EBay Sellers' Rebellion: The Aftermath

CNN.money.com ^ | January 20, 2010 | Catherine Clifford

[khnyny]

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- As one of his first moves upon becoming CEO, eBay chief John Donahoe unveiled a slew of changes to the online marketplace, kicking off an uproar among sellers and sparking boycotts. Two years later, eBay is finally starting to see signs of success on its turnaround plan.

The San Jose, Calif., e-commerce giant on Wednesday reported 2009 sales of $8.7 billion, up from $8.5 billion in 2008. That's a 14% increase from the $7.7 billion in revenue eBay had in 2007, the year before Donahoe's overhaul.

EBay's profits, though, haven't kept pace with its sales growth. Net income dropped 8% from last year, to $2 billion -- putting eBay's earnings below where they stood two years ago. Gross merchandise volume, a closely watched metric tracking the value of items sold on eBay (EBAY, Fortune 500), was essentially flat from last year and down slightly from 2007.

"These turnaround efforts are paying off," Donahoe said Wednesday on a conference call with analysts.

That's a sharp change from the tone he adopted last year, as the company struggled through its changes.

"This business has continued to fall short of our expectations and customers' expectations," Donahoe told analysts at a meeting in March. "That's not acceptable. EBay has a storied past. But it's a past that we held onto for too long."

The firestorm: In February 2008, then brand-new CEO Donahoe announced a major revamp of eBay's fee structure and feedback policy. The goal was to make the site more buyer-friendly.

The move inflamed eBay's core community of active sellers, which numbers in the millions. They raised virtual pitchforks and organized protests, including a week-long boycott. Amid a flurry of scathing blog posts and online messages, many jumped ship entirely and migrated their online storefront to other sites.

[MtnClimber]

We had a 100% plus shipping return policy. But, there being no consequences caused people not to be careful to research what they were buying or just to abuse the return policy. Some people were also just buying things just to look at them and then returning them. It really adds up when someone buys 20 different items on 20 different occasions and returns every single item. The losses from lost shipping fees overwhelmed any profits. Then we changed to 100% refund except shipping. Ebay will also remove your power seller status if you fall below 98% positive feedback. We have had a huge increase in buyers that bid on, and win many items and then contact you and threaten to leave negative feedback on each item unless you reduce the invoice to a rediculously low price. We have managed to maintain a 99.8% positive feedback and probably 95% of sales are without a single problem. It is just that 5% that makes you shake your head.

[MtnClimber]

I should also add that since there is no way for sellers to leave negative feedback and all buyers have 100% positive feedback, a good feedback score does not mean anything at all. Sellers have to be suspicious of everyone and buyers have no incentive to be civil or honest when dealing with sellers. Amazon also has no way for sellers to leave feedback, but it does not seem to have the really bad characters that ebay has attracted.

[fireman15]

“We have managed to maintain a 99.8% positive feedback”

I think you must be a saint to maintain that kind of feedback as a power seller. None of the large retailers such as Sears are able to do that. I know people who have bent over backwards on Ebay trying to make people happy who have still got a lot of negatives. I know other people who seem nice who have complained to me about some transaction they have had on Ebay where what they have been completely in the wrong and they still left a negative.

[dennisw]

Sellers do have a right to give feedback. But I got burned with a negative feedback from a seller when I gave him a negative that was justified.
So there was that element of retaliation that kept buyers from leaving feedback

Ebay was much more enjoyable years ago. Meg Whitman made it into a money grubbing place that sucks for sellers. The money grubbers being the ebay corporate structure. Ebay is in need of competition

[MtnClimber]

It is difficult to stay above 98% since the scammers use the threat of negative feedback to blackmail sellers. Sellers should also always use delivery confirmation. Paypal will refund any claim of a lost item if the seller does not have delivery confirmation to prove delivery. If a seller ships without delivery confirmation for very long it will become known and advertised on the scammer message boards. After that every sale will go to scammers who don’t care how much they bid because they know they will claim it is lost. Then they will wait to file the lost item claim to avoid alerting the seller. Then WHAM, all of them will claim lost items at the same time! Paypal is completely unsympathetic and the seller can’t even leave negative feedback. I am in the process of transitioning to Amazon to see how that works out.

[fireman15]

“Sellers should also always use delivery confirmation.”

Thank you for the tip. I have used delivery confimation but didn’t realize just how important it was. I didn’t realize there were scammer message boards.

[fireman15]

“Ebay was much more enjoyable years ago”

I think the sense of community has been lost.

I too got a retaliatory negative from a seller who successfully ripped me off. It added insult to injury. First my money was taken then I ended up with a negative.

[VastRWCon]

Any Freepers do affiliate marketing with EPN (eBay partner network)? Would love to hear your thoughts on it.

During the QPC trial period I made average money, then my EPC shot down to ZERO for like 14 days straight, even though I was getting sales... Last month sucked too but atleast I was keeping EPC above zero.

This month, now day 24, my QPC has been 14 cents everyday for 24 days straight, never changing... and I am making good money, but sales reports show less than I am making... something is seriously wrong with QPC.

Freeper thoughts?

[wally_bert]

Bookmarked it.

[Oatka]

Sellers should also always use delivery confirmation.

Amen. As a collector of antique reloading tools (Ideal), I buy and sell quite a bit on eBay. Over 1.300 buys/sells with no problems, except one. Part of the reason is that by and large, that group of buyers/sellers are very good ethically. Anything I sell, over $20 or so, goes Delivery Confirmation and I have the buyer pay for it - I won't sell any other way. On the others, I save my receipt from the P.O. showing at least I shipped to a specific zipcode. If you ship foreign, there's a $1.00 "certificate of shipping" you can get that PayPal will recognize. I gave up on foreign shipments after one to Holland took a month and the guy filed a claim, which PayPal IMMEDIATELY put in escrow. Luckily, the guy was ethical and removed the complaint when it magically showed up in his mailbox.

