20 Free listings every month

Rotti

campdave wrote: »

Unfortunate for you, but I imagine people like you are a tiny minority.

Blame the unregistered business sellers who have been abusing it for years for ebay's change of direction.

Going by posts on here, 99p start items cause a lot of headaches for ebay through sellers not getting what they wanted for the item and not sending, and people thinking they can send any old tat. It's a lot of work for a tiny return in terms of FVF, and there are other avenues for private sellers such as car boots or jumble sales.

I agree to a point and would love to see the end of book sellers who list books they don't have at 99p with stupidly low postage - they are the ones eBay should be targetting. I don't use 99p listings myself but accept that there are people who use them for small items like postcards, knitting patterns, stamps, etc - they will be the ones who will be driven elsewhere and it is the buyers who will suffer ultimately as they won't find the items they want.

campdave

Rotti wrote: »

Utter codswallop! So anyone decluttering, downsizing or breaking up a collection is a business seller? Not impossible - I am getting ready to list over 300 records collected over 50 years - that doesn't make me in any way a business but with this new fee structure I will not be paying 35p to list but waiting for FLWs like everyone else.

Perhaps you aren't abusing them, and there will be some sellers who have a lot of their own items to dispose of.

But that doesn't change the fact there are many, many more business sellers pretending to be private sellers abusing them.

Ebay is not a public service, they will have done their homework and worked out what they want to gain from the changes.

Rotti

jay56 wrote: »

As someone who sells lots of little things such as perfume samples and newspaper DVDs,I am now restricted to 20 items a month instead of 300 free listings a month(assuming two weekends of free listings) If this is a "good surprise" from Ebay I'd hate to see a bad surprise.

Would that be the DVDs that are marked "not for resale?"

Rotti

campdave wrote: »

Perhaps you aren't abusing them, and there will be some sellers who have a lot of their own items to dispose of.

But that doesn't change the fact there are many, many more business sellers pretending to be private sellers abusing them.

Ebay is not a public service, they will have done their homework and worked out what they want to gain from the changes.

So like the postage FVF, this is yet another blanket policy to catch the offenders while sweeping everyone else along. EBay can't be bothered to do proper research and find the specific offenders so this is their answer. How many dodgy listings do you come across when you search for something? And how many of them have you reported time and time again for dodgy listing practices? Have you seen any of them removed? We do their work for them by reporting these things and they do nothing.

Rotti

Thanks for that - I did look around first and none of the keywords brought that up!

campdave

Rotti wrote: »

So like the postage FVF, this is yet another blanket policy to catch the offenders while sweeping everyone else along. EBay can't be bothered to do proper research and find the specific offenders so this is their answer. How many dodgy listings do you come across when you search for something? And how many of them have you reported time and time again for dodgy listing practices? Have you seen any of them removed? We do their work for them by reporting these things and they do nothing.

At the heart of it, it's a decision to make them more money.

Ebay are a business, out to get as much money from sellers as they can, much like us sellers on ebay.

None of us are forced to use it, none of us are entitled to any sort of free listings (when I started 10 years ago, there were none), we can all take our items and list them elsewhere if we choose.

campdave

Rotti wrote: »

Thanks for that - I did look around first and none of the keywords brought that up!

I can see how you missed it when it was about 10 lines from the top of the page.

Rotti

RFW wrote: »

I've not been a fan of much of the latest round of changes but this seems a decent compromise.

The people that are disappointed appear to be so because they keep listing stuff that doesn't sell. As a business seller it's hard enough to get items found these days without customers having to wade through stuff they don't want.

The private shop seems like a pretty good option for anyone still wanting 100 listings. A shop page is easier to link to Facebook and if you've got decent stuff to sell 20p/listing is a pretty good deal.

I have a problem with people who bandy around terms like "decent stuff" and "tat" as everyone has different perceptions and needs. Ever heard of trash and treasure syndrome? If it weren't for that we would be up to our necks in landfill! I spent 15 years on a prime tourist spot selling what most called "tourist tat" but if people want to take home a fridge magnet or keyring as a memento that is up to them.

As someone who is clearing family collections as well as my own I can easily list 100 on both my accounts on FLWs and would usually expect to sell at least 15% but something has happened in the last few months and it is so bad I certainly would not pay to list anything - especially CDs and records - for 35p. I never expect stuff to sell first time and some things take several outings to get gone but expecting to sell them all first time is not realistic. Just as with a high street shop - if you dressed your window and everything didn't sell the first day you would not change it daily. EBay is just a huge shop window and it depends on who is passing each day.

As for linking anything to Facebook - some of us choose not to air our lives on social networks so that would not be an option. EBay was working fine for most until they got too greedy and allowed too many big business sellers to swamp it with Chinese rubbish - there's another sweeping generalisation for you!

Rotti

campdave wrote: »

At the heart of it, it's a decision to make them more money.

Ebay are a business, out to get as much money from sellers as they can, much like us sellers on ebay.

None of us are forced to use it, none of us are entitled to any sort of free listings (when I started 10 years ago, there were none), we can all take our items and list them elsewhere if we choose.

How will they make money if the sellers leave in droves and their buyers follow? How is it better for them to get FVFs on 20 listings a month instead of 100? They are pushing people more and more away from auctions and wanting the quick-fix BIN listings as I was told by a Dublin agent. "Buyers can't be bothered to watch auctions" he said - but that is what eBay was founded as - an auction site - unique - and now they have lost focus in the race downhill to "keep up" with Amazon and Play. That only works for certain categories and the small sellers with quirky items from their loft or wherever used to be the appeal of eBay. Now it is turning into just another online pound shop and if this is their way of trying to turn things around they are hitting too many of the wrong people.

When I started 9 years ago there were no free listings but fairly frequent 5p and 10p listing days and the FVF was only 8%. It's easy to say list elsewhere but not that easy when you actually try to make the break. I have tried a couple of other sites and just had cheap buyers emailing offering half the listed price so wouldn't waste my time on them again.

campdave

Rotti wrote: »

How will they make money if the sellers leave in droves and their buyers follow? How is it better for them to get FVFs on 20 listings a month instead of 100? They are pushing people more and more away from auctions and wanting the quick-fix BIN listings as I was told by a Dublin agent. "Buyers can't be bothered to watch auctions" he said - but that is what eBay was founded as - an auction site - unique - and now they have lost focus in the race downhill to "keep up" with Amazon and Play. That only works for certain categories and the small sellers with quirky items from their loft or wherever used to be the appeal of eBay. Now it is turning into just another online pound shop and if this is their way of trying to turn things around they are hitting too many of the wrong people.

When I started 9 years ago there were no free listings but fairly frequent 5p and 10p listing days and the FVF was only 8%. It's easy to say list elsewhere but not that easy when you actually try to make the break. I have tried a couple of other sites and just had cheap buyers emailing offering half the listed price so wouldn't waste my time on them again.

You're preaching to the choir in many respects. We could argue about it all day, but there isn't enough time. Ranting on here isn't going to change anything.

In some respects, the agent is correct - when I'm buying an item, I exclude all auctions from my search because I want to buy an item, pay for it an arrive, not make a bid, see if I get it and then start to search again if needs be. Ebay may have started as an auction site, but it isn't one any more. Sites evolve and change, and ebay is a business, and will focus on the aspects that make it the most money.