eBay Now Totally Off its Rocker?

In case you haven't read it yet, as of May 2008 sellers will no longer be able to leave negative -- or even neutral -- feedback about buyers.

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What a completely stupid thing to do. I can't understand why sellers have not just pulled out en masse from eBay.


Frank

This unfortunately leaves ALL sellers open to blackmail, give me a discount or refund or else.....

It's no good saying, it will not happen, I got deadbeats trying all the time... since Nov 07 god knows where ebay's getting the buyers, but they are total trailer park trash.

What kills me is the number of quality sellers that are still there. I'm friends with a couple of top eBay sellers in their categories, and ask them all the time -- basically every time something like the above item comes out, which is all the time these days -- why they won't move off of eBay and just notify their existing customer base of the change. They're paralysed by the idea of change, while ironically eBay is changing the rules on them every couple of months!


Frank

Just saw this ...

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My God, it just never stops!


Frank

Wow! That really is stupid! I mean what if the buyer just lied and tell paypal that the product was not as described or something? Specially now that eBay has changed the eBay Feedback System to where sellers can not leave a Negative or Neutral Feedback to a buyer.... This is just scary! I need to move to a real merchant account. Preferrably Merchantinc.com which jimmy has recommended.....

By the way, is this new paypal policy already on effect? And what is a 'High-Risk' item? Is it electronics that cost around $500-$3000 range?

Hi All,
People have to just take the plunge and get the heck off ebay.

There are much better ways to sell your merchandise, and you can actually make a profit.

Dont be afraid of change!! It is part of owning your own business and needs to be embraced.

We moved off ebay June/July of 2007 when they raised their prices and started acting tyranical about feedbacks!! We now spend the thousands of $ we gave to ebay on other marketing methods and it worked out perfect. We make money, we dont deal with the fraudsters on ebay nor the irrational buyers that hold feedback hostage to get what they want. I think we all added many years to our lives over here by avoiding the hassles of ebay!!!

GET OFF EBAY -- Should be the SaleHoo Antham

Tiffany
Mountain View Movies
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So what payment options will integrate wiwth eBay besides merchantinc? I found this one really confusing & cancelled my account.

There are a few others out there but they charge very high prices. Merchantinc. Is actually First Data. They are the Largest Credit card company in the world. Paypal actually uses first data to do all of thier transactions. Then they bump the percentage up and charge people 2% extra to do transactions that first data is already doing for us.

Paypal is a middle man. But they are a Giant as far as advertising how special they are supposed to be.

so that's how ebay makes their $$$$$

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I AGREE 110% WITH THIS GENTLEMAN!!!!

ATTENTION EVERYONE THAT USES EBAY & PAYPAL... In an effort to get them to listen to vendors, there is plan to BOYCOTT ebay starting 18th thru 25th of FEB... if anything, we can hurt them where it counts in the pocket. If everyone that is a powerseller joins in they could lose a ton of money and listen....

John (aka bacpro)

I think they got it wrong with the negative feedback thing. The way I read it elsewhere is a seller can't leave negative feedback in response to negative feedback from a buyer. But they can mutually remove it if a buyer leaves one.

I think they got it wrong with the negative feedback thing. The way I read it elsewhere is a seller can't leave negative feedback in response to negative feedback from a buyer. But they can mutually remove it if a buyer leaves one.

Whats really stupid is how you have no protection from a bad buyer. I recently had a buyer try to pull a fast one on me with a dvd player. Left me a neg. Stating not what I wanted , still too big. And like this is my fault.

I retaliated and left him a negative. Within 20 min he filed for a removal of the feedback. His excuse for the feedback was that he only left it because he wanted me to refund his money and take the item back. So If I had no recourse I would have had a negative FB and the buyer was going to take advantage of me becuase after they got the item they had second thoughts????

My last message to him was that I am not a Wal-Mart. Impulse bidders are stuck with what they buy. If he wanted to return the item, He could return it at his own expense. I would refund his payment Minus a 10% restocking fee. And I would not refund his shipping.. He never messaged back.

If ebays rules are in force I would have lost $45.00 on that transaction to get that negative removed.

I just thunk of something.

Maybe eBay is doing this feedback thing to take our attention off fees.

They might not be planning to do the FB thing but want to be able to pull our attention off the fee thing and then when it comes time to implement the FB thing they will say well we decided to listen to our sellers. Then maybe it will make sellers happy and the fee hit wont feel so bad. At least to their thinking.

Either way, I think this is the beginning of the end to eBay as we know it.

I just thunk of something.

Maybe eBay is doing this feedback thing to take our attention off fees.

They might not be planning to do the FB thing but want to be able to pull our attention off the fee thing and then when it comes time to implement the FB thing they will say well we decided to listen to our sellers. Then maybe it will make sellers happy and the fee hit wont feel so bad. At least to their thinking.

Either way, I think this is the beginning of the end to eBay as we know it.

Nah thats doubtfull. Its just a open chance for ebay to actually have competition.
I doubt we will ever see an end to ebay. It will always be a household name. But I do see other companies jumping in to take some of ebays buisness. When that does happen ebay will drop thier prices and work like a company that actually has competition.

Anyone seen that powersellers that have a DSR rating of 4.5 or below are likely to lose their status! Currently going into effect on the .com site but likely to roll to others.

Lose your PS and lose your fee reduction benefits to!!!

The time is now to utilise Ebay to bump up your own site.

to make matters worse, Paypals going to keep your money for 21 days then give it you....earning HUGE profits Im sure

I think everyone is a little too hung up on this negative feedback thing. A negative feedback isn't the end of the world or will it put you out of business. Its inevitable that you are going to get one sooner or later. If you look closely at the negatives people get, you can see that most are unfounded and given by buyers with very low feedback scores. A seller with 300 negatives but 56,000 positives is not going to make me not purchase something that I need or want. Does anyone else feel this way? I feel its still a good way to sell your goods but it certainly isn't the only way. I'm not ready to totally bail quite yet.

I think everyone is a little too hung up on this negative feedback thing. A negative feedback isn't the end of the world or will it put you out of business. Its inevitable that you are going to get one sooner or later. If you look closely at the negatives people get, you can see that most are unfounded and given by buyers with very low feedback scores. A seller with 300 negatives but 56,000 positives is not going to make me not purchase something that I need or want. Does anyone else feel this way? I feel its still a good way to sell your goods but it certainly isn't the only way. I'm not ready to totally bail quite yet.

I dont think you understand the full nature of this problem. The feedback issue is a huge concern. Especially since ebay initiated the seller compliance rules.

If you get a 5% unsatisfied buyer rate ebay will limit your listing ability. If it continues ebay will ban you permanantly. The negative count exactly the same as buyer disputes and neutral feedbacks and all of those mark against your rating. If one buyer leaves you a negative or a neutral and files a dispute against you you lose 2 marks.

Not everyone will have 56,000 feedbacks to buffer this problem. And the rating is only accountable on a month to month basis. And yes this can ruin your business and put you completely out of business if you rely on ebay alone.

It could be a good ploy! Well, it's got us talking about ebay - no matter if it's good or bad.