Is anyone else "moving on" from their Ebay days?

FloFlo

I was a silver power seller for the last 2 years and stopped on 31 July. Changes to feedback, star ratings etc. is a joke. I stopped leaving any feedback for buyers a couple of months ago as I think its meaningless if you can only leave a positive. I no longer feel safe posting to even a confirmed address, I had more returns and claims of non receipt or damages since the feedback changes than in the whole 2 years. I was an excellent seller with 3000 feedback and 100% I always refunded quickly in the event of non receipt or complaint, I would source items for buyers if I had enquiry and I liked doing it. But as soon as these changes came in things became more difficult and I started to resent buyers and ebay which signalled the end for me - such a shame.

jdfallon1970

tomstickland wrote: »

TBH, 99% of buyers/sellers are great and I think business can continue as normal if you're prepared to suffer a few minor problems.

90% maybe????? not 99%. And you can only coninue as normal if your profit margins can take this. There has been a massive influx of ebay buyers in the last 6 months. From my experience at least 10% expect something for nothing e.g. if you spent more than 10p on the 2 boxes, 3 layers of bubble wrap and roll of tape to protect the item then they give you a lower star rating and email you requesting a postage refund OR if royal mail have a bad day and the item takes a few days longer then they either put in paypal dispute or leave you neutral/negative feedback stating it took ages to post.

% wise I personally think there are more scamer buyers than there are sellers unfortunately ebay have no interest in dealing with scammer buyers - why would they? ITS THE SELLERS THAT PAY THE FEES (oh the irony). But by dealing with scammer sellers ebay appear that they are coming down on the buyer's side therefore instilling confidence in buyers that something will be done if they are scammed (the impression is given - not always the case). This means more buyers and consequently higher selling prices at auction and therefore more fees for ebay. Sellers can leave but there will always be more sellers to take their places. The main thing that the current changes have resulted in is that there are less small sellers and less goods in some categories, more in others e.g. electrical - tv etc. Coincidently the biggest area for both buyer and seller scammers is ........... wait for it ................. electrical!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I have now direct evidence for this however the majority of scammers both buyers and sellers seem to be in this category - there are certainly more goods in this area than there was 12 months ago)

People are wrong when they say ebay should support the sellers because sellers pay the fees. Sellers only get money to pay the fees because buyers buy from them. Therefore more buyers mean more fees.

jdfallon1970

Sorry, went off track there a little - had a bad paypal day, needed a rant.

jdfallon1970

*now direct evidence

should be NO

Brooker_Dave

jdfallon1970 wrote: »

Sorry, went off track there a little - had a bad paypal day, needed a rant.

There does seem to be a trend of ebay binning the small sellers and only seeming to want corperates?

I assume it's cheaper for them to have a couple of hundred giant sellers rather than millions of small ones?

I can't help thinking the golden days of ebay are over.

I blame bad managment and ebay's bad attitude towards its customers...

looby-loo_2

I went through a phase of using ebay and sold a few items, mainly in 2006-7. Fees, paypal and regulation have put me off selling.

I have noticed when I search now that I get many fewer private sales than before - I often get dozens of repeated listings from companies which I have to scroll through to find the odd private listing.

I've had lots of success on Gumtree lately. I've been selling furniture which would have been 'local collection' only so it's been great for that.

soolin

I have found I needed to change what I was selling and am concentrating on entirely different lines to that I used to sell.

For me it is still a great way to make a bit of extra money, pay for an additional holiday or two , but i really think it depends on what you sell.