Is eBay Finished For Non-business Sellers?

DickDastardly_2

I have been using eBay on and off for a few years now. but in the last year or eighteen months there have been so many changes and rules that I feel it is time to go for me personally.

Most changes have been made allegedly for 'safety' and 'buyer confidence' reasons, but we should all be able to see that really they have been bought in to boost eBay profits and marginalise smaller sellers.

It seems to me that if eBay continues on the course they are on, in years to come it will be little more than an open market place for large scale shop-based sellers and ironically, the scammers and counterfeiters that litter the site. It is now and seems to be ever further away from the original concept of a neat way to buy and sell unwanted second hand goods, the online bootfair.

eBay are currently stopping me from selling any more items as I am not verified by their wholly owned PayPal organisation. And why not? Because I refuse point blank to link a current account to my PayPal account for 'bank funding' with a carte-blanch Direct Debit agreement. I don't need it, but until it is in place, despite having a long and honest career on both sites, I am now banned from selling.

This along with other mad changes for sellers: not allowed to give honest feedback, not ever allowed to see bad payers strikes against them, restrictions on postage charges, restrictions on payment methods, enforced use of PayPal, enforced linking of my bank account with theirs, etc, is really making the average seller in an untenable position.

Sorry for the moan, but I feel like I have been shut out of the system because of eBay's greed and poor sellers that they seem, despite all these alleged 'enhancements' to prevent.

(And before I get any replies along the lines of 'if you don't like the rules there, don't use it' etc, I know, that is the ultimate sacntion. But the rules have changed significantly to the ones I signed up with AND it misses the point I making!)

chja

Depends.

I'm a private seller and not got an issue with anything they have done.

The changes to feedback are probably the least worst option - the old system prevented buyers from leaving honest feedback about bad sellers for fear of "negative retaliation". The pendulum has perhaps swung too far the other way, but I think more people accept that sellers may no longer be expected to have 100% pos feedback due to the change.

No issue at all around Paypal, but I've never accepted anything else. Direct Debit is the most secure method of paying anyone as it is backed by a bank guarantee.

The postage restrictions just mean one needs to list with a higher start price (eBay of course taking the increase list fee and FVF, but that's business).

I think they could do more to protect sellers from bad buyers - visability of non-payment strikes and the ability to block buyers with one strike rather than two would help.

I would also like to see an automatic debit of the sale price when a 'paypal only' auction closes to get around the situation of having to wait up to 7 days for postage and 7 days after that if a dispute is raised.

brownbabygirl

i agree with you. i hate ebay

DickDastardly_2

I see your points, but they also kinda underline what I mean. If I was selling off an old game say, for example, what with the increased start price (bad for buyers) to cover postage restrictions, and PayPal/eBay fees, then it becomes economically un-viable to do so anymore, which is defeating the point of eBay.

As I buyer, I use eBay to check prices more than anything now as the prices have risen to the point where I can now get stuff cheaper on Amazon and Play or other retailers and have all the guarantees of new goods, etc.

LeLLe

I have to admit, i'm not using ebay as much as i used to.

I think its alot harder to sell and to find a good bargain what with higher starting prices and through the roof postage rates so i tend not to even bother with it much anymore, just for the odd couple of things.

Brooker_Dave

DickDastardly wrote: »

It seems to me that if eBay continues on the course they are on, in years to come it will be little more than an open market place for large scale shop-based sellers and ironically, the scammers and counterfeiters that litter the site. It is now and seems to be ever further away from the original concept of a neat way to buy and sell unwanted second hand goods, the online bootfair.

Ebay sees it's future in diamond powersellers.

Diamond powersellers also tend to have their own ecommerce websites, so in theory ebay could find itself outflanked by the diamonds....

Ebay as a location for the average person to sell their items is finished.

jayok

I have switched my media stuff to Play.com with great success (normal seller flogging some CD, game & DVD stuff). I would have normally used ebay but it just feels like too much hard work compared to Play

TonyMMM

I used to sell quite a bit, but just not worth the hastle any more - I have done OK with books and CDs on Amazon, but the rest I just Freecycle now.

Bye Bye EBay

vikingaero

!!!!!!,

I totally agree with you. eBay is a no go for me.

My first reason for disowning eBay is PayPal. I work for a commercial bank and there were mutterings in the banking community when PayPal was given FSA authorisation without any strings (before they shifted to Luxembourg jurisdiction).

Secondly I built up a feedback of 100% with 85 recorded trades but I haven't bought or sold for 18 months. eBay sucks with all the changes that a layman is supposed to keep up with.

The final straw was the restriction on my PayPal account and the need to fax multiple documents to PayPal. The only reason for restriction was that I never used my account.

eBay is dead for me. The whole ethos has changed from people selling things they didn't want to online commercial sellers. I spend tens of thousands a year buying electronics for my gadget addiction and for my family. eBayers think it's OK to charge more for the product than sites like Amazon! This really amazes me considering I can return things on a whim to Amazon and yet have to jump through hoops for eBayers and still face being scammed.

frivolous_fay

This poll is a bit black and white for me

RFW

frivolous_fay wrote: »

This poll is a bit black and white for me

I'd agree, there are some people who sell on Ebay as a sideline to their income and do it quite well.

Its true that Ebay have and still are moving away from having individuals selling small value items. I can see their reasoning behind it, in that the small sellers will cause more problems in that if you have 100 sellers selling 100 items, there are 100 potential problems and 100 different people to deal with, if you have one seller selling 100 items, there are the same possible amount of problems but only one person to deal with.

The Ebay business model has changed and continues to do so, I can understand why those left behind are annoyed and I don't think Ebay have done enough to let them know why they've done it and even pointed them in the direction of Gumtree to sell that way.

I can only speak for myself as regards selling (and I am a business, not quite a diamond powerseller) and year on year sales have increased and I very rarely have any problems. There is no other sales outlet that can offer me the customer base Ebay can and for me it is more than affordable and profitable.

I'd be inclined to vote no, but if the poll did ask "Is Ebay closed for a growing number of non business sellers" then I'd vote yes.