Their reasons are all the same… tired of no longer finding deals, and instead finding new item retailers churning items at fixed prices.

IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ THIS LETTER, IT EFFECTS YOU!

Dear valued customer,

Would you please take the time to read the following before leaving us feedback or assigning us “stars” on the DSR (Detailed Seller Rating). Please call our toll-free help line (800–544-3746, or 818-994-2449, 9AM-6PM, M-F, PST) if you have any questions or need assistance of any kind, WE ARE HERE TO HELP YOU!

On aug. 20th 2008, eBay moved the goal posts and changed the seller requirements (again) concerning feedback; now making it near impossible for honest professional sellers like us to remain on the site if you don’t help us in this situation. We should not need your help but eBay has forced every seller to do this.

Did you know that when you click on four out of five DSR stars when leaving feedback (a B+ grade in the real world); this Is a failing grade for every seller on eBay? The new rules require a minimum of “4.3 stars” in each of the four categories of the DSR. If you don’t voluntarily leave sellers five out of five stars in all four DSR categories, good sellers like us will be removed from the site!

THIS IS NOT A JOKE, eBay recently removed us from the site for three weeks due to “Seller Non-performance” because of one negative, one neutral and a single 4.2 DSR category “shipping time” (Note: many of our products are rebuilt to order and we always alert our customers of longer delivery times). eBay’s program automatically determined our fate using a single 30-day sample period! We are not alone; without warning eBay has done this to thousands of other absolutely good sellers (for proof: Google “angry ebay sellers”)

eBay’s ridiculous new statistics program threw out 9-1/2 years of unrivaled commitment to customer satisfaction and determines the survival of our business with a “30-day rolling sample window”.

With more than 10,800+ total positive customer ratings, we always offer the eBay community; unique, useful and fully guaranteed technical products. In addition, we have also provided everyone free personal expert technical assistance through our toll free (800-544-3746) help line, with or without a purchase.

Could eBay possibly believe that these changes will help you the buyer have a better eBay experience? The answer is obvious, if eBay management persists in this direction, the only experience eBay buyers will have in the future is the loss of dedicated, hardworking, and ethical sellers like myself and many thousands of others.

The magic of eBay has always been the sites’ diverse marketplace, “where cottage industry became global”. When all the sellers of unique new and used goods disappear; eBay will become just another web site hawking automated electronic shopping carts filled with imported consumer goods! With your help and my commitment maybe we can bring the magic back to eBay.

Please call me if you have any questions. Thank you for your patronage and support, David Riddle

P.S. if you would like to receive a copy of the comprehensive article: ”There are lies, damn lies and then there are [eBay] statistics” that I wrote about this travesty of eBay’s managements’ “new ideas”, please call me! (This article was viewed by eBay’s “trust and safety” department and in 14-hours I was reinstated on the site, with restrictions of course!).

When Ebay gave the right to buyers to do “drive by shootings” with the non-accountable and anonymous DSR ratings the trouble began. For example I always shipped the same day funds arrived mostly within hours even rushing to the post office to beat closing time. Always used US Priority Mail –Guess what my DSR for shipping time is now? — 4.8 !! NEVER SHIPPED A PARCEL A DAY LATE EVER.
The unaccountabe DSR implentation by eBay angered me because it made me appear somewhat a less than excellent seller.

Then came the unaccountable feedback policy.
I was apprehensive but was certain excellent customer service would avoid being a victim of the “drive by shooting” feedback policy.
The customer from hell reared his ugly contentious head, he made his demands which were met with professional polite responses. He didn’t want his money back due to “time contraints”, blamed me for his problems, would accept a partial refund however. Without argument met his demand for the partial refund — GUESS WHAT? — HE STILL POSTED A NEGATIVE! stating I had caused undue stress, monetary loss and inconvenience for his business.
The really sad part is the item was brand new and under 100% warranty and support from the manufacturer. Couldn’t have possibly satisfied this customer because he recognized the power granted to him by a one-sided feedback policy.

