Suprise! I'm Here to Whine About eBay!

(title selected to indicate to you, fellow Salehoo members, that I am painfully aware that I whine about eBay more or less constantly.)

Now, I am a grown man, and I realise that the moral to this little anecdote is 'always read the fine print in advance' but I was really suprised this week to find yet another asinine, arbitrary restriction put in place by eBay in the name of 'consumer protection' the net effect of which looks a lot less like protecting consumers than it does screwing over small sellers in favour of big ones.

I took a bunch of prepaid gift cards in trade for a wholesale parcel offline. I had looked around at some places that buy them, as well as tracking eBay sales of the brands I was taking on, before agreeing to the trade, and figured by my math that not only was the buyer saving money and hassle, but that I would ultimately end up making even more off of the deal than I would have in a straight cash arrangement. Everybody wins, right?

No, of course not. I listed the first of several cards, went to list the next one and am hit with an error page which suggests that I read the special rules for gift cards (lovely how each conceivable thing one might wish to sell on eBay has its own set of policies and guidelines, isn't it?) The practical upshot of this is, as it turns out, one can only list one gift card for sale on eBay. WTF. So if you got two gift cards for Christmas that you don't want, you are allowed to sell ... both of them ... but ... one at a time. And if you take thousands of dollars' worth of gift cards in one lump trade and wish to sell them on eBay ... well ... hope you don't need the money any time soon.

Naturally, eBay makes exceptions to this policy for 'eligible sellers.'

There aren't enough !@#$%^&* symbols on the entire Internet to censor my opinion of this policy, so I will leave it to your imagination.

And yes, I know, I really should have checked. It should have not suprised me after all the daft nonsense eBay has rolled out since it took over PayPal (which for some reason seems to be the watershed event in eBay's policy fiascos.) Yes, I know, I'm just whining. Still. Gar. So. Many. Gift. Cards.


Frank

I feel for you Frank, I would be ripping what little hair I have left out after getting snaggled in that little policy snare.

Ebay specialises in policies, honestly, no one else comes even close to them in the policy stakes. and while you're absolutely right of course, as sellers we should plough the field before sewing the grain, there simply isn't enough hours in the day to cover ebay policy on everything, and still have a chance at making some money!

Absurd policies has always been my own issue with ebay, they do employ some very lazy policies that tend to be extremely broad and catch more out than they should.

I consider it simply lazy policy making, if they spent as much time refining their polices and servicing them correctly other than simply making more and more, then it would serve both them and their sellers far better.

Still and all mate, they'll make good presents for the family and friends, still might end up saving you a few bucks somewhere down the road : )

I'm with both of you on this one. When we studied for eBay's certified consultant exam, there was just too much to read...one policy leads to another and another and yet another. its doesn't seem to end (most of the time). I'm still a bit surprise how we passed the exam knowing there was still so much I personally missed when I studied..LOL

But kidding aside, here's something that might make you whine even more, if you haven't read this yet, do have a look:

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Things are definitely getting more complicated as each month passes and we still have about 10 more months to go - so what's next after this?

Yeah and after reading more about that new DSR standard, if anyone on this site is using a drop shipper, well you better think twice about using one on the site because that will for sure get you kicked off, including myself! LOL

Yeah, I've had my eye on these upcoming changes that link Richelle posted relates to.

It's a very pointed attack on smaller sellers, and as Don says will seriously impact on small Drop Shippers especially, making them an endangered species on ebay!

Ebay has highlighted their interest in curbing drop ship sales on the site on more than one occasion, so this feels like it's pointed in that direction. Having said that they could do far more, and I actually believe that it is incumbent on them to inact a policy that enforces drop shipped products to be identified as such.

Now I know that won't make many droop shippers very happy lol, but as a consumer, you should have the right to know if you are dealing with a seller who actually holds the item or if you are dealing with an agent on-selling for someone else.

That information is completely valid in making a purchasing decision, and why ebay does not have a policy to cover that is completely beyond me, especially when they are doing their level best to drop the anchor on the method of drop shipping in general.

A policy black hole in this situation effects buyers for sure, however why ebay still refuses to protect sellers buy providing some sort of customer verification rating system completely stuns me. Sellers are this companies most valuable asset, yet they are treated like they have the plaque.

Constantly having to meet new selling criteria and then just left completely open to fraud and abuse from dog customers who enjoy the thrill of destroying someone's feedback, and putting their entire account in peril.

If it wasn't so damn insane it would be hugely amusing, but again, just another example of ebay policy that is completely of the rails and still accelerating!

Now that I'm back on the site again I am starting to remember why the hell I left in the first place lol. No doubt in my mind, ebay is a great stepping stone, if you can manage to get that step now, but it's no longer a viable long term solo enterprise solution.

Anyone not establishing their business outside of ebay asap is running a serious risk of losing their business all together!

