ebay, the beginning of the end?

[andymc]

having being a seller/buyer on there for 6 years i was recently kicked of for seller non performance,2 false chargebacks in 1 month, the phones were signed for but this made no difference to ebay.
does anyone have any insight into their business model, from what i can gather they are trying to shove the smaller sellers off and make room for the big boys, they will have fixed price delivery charges from January and there is still the issue of sellers not being able to respond to feedback, has anyone else had similar crap from ebay, i would be interested to hear your experiences.they have also just laid off 10% of their workforce
thanks
andy

[MitchT]

I've read enough about issues people have with PayPal to never want to sell anything on eBay... and that's before you factor in issues that people are having with eBay too!

I suspect they'll push out the small sellers and some enterprising sort will form a new 'small seller' equivalent that will effectively become the new eBay.

[andymc]

i wish they would hurry up and do it mate

[blindswelledrat]

I have just sold a car on ebay without realizing about all the new crap.
Complete waste of fking time.
People just bid on it and then start asking questions after they win as thought they had emailed you from an autotrader ad.
I will never use it again.
Stupid site.

[emicen]

Whats this about fixed price postage?

[ally_f]

I wish someone would come along and set up a rival for ebay, they treat buyers and seller equally like crap, but then i supposen they can afford to.

a couple of buyers claimed id never sent items and paypal credited their account and debited mine, when i tried to contest it paypal refused as I hadnt got tracking numbers - even though the buyers had both specifically asked me to send it as cheap as possible to reduce postage costs.

then when i hadnt restored my balance within a few weeks (waiting for their response) they suspended my account, which took another 5 weeks to resolve after paying up.

and dont get my started on ebays 'customer care' team...sending repeated generic responses in badly worded quasi-english until i give up replying is NOT the same as resolving my query!

using it as little as possible now, robbing barstewards.

[MikeyT]

Sold my son's moped on there ... first sale didn't reach rserve - put a Buy It Now price on there - sold in a day.

Fees were along the same as putting it in the local paper.

Bloke turned up, paifd cash. Job done. Works for me.

[carmonk]

blindswelledrat said:

I have just sold a car on ebay without realizing about all the new crap.
Complete waste of fking time.
People just bid on it and then start asking questions after they win as thought they had emailed you from an autotrader ad.
I will never use it again.
Stupid site.

That's what worries me. I sold a car on ebay 5 years back and it was quick and easy. I've got another on now though and I don't reckon it's going to work. Too many factors against it - scams, flakes, huge charges, overly complex procedures, the sheer volume of cars for sale. I've made it very clear in the ad that I'll take legal action if the winner fails to pay in full within a timescale but still...

Edited by carmonk on Monday 27th October 13:18

[audidoody]

The OH sold a used handbag to some bint in Texas for £200. Hundreds of words of description. Dozens of close-up pics. The stupid cowgirl was surprised that the bag looked used. PayPal dispute started. OH agreed to refund if buyer returned bag at their expense. Dispute solved. But PayPal has docked her account £200 until the Texan cretin lifts it. If the bag gets 'lost' in the post - bye bye £200.

OH can't even leave Negative feedback anymore.

PayPal recently sent me a small laminated card with a special hotline support number as I am a "special customer". Yeah right. I rang it. it's the same number answered by all the other Dilbert's somewhere in the MidWest.

eBay and PayPal are past their own sell-by date.

[Davi]

ally_f said:

I wish someone would come along and set up a rival for ebay, they treat buyers and seller equally like crap, but then i supposen they can afford to.

a couple of buyers claimed id never sent items and paypal credited their account and debited mine, when i tried to contest it paypal refused as I hadnt got tracking numbers - even though the buyers had both specifically asked me to send it as cheap as possible to reduce postage costs.

then when i hadnt restored my balance within a few weeks (waiting for their response) they suspended my account, which took another 5 weeks to resolve after paying up.

and dont get my started on ebays 'customer care' team...sending repeated generic responses in badly worded quasi-english until i give up replying is NOT the same as resolving my query!

using it as little as possible now, robbing barstewards.

