Ebay gone to far with new policy change from 4th Feb 2025!

RFW

jeffuk said:

bittyboy101 said:

...those who own and invest in eBay just want to make more and more money as an addiction ! without any regards for the little people (the public private sellers) who originally started eBay off and made it so successful.

Ebay means everything to private sellers, but, private sellers mean (almost) nothing to Ebay, they could probably get by without them altogether.

I've heard them say along those lines. It's said that they really wanted to do away with auctions when they had the last big management change. It was only when they did focus groups, etc that they discovered that it was quite a hook for them. They keep private sellers to be customers but they're a really low revenue share. 

RFW

bittyboy101 said:

eBay's ruthless business attitude stinks and eventually eBay will fail one day when another site comes along which they cannot close down or buy out.

 

There are loads of other marketplaces. Facebook is free, although soon to feature Ebay listings on their marketplace, there's Amazon, Etsy, Vinted, Preloved, Shpock, Depop, Folksy, Nextdoor, Gumtree and many more. They're all ruthless in their own way. Amazon make Ebay look like pussycats as far as being ruthless goes.

As a business I'm currently on 5 marketplaces plus my own website. Ebay is third on revenue and fourth on profit, I'll probably ditch it again in a couple of months. You really don't have to use Ebay. I say that as someone who used to have it as their main source of income.

MattMattMattUK

bittyboy101 said:

MattMattMattUK said:

bittyboy101 said:

Back in September of 1995 when eBay first started their online platform in Germany, it was designed and aimed at just ordinary private sellers wanting to sell their unwanted items to anyone who has an Internet access and an eBay account...

then by 1998 after it had expanded worldwide word got around and lots business sellers discovered eBay and the potential to make easy money... and started selling on it too to boost their sales... but over the years when the eBay site expanded even further with so many business sellers jumping on the bandwagon and selling multiple items there...

eBay then saw this as a golden opportunity to expand  their site even further and make some serious money !.... fast forward to 2020 until now (2025) and the greed has now got the better of them !

...those who own and invest in eBay just want to make more and more money as an addiction ! without any regards for the little people (the public private sellers) who originally started eBay off and made it so successful.

In share principle it is very wrong of eBay to now be turning their backs on these little people who made it possible for eBay to even exist... all in favour of big wealthy fat cat multi million pound companies... why ?... because they can !

...and have no scruples or regards for anyone but themselves and their so called investors who are the big business firms now selling on eBay who eBay now care for.  

eBay was started in Clafornia, not Germany. You have made up pretty much everything in that post.

Do you happen to own part of eBay ? or have any shares in it ??... me thinking you and the other poster seem to always go outta your way to heavily defend eBay with such an attitude ! - like you own it !

And there we have it, the standard response when one cannot come up with a rational argument or valid position, claim the other posters work for the company. I do not "go outta your way" to defend eBay, if you had bothered to look at my posting history you would see I have several issues with eBay, mostly how they handle disputes in relation to unscrupulous buyers.

bittyboy101 said:

OK, I stand corrected.  eBay was indeed started on 03rd September 1995 in California, USA.

eBay was founded in 1995 by Pierre Omidyar as a hobby-based online auction site. The site was originally called AuctionWeb, but Omidyar changed the name to eBay when he was unable to register the domain name EchoBay.

Good to see, after stating several incorrect positions, you are finally starting to do some research. 

bittyboy101 said:

eBay's ruthless business attitude stinks and eventually eBay will fail one day when another site comes along which they cannot close down or buy out.

Whilst I have issues with the way eBay do some things, I do not think that they are particularly ruthless and the new changes are not something I can get worked up about, certainly not to the level that would involve throwing my toys out of the pram.

bittyboy101

RFW said:

bittyboy101 said:

eBay's ruthless business attitude stinks and eventually eBay will fail one day when another site comes along which they cannot close down or buy out.

 

There are loads of other marketplaces. Facebook is free, although soon to feature Ebay listings on their marketplace, there's Amazon, Etsy, Vinted, Preloved, Shpock, Depop, Folksy, Nextdoor, Gumtree and many more. They're all ruthless in their own way. Amazon make Ebay look like pussycats as far as being ruthless goes.

