The reason for this post is 1) Exasperation with an entity that does not seem to care about our business and 2) If it can happen to us it can happen to anyone!

Needless to say, we are evaluating alternative Merchant Accounts that will appreciate the quality business relationship that we have to offer.

Caveat Venditor!

Enjoy your time off and keep up the good work!

with Aloha

Auntie May says “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.” Dick Cheney says “Waterboard the sucker”

Thanks for all the feedback guys. Apologies for the radio silence.

Cheers,
RBH

That was two weeks ago.

If ebay would just market this site as a no hassle, no complications experience it would be better off. So much hassle shopping/ selling here. People just want that piece of junk on their doorstep! Invoices, terms of sale, refund policies, personal emails, hidden information, fine print, after sale questionnaires, do nothing but complicate, complicate, complicate. That goes for both sides. Sellers want to get paid ASAP and buyers want their junk ASAP! Why is ebay still allowing buyers to take up to 7 days to pay? With Paypal only, it should be either immediate or 24 hours! 7 days is too long. Refund policies and terms of sale don’t even matter with Paypal involved. Why are we wasting peoples’ time? Make it easy for both parties and bring some fun back to this site! Thanks for reading my rant.

chinese junk + no fun + stagnant marketplace = ebay

Your exact issue was brought up to eBay & Brian Burke years before the DSR system went live to the marketplace. It was pointed out that accommodations for low volume sellers had to be included, but after more than 3 and a half years nothing has been done.

And from this thread it looks like the conversation may be over with this segment of the community here on eBayInkBlog.

DD

How can one become a BillMeLater only seller. They can’t, can they.

Exactly my thoughts

Paypal can’t be trusted

PayPal on the Rolling Reserve:
”for a very small percentage of our sellers - currently less than 1%.”
Bill Clark

This is 1% for ONE quarter, based on eBay’s 2008 SEC filing. Worse case for sellers (best case for PayPal):

Active eBay users affected: 830,000
Number of new listings affected: 5,556,000
Gross merchandise volume, HELD: $143,950,000

Active registered PayPal accounts affected: 548,000
Net total payment volume, HELD: $115,690,000

The above is PayPal’s definition of ”very small”.

frustrates… yes, surprises me… no. ebay management has a long history of saying they need to communicate better and then not doing so. it seems to happen most often when the questions asked are not related to the exact feedback they want to obtain.

I am a “small” seller, maybe 20 auctions a month, but have had high (4.8 or better, 5’s across the board the last 2 months) since inception of this system. All feedback left are highly postive comments indicating satisfaction with their purchase. I ship within 24 hours, communicate with my buyers and have great customer service. A buyer, for whatever reason, left me 4’s, which in his mind, indicated satisfaction with the transaction. I am now on the verge of being restricted, and my search standing is lowered. For what? This is truly insane.

Seller to buyer, “Did I please you?”
Buyer, “Yes, thank you”

Seller to buyer again, “OK thanks but what I want to know is did I REALLY please you??”
Buyer to seller, “Yes, and I already told you that you did, OK?”

Seller to buyer once again, “Yes, yes, but did I REALLY PLEASE YOU BEYOND ALL EXPECTATIONS??”
Buyer, “What, are you crazy? This is just a sale of goods, you sold them, I bought them, now leave me alone!!!”

Buyer to himself, “I’ll NEVER buy from there again. I’m going somewhere else.”

At a time when most companies are going “green” and the internet moves steadily toward an increasingly virtualized landscape, Ebay stands stubbornly and decidedly in the pollution filled past.

Itunes booms. Amazon finds success with its own mp3 store and moves into ebook downloads promoting instant delivery and none of the environmental harm caused from manufacturing and shipping product. How does auction powerhouse Ebay react to this sudden demand for instant gratification? By banning digital download auctions from its site altogether.

“I was almost out of business overnight,” reports a longtime Ebay user that requested to remain anonymous.

“My products were all downloadables, custom graphics and templates I create myself. With the new rules you can still sell your item if you burn it on a CD and ship it traditionally. Regardless, my sales still dropped dramatically and have since never picked back up. Customers don’t want to wait for a CD to arrive in the mail and pay shipping. Many don’t even understand that it’s Ebay forcing me to sell this way.”

Many retailers have since moved away from Ebay and set up their own online storefronts.

