eBay

pierrelebel · ‎08-19-2015

http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/abn/y15/m08/i19/s01

momcqueen · ‎08-19-2015

My eyeballs popped when I read that headline this morning too.

Once you get into the story, it's not so bad. To be 'fair' is to likely make neither side 'happy'. I said essentially the same thing when I used to be a journalist. So much of reporting on an issue is 'he said, she said' and if a reporter does his or her job correctly, you find the truth somewhere in the middle and no one likes it. People embroiled in a dispute want only for you to take their side when they are in the thick of it.

That being said, as a former newspaper editor, I stand fully in favour of blood-pressure-raising headlines but a more accurate descriptor for that post (the post by ecomebytes, not you) would be along the ones of Head of eBay Customer Service Says Expect Fairness, not Happiness in Disputes.

Also, if you read the Letters today, you get one from a seller who has confused Cash on Pickup as a payment option and Local Pickup as a No-Shipping option. He merely has the two confused, there is no big glitch. I don't have an account with ecommebytes so I can't tell him that.

pierrelebel · ‎08-19-2015

" if you read the Letters today,..."

That is always the best part of the day.

http://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2015/8/1439870048.html

Except, it is so one-sided (eBay is doing everything wrong), a bit like this board some days!

cumos55 · ‎08-19-2015

Quote...

, Boehm says there are a lot of instances where the buyer or seller walks away from an eBay dispute resolution and not feel happy.

"We may be doing the right thing, but they may not be happy."

But, he said, eBay aims for fairness, not happiness.

"If you as a seller did everything you could do to make sure the item was properly represented, and actually what's going on is the buyer is remorseful, we're going to say the seller was not at fault," he said.

Today....

The seller is always at fault..... well almost always

Postal service makes a "mistake".... Seller is at fault.

Buyer says the item was not described fully... in spite of seller's accuracy... seller is at fault...

There has to be a way to attribute faults to a buyer...... that scams many sellers.....

------------------------------------------------------

The following was reported on eBay.com

Grandma sells a unique item at auction.... Highly collectable.....cutlery set..

Starts auction at $0.99... and final price was $15,000

Buyer gets item and states .....not as described.... Buyer returns nonsense... the equivalent of rocks... and gets money back and keeps purchased item.

Now what????? Absolute theft!

Did this actually occur.... If not to Grandma... this is something that does happen on eBay....

---------------------------------------------------

The following was also indicated on eBay.com..

Seller let it be known that his brother bought 10 items on eBay...... an scammed the seller for 9... of those purchases/.... Got the item and a refund!

----------------------------------------------------

A book was found by me...... Valued at about $5,000 US...

Was trying to figure out when to list....... How to list it is known... and.... How to ship it is known?

How how to insure against a scam.......... Scammer insurance???

Will wait for this next big announcement.......

pjcdn2005 · ‎08-19-2015

I was going to comment on the same statement in the article..

"If you as a seller did everything you could do to make sure the item was properly represented, and actually what's going on is the buyer is remorseful, we're going to say the seller was not at fault," he said.

That doesn't happen in most cases although to be fair, based on situations that I've read about, ebay does seem to be leaning a little bit more in the sellers favour than they did a year ago. Obviously it is difficult to rule in a he said/she said situation but it does seem that in many situations,info that is available isn't really looked at...they just assume that the item was nad and then the seller is on the hook for the return shipping cost.

momcqueen · ‎08-20-2015

Yeah, I haven't had many if any problems as a buyer lately but I am also a lot more careful than I used to be about where (or from whom) I shop. As a seller, I've been fortunate too. I found that once I gained a higher feedback count beside my user ID, set my prices high, and went to fixed price, my customer base shifted for the better.

Ebay is a funny creature. It's unique but must compete directly against other great beasts that do what they do very well without all the give-and-take of buyers and sellers fighting amongst themselves. You have to admit there are some absolutely terrible sellers on ebay, just as there are some horrible buyers too. Everyone in the middle gets tarred with the same brush.

