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2.) (August) PayPal confiscated seller money to protect sellers by making refunds out of the sellers own cash. These funds are to be returned to sellers accounts every 60 to 90 days, then taken back out as “new” money. Sellers cannot access the money for any reason, even to pay eBay fees. The reason for their “rolling reserve”? “Sellers are incompetent”, according to a PayPal supervisor I spoke with. Now free money is available to buyers and, refusing to pay interest to sellers, eBay has your money to invest for themselves.
3.) Late September. Ebay has shortened the time for buyers to pay to four days (although sellers are permitted to specify a multiple choice list of longer periods, up to 32 days. Those options begin at over two weeks). At the end of the 4 day period, buyers are given an automated Item Strike, no matter what a seller has arranged. A buyer that needs more time because of circumstances, like waiting on a pay check, are given a strike. Threfore, the negotiation opportunity no longer exists. I have not used the Item Strike routine at all. It offends and intimidates buyers, when an email to the buyer asking if they need time has been 100% effective for me and racks up buyer feedback and trust at the same time.
There are other changes coming as well. eBay is determined to use sellers through micromanagement as a farmer uses milk cows. Sellers are helpless to to work with their own customers over payment and claims issues. My observation to edify eBay was that I refuse to lower my customer service standards to their level, calling their buyers of services incompetent and in need of eBay to step in is the worst bad example of customer service I have seen. Trying to take over my buyers services from me is completely wrong-headed and terribly offensive to their direct buyers of their services: sellers. Plus, they have proven that they know little to nothing when it comes to selling and are incompetent.
Sellers are now prostitutes and eBay is their pimp.

Don’t waste your energy and time on complaining and trying to find a voice of reason for eBay’s actions. Obviously, eBay couldn’t care less about everyone but its own selves. They are going into bankruptcy and they are doing it on purpose. It’s all just a big show. They are not stupid, they created the marked and set all the standard and they will destroy it and happily retire on eBay island. It is up to us to save the market. Forget eBay, there are many alternative websites where you can market your product for fraction of a cost or even free. Of course, the traffic on these sites is not nearly as high as the traffic on eBay, but this is because everyone is attached to their precious FEEPAY system. If sellers and buyers rated eBay according to eBay’s own feedback system What would happen? That’s right absolutely nothing, cause we don’t have control over the situation.
Time to take control

Advertise your products of alternative websites, for free of fraction of a cost. To recommend a few: http://www.JaxBids.com Plunderhere.com AuctionQuests etc…..

Get away as far as possible from eBay. Get away and take your traffic with you while you still can. Advertise everything you got on an alternative website, and don’t just choose one and make it your favorite, choose all of them cause they’re mainly free anyways nothing to loose but only to gain. Health, Health and Happiness to us all

The e-Tail Tsar

What is probably going to happen is that ebay will drop these in favor of big box companies. This has started already with ebay and GM getting together and allowing autos to be sold directly to customers on ebay (california only for the time being). What’s big deal? GM closed dealerships, laid off dealers, closed plants and laid off workers, and now is bypassing those pesky dealers left and selling directly to customers. Bigger profit for them, they love it having all that ebay traffic.

Big box companies are licking their chops at doing the same, and the industry thinks that this is the direction ebay is headed. And soon. Why have the upkeep of stores when electronics, etc can be directly sold to public via ebay?

Time will tell.

Oh, and if you are thinking of leaving ebay, do one important thing before you leave, get the emails of all your customers (Paypal accounts have these) and email them to tell them where you are going (hopefully ebid.net). ebay does not like this, but it helps your new auction site, gets you those important first sales, and it is fun to take your customers with you.

GO to ebid.net, it is like old home week with all the former ebay buyers and sellers!! This is a great site that is doing everything right!

You will find that the 2nd largest auction site is ebid.net, the UK based firm with sellers/buyers worldwide. It has some 3 million auctions a day with a growth rate of about 5% (daily growth– ebay often has NO daily growth rate). Why pick a website that has only 1000 auctions a day or only 1000 sellers? Why bother?

I have sold on ebid.net for almost 9 months and am extremely satisfied with the site, the policies, and the results. Does it have the 24 million daily auctions of ebay? No 3 million, but it is gaining AND ebid.net is swamped with ex-ebay sellers!!!!

Way it works is that if seller choses to buy a one time $49 fee, they have LIFETIME membership and DO NOT pay listing fees. Up to 5 photos are free, 5 stores are free, and the features on listing such as adding an extra category are 5 cents (compared to ebay’s $1). Relisting is free, you just pay for anything fancy you add (bold, extra category, etc, often only 5 cents anyway0.

Gallery photo is free, and when you sell in this category, you pay no listing fees, and when it sells you pay only 2%. TWO PERCENT. At ebay I was paying 25%, which added up to about $6000 in fees a year (and I was not selling $100,000 a year, only about $25,000).

If seller would like their item displayed at top of page, they can list it as “featured” for $1 listing fee, and when it sells, NO ADDITIONAL FEE.