What infuriates me with eBay is that they will yank an auction, treat you like a crook, and send you a boilerplate email along the lines of "You did something bad. Read our rules (sometimes arcane) to find out why." I had one auction where I was selling a tool for the "38-40 Remington, not Winchester" (completely different cartridge). Evidently they didn't like the word "not" (they don't allow comparisons) but I had to raise Hell with them to find that out. Then they busted me because I described a die as "7.7MM JAP" - it might be "offensive". I changed it to "7.7MM Nipponese" - "made by those wonderful folks who brought you Pearl Harbor and the Bataan Death March". That went through.

[wally_bert]

I am going to try Upillar.com that Beck pushes and see what happens. I have some Link Belt crane bearings listed on Ebay and they look like they are going to go nowhere. I would like to find something better than Ebay/Paypal that offers a little more functionality than Craigslist.

[usconservative]

I admit I still use Ebay but very rarely to sell, just to buy. There are other sites that allow me to sell for much lower transaction fees.

EBay and PayPal can both kiss my ass. (Yes, I know EBay owns Paypal.)

Last weekend I sold about $1,500 in used amateur radio gear. I restore/refurbish vintage amplifiers and radio equipment and sell it online. I've been on ebay over 4 years, have a stellar rating of 100% and more than 100 successful transactions. Never had a complaint with either EBay or Paypal, until last weekend.

Three of my transactions had their payments put "on hold" pending successful confirmation by buyers that they had received what I sold.

PayPal said it was an EBay policy for "suspcicious transactions" such as three of the 6 that I had listed, all of which sold on the same day. When I asked them what "suspicious" meant, they ran down a generic list of reasons, none of which applied to me (ie: more than 100 transactions, 100% seller rating, etc..)

After 15 minutes of arguing with Paypal, I finally was bumped up to a "Supervisor" who tried the same line of bullshit on me. At that point I told them to look at my rating, the merchandise I'd sold, and the fact that I'd never had a complaint in 4 years. They didn't budge.

Finally I said "You know, I have the email addresses and phone numbers of each of my buyers, I keep records of my sales. Tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to contact each one of them and tell them that since Paypal has put their payment to me on hold, I cannot ship their equipment. I'm then going to tell them they can send me a Postal money order for their equipment, and that I'll ship when I receive their money that way."

I then explained to the PayPal "Supervisor" monkey that he was putting more than $150 in fees to EBay and PayPal at risk by not having the common sense to see that the policy DID NOT APPLY to me as NONE OF THE CRITERIA he stated I met.

After being put on hold for another few minutes, I was politely informed that "as a courtesy, PayPal would release my money that evening." They did while I was on the phone with them.

After confirming the payment was released, I informed the affected buyers that PayPal had rectified the problem and that their equipment would ship the next day via FedEx. It did, and I provided their tracking numbers.

I received positive reviews from each seller "Better than Expected" and "packed really well" along with "great service and communication" among the comments.

After confirming each buyer had received their merchandise, I closed both my Paypal and EBay accounts. I removed all bank account and credit card info. from Paypal and closed my EBay account.

If they're going to put the screws to their most reliable, dependable sellers then I want nothing to do with them. Their "holding my money for 21 days" for "suspicious transactions" just put me right over the edge. I work for a Bank, when someone puts cash in an account it's available right away, not 21 days later! And since when did Amateur Radio equipment become a "suspicious transaction?"

Given EBay will now only let you use PayPal or ProPay as acceptable forms of payment and their listing and transaction fees cost me just over $150 on $1,500 of equipment, my opinion is that both EBay and Paypal can kiss my ass. I'll sell my equipment on QTH or CraigsList. Much less hassle, and both are FREE.

Buh-Bye EBAY! Your service and your company suuuuuuuuuck.

[Fu-fu2]

As someone else posted here, it would be good if something better than Ebay/Paypal that offers a little more functionality than Craigslist could be set up. Seems to be a real market niche available right now.

[khnyny]

It looks like EBay (has and is) attempting to muscle in and destroy the competition, namely, Craigslist:

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/dec2009/tc2009126_989136.htm

Lot’s of history and bad blood between these two...

[DvdMom]

you should read this ebay thread on the 21 day paypal hold it is very interesting .... :)

Soon everyone but the buy.com ebay diamond sellers will eventually have the 21 day hold .

Of course buy gets to list for free , and have their ebay listing’s be at the top of the ebay search page etc ...

http://forums.ebay.com/db2/topic/Seller-Central/21-Day-Hold/520175743&start=150

[BlueMondaySkipper]

Craigslist has also been a learning experience and has taken a while to get the hang of. I am sometimes slow myself to kill an ad when something has sold. As for me, I tend to search cities in SC and the NC/GA border for the most part which is an acceptable driving distance to me. There is room for a better search though, I can’t argue there.

If you use Firefox, try out Crazed List

[WOBBLY BOB]

long time Ebay seller and buyer with hundreds of transactions...I’m giving this a try:

http://www.upillar.com/

sick of anti-gun moonbattery at ebay/paypunk

[WOBBLY BOB]

I’ve only used delievery confirmation when shipping out of country or something of high value. Otherwise I’ve just sent it regular mail and pay with Visa , saving the receipt that shows where it shipped to and when.
(save for 90 dsya , just in case needed later)
Had no problems thus far.

[wally_bert]

Thanks, I had no idea that existed and have it set. Again, many thanks!

[wally_bert]

I have put my first listing there of Link Belt Crane Bearings. Not exactly a high demand item but maybe someone will see it there. It bombed on Ebay.