Although, I would have to assume the cost to do business is less, given that ebay has no warehouses or distribution centres.

rose-dee · ‎08-20-2015

Hi 'mj' -- Here's my two cents, if anybody cares.

While I agree with much of what you say, I think eBay has got itself caught in a conceptual rut of interfering between seller and buyer for its own purposes (i.e. trying to appear like any other commercial retailer, which it isn't), a rut that it now may not be able to, or want to, crawl out of.

EBay decided about 3 years ago that the best way to make its platform look like those of big online retailers was to take as much control over the buyer-seller relationship as possible. Much of this approach was no doubt driven by the demands of eBay's largest sellers, who really prefer automated contacts and whose volume can handle defects, poor DSRs and bad feeback, turning it over clean and fresh every 3 months.

What that has resulted in is a rather hideous structure of rules, policies, restrictions and automated 'crime and punishment'. Poor eBay, caught in the web of wanting to look like a Sears or Home Depot type of online retailer, but having to deal with millions upon millions of individual sellers and buyers, some of whom inevitably will be bad apples that will tarnish its reputation and drive buyers away.

I've always felt that the marketplace (i.e. buyers), not the marketplace owner, should largely determine who succeeds in selling and who doesn't. Of course basic rules are necessary to keep the worst abuses from occurring, but one almost needs a degree in "eBay law" to sort out, interpret and understand the tangle of rules and policies we currently have. It's anything but KISS.

Instead of constantly fishing for new (totally green) sellers and then leaving them to make mistakes and get punished by eBay until they either learn or get knocked down a few rungs, why not transition the new sellers slowly but reward the really successful sellers? Not only monetary success, but success in customer satisfaction. Even a smaller seller who gives outstanding customer service will be encouraging that buyer to come back to eBay, perhaps to buy from other sellers.

As I've said before, I wish eBay had a more robust method of "training" and limiting its new sellers. And by "reward and incentives" I mean a lower level of control over those sellers who have proven they know how to make buyers happy and keep them coming back. If someone who has been selling on eBay for years with a near-perfect record makes a slip, they really should get a pass.

I don't have a lot of sympathy for sellers who need rules to manage their own customers properly, including returns of merchandise.

momcqueen · ‎08-20-2015

I agree completely. You've expanded on what I meant. Although I think the 'he said, she said' scenarios inevitably crop up with sellers who don't know the fine details of every rule or for buyers who know them all too well.

But I like rules. Nothing is more frustrating than to get engaged in a situation and find out there are no rules. I think the defect system is a good one but you are correct, a seller who's had a perfect track record for years only to stumble should be able to apply for a 'mulligan' like the brand-new ebayer is able to call Customer Service and ask for an Unpaid Item Strike to be removed. And does anyone at ebay ever check the Report a Buyer reports? I somehow do not think so. Anytime I report anything whether it is a listing violation or theft of my photo or anything else, I imagine that file being sent straight to a trash heap buzzing with insects.

In a sense, the unsolicited increases in 'selling limits' are supposed to be the big reward. A few weeks ago, I received a 'good job' message from ebay telling me I could now sell an impossibly high amount of goods in dollars per month. Dream big, I guess. I'd have to take up trade in solid gold bars to meet it and then list 100 of them at a time.

Gotta run. I hear there's gold in them thar hills.

rose-dee · ‎08-20-2015

I know you're away (and I should get back to work too), but I wanted to reply to a couple of interesting things you've said.

My approach is one old simple rule. If eBay had no rules at all to control buyers' and sellers' behaviour, I would still have one: "The buyer is always right". Period.

Yes, this does mean I have to accept the risk of occasional unfair treatment or even fraud and rip-off at the hands of a buyer. I'm prepared, as a business, to allow for "shrinkage", even though I will do everything in my ability to prevent it. I'd be willing to trade off eBay's web of rules in exchange for the occasional such loss.