Policies are clear. If seller breaks policy (i.e. lists in wrong category), the listing is pulled and erased. That is it. Sellers can accept any form of payment, ebid has its own,PPPpay, Paypal, checks, etc. Most of us kept PayPal because we took our buyers with us and they had accounts already!!

Feedback is fair. Seller AND buyers can give positive, negative and neutral. Feedback is NOT permanent. Sellers, buyers and ebid can change the feedback. If seller gets an unfair negative, they contact ebid support, explain problem, and often within a few hours the negative feedback is REMOVED!!

Sellers can bring their ebay feedback over via an independant service, some sellers do, some do not.

Forums are open, fun, and a great exchange of ideas. ebid administration regularly monitors the forums, and makes changes in website features, policies, etc, using that info. i.e. when several of us were helping a newbie set up photos in listing, it involved a silly step by step process that we admitted was clumsy and hard to figure out. Within 3 weeks, the photo section had been completely redone, made simplier, and the suggestions we made were implemented. This happens quite a bit.

Forums also have sections asking for suggestions on new categories, how to promote your business, ebid in the news, antiques, electronics, music, and one called kitchen table, where any subject goes.

Forums are wonderful because what you have on ebid that is so unique is that you have an English UK based company (w/ a Texas computer server aspect), English sellers/buyers, and lots of American seller/buyers too. Throw in some Canadians, Australians, people from South Africa, etc, and you have lively comversations.

Forums are also extremely helpful for newbies starting to sell. Any question is answered carefully, if they ask, other sellers will analyze the listings, and suggest ways to booster sales. Any new sales benefit all of us, so help is freely given, unlike ebay where everyone was competition and few helped anyone.

Selling has been slower, I sold perhaps 600 items so far, but lately it was been picking up considerably. I think holiday selling is coming early this year. If people want to make a switch to another auction site, they should do it quickly so they are up and running when the holiday rush really takes off.

Not as much traffic as ebay, no one does, but this place is #2, and appear to be the one place that is getting all of the ebay “rejects” or “refugees”. This is an excellent company to take up the ebay auction mantle and to do it right.

ebid.net does stream our auctions directly to google, so we are constantly getting new buyers checking out our items.

ebid.net also does not play games with the order your items are listed in the category. It is strictly by time remaining, no one gets ahead by having better feedback etc. Refreshing!! And you can get your item on top of page for just $1 (and no final fee)

ebid.net also features our stores, and our seller status thru continual rotating boxes on the website. I will be listing and see my stores shown as featured item, or my picture under “hot sellers”. Lots of fun to get this free advertising with a link.

Selling is a bit different here. People are MUCH more polite (even the US buyers), and those who get out of line are quickly shown the door. Ebid acknowledges that ebay’s buyers are/were spoiled and allowed to much power. Everyone must act like adults here, or they are closed down. No backstabbing, no getting other people’s auctions pulled, no getting people suspended, etc. No games.

Selling is different because they are not the bidding wars we saw on ebay. Buyers do not fight over items, items usually sell for the asking/first bid, so we recommend sellers do not do the 99 cent auctions, etc. Just put $3.99 as an opener instead. Buyers are not online as much, do not follow auctions as closely, sort of back to normal rather than the crazy ebay bidding.

When I left ebay it was because i was suspended, why, no one could explain. I went to the Wisconsin Attorney General for Consumer protection and had them contact ebay to get an explaination. ebay did that and reluctantly let me come back. By then I had my own website and started on ebid.net so told them where to go. This is a good way to get reinstated, clear your name, but it takes months which does not help when you are closed down and have no funds.

There is a class action law suit getting started concerning the unfair ebay suspensions. Save your paperwork, and just wait, those suspended will be contacted as ebay will be required to release our names to the lawyers, etc. But this could take years.

So sorry this is sooooo long, but there is a lot to say. Check out the stats and pick an alternative company that is larger, and growing. ebid.net is #2, right under ebay, and it a great alternative. Not perfect, sellers will find they have to sharpen their selling skills (write searchable titles/descriptions etc), but if you need help, you get it here.

Does anyone have opinions about Ebid and how easy it is to sell and be paid.

I’ve been selling on eBay since 1999 and have seen such a drastic change it makes me sick. Just got hit with there new feedback and policies. 4 negatives from the same buyer. I had a 100% until they showed up. I sent the items he bought to his paypal address and he had them forwarded to another address, siting damaged goods when he finally received them. Well guess what boys & girls as a seller “YOUR” responsible! No mater what the TOS or user agreement states, until it gets in the hands of the buyer they can send it to the moon and back if it gets damaged paypal & ebay forces a automatic refund.

No matter what proof you have. I had all tracking info showing the buyer had forwarded the item and the USPS backed me up stating the damaged occurred after it was forwarded. I’m about to pull my hair out.

Then to top it all off the same buyer files another claim stating he didn’t receive the second item, Again, I have all tracking info to prove he did but eBay still forces another refund. So now I’m out $300 bucks and the seller never returned the items….I’m done with ebay & paypal!

http://www.EnergyBook.biz

You can post as many products or general listings as you like for free. For example a classified as for a year. Some great features and easy interface make EnergyBook a real ebay alternative. Please support us by visiting the site and help us grow this free and green trading site.