I have paid eBay well over $50,000.00 since I began to sell there 10 years ago.
Do you know how much support or customer service I received during this period? — absolutely ZERO!!
Do you know how many times Ebay threatened me, recently for example with alerts stating they were considering suspending me for charging to much to ship items. Actually lost a nominal amount of money on shipping.
So I went to free shipping to avoid a possible ebay “drive by shooting” suspension.
It’s like living in a communist state doing business with ebay.

I was the best seller Ebay could possibly ever have, yet they insist on treating me like the worst scum on earth. I have had it, craigslist is a organized clusterflop but craigslist listings do great on Google search, customers can use PayPal as a payment and be comfortable due to transaction protection.

If Ebay wants to favor the buyer 100%, it ought to charge buyer fees. Buyer fees would eliminate sellers that end auctions to sell outside of eBay.
Buyer fees would never be acceptable to ebay because they could never totally harrass the buyer like they can the seller.

The new forcing PayPal payments and eliminating checks and money orders seems to be a violation of anti-trust laws, at least it is a monopolistic practice.

eBay’s management seems to be the same as in the beginning, all decisions are made by the seat of the pants. They have been suggesting Meg Whitman as a possible vice presiden candidate for McCain, I puke everytime I hear it, Meg Whitman could be very well considered an idiot due to her inept management of ebay.
Ebay succeeded only because there was no other alternative, imagine what it would be if Google had started it.

Ebay just lost $7000.00 per year of my money, selling will be tougher for sure, but these idiots are not even aware of how angry I have become at them.

The answer is, -yes. There is something that can put the wind back in eBay’s sails.

eBay is a delicate interdependent ecosystem. It is not driven exclusively by either sellers, buyers or management. When management attempts to evoke the sort of change that is designed to alter behavior, it enters a wole new world. Change that affects the fundamental behavior of buyers or sellers is meaningless without the intimate participation of all the parties involved at every relevant level, namely, the concept, development and execution stages.

Change cannot be induced in a vacuum. When hundreds of millions of people are involved change should never be an experiment.

If sellers had a material involvement in the recent changes, we would not be experiencing this much complexity, confusion and apprehension at this stage. It would be a well concieved, well executed business plan. Plans that affect sellers requires sellers to help roll them out in order to succeed. It’s that simple.

Ultimately everthing that happens on eBay affects everyone at one inflection point or another. Every single dynamic intersects with another at some point, even if it is so remote as to be off the radar.

Focus.

Focus on its core competency will put the wind back in eBay’s sails. That core competency is an extraordinary seller base that has demonstrated a decade of deeply vested long term interest. eBay never fully understood that the relationship between seller-marketplace-buyer is at the root of its brand. The community has yet to be embraced as it could be. eBay was never anything other than one giant ecomerce social network partnership. If it’s not too late to focus and make a serious investment in that partnership, eBay’s CORE business, it may yet find a breeze develop slowly and steadily. That is eBay’s brand, a community brand that buyers may eventually find some confidence and interest in returning to if eBay can demonstrate that it can invest in and work with its sellers instead of introducing friction in opposition to large sectors that many sellers cannot comprehend and will be unable to adapt to. The message is that if eBay does not have a relationship with its sellers, how can it possibly understand buyers.

We know there’s a breeze out there somewhere…

Joe Cortese
PESA Founder/Chairman
Professional eBay Sellers Alliance

ebay has virtually eliminated ALL other forms of payments EXCEPT Paypal for small sellers, creating a QUESTIONABLE monopoly with their new rules. Payment from merchant accounts are accepted (far TOO expensive for small sellers) and Propay is allowed, which HAPPENS to be the BANK which Paypal does it’s largest business with (anybody see the financial connection there for ebay, since ebay OWNS Paypal???).

ebay employee and ebay radio host, Griff, posted on the “Seller Central” ebay discussion board titled, “Ebay’s Griff Disapproves of Neg from Deadbeat Bidder” (post #182). Griff wrote:

“I’ve reviewed thousands of disputes between buyers and sellers for the last 12 years and in every single case, the “rude” behavior on the part of a buyer was always precipitated by unprofessional conduct on the part of the seller who assumed intent on the basis of an initial buyer email and responded accordingly. And I am not exaggerating. I mean, every single case.”