Hey Mark, Yes I am actually seriously questioning my plans now with the whole online business. I just don't know where to turn right now because No other site is getting agressive enough to get their name out there and ALOT, let me say that again ALOT of sellers right now on eBay are getting those DSR warnings of coming in below the standard is the policy were to start today and I just don't think alot of us sellers falling under that category are realizing that this is a pivotal moment to consider is we can make it work without eBay because from what I read once the new policy is active and your not in compliance, ebay can restrict the amount of listings per month or they can have the right to kick you off the site for good!


Folks seriously I for one am using a drop shipper and I think Mark and Salehoo can make a strong new Thread here that covers more of this DSR Policy because from what I read everyday on this site alot of users are using or want to use a Drop Shipper and I just think alot of sellers come April will be in big trouble. Alot of us rely online sales as our income.


Thanks,

reading this made me sign up to another auction site Bonanzle , yeah i think ebay is hard and expensive, but i'm just a beginner, I started last month selling on ebay I sold $1025 USD worth of products but at the end i had to pay a lot to ebay an payal, that sucks .

Yeah if your selling drop ship products in the very near future will be impossible to succeed on eBay without getting restricted or kicked off. I too am focusing right now on investing in my Bonanzle Booth, I figured if im gonna pay a few hundred bucks per month to eBay I might has well use that money marketing my Bonanzle booth! :)

I've got a call from Ebay today , they say that they have uncapped my account , that now I can sell unlimited or something like that , because I have good Feddback for now 100% , I hope I could get more products to sell, but I'm running out of products , I was selling old stuff I had around. and frankly I don't know what to do, most 'wholesalers' sell at retail price , the few real wholesalers are good but ebay is saturated of their products, lol . well I don't know how much time i'm gonna last on ebay.

Hey Enoc,

Well I totally feel your pain as many on here do. I would totally recommend getting yourself on Bonanzle and use that money your paying to ebay in fees in marketing your Booth on Bonanzle. Like if your paying eBay 50 bucks per month you obviously have that money to pay them, well use those funds at getting yourself on Google Adwords and other paid marketing programs and get your Bonanzle booth out there in the open.

Also get yourself Google Optimized.

true I think I'm gonna start putting more effort on Bonanzle because I see no future on Ebay

I think it's a great move to start focusing on a platform other than ebay, but I don't think it's smart to ignore ebay altogether. No other online platform can provide you with more traffic, so to ignore it altogther is to shrink your market straight away, and that is never good for sales.

I treat ebay as a marketing platform, setting up my own site and then using ebay traffic to market my own platform to. If you treat ebay like that, and you sell a product that does get you traffic flow there, then the fees you end up paying are sensational value........ if your marketing is switched on and can deliver that traffic to your own platform without getting your account squashed for some fee circumvention policy breach.

The big problem is most sellers tend to be quite lazy, only setting up an ebay account and expecting that to deliver them an income. Those days have long gone, ebay still plays a key role in onoine sales and therefore can play a key role in your marketing, but I don't think it is personally smart for anyone to simply rely on ebay anymore.

well, i'm thinking on running an ebay store and the free bonanzle store for now, since I don't have much wholesale sources to rely on , i'm gonna use dropshipping on bonanzle , i bought a website , i'm gonna start building it to sell stuff on my own too, as soon as i can.

That sounds like a pretty good plan, actually I see that Joe has just made a very good post on another thread regarding the technique of a sales funnel, and that's very much was I was talking about just above.

Joe has gone into some good detail about how a sales funnel actually works, and is well worth a read because it's a proven method of building a business if you do it right.

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Right, that's similar to what I was trying to say in an earlier post about people new to the business who are terrified of loss. I practically pay people to take my stuff on their first buy ... but the cultivation of the relationship is what counts. Sure, some products are great one-off winners and you make a ton, but you just can't have it both ways. You're either buying in large bulk and getting the best price you can, or you're dealing with dropshippers and companies like HotBuy and are simply not going to be able to compete on price, and will need to find another way to market.

This is such a basic point.


Frank

About GiftCards and whining

The reason why ebay has a policy on giftcards is because there is a lot of shady activity associated with giftcards. Shoplifting rings would shoplift thousands from department stores and return the stolen merchandise for giftcards. Ebay became a fence for these giftcards. Fraudsters would buy giftcards with stolen credit card numbers and fence them too on ebay. Scammers (some buyers) would drain the giftcards after they sold them on ebay. I don't blame ebay for a policy on giftcards. I too have had auctions taken down involving giftcards.

There is no sense in whining about ebay. Do i think they get away with murder sometimes? yes. There isn't much that can be done about it though. You can always go sell somewhere else. Nobody ever said making money was going to be easy. I think ebay is shooting itself in the foot with its heavy regulation. Hopefully Google can come out with an auction site to compete with ebay. If this happens expect ebay fees to drop like a rock.