eBay

rose-dee · ‎09-21-2017

If you've received an email today with the latest update to the eBay User Agreement, I'd advise paying attention. Usually I just skim past these updates, most are administrative and have little direct impact on how we do business here. This may be different.

For one thing, eBay is cracking down on revenue bleeding off its site by taking punitive steps against sellers by -- yes -- possibly charging you FVFs on the sale (or even on the attempted sale). Reading between the lines, this suggests eBay is looking for any corners where it can both increase its own revenue and actively prevent (not just discourage via policy) off-site sales.

Policy Violations: We’ve made it clearer how we address violations of our policy on offers to buy or sell outside eBay. Sellers who violate this policy may be charged a final value fee for the applicable item, even if it doesn’t sell.

The other interesting point in this announcement was that the returns process will now be automated by default for new sellers. It wasn't clear whether that applies to Canadian sellers -- I haven't got time to read the entire new UA right now.

The bottom line in this announcement seems to be: eBay is watching. They will likely be monitoring messages and listings far more carefully from now on to determine if a seller is encouraging or facilitating an off-site sale, and whether they can make money from seller's inattention to their UA terms.

I'm expecting there will be one or two sellers sooner or later who come to these boards complaining that eBay has charged them fees on a sale they didn't make.

rose-dee · ‎09-21-2017

Here's the link to the announcement. Sorry, I should have posted it above.

https://announcements.ebay.ca/2017/09/19/8050/

I've just looked at the UA link, and this is indeed the eBay.ca agreement, so my comment above about FVFs on off-site sales applies to us. Here is the salient paragraph:

If you are a seller, you are liable for transaction fees arising out of all sales made using some or all eBay Services, even if sales terms are finalized or payment is made outside of eBay. In particular, if you offer or reference your contact information or ask a buyer for their contact information in the context of buying or selling outside of eBay, you may be liable to pay a final value fee applicable to that item, even if the item doesn’t sell, given your usage of eBay Services for the introduction to a buyer.

rose-dee · ‎09-21-2017

And here's the eBay.ca User Agreement itself (apologies for the afterthought posts here).

http://pages.ebay.ca/help/policies/user-agreement.html#policy-enforcement

rose-dee · ‎09-21-2017

Last word (haha), and then I'll be leaving.

Here's one section I always read carefully in every UA:

"Authorization to Contact You; Recording Calls; Analyzing Message Content

eBay may contact you using autodialed or prerecorded calls and text messages, at any telephone number that you have provided us, to: (i) notify you regarding your account; (ii) troubleshoot problems with your account; (iii) resolve a dispute; (iv) collect a debt; (v) poll your opinions through surveys or questionnaires; or (vi) as otherwise necessary to service your account or enforce this User Agreement, our policies, applicable law, or any other agreement we may have with you. eBay may also contact you using autodialed or prerecorded calls and text messages for marketing purposes (e.g., offers and promotions), if you consent to such communications.

As described in our User Privacy Notice, eBay may collect other telephone numbers for you and may place manual non-marketing calls to any of those numbers and autodialed non-marketing calls to any landline. Standard telephone minute and text charges may apply and may include overage fees if you have exceeded your plan limits. If you do not wish to receive such communications, you may change your communications preference at any time, including through the communication preferences section of your My eBay.

eBay may share your telephone numbers with its authorized service providers as stated in our User Privacy Notice. These service providers may contact you using autodialed or prerecorded calls and text messages, only as authorized by eBay to carry out the purposes we have identified above.

eBay may, without further notice or warning and in its discretion, monitor or record telephone conversations you or anyone acting on your behalf has with eBay or its agents for quality control and training purposes, or for its own protection.

eBay’s automated systems scan and analyze the contents of every message sent through its messages platform, including messages between users, to detect and prevent fraudulent activity or violations of eBay’s User Agreement, including the incorporated terms, notices, rules, and policies. This scanning and analysis may occur before, during, or after the message is sent, or while in storage, and may result in your message being delayed or withheld. eBay may store message contents, including to conduct this scanning and analysis.