This is exactly what former Power Seller “studiorecordingtools” did, setting up his own storefront at http://www.studiorecordingtools.com when Ebay decided to ban all digital download sales from its site (this includes sales of mp3s, website templates, sounds for musicians and recording information ebooks such as the ones studiorecordingtools sold, and anything else that can be delivered digitally).

At a time when Itunes expanded their digital download sales by adding videos to their already extensive mp3 catalog, Ebay decided digital downloads were no longer a necessary item to allow for a sale on the site.

“It really made no sense,” says former Power Seller studiorecordingtools. “I was paying over a thousand bucks a month in seller’s fees and my account was rated higher than 99% for customer satisfaction. I was a Power Seller one day, the next practically told to close up shop. It was a mind blowing decision that I still don’t fully understand to this day, they lost a ton of money and their stocks plummetted soon after.”

While the glory days of Ebay may be over, many sellers still hold out hope for an improved auction site to emerge from the shadows. Some had hoped it would come by way of Google, but as of yet nothing solid has yet to materialize in this respect.

In the meantime, most sellers have simply set up their own shop: much like StudioRecordingTools.com and it’s former Ebay Power Seller.

- Tech Reporter May Thompson

Great recap of the conferences here - will be interesting to see where Twitter and social media in general will be a year from now. This blog post might end up being a significant benchmark in the process, history, etc.

It was a pleasure meeting you at 140TC, you had many great insights there and I enjoyed your panel discussions. Wish I could have been at Wordcamp and TWITRCON, hopefully I’ll be at those two in person next year, not just following along on Twitter!

Cheers,
Bob

P.S. — I did get your “bartending without the beer” analogy…

Richard I appreciate your honesty!

I’m at the eCommerce Summit and just met Richard tonight! What a treat to meet the Twitter and blogger king of eBay in the flesh!

Linda

Sounds like a good exploration of Twitter and social media. I have heard that Twitter is having with retaining users as the novelty wears off. Any thoughts?

Also, I have a request to make. Although you did post on Twitter that you were leaving for the Memorial holiday weekend, you did not post that here. Consequently, we had well over 30 comments on the Feedback post from eBayers and others awaiting moderation–but to those posting who weren’t aware of your filters, it appeared that their posts were being deleted, hidden or otherwise censored.

As far as I’ve heard, they all appeared eventually, but we had 3 days where sellers who attempted to post were convinced they had wasted their time.

Perhaps next time you could either a) appoint a moderator or b) post HERE that comments will be approved upon your return.

I noticed that too. It’s a pain. I just tell them I’m not interested and hang up on them.

It’s just as bad as telemarketing intrusions.

And that is the way eBay seems to be headed.

One simple rating should be the end of it. Don’t go on and on and on with more and more questions and radio buttons to push!

It’s just overkill.

I’m not a fan of the high volume or diamond sellers,but then I have no personal animosity toward them either.The test will definitely harm them to some degree.No matter what justification is used that’s just wrong.

I don’t know for sure if I would classify what the feedback system has become as evolving,a better term may be mutating.

It’s evident a lot fewer buyers are using the current system,fewer will use the test feedback.Maybe eBay is working on streamlining their information gathering process.The less information you have the less time it takes to analyze it.

The feedback system is one major change from becoming completely useless….ofcourse that’s only my personal opinion….what do I know?

Agree. Linens ‘n Things did the same thing and lost my business, and the other day I was in a store where two of the sales employees were talking and they were so relieved. They were discussing the fact that their manager had stopped making them do a questionnaire when someone bought something.

They said that every one of the buyers had become terribly annoyed at having to spend time on that when they just wanted to get their “thing” and go on with their lives.

The questionnaire covered “how they liked their buying ‘experience’ and if they would shop again at that store”

They even said that a few people just left their potential purchases on the counter and walked out.

The store was trying to gather statistics to make a better buying experience for their customers, I guess to “delight” them.

They were not “delighted” nor amused.

Sound familiar???

I agree too…in fact it made me remember why I don’t buy at Radio Shack anymore. Every time I purchased something - even if paying cash - I was asked my full name, address and phone number. A couple of times of that and I just stopped shopping there. People want to buy, pay up and get on with their life. They really become annoyed playing 20 questions and on a constant basis - well, I think that would be loss of sales just like with Radio Shack ;-)

It is a big burden on buyers.

It isn’t the only thing most of us have to do with our time.