Lesson being - never send anything worth more than a few quid via methods that cannot be traced. Don't offer lesser postage as a service, and state in your listing that you don't and the reason for it.

[staceyb]

Ebid

[andymc]

with regard to the fixed postage, ebay tells you what you can charge, not the post office, see below

We are committed to making eBay a better place to trade by introducing the following measures:

changes to our Postage and Packaging policies on eBay.co.uk
making dispute resolution simpler on eBay (UK & IE)
ensuring our members can trade in a more secure environment (UK & IE)
We will be elaborating on these points over a series of 3 posts.



From 27th January 2009, we’ll be making changes to our Postage and Packaging (P&P) policies on eBay.co.uk. The new requirements include:

The need for sellers to specify a domestic P&P cost on all their listings. Back in spring, we implemented this requirement for new sellers. We are now extending it to all sellers.


The introduction of maximum costs for domestic P&P in the following categories:
Books, Comics and Magazines
DVD, TV and Film
Music
Videogames
Mobile and Home Phones


All DVD listings are to offer Free P&P for domestic deliveries
These changes will apply to all new listings. Read more about how these changes will affect your listings.

Excessive P&P costs are cited as a major reason for buyers to spend less online. Offering a competitive P&P cost can drive higher sales conversions on eBay. We believe these changes will enable sellers to continue offering the best value on eBay and for us to continue serving you with the largest volume of buyers on the web.

[JagLover]

ally_f said:

I wish someone would come along and set up a rival for ebay,

If you are looking for a second hand book Amazon have a good service.

[andymc]

its to sell on mate, ebid has no traffic, someone mentioned google but nothing concrete, are ebays practices not breaching any monopoly rules? enforced paypal etc

[shadowninja]

Every time I get close to opening my first ebay account, I hear of some dodgy practice. Thanks for saving me again.

[Nolar Dog]

Never had a problem with either ebay or Paypal.

I don't think there will ever be a serious alternative/competitor to ebay. Now "ebay" is an everyday word in the english language and I don't think anyone will alter that.

With regard to selling expensive items to (say) America where else could you open yourself to that much potential for so little cost?

[andymc]

a lot of people wont post abroad due to scams, the only time i have been ripped off is in this country, both times London with nigerian sounding names,t0ssers

[dilbert]

audidoody said:

The OH sold a used handbag to some bint in Texas for £200. Hundreds of words of description. Dozens of close-up pics. The stupid cowgirl was surprised that the bag looked used. PayPal dispute started. OH agreed to refund if buyer returned bag at their expense. Dispute solved. But PayPal has docked her account £200 until the Texan cretin lifts it. If the bag gets 'lost' in the post - bye bye £200.

OH can't even leave Negative feedback anymore.

PayPal recently sent me a small laminated card with a special hotline support number as I am a "special customer". Yeah right. I rang it. it's the same number answered by all the other Dilbert's somewhere in the MidWest.

eBay and PayPal are past their own sell-by date.

Oy!

[carmonk]

Yeah, and Paypal doesn't help either. I set up an account ages ago and last year I decided I may want to use it for business (not any more though!) I went through all the validation procedures - bank debits and code entries, automated phone calls, address confirmation, credit card checking and eventually - after two weeks - it said I was fully validated...

Six months later I used my newly validated account for the first time, selling a £640 PC on ebay. Immediately my Paypal account was "suspended", requiring me to go through another load of nonsensical validation processes to get it working again.

There was no reasonable explanation as to why it was suspended, just that I'd exceeded my thresshold and mention of "money laundering". I mean, WTF? Selling a PC on ebay flagged me as a potential money launderer?

In the event I was told to confirm my address, credit card and bank account again. I did the first two and was about to complete the third (two debits to my bank which I then needed to enter on the Paypal site) when my account was reinstated, complete with email, and I was never given the chance to complete the third check.

Absolute madness.

[elanfan]

There is another auction site called Tasbar

bit quiet at the moment but if we all jump ship it will build up as ebay did