rose-dee · ‎09-21-2017

I lied -- one more thing I want to add. 😄

It occurred to me that now eBay has legitimized its corporate status within Canada, it will be subject to Canadian law, and the jurisdictional clauses in the UA would have to be changed. Sure enough:

"Law and Forum for Disputes - This Agreement and any dispute or claim you have against eBay shall be governed in all respects by the laws of the Province of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada applicable therein. You agree that any claim or dispute you may have against eBay must be resolved by a court located in Toronto, Ontario, except as otherwise agreed by the parties or as described in the Arbitration Option paragraph below. You agree to submit to the personal jurisdiction of the courts located within the Province of Ontario for the purpose of litigating all such claims or disputes."

Those of you who have been around eBay for a while will recall the jurisdiction for legal disputes was always California, and the venue San Jose. This change will have a significant impact on any Canadians bringing actions against eBay, as those matters will be decided by a Canadian (Ontario) court, and ultimately potentially the Supreme Court of Canada.

An arbitration procedure is also provided for (for claims under $15,000 Cdn) in the UA, as in earlier versions, but I note the UA stipulates the process is only to be conducted by telephone, online, and/or written submissions, no personal appearances unless otherwise mutually agreed.

dutchman48 · ‎09-21-2017

Isn't there also somewhere in their recent paranoia that they have to right to edit or remove emails between buyers and sellers?

I remember it, but just can't find it right now. I'm getting older.

ricarmic · ‎09-21-2017

It will be interesting to see if there are "false positives" in this respect too based on the warnings I've received for totally innocent messages. Time will tell!

pjcdn2005 · ‎09-21-2017

I'm not 100% positive, but I think that Ontario was mentioned as the venue for disputes for Canadians quite a while ago.

It's interesting that the User Agreement specifies that new sellers will have their returns automatically accepted (if they do allow returns and in the seller update that it will apply to all domestic returns. With the latter, certain conditions have to be met, I'm not sure if the same conditions apply to new sellers.

rose-dee · ‎09-21-2017

@dutchman48 wrote:
Isn't there also somewhere in their recent paranoia that they have to right to edit or remove emails between buyers and sellers?

Yes indeed, from the User Agreement:

"eBay’s automated systems scan and analyze the contents of every message sent through its messages platform, including messages between users, to detect and prevent fraudulent activity or violations of eBay’s User Agreement, including the incorporated terms, notices, rules, and policies. This scanning and analysis may occur before, during, or after the message is sent, or while in storage, and may result in your message being delayed or withheld."

rose-dee · ‎09-21-2017

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
I'm not 100% positive, but I think that Ontario was mentioned as the venue for disputes for Canadians quite a while ago.

Yes, I think that may have been true, but possibly only applicable to those actually listing on .ca.

This was a convoluted point that was discussed at great length back in 2013 when the CBC did a story on an application brought by a Québec eBay seller against eBay solely over the jurisdictional issue.

The Court in its decision stated that the Québec seller's user agreement stipulated California (Santa Clara county to be exact) as the jurisdiction for the hearing of legal matters, which the Court found to be illegal under Québec's consumer laws. Whether the seller was listing on .com or .ca at the time was never clarified because this wasn't a suit against eBay, but simply an application to the Court on this narrow point of law.

So it may be that if a seller lists on .com, the U.S. user agreement will apply where jurisdiction is concerned. I don't know that this legal point has ever been tested in the Canadian courts (aside from the application mentioned above). Consequently it's hard to say whether or not we're subject to eBay's U.S. legal jurisdictional limitations when we're using .com to list, but I'd be inclined to assume we are.

This -- being subject to U.S. jurisdiction when listing on .com -- is the only thing that would explain why the Québec court recorded the fact that the applicant's (seller's) user agreement had stipulated California as the legal jurisdiction. When I checked at the time to see if there was any case law in Canada specifically on the subject, I found nothing. It's a tricky point, and anybody's guess how it would actually play out in Canada if a seller brought suit against eBay in an Ontario court over an issue involving specifically a .com listing or listings.