There is a far lower risk of losses and expenses relating to problems in selling on eBay than in retail situations, in my experience, and I think many eBay sellers forget that. What I see constantly on the discussion boards are buyers who are completely unwilling to accept that risk -- or any risk -- as part of selling. And they want eBay to take the risk away from them, with more rules.

I'm not a complete dreamer though. I realize eBay will never undertake a wholesale revision of its rules and policies. The best I'd wish for, as I said, is a bit of leniency for experienced sellers with an otherwise good record.

Increasing our selling limits isn't a reward, because as you say they're often silly amounts that almost no smaller seller can take advantage of anyway. Given the current 'crime and punishment' system, I think having a "free defect removal" say, for every year of selling defect-free, would be far more useful to most of us than have a million dollar selling increase.

pjcdn2005 · ‎08-20-2015

EBay decided about 3 years ago that the best way to make its platform look like those of big online retailers was to take as much control over the buyer-seller relationship as possible. Much of this approach was no doubt driven by the demands of eBay's largest sellers, who really prefer automated contacts and whose volume can handle defects, poor DSRs and bad feeback, turning it over clean and fresh every 3 months.

I agree with much of what you are saying but not everything is about the big retailers. I think that they wanted to take more control to help get rid of the many bad sellers, not to help out big retailers. I don't like the way that they set up some of the systems and I don't think that it just punishes the bad sellers but also punishes the good ones.

rose-dee · ‎08-20-2015

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
I think that they wanted to take more control to help get rid of the many bad sellers, not to help out big retailers.

Certainly getting rid of bad sellers that made this site look like a driveway yard sale gone wrong helped everybody, but it also may well have been a pre-requisite of big retailers coming on board (i.e. clean up your act if you want us). I don't think it's unreasonable to conclude this. I didn't actually say that everything was about big retailers, just that much of what drove eBay to make very extensive and quick changes was likely due to demands by such retailers. You'll remember how loaded 2012 and 2013 were with major rule and policy changes.

Most of those major changes or policy introductions (like the defect system) took place just before or after a lot of huge retailers starting listing on this site. To me, it's not mere coincidence.

momcqueen · ‎08-20-2015

@pjcdn2005 wrote:

.... I think that they wanted to take more control to help get rid of the many bad sellers, not to help out big retailers. I don't like the way that they set up some of the systems and I don't think that it just punishes the bad sellers but also punishes the good ones....

That's true too. In my category of sales one the sellers with the worst feedback is a big brick-and-mortar retailer. Before the defect system went into play, they were still a Top Seller by the old standards even with their 98 per cent feedback. Today, they are not. I don't think that stops anyone from shopping on their ebay store though. Buyers continue to shop there and are mad when things go bad. But because they are a known and identifiable retailer with its own brand recognition, I suspect disappointed buyers are angry at them and not ebay.

rose-dee · ‎08-20-2015

@mjwl2006 wrote:
That's true too. In my category of sales one the sellers with the worst feedback is a big brick-and-mortar retailer. Before the defect system went into play, they were still a Top Seller by the old standards even with their 98 per cent feedback. Today, they are not. I don't think that stops anyone from shopping on their ebay store though. Buyers continue to shop there and are mad when things go bad. But because they are a known and identifiable retailer with its own brand recognition, I suspect disappointed buyers are angry at them and not ebay.

Oh yes, how many big retailers have I seen with atrocious FB and DSRS (by the standard of us littler folk, who have to be extremely concerned about every black mark).

Being well-known and having a strong market presence may keep buyers returning despite bad experiences, and you're right -- if your average visitor/buyer count is high on eBay, losing a few permanently every month shouldn't be a big worry. However, I think it should be a worry for eBay, because even though a buyer may be angry at the retailer, they may just not come back to eBay at all because of it. Which means other sellers may suffer too. Put all those lost buyers together each month, and you have an eBay problem.