This IS Meg Whitman & John Donahoe’s planned “New” ebay, where ebay considers ALL sellers the enemy, with exceptions for the company buy.com (seller ID “buy”) and the PESA group.

ebay’s new policies (among others):

1) rules in the FAVOR of ALL buyers in ALL SNAD claims

2) SUSPEND ALL sellers who receive 4.3 DSR ratings from their buyers, EVEN THOUGH, ebay tells buyers a 4.0 = GOOD TRANSACTION and 5.0 = EXCELLENT TRANSACTION

3) withholds some sellers funds for 21+ days at Paypal’s “SOLE DISCRETION”, through a NEW Paypal user agreement amendment

4) restricts sellers wich in many cases is DUE TO the price AND time THEIR CARRIERS impose in regards to shipping

5) RAISES prices while deceitfully parading listing fee decreases to the media

6) buries fabulous sellers items BEHIND larger sellers with MUCH LOWER customer satisfaction ratings (LOWER DSRs & feedback %)

7) manipulates feedback scores by throwing away YEARS of superior feedback percentages in exchange for ONLY the last 12 months

ebay IS COLLECTING listing fees from sellers for listings which ebay WILL NEVER ALLOW to show up in ANY SEARCHES, due to their new policies!!!

9) allows all buyer to recieve NOTHING BUT 100% positive FEEDBACK, regardless of dishonest buyers’ abuses

10) BANS sellers from leaving HONEST COMMENTS & HONEST feedback ratings about dishonest buyers

11) BANS sellers ability to accept ALL paper payments (money orders, checks, etc), with very few exceptions…items in the “MATURE AUDIENCE” category can still pay with paper methods.

12) Paypal REQUIRES some buyers to ship items they bought on ebay, which the buyers suspect are counterfeit, to be sent to “Liquidity Services” BEFORE Paypal will issue a refund FROM the sellers’ account. NO sellers have reported being reimbursed by Paypal for those items! “Liquidity Services” is NOT an authenticator of items, NOR is it in the business of destroying counterfeit items. “Liquidity Services” SELLS merchandise!!! SEE thread on ebay discussions, “Seller Central” titled, “Anyone Up For A Little Investigating? This Could Be A Biggie!”

If this is a company that some want to deal with, so be it, BUT I have self-respect and value my reputation. I will NOT ALLOW a company with such OUTRAGEOUSLY LOW MORALS and outlandish policies get ANYWHERE near my name, my money or my business!!!

Of blogs there are four types – legal, the e-conomist, Sellers and Buyers. From the buyer blogs there are instance after instance of buyers who came to e-bay and got caught up in the buyer frenzy of auction, only to find afterwards that a reputable store on e-bay carried the same item at a fixed price with a lowered shipping rate.

One of the latest is a Buyer who wanted an original movie poster for Indiana Jones.

E-bays old system has all the “yardsale” auctions coming up first in a search, then a space in their pages with Stores listed below.

The buyer saw the poster in the sales area and went after the first one he saw eventually winning the bid for 81.00 plus 27.00 shipping & handling. After winning, he realized that most stores on e-bay carried the same item for 15.00 with only 5.00 shipping & handling. This Buyers’ blog then goes on to promote e-bay stores.

In the new e-bay, the store inventory section which allows a seller to list items .05 for a 30 day listing will now change to .35 per listing. Then, when the item is searched will come up with all the other buy-it-now items of the same ilk whether yardsale or store; with the main difference being that those stores with the better DSR rating will have their listings show up first.

What Sellers now need to determine is whether the cost of their store plus the listing fee’s of all items sold in conjunction with actual sales warrant the creation of their own web site sans URL, with only a few items – leaders – on e-bay itself. On the invoice back to the buyer or within the sales flyer enclosed with packing or even a label on your packaging you should be placing your store name and your url back to your customer.