In that 2013 discussion, Pierre Lebel pointed out (see his post#6) that the user agreement stated California as the legal jurisdiction. However I think he may have forgotten about the .ca user agreement stipulating Ontario. EBay subsequently changed jurisdiction in its .com user agreement to the laws of Utah, probably because those laws were of benefit to it in some way. I remember this was around the time eBay prohibited class action suits in its .com user agreement, forcing arbitration instead, so that may have been the reason.

I bookmarked that earlier discussion because I was going to go back to see if the Québec decision had ever been taken up by any consumer advocacy group to be heard in the Supreme Court of Canada, but I didn't get around to doing that research. It seems pointless now, but here's the original link to the discussion for anyone interested in the question of jurisdiction that was brought in the Québec court. Unfortunately this jurisdictional decision would have been a lot more useful if it had been an eBay seller in any other province, since Québec's laws are quite different from English civil law.

https://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Central/Quebec-Court-of-Appeal-rules-against-eBay-in-favour-of-s...

momcqueen · ‎09-21-2017

I read the User Agreement as it fell on the heels of that Fall Seller Update which I so loathed and liked nothing I saw for changes to the UA as they were outlined. Another nail in the coffin so far as I am concerned now. And it's with an increased sense of urgency that I feel like time spent on ebay is not invested but wasted. I really need to be focusing my attention elsewhere but old habits die hard, apparently. If you see my posting here, please remind me to go back to work!

cumos55 · ‎09-21-2017

We are going to have a new eBay... a new look... tighter policies.

eBay is building a .... wall.... and then a new internal structure

Stay tuned..... and be very flexible .... Take time to think things through.....

The adjustments made over the last few years will fit in.... atleast for me.....

A few more adjustments will be required......

momcqueen · ‎09-21-2017

If they want only stock photos for listings here, fine. That should be explicitly stated, and sooner rather than later. Ebay can't have my photos, period. This new policy does not fit into my business plan, and it is heavily detrimental to my brand. I'm not busting my hump for anyone's benefit but my own from here forward.

momcqueen · ‎09-21-2017

The new no-watermark policy does one thing for sellers only: it punishes the sellers who work hard to create great photos that sell things as part of a premium buyer experience, and it rewards the sellers who want only to expend zero effort to make a quick buck.

katlover1952 · ‎09-22-2017

I too have occasionally been unable to send a message to another ebayer with the warning about selling outside eBay. In all instances I was actually saying I would not sell off of eBay & offering to list something on eBay for them so yes expect there will be "false positives" as they only pick out words from the message & do not read the full message.

femmefan1946 · ‎09-22-2017

We sellers of collectibles and those clearing estates and basements, can't use stock photos even on 'new in box' goods, since deadstock and stored goods are not likely to be as clean as something straight from the retailer.

But hey, eBay, go ahead and 'borrow' my scans of 40 year old uncut unused patterns and much read 50 year old paperbacks.

And then there are the philatelic vendors.

Mwah ha ha ha ha......

cumos55 · ‎09-22-2017

Watermarks make a seller's photos unique.

Without watermarks.........

How can a seller make their photos unique?....... .......without doing something that is against eBay policy.

Such that if someone uses the photo... it is most definitely noted as ... not... that seller's photo.

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

There is a bookseller that makes his photos of books unique.

Most sellers will photograph with the front cover of the book visible, and only the front cover as being visible.

This seller with unique views of a book... spreads the book out such that the front and back cover form a ... "V".... standing on a table .... with both the front and back covers shown in the photo. All of this sellers photos have the same view... making this seller's store view most unique...

Does someone dare use one of this seller's photos?

rose-dee · ‎09-22-2017

@cumos55 wrote:

There is a bookseller that makes his photos of books unique.
Most sellers will photograph with the front cover of the book visible, and only the front cover as being visible.
This seller with unique views of a book... spreads the book out such that the front and back cover form a ... "V".... standing on a table .... with both the front and back covers shown in the photo. All of this sellers photos have the same view... making this seller's store view most unique...