As a business I'm currently on 5 marketplaces plus my own website. Ebay is third on revenue and fourth on profit, I'll probably ditch it again in a couple of months. You really don't have to use Ebay. I say that as someone who used to have it as their main source of income.

I'm gonna give Ebid a go, whilst it's nothing like eBay, at least they allow direct payment for sellers via PayPal and to me that means QUICK INSTANT PAYMENT from buyers  which is of a great importance to me.

No stupid manipulated Cassini search engine playing hide and seek with all my listings unless I pay eBay more for a privilege of having my items shown to buyers that was once upon a time STANDARD on eBay !

Also I will be able to still send all my stuff by Royal Mail Tracked Signed For and Special Delivery instead of having eBay dictate what postal service I am allowed to use like EVRi which is a 3rd rate unreliable courier !...  and on top of all that being told I can't have MY MONEY until 48 hours after a confirmed delivery ! - What a joke !!! - NO THANKS.

eBay, You are the weakest link - Goodbye eBay !   

soolin

bittyboy101 said:

RFW said:

bittyboy101 said:

eBay's ruthless business attitude stinks and eventually eBay will fail one day when another site comes along which they cannot close down or buy out.

 

There are loads of other marketplaces. Facebook is free, although soon to feature Ebay listings on their marketplace, there's Amazon, Etsy, Vinted, Preloved, Shpock, Depop, Folksy, Nextdoor, Gumtree and many more. They're all ruthless in their own way. Amazon make Ebay look like pussycats as far as being ruthless goes.

As a business I'm currently on 5 marketplaces plus my own website. Ebay is third on revenue and fourth on profit, I'll probably ditch it again in a couple of months. You really don't have to use Ebay. I say that as someone who used to have it as their main source of income.

I'm gonna give Ebid a go, whilst it's nothing like eBay, at least they allow direct payment for sellers via PayPal and to me that means QUICK INSTANT PAYMENT from buyers  which is of a great importance to me.

No stupid manipulated Cassini search engine playing hide and seek with all my listings unless I pay eBay more for a privilege of having my items shown to buyers that was once upon a time STANDARD on eBay !

Also I will be able to still send all my stuff by Royal Mail Tracked Signed For and Special Delivery instead of having eBay dictate what postal service I am allowed to use like EVRi which is a 3rd rate unreliable courier !...  and on top of all that being told I can't have MY MONEY until 48 hours after a confirmed delivery ! - What a joke !!! - NO THANKS.

eBay, You are the weakest link - Goodbye eBay !   

Despite the robust difference of opinion on here I do wish you well, but please ask yourself how much you have bought from ebid as opposed to eBay over the years? your own buying habits will be in line with others and their market is tiny. 

Be careful as well with the lifetime membership, I took mine out on ebid about 20 years ago and despite desperately trying to sell on there never actually had enough income to even cover the initial cost. Just do your research before you commit to spending money, and good luck. 

bittyboy101

soolin said:

bittyboy101 said:

RFW said:

bittyboy101 said:

eBay's ruthless business attitude stinks and eventually eBay will fail one day when another site comes along which they cannot close down or buy out.

 

There are loads of other marketplaces. Facebook is free, although soon to feature Ebay listings on their marketplace, there's Amazon, Etsy, Vinted, Preloved, Shpock, Depop, Folksy, Nextdoor, Gumtree and many more. They're all ruthless in their own way. Amazon make Ebay look like pussycats as far as being ruthless goes.

As a business I'm currently on 5 marketplaces plus my own website. Ebay is third on revenue and fourth on profit, I'll probably ditch it again in a couple of months. You really don't have to use Ebay. I say that as someone who used to have it as their main source of income.

I'm gonna give Ebid a go, whilst it's nothing like eBay, at least they allow direct payment for sellers via PayPal and to me that means QUICK INSTANT PAYMENT from buyers  which is of a great importance to me.

No stupid manipulated Cassini search engine playing hide and seek with all my listings unless I pay eBay more for a privilege of having my items shown to buyers that was once upon a time STANDARD on eBay !

