EBAY - Let The Seller Beware
I remember what Ebay Used to be.
Yesterday's Ebay used to be a great place to sell those items that you no longer use. The fees were manageable and it was quite a hassle free experience all round. Buyers and seller alike were held accountable for their actions in a free and open marketplace where almost anything could be had and usually the price was more than fair.
Today's Ebay is like some sort of horrible joke. If you're a seller, the joke's on YOU!
Let me tell you about the fees!
Does the phrase "Highway Robbery" ring a bell?
The Ebay fee structure has always been setup so that they take a cut of whatever you sell your merchandise for. This cut has steadily increased since the inception of Ebay. The last item I sold on Ebay sold for about $800usd. By the time it was all said and done between Ebay and Paypal i was out nearly a hundred bucks. That is selling this item on Ebay cost me a hundred bucks. This despite the fact that they did no more work for me than they did for the guy who sold a DVD on Ebay for 10 Bucks! It's out of line and it's the reason why savvy sellers have already abandoned Ebay.
Feedback is now a one way street
Buyers can ruin your good name with absoute impunity.
In the good old days both buyer and seller had equal rights in terms of the feedback system. If a buyer took a long time to pay or didn't pay at all, as a seller it was your right to leave them negative feedback. Not anymore! Now sellers cannot leave negative feedback for buyers. This means that you could be a model seller, provide great pre and post sale service and the buyer can turn around and leave negative feedback against you and there's not a damn thing you can do about it!
Ebay protects the buyers, not the sellers. This is an error in business practices because it's the seller that pays all the fees.
Ebay's great service will bend you over!
So you can take chargebacks where the sun don't shine.
The other wonderful thing about todays new Ebay is the lack of flexibility in receiving payment. Unless you have a merchant Visa/Mastercard you MUST use paypal. Paypal service is not free. Ebay owns Paypal for those of you that weren't aware. They even try to rook you into paying money for a shipping label with the customer's address on it. I mean it's a digital picture of a shipping label that you have to print out yourself! As if I can't write that on a piece of paper with a wide tipped magic marker! If you don't use their shipping label service they may even use it as an excuse to delay the customer's payment to you. In many cases they hold your money until you provide a tracking number for the shipment. Sending the item via trackable shipping is also an added expense for seller whose customers want to save money by choosing cheaper shipping options that don't normally include tracking service.
The real problem here is that anytime someone buys from you using a credit card they can simply wait until the item arrives and then deny they ever got it. Once phone call takes the money out of your paypal account and puts it back in their credit card! I have heard many stories about sellers who shipped product and ended up with no money and no product! Even after they contacted the shipping company and obtained proof that the item arrived and was signed for, neither Paypal or the credit card companies did anything to help.
This is why many sellers demanded to be paid with money orders. This was the only way to protect your self from scammers. Ebay has basically made this impossible now with their new policies.
Yesterday's Ebay used to be a great place to sell those items that you no longer use. The fees were manageable and it was quite a hassle free experience all round. Buyers and seller alike were held accountable for their actions in a free and open marketplace where almost anything could be had and usually the price was more than fair.
Today's Ebay is like some sort of horrible joke. If you're a seller, the joke's on YOU!
Let me tell you about the fees!
Does the phrase "Highway Robbery" ring a bell?
The Ebay fee structure has always been setup so that they take a cut of whatever you sell your merchandise for. This cut has steadily increased since the inception of Ebay. The last item I sold on Ebay sold for about $800usd. By the time it was all said and done between Ebay and Paypal i was out nearly a hundred bucks. That is selling this item on Ebay cost me a hundred bucks. This despite the fact that they did no more work for me than they did for the guy who sold a DVD on Ebay for 10 Bucks! It's out of line and it's the reason why savvy sellers have already abandoned Ebay.
Feedback is now a one way street
Buyers can ruin your good name with absoute impunity.
In the good old days both buyer and seller had equal rights in terms of the feedback system. If a buyer took a long time to pay or didn't pay at all, as a seller it was your right to leave them negative feedback. Not anymore! Now sellers cannot leave negative feedback for buyers. This means that you could be a model seller, provide great pre and post sale service and the buyer can turn around and leave negative feedback against you and there's not a damn thing you can do about it!
Ebay protects the buyers, not the sellers. This is an error in business practices because it's the seller that pays all the fees.
Ebay's great service will bend you over!
So you can take chargebacks where the sun don't shine.
The other wonderful thing about todays new Ebay is the lack of flexibility in receiving payment. Unless you have a merchant Visa/Mastercard you MUST use paypal. Paypal service is not free. Ebay owns Paypal for those of you that weren't aware. They even try to rook you into paying money for a shipping label with the customer's address on it. I mean it's a digital picture of a shipping label that you have to print out yourself! As if I can't write that on a piece of paper with a wide tipped magic marker! If you don't use their shipping label service they may even use it as an excuse to delay the customer's payment to you. In many cases they hold your money until you provide a tracking number for the shipment. Sending the item via trackable shipping is also an added expense for seller whose customers want to save money by choosing cheaper shipping options that don't normally include tracking service.
The real problem here is that anytime someone buys from you using a credit card they can simply wait until the item arrives and then deny they ever got it. Once phone call takes the money out of your paypal account and puts it back in their credit card! I have heard many stories about sellers who shipped product and ended up with no money and no product! Even after they contacted the shipping company and obtained proof that the item arrived and was signed for, neither Paypal or the credit card companies did anything to help.
This is why many sellers demanded to be paid with money orders. This was the only way to protect your self from scammers. Ebay has basically made this impossible now with their new policies.
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