Remember too that these large retailers don't have to worry too much about defects -- they just keep rolling on, squeaky-clean, every 90 days. So in my view the incentive for them to spend their time cleaning up their act is low. I can imagine this "perk" being part of the courting process, allowing eBay to lure the big guys with special treatment (no doubt there are additional special arrangements for the big and mighty that we'll never know about).

pjcdn2005 · ‎08-20-2015

I didn't actually say that everything was about big retailers, just that much of what drove eBay to make very extensive and quick changes was likely due to demands by such retailers. You'll remember how loaded 2012 and 2013 were with major rule and policy changes.

You don't have to say it...the fact that you consistently mention how ebay favors big retailers speaks for itself.

I'm sure that ebay does cater to them in some ways but I'm not so certain that the changes you speak about have anything to do with them.

Most of those major changes or policy introductions (like the defect system) took place just before or after a lot of huge retailers starting listing on this site. To me, it's not mere coincidence.

But it is your opinion, not a fact.

pjcdn2005 · ‎08-20-2015

btw Some of those big retailers lost TRS when the defect system came in so I don't see how it is 'helping' them.

rose-dee · ‎08-20-2015

@pjcdn2005 wrote:

Most of those major changes or policy introductions (like the defect system) took place just before or after a lot of huge retailers starting listing on this site. To me, it's not mere coincidence.

But it is your opinion, not a fact.

So that mean's it's not a valid conclusion? Not every reasonable conclusion is based on knowing all the facts. And not every good deduction must be a fact.

If that were so, a whole lot of things would never have been achieved in this world, starting with Columbus for one (although one could argue the results of that particular deduction weren't all positive).

rose-dee · ‎08-20-2015

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
btw Some of those big retailers lost TRS when the defect system came in so I don't see how it is 'helping' them.

What's loss of TRS to a business that turns over hundreds of transactions per month? A peripheral cost of doing business.

Volume trumps such discounts, and as I said, I expect the very biggest and most important of the retailers weren't and still aren't playing on exactly the same field as the rest of us anyway.

How does the defect system help them? I would think that should have been clear to all the rest of us by now -- it's not intended to help the biggest sellers directly (it's clear to me they got a special pass on that 3-month turnaround), but again, to "clean up" and weed out smaller sellers from the site. And I must admit it has been tremendously effective at that, while in the same stroke limiting distracting competition. Two birds with one stone -- quite brilliant actually.

pierrelebel · ‎08-20-2015

"What's loss of TRS to a business that turns over hundreds of transactions per month? A peripheral cost of doing business."

???

Say what?

A relatively large business selling $100,000 a month ($1,200,000 a year) would pay about $100,000 a year in fees. To suggest they would not care about losing $20,000 (20% FVF rebate associated with TRS status) is to not understand big business.

Of course big business cares about their costs. Of course big business wants to increase net profits by cutting costs.

To suggest otherwise is..... oh well... i would get in trouble again if I were to complete that sentence.

73rhc · ‎08-20-2015

@rose-dee wrote:
@pjcdn2005 wrote:

Most of those major changes or policy introductions (like the defect system) took place just before or after a lot of huge retailers starting listing on this site. To me, it's not mere coincidence.

But it is your opinion, not a fact.
So that mean's it's not a valid conclusion? Not every reasonable conclusion is based on knowing all the facts. And not every good deduction must be a fact.

If that were so, a whole lot of things would never have been achieved in this world, starting with Columbus for one (although one could argue the results of that particular deduction weren't all positive).

Huh?

rose-dee · ‎08-20-2015

Do any of us know for certain that eBay doesn't have some sort of advantageous or exclusive fee arrangement with bigger companies? Then TRS would be nothing but window-dressing anyway -- a Good Housekeeping seal of approval.

I don't know specifically which "big sellers" 'pj' was referring to, but any large retailer should have no trouble keeping up with the TRS transaction or dollar requirements, so the problem would have to be "customer service" -- and a very egregious customer service problem at that in order to lose TRS with those kinds of volumes. Those would be the big sellers even eBay wouldn't want.