With e-bay already offering Sellers the option to give a discount towards final value fee for those customer’s showing up from elsewhere on the net, those Sellers with higher volume should have already purchased a URL from places like http://www.godaddy.com and then created a re-direct at that URL into their e-bay store.

After your store reaches 3,000 per month you should start searching for a reliable package store program with good gateways. The trick is to remove the redirect into e-bay.

Of course, I am just an old, fat, ugly woman without much of the education that many of you seem to have here, it seems to me that you have found what works – online sales. E-bay is a tool, much like many of the marketing programs you can find online. Many Sellers do not go to places online to freely Submit their URL to their store nor to purchase advertisement the way Sears or WallyWorld does.

In the long run – e-bay will end up like a MALL where items can be purchased at a fixed price. In the long run many other auction houses will open up – but those that will make it will be those that will specialize. Already, two online antique auction houses have come together; sports trading card places are doing the same thing.

Best of luck,

Lu
Native American Fabrics
http://www.nati...icanfabrics.com

1. you can not list a link that would take the buyer off the e-bay site. But in e-bay’s new beta format, if you search an item like say… native american fabric you will bring up several pages. At the end of the first page and before you can click to the next page are three advertisement by yahoo – with links to other places on the internet where you can purchase same.

2. When you prepare the form to list an item, you are required to choose a category for the item you are selling. We choose fabrics, and then to specify, we paid the extra and choose cotton. E-bay only offers a person 55 character spaces for titling their item. Ok — item listed. Now, unless you used up a portion of that 55 titling-metatag-spaces with the same words, cotton fabrics, if a buyer searches blue cotton fabric they will not bring up your item.

3. In reading the new details for e-bay where the payments will drop down to a PayPal only, what they are leaving out is that PayPal is going to be reporting beginning in 2010 all purchases and sales over $600.00 per year to the IRS. Google checkout is already doing this. e-bay does state that you can use other formats of income, but that section is totally unexplained. For me, I would rather go with http://www.revo...ionexchange.com. I don’t mind my information being turned over as a Seller, but I think that some of our buyers do mind.

4. Feedback system. While our store is verging on 5.0 DSR’s, we are aware of other sellers that are not. Most of them are dealing with buyer bullies who understand the feedback system, receive the product then create some form of an excuse to demand their money’s back while keeping the product and threaten feedback if the Seller does not comply. One of the area’s online we have used is a database created by PowerSellers of those buyer bullies whose names you can place into your block buyer listing. When twice hit by these same type of people, we immediately used the dispute system and forced the upper hand having the person return the items and then issued refund, its the only way we have been able to remain in control of the situation.

5. URL discount. E-bay offers that if your customer comes in from say – this page of yours and makes purchase then you receive a discount on the final value fee’s. When reviewing the details with the Google Tracker vs. e-bays Omniture, then questioning e-bay, we found that only the first purchase the incoming buyer makes is discounted. This is not defined within e-bay promotions.

Our e-bay online is a store set up to help Native American Women on reservations throughout this country set up small businesses. Combining incomes we purchase direct from manufacturers to establish accounts. While much of the fabrics go direct to the women on the reservations, some pieces come into the store for sale.

As a non-profit, we are allowed to charge cost of fabric plus shipping from manufacturer to us, e-bay listing fee, final value fee, paypal fee plus .25 per yard. E-bay will now be giving special promotions to those sellers who offer free shipping. What we sale, is also sold in retail stores for three times the amount and on e-bay by other sellers for the same price on half the quantity.

While you may not think that “fabric” is a high end item, you must consider what you are wearing, what you sleep in, sit on, decorate your home with, drive in is made from fabric in some form. Of the buy-it-now items, fabric was a portion of the top ten sellers a while back.

While we are seeking other avenues online, we are also considering the creation of our own pages in combination with sales at various online houses that are established while waiting for newer places online to come out of beta, such as Wigix.com.

