I've logged 247 transactions with eBay so far.
But what attracted me to eBay has gone out in smoke: cheap prices, ability to rate buyers or sellers, listing flexibility.
As a (Canadian) buyer...
Most listings now calculate not only shipping but import fees and taxes for me. Amounts being billed are FAR more expensive than those that the governement is charging. So I systematically avoid all items from vendors adding those fees to their items which ends up limiting drastically my choices. The payment of duties and taxes is the responsibility of the importer in all countries. Sellers should keep that in mind and make their items more available by not charging these "export" fees.
Another point, I want to make. Procédures to ship to Canada are very easy from any US Post Office. But many sellers do not care to make their product available to Canada. But that, I understand: it's their freedom of choice and eBay has nothing to do with their decision EXCEPT THAT they could inform sellers how simple it is to ship to Canada instead of offering them ways to add to their prices with export fees. By the way, when a seller adds export fees ans taxes, does eBay get their sale commission on the fees too??? 😉
As a seller:
In the early days of eBay, you could rate a buyer (or a seller) by its positive-negative-neutral score. You could refuse to sell to a buyer with too many negative listings or to buy form a seller with a similar record. Today, negative ratings can't be left for, for example, non-paying bidders. It is certainly unnecessary trouble to report a non-paying bidder, let eBay's Resolution center come together and tell you after a few weeks that "you can relist your item"; too bad if you tried to sell summer goods at the beginning of the summer and ran into a non-paying bidder becuase by the time you can relist, the seasonal high demand window is closed.
To me, it makes no sense not to be able to leave a negative comment for a non-paying bidder. Should I bid any unreasonnable maximum price for all the goods that I would like and decide to pay only auctions that ended at a reasonnable price while being a non-paying bidder with no consequence on my behaviour for items whose auction prices ended being too high?
Lately, I was a victim of a non-paying bidder. I was also the victim (3 times) of sellers that didn't want to ship because the final auction price for the items they were selling ended too low. To me, bidding is a contract; and it is binding.
That basic business rule has been forgotten bu eBay.
What will be left of my eBay more-than-ten-year experience? Over those years I found some good suppliers of toner and ink for printers. But all of them have an outside eBay internet store. They'll keep me as a Customer...but eBay won't.
Lokk at ebay's stock performance since early 2013: stagnant trading range. That's where they belong: no more growth
