Boycott ebay Feb 18-25! - Page 3

eBay seems to feel it's lack of growth recently is due to the feedback system. It's not. It's due to rising eBay fees and eBay's lack of concern for both buyer's and seller's.

The change in the feedback system is, in my opinion, a good thing. Until eBay stops raising its fees AND makes a real effort to get rid of bogus eBay users (which it doesn't want to because they would lose fees), then eBay will not see growth.

Umm, here's my soapbox if anybody wants it.

Exactly. This policy change is mostly going to affect sellers who have/need a perfect or nearly perfect feedback rating. The truly bad sellers don't really care about feedback. Many don't even bother with retaliatory feedback, they know that if they do enough volume their malfeasance just gets buried.


And those advocating the 'allow sellers to leave a neg in the first 24 hrs' policy need to think a little more That is effectively the same policy ebay is already introducing. All buyers are good buyers in the first 24 hours. Bidders that don't pay, bidders that make unreasonable demands, bidders that are rude and nasty, bidders that try to extort with the threat of negative feedback, bidders that fraudulently charge back or send fake money orders, etc., these do not manifest themselves until much later.

Hey GQGeek, doesn't this remind you of the various futile attempts to "fix" pk/anti system in UO?

It reminds me of that, and also EQ's attempts to balance classes.

Anyways, as infuriating as the feedback change is for sellers, it is only a minor annoyance when compared to other policy changes.

For instance, under ebay's new 'dissatisfied buyer' policy, a dissatisfied buyer includes someone who gives a seller a 1 or 2 star rating in ANY of the four categories (accuracy of description, communication, shipping time, shipping charges.) You are required to keep your percentage of 'dissatisfied buyers' under 5% in each 30 day period, or else. For a seller doing modest volume like me, that means that it would only take 3 buyers in month to leave a 1 or 2 star rating in any category, even if they gave me five stars in every other category. The penalties include:

Effectively higher selling fees due to the loss of the 'good seller discount'

Lower exposure of your listings on ebay

Loss of powerseller status (which means 0 customer service if anything goes wrong)

Paypal can hold all incoming payments for 21 days at their discretion.



These policies are incredibly hostile to good, honest sellers. It puts the power directly in the hands of unreasonable and dishonest buyers, a small minority on ebay, allowing them to literally torpedo the businesses of good sellers. Truly, truly insane.

I think the paypal thing is the biggest misstep. If they suspend even one payment, ever, I will stop accepting paypal altogether and go to a online merchant credit card system.

If these policies stand, I think you will see a shift in the types of sellers on ebay. It will be come the province of amateurs listing random items on occasion, and huge, high-volume operations. Most of the small-to-medium sized professional selling operations, the exact kind that compose all the 'best seller' lists on this forum, will likely disappear. This WILL adversely affect you guys as buyers, believe me.

I posted something similar is the last thread too. I'm hoping eBay back down a little or we're proven wrong. But I remain concerned.

At least there are other venues like right here for selling without needing eBay. But eBay does have that massive market at the end of the day.

possibly the route to go would be to allow both parties to leave feedback, and not post the feedback or make it visible until both parties have left it, or a certain amount of time passes (2 weeks, or a month). thus, retaliation disappears, since neither party can see what the other party has left before they can enter their feedback.

I like that

Quoting myself because I have something to add: These policies are being introduced because ebay thinks growth is slow. As a corporation they are of course primarily interested in more profit. Viewed in this context, their unconcern as to how this will affect smaller professional sellers is not surprising to me. Successful small-scale powersellers have most all been in business long enough to know how to minimize ebay and paypal's overall take. So ebay is not making a lot of money from them on the basis of sheer volume (listing fees,) nor are they taking an extra large percentage of the transaction (as they do with newbies who do not know the ropes.) So these types of sellers are far more valuable to buyers than they are to ebay. When they go, the biggest loss will be felt by the customers.

I fucking hate e-bay.

Boycott?.... silly rabbit.

Wait,...what?

I doubt it. This is probably a move cooked up by their PR/marketing monkeys in which they make a problem-that-isn't, then draw attention to themselves fixing the "problem," thereby justifying yet another price hike on the service which they've monopolized. Yeah, I'm cynical. :P + ++

nvm

Don't just boycott ebay, fucking mancott them.

Ebay is just like bosses at my work, always changing shit without thinking it thru. I hate them both equally.