PowerSellers have ruined Ebay.

After E-Bay bought PayPal I heard all sorts of complaints that it was impossible to contact a live person at PayPal and people were having problems resolving issues.

I never had any problems, but it gave me pause as to whether or not they were at all serious about customer service.

Then they changed the price structure, rating system, and Pay Pal policies from which I concluded that, as a small seller & buyer, I wasn’t the customer they were after. I also read a lot of complaints that they were nickel-and-diming each sale with fees.

So I’m reluctant to use e-bay now. This sucks because I just received a store’s worth of overstock for which e-bay would have been my first choice in the past.

Ebay creates the inherent sabotage into their new business model, so that the average part-time income seller will fall into it and fail. In this way, ebay can escape the critics who accuse them of abusive business practices.They can place the blame on the buyers, who are now positioned by ebay to eliminate the small sellers.

The plan has been in effect way before Mr Donohoe came around. It was at least 2 years in the making. There are other factors that have contributed to ebay’s flailing around without a solid identity. Ebay CEO’s are so busy trying to keep up with the other types of dot coms, that they have forgotten where their original business success came from, and that was it’s “uniqueness” and “hard to find” element, that their “search” made famous.

Anyone can shop online anywhere, and use a credit card or paypal(the only useful thing left in ebay, now). Why pay the ebay “middleman” fees when you can go directly to the Diamond Powersellers’ site’s main web page? Ebay’s private deal with Buy.com, will end up biting them in the behind, when they finally realize that buyers just see the buy.com item in ebay, then log off and go directly to the BUY.com site to do business at a lower price.

The sellers of the “unique” collectibles, antiques, the unusual, the rare and hard to find, and the items that can’t be found in the walmart/bloomingdales online shopping mall, will be going elsewhere to start all over again with their business. It will be difficult at first, but there WILL be another company waiting in the wings to gather up all these sellers and offer them an opportunity to build an online auction site that will be very much like the “old ebay”.

The question is, will it do much to harm ebay’s new identity?I guess we will all find out, soon enough. All it takes is some real experienced groups to join together and create a site like this, and I’ll be willing to bet they are already close to making their first announcements to invite all of ebay’s “rejects” into their welcoming arms!

Let me know if this is true for everyone else. Ebay, at least for me, has become purely a price comparison site. I no longer search the site with the intention to buy but rather to gauge the general prices of items that I’m interested in so that I can begin my real shopping search elsewhere. It’s certainly a monumental shift in shopping psychology.

It’s weird how the push to empower small-time sellers to become power sellers has created almost a secondary market within Ebay which, interestingly enough, efficently prices items at or above the general price average that you found across all the major shopping sites. It’s a very interesting effect.

Enough complaining, solutions. I don’t know a ton of tech terminology, but if they close their API (similar to our friend Craig and his Craigslist) and stop allowing outside competition with THEIR site traffic, their traffic will grow (ie. no widgets that allow sniping or ebay following on your desktop unless it is their widget). Drop their BS nickel and dime fees and come up with a simple fee structure based on final selling price. Come on, those pics don’t cost them anything and you think that BOLD really cost them a dollar or even a dime? I fully agree with featuredd listings but twenty fees to sell a laptop or video game console? Finally, open the payments to outside competition and charge them for usage of Ebay, they would gladly pay it. The exposure alone is worth a few percent and they will likely make it up in fees anyway. Paypal will survive as long as they would have otherwise and if not, the Paypal sacrifice would be offset by gains on ebay and they can spin it off to another company, perhaps in Nigeria? Fraud begins with Paypal, and there are “conspiracy theories” out there about why, but I sure know that if Bank of America had a breach of my account two or more times, I am finding a new bank!

There’s a psychological difference between when a buyer participates in an auction and when they are just shopping for a good deal online. Auctions INVOLVE people on a level that no other form of ecommerce has. That has always been ebay’s strength. And now they’re thinking of focusing elsewhere? Duh!