I like to buy something, pay for it and receive it, end of story.

If there is a problem, I will deal with that at that time. But if there isn’t, then leave me alone.

Simple and easy, that’s what buyers want.

Right now, my 30-day DSR on SH is climbing back up over 4.9 FROM 4.8 — and I always give free shipping — worldwide.

I feel that it shouldn’t even be an option. If free shipping was even offered, it should be grayed out completely.

It’s been fun following both you and other tweeps at the conferences. I am hoping social corporate communication expands not only within eBay but within our entire economy.

Thanks for your efforts and takeaways, @ebay_andy

We are Platinum Powersellers from the UK, we enjoy using eBay and hope to enjoy using it for many years to come….AS SELLERS!

We also used to buy a lot on eBay, in fact if there were such a thing we would have been PowerBuyers too!

We no longer buy on eBay because of all the complications with feedback etc, too many questions. The process of leaving feedback is now longer than making the purchase!….Go back to just being a venue, make it fun and the buyers (like us) will return.

This is as crazy as ever.

Will you people ever get it?

Sellers have to show what the shipping and handling charges are in the listing. There are no surprises.
If a buyer hits the Buy It Now button or wins the auction they have agreed to the shipping and handling charges.

If they didn’t like the stated shipping and handling charges they should not have bought the item. Period.
Because of this, buyers have no room to rate the seller for shipping and handling charges.

I have very, very fair shipping and handling charges in my listings. BUT, ss it stands right now, I have some buyers who will ding my stars for shipping and handling even though I have a flat rate, stated up front shipping and handling cost. This is insane.

“How fast did the seller ship the item?” as we know, most buyers rate this as how long it took for the item to arrive. This needs to be taken out completely. There is no clear way buyers will know this is suppose to mean how quickly we drop the package off to the shipping carrier.

“how reasonable were the shipping and handling cost?” Again, this is used to get seller to use Free Shipping so eBay can make more money. This should be changed to “Do you consider your purchase a great deal?” or something similar. Because let’s say an item (all fixed prices) sells for $10 with “Free Shipping” and another sells it for $6 + $3 shipping, would it be fair to rate the seller with $3 shipping fee 4 stars while the “Free Shipping” seller gets 5 even though he charged more for the item?

I’m sure this happens quite often and to eBay, they made more money from the $10 guy so he will get rewarded! Great system in eBay’s eyes!

Reading anonymous ratings is pointless because I always answer my emails within 12 hours and I always ship in one business day. If I don’t know who gave me what, how can I know what to improve on? Maybe I said something to someone and they got upset but since I don’t know who, I can’t improve my services since I have no idea what I did wrong?

Same goes for the item description. How the heck will I know what listing needs improvements if I don’t know which one received the low score?

The reason I think it’s anonymous is because they KNOW buyers will give low scores because of rage or frustration, not because it’s the truth. They don’t want you to know who did it and make it some kind of revenge on the person. I’m positive that most buyers giving a negative feedback will rate sellers all low DSR scores even though it’s not true.

Another reason for the DSR (and Best Matches) is for sellers to offer “Free Shipping” so that eBay can charge fees on the shipping as well. I mean, lets be honest, there is no such thing as “Free Shipping.” We (sellers) all have to pay for shipping and we incorporate that cost into our cost of the item. So basically, the cost of shipping is just integrated into the cost of the item when we list something in eBay using “Free Shipping.” This with PayPal can take almost 20% on each transaction! That’s a lot of money eBay and PayPal is taking!

So I’m sure this DSR was a move to get us to post items using Free Shipping, to boost Shipping and Handling cost in DSR.

Yesterday, I performed my favorite search in the jewelry category. Best Match gave me a lot of results, but not the ones I was looking for. I had to use the advanced search function, something I never had to do in the past, to filter out Chinese listings for fake gold and silver, and to give me my results ending soonest instead of Best Match. I don’t need Best Match. I want to put in a keyword or two and get back results with those keywords on auction listings ending soonest so that I can bid. Many people don’t bid until the end. I’m one of those many. I don’t want Chinese junk mixed up in my search results, either. It has become a part time job figuring out how to find what I want. I am a big girl — let me decide who I want to buy from. I can read feedback. When I enter a keyword, I know exactly what it is I’m looking for. Get rid of that ridiculous, presumptuous Best Match feature! I prefer to think and search for myself, thank you.