Hello World,
As an active seller for 5 years (since 2012) I can safely say that this is the absolute WORST experience I have ever had...
As a growing business it is hard enough to grow our working capital without having fraud, charge backs, frozen money on paypal, con artists trying to mail us rocks back as a return with a tracking number and then of course there is the blatant lack of care for business operators that actively do business on Ebay. Violate an EBAY policy and be warned you will feel the ultimate wrath of customer service.
Today we received a 7 day restriction for selling on ebay. This was due in part to a lapse in judgement and human error. I copy+pasted our address to a customer (who I thought had already purchased the item, but did not) this was in total violation of ebay policies due to the fact that we could potentially avoid paying Ebay fees if we were to sell our product outside the ebay channel. As a business owner I completely understand the need to protect your profits and ensure that your platform remains safe to buyers but I ask.. What about sellers like us?
What about my 2 employees that I hired to answer ebay messages that now have 7 days of no work (being restricted means no new messages or inquiries due to the lack of ad visibility, unless someone is "watching" the item)
What about me and my business partner? We work every day to grind out a little profit just to survive. I kid you not we make less than $13 / hour on average - Sometimes LESS - when minimum wage in my province (alberta) is currently $12.20 an hour. As a business owner I almost don't see the point in selling on Ebay anymore. We have done over Half a million USD in sales on Ebay and not once have we ever actively tried to avoid paying ebay fees. In fact we always make our local Ebay buyers pay on Ebay, even though we could easily convert them over to POS customers. Our rule is that if it is listed on Ebay, it is paid for on Ebay. That's that.
As a struggling business trying to grow and expand to build a better life for our employees and ourselves I find it absolutely ridiculous that after 1 warning (a month ago) and a message this morning we are now barred from selling for 7 days.. I'm not sure how many business owners are out there but when you ONLY do business on Ebay 7 days of no fresh sales is crippling. 7 days of no more returned cash flow, 7 days of no income at month end (our busiest buying time) 7 days of no income when we have had the slowest month we have ever had, I mean honestly - This month has been SUPER slow.
I figured I'd call Ebay to plead my case, I literally begged, I explained, I offered logical evidence that we would not avoid payment on Ebay fees (after showing several thousand dollars items in our history that we paid fees on without complaint) Why would I actively try to avoid fees on a $15 item? The answer I got.. Zero remorse.
First I got Keith on the phone, he was pleasant, seemingly trying to help but was unable to do much for us, passed us up the ladder to "Robyn" (not sure of the correct spelling) Who proceeded to tell me that because of the warning we got a month ago there was nothing she could do, she said we sould have been conditioned by now to follow ebay's policies and adapt our business practices. I literally begged for help, explaining that 7 days of restrictions would not only cripple us, it very well might be the end of our business. I asked for any type of leniancy. There was none to be had.. In Robyn's defense she was pleasant but the way she communicated was robotic, no empathy, didn't seem to care that after 5 years our relationship with Ebay might be ending..
We have done everything we can to be a good seller, we offer instant message responses, we answer questions that the answers to which can always be found in our ad, but you know what, we answer them anyway because we want our customers to have a good experience. We always ship next day, we always take responsibility for our mistakes and we always do our best to make sure our customers are satisfied and if they aren't we try our best to make it right.
Why is it that as a Seller on Ebay my business basically becomes the bottom of the totem pole, we are subject to harassment from customers, Fraudulent charge backs, Bad Returns, Numerous instant purchase and order cancellations and now we have to contend with restrictions placed on our selling account due to a minor mistake that honestly was not intended to be, Nor will it be an outside sale.. I mean for pete sake our phone number is in our ebay message signature, if we wanted to do business outside of Ebay we'd say "oh yeah, just give us a call"
So what do we get for trying to follow the rules? We get a 7 day restriction and we always get the short end of the stick.
I am really emotional about this situation right now and I know it probably looks like a long drawn our "poor me" sob story but the honest truth is we did our best and when we really needed help Ebay didn't care about us. They didn't care about the time we put into working with our customers, they didn't care about our employees and they really didn't care about our bank account or the fact that a 7 day restriction would likely end our business for good...
Anyways - I have a going out of business sale to make signs for... Thanks a lot Ebay. Really appreciate that after 5 years of hard work and playing by the rules it's all going to end like this. Guess I'll go work at McDonalds - Hey you know what, at least I'll make more money...