Does someone dare use one of this seller's photos?

This is precisely the sort of "workaround" I was referring to earlier. Subtle but effective.

It takes constant creativity to keep in step with eBay, often just a lot of new busy-work each time eBay changes the rules, but it's the ever-inventive sellers who keep adjusting, adjusting, adjusting ... and surviving. To last here on eBay as a small seller is to constantly innovate how to best interact with the site.

I very much see this as a test between the ability of creative, ingenious, motivated independent entrepreneurs on eBay (David) to persevere, and the big commercial sellers (Goliath) who can afford to do whatever eBay wants without much pain, or at least pay someone to take care of it. EBay has for many years been leaning toward making this site more comfortable and streamlined for its largest sellers. They've been relentlessly moving in the direction of conformity, automation, and tighter restrictions. This process started around 2011 and "layers" have been added on ever since.

We small, independent sellers do have one advantage though -- we have immediate, unfettered control over our businesses and decision-making, no board of directors or shareholders to answer to or compromise with. Which allows us to make quick and creative adjustments if we want to. There is some solace in that.

ricarmic · ‎09-22-2017

I absolutely agree that constant innovation is required to survive!

I think the speed of innovation required has speeded up as technology has made change happen faster.

The concept of having to adapt to be/remain competitive in business isn't new at all, it just historically took longer to happen in the B&M world than it does in the new more online world....

I just keep hoping I can adapt fast enough!!!!

rose-dee · ‎09-22-2017

@mjwl2006 wrote:
The new no-watermark policy does one thing for sellers only: it punishes the sellers who work hard to create great photos that sell things as part of a premium buyer experience, and it rewards the sellers who want only to expend zero effort to make a quick buck.

I see it differently. This is part of eBay's drive to appear, from the landing pages onward, to look as if they're a homogeneous, single-source commercial site. They are attempting to weed out the unique, the different, the non-conforming so that Product A looks exactly like Product A all across the site.

This isn't about deliberate punishment of hard-working sellers. I believe it's eBay having decided which direction they must go in order to stand up to the competition -- who, as we all know, is barking at its heels right across the River, and has already incorporated most of this standardizing some time ago.

Where I do agree with you is that I think eBay has no interest anymore in focusing on supporting its "traditional" small, independent sellers through its site policies. But that's different than intentional punishment, and is a trend that's been going on for several years now.

That group of independent smaller sellers, as big as it may still be, is overall the most disparate, the least likely to have retail experience, and the most likely to cause eBay trouble and time in dealing with issues. In other words, an expensive luxury for eBay. You may have noticed that eBay was pushing hard a couple of years ago to entice "newbies" to start selling through its landing page ads. I think they found out where that led -- more trouble and more CS calls -- and decided to take a different direction. I haven't seen much of those ads anymore.

Better to have big professionals with big turnovers from whom they can make more money at lower cost and with fewer interventions. I think that's what is behind this transition that's been going on for several years. It's hard to accept, but it was never personal. How long it will be possible for remaining small sellers to survive in that environment is the question, but as long as you're able to make some sort of profit here, I think it's worth continuing to try.

Here's a thought to consider with respect to your photo problem specifically, along the lines of what 'cumos' described above. Include a small postcard-sized photo of yourself (as seen on your storefront, with the laughing expression amongst the coloured balls) as a prop in each shot you take of your products. No text, no logo, just that image. Or have the same image custom-printed by someone on removable stickers that you can stick in a visible spot on the product box when you photograph it. Or on a small ball or balloon that just happens to be in the picture. Or a child's hands holding up the toy who has a a ribbon tied in a bow around her wrist with your sticker on it. I could go on, but you get the idea. EBay can't prevent you from including non-text props in your photos, and no one wants to use a photo with someone else's face on it.