Also I will be able to still send all my stuff by Royal Mail Tracked Signed For and Special Delivery instead of having eBay dictate what postal service I am allowed to use like EVRi which is a 3rd rate unreliable courier !...  and on top of all that being told I can't have MY MONEY until 48 hours after a confirmed delivery ! - What a joke !!! - NO THANKS.

eBay, You are the weakest link - Goodbye eBay !   

Despite the robust difference of opinion on here I do wish you well, but please ask yourself how much you have bought from ebid as opposed to eBay over the years? your own buying habits will be in line with others and their market is tiny. 

Be careful as well with the lifetime membership, I took mine out on ebid about 20 years ago and despite desperately trying to sell on there never actually had enough income to even cover the initial cost. Just do your research before you commit to spending money, and good luck. 

Likewise - All the very best to you too, and thanks for the heads up regarding Ebid's lifetime membership, I will just try listing a few items and pay whatever fee they charge as I go to see how it goes before spending £70 on  their lifetime membership just in case it's a bad site for old niche items ! 

RFW

bittyboy101 said:

I'm gonna give Ebid a go, whilst it's nothing like eBay, at least they allow direct payment for sellers via PayPal and to me that means QUICK INSTANT PAYMENT from buyers  which is of a great importance to me.

Interesting choice. Good luck.

bittyboy101

RFW said:

bittyboy101 said:

I'm gonna give Ebid a go, whilst it's nothing like eBay, at least they allow direct payment for sellers via PayPal and to me that means QUICK INSTANT PAYMENT from buyers  which is of a great importance to me.

Interesting choice. Good luck.

Cheers mate 👍

danny69

One idea for eBay would be to limit the number of items that can be listed. How many do Private Sellers get per month? Is it 300? Who needs to list 300 items of unwanted items?! Business sellers, they could allow say 1,000 items, then charge an additional fee for each item over this limit. This would bring more income to them from the big accounts, and would allow private sellers potentially more exposure as the site at the moment is clogged up with hundreds and sometimes thousands of items listed by private sellers who just relist items over and over and over and over again. Regarding private sellers finding their items get little to no views, business sellers suffer the same, trust me! I use a combination of newsletters/promotion and (begrudgingly) promote my items. This is on top of shop fees, higher selling fees etc etc. 

RFW

danny69 said:

One idea for eBay would be to limit the number of items that can be listed. How many do Private Sellers get per month? Is it 300? Who needs to list 300 items of unwanted items?! Business sellers, they could allow say 1,000 items, then charge an additional fee for each item over this limit. This would bring more income to them from the big accounts, and would allow private sellers potentially more exposure as the site at the moment is clogged up with hundreds and sometimes thousands of items listed by private sellers who just relist items over and over and over and over again. Regarding private sellers finding their items get little to no views, business sellers suffer the same, trust me! I use a combination of newsletters/promotion and (begrudgingly) promote my items. This is on top of shop fees, higher selling fees etc etc. 

There are variations on product limits and I'm sure they keep an eye on the figures. The big accounts will have their own deals anyway. As for more exposure the aforementioned Cassini does a job. If a private seller is relisting an item without tweaking it in any way it will get less and less visibility.

I'm a business seller and also use promotions, I used to do really well with newsletters so may resurrect that again too (thanks for the reminder). Even with promotions some items get low visibility. I've just had a trawl through all my listings and added more images and adjusted descriptions and item specifics. Ebay has a couple more months to increase sales before I pull it. Christmas was OK but I can invest in other platforms that do better.
On Amazon I spend a lot on advertising but their advertising is much easier to manage than on Ebay. I understand Ebay are moving towards the Amazon ad model so that may be helpful to me. On one newer marketplace I've been using, a fairly big one, I have no way to promote within the site, so most products just aren't getting any visibility at all. They're all new to market items so really tricky to get them seen if no one is searching for them.

I never really look at what others are paying, I look at my costs and sales and see if it's worth it. I used to say I do fairly well on Ebay, when that stops I'll stop. I did. I was off Ebay for about 3/4 years I only returned when I started a new product range.

All selling is much tougher than it was, both economy wise and because of swamped markets. If I was a private seller I'd tend to try and stick to selling locally, online and car boot sales when they're about. There are several fairly decent websites for that. I'd keep an eye on anything that may have wider value and use Ebay then.