauge a buyer’s reliability and gives buyers the ability to make demands by threatening negative comments.

Payment can take too long. To protect buyers from fraud, it can take up to three weeks for PayPal, one of the main payment methods on eBay, to deposit money in sellers’ accounts. Sellers say that hurts their cash flow.

Weak fraud protection. Some shoppers may avoid eBay due to stories of seller fraud and PayPal phishing scams. Sellers feel eBay needs to be better about ejecting fraudulent sellers and offering more and easier buyer protections.

[pierrelebel]

tea_past_times - why are you so negative on eBay in every single one of your post? What's in it for you? Did you short the stock? .

[lina-mallows]

I am amazed at how childish some of these discussions get.
eBay stinks. That's hard for anyone to deny.
Some will adapt, and after a while, they won't notice the smell.
Thankfully there are more fragrant fields growing as we speak- at times in Spanish O L A !!! anyone?

BTW Pierre, anyone with sound financial advice should be shorting eBay!
This way, I am always happy when sales reports indicates a profit- and the stock drops!

Anyone remember how much eBay dropped after the last quarterly report was released?

[lina-mallows]

tea_past_times - Any willingness to participate in a pool as to when eBay will eliminate ANY form of SELLER FEEDBACK left for a BUYER that doesn't come from a pre-scripted checklist of 'ACCEPTABLE' feedback?

Once we have sellers have lost the right to leave NEGATIVE or NEUTRAL feedback for any buyer; how long before we lose the right to make any self written comments at all?

[whoscloset]

** Yawn **

[lina-mallows]

whoscloset- thanks for doing us all a favour and realizing that it's time for you take a long nap.

While on vacation we have revamped our business model- and you of all people will find it interesting!
Competition is a very healthy thing.
Quality will mostly win out, so will accuracy in descriptions, and most favourable shipping options.
Stay tuned- **Yawn**

[axe_n_gear_music]

Double Yawn.

Axe.

[tea_past_times]

The point of the original post, yawning aside, was that the Wall Street Journal is on to the fact that Ebay is putting the screws to small sellers, their customers, the ones to whom they owe their original success. The cat is out of the bag, people are noticing.

[tea_past_times]

We are no longer Alone.

[ameroindustries]

I seem to make money on ebay . No problems here 150k in sales 40 k in profit net this month im not complaining . Ebay / paypal can have its 18k in fee's

[tea_past_times]

So you think 31% of your profits is a fair cost for the crappy service you get?

40+18=58

18/58=31%

[tea_past_times]

Real estate agents do a lot more for their commission and it's only 6%-10%.

Even banks only ask 5%-7% for your mortgage business.

Even credit card companies are satisfied with a 12%-28% cut.

31% is an outrageous fee to pay!!

[tea_past_times]

Would you want a credit card that took 31% in fees on every transaction?? I doubt it. How about a realtor who sold your home and took 31% in commission, not bloody likely you would go for it. But Ebay rolls along merrily because most don't stop and calculate the cost of doing business with them. When you only get stung in small amounts every day, it's harder to see the damage I guess.

[tea_past_times]

But say, is there any of your items I could sell for you?? I only want 31% of your profits?? Please??

[recped]

Tea, you need to take a course, start with business math 101

[tea_past_times]

recped
Status: Active
Registered: Jan-21-99
Country: Canada

Average Monthly Sales Data
Date Updated: Jul-07-08
Monthly Sales: $1,784

tea_past_times
Status: Active
Registered: Feb-04-04 Country: Canada


Average Monthly Sales Data
Date Updated: Jul-06-08
Monthly Sales: $2,250

OK, so if my business math is correct, you've been at this approx 5 years longer than me, and my sales are still higher than yours.

Not someone who's opinion really ever catches my attention.

[tea_past_times]

Maybe you should take some advice and pay attention to the more successful sellers once in awhile, as zillions of feedback comments on items that sell for a final price of 99 cents don't mean very much.

[tea_past_times]

Having lots of feedback on 99 cent sales is like eating soup with a fork. You look busy, but you don't get any benefit.

[lina-mallows]

For what it's worth- as if anyone cares-
lina-mallows
Average Monthly Sales Data
Date Updated: Jul-07-08
Monthly Sales: $82

And, being a Power Seller- the above numbers certainly are not correct.
It appears that PRIVATE Listings- and MULTIPLE SALES are not calculated correctly in the sellerdome equation.

It also says we had:
Listings: 8
Successful Listings: 3
Items Sold: 5

If the above is correct- and MULTIPLE items sold in a single auction are being counted- why all the missing sales?
(Our actual number of items sold was closer to 150 sales.)

So- why are we starting to use a sellerdome tool that is so badly flawed?

tea_past_times- you are SO CORRECT! There are other factors out there- and the BIG picture is often different from what is being presented.

[itrecovery]

If you want better service, ask for it. E-bay stinks it is abvious.