Feedback changes announced!!!

StaffsSW

patchwork_cat wrote: »

Soolin are you not a power seller with £100+ fees I would have thought your volume would be high enough - It does depend on what you sell I suppose.

As a powerseller I am horrified at this. Also with the Detailed Seller ratings fee reduction you receive a discount if you have over 4.6, but they round them up, so as I see it you have basically got to have 5* to get the discount. The only thing I can see is I previously had a seller account for new that I send details to tax office, a seller account for second hand used things and a buyer account. I will merge all these and if I get a few negs then i will buy small things to raise my %.

Unfortunately it's no longer possible to merge accounts. There has been no official announcement, but the Answers board has a statement.

Link

goldspanners

ive read this thread from start to finish as a small seller with fees of around £100 per month to ebay (probably the same to paypal) like you soolin im sure if enough of sellers like us walked then they would have to listen.
but really,if some sellers leave then there will be more market share for the other powersellers to sell more,this will then increase thier fees,so ebay make the same amount as ever.
i am desperate to find a way to continue selling,but i dont think it will be with ebay for much longer,i said after xmas i would stop ebay,i think this is now the time.
i will be taking part in the strike from the 18th to the 25th,but again,just means more sales for the others who dont participate.
with the demise of ebay express im not at all surpirzed by this 2 tier system they are planning.it was on the cards.
but the feedback thing has shocked me,i really didnt think they would do this,it does show what ebay think of "thier" customers.
as others have mentioned why not have both parties submit feedback and then disclose both when they have both been submitted?
surely this would be the most honest way of "feedback".

anewman

The *best* way to do business is to set up your own e-commerce site and build up your own business name through the best service, the best price and so on. If you really offer a unique product, service and price that people want you will do well eventually. You could even trade on ebay alongside your own website and advertise your website in your item descriptions and when your own site starts to turn consistently more profitable than ebay after all fees etc then it may be time to swap. There are even some freeware e-commerce utilities you can use but they are very basic. The only problem is you will have to make the prices cheaper on your own site than ebay to encourage buying and higher on ebay to cover ebay fees.

Most people sell on ebay because it is easy and involves little effort - and provides an avenue to lots of potential buyers. I doubt many make the move from ebay to their own site. For this reason, ebay will never care if people leave. Ebay has become a way of life for many of it's users and ebays fee increases are taking advantage of that fact.

As for feedback, sellers have nothing to be worried about so long as they provide a perfect service IMO. And if they get a nutter hopefully ebay hasn't removed the ability to reply to feedback to explain the issue.

StaffsSW

anewman wrote: »

The *best* way to do business is to set up your own e-commerce site and build up your own business name through the best service, the best price and so on. If you really offer a unique product, service and price that people want you will do well eventually. You could even trade on ebay alongside your own website and advertise your website in your item descriptions and when your own site starts to turn consistently more profitable than ebay after all fees etc then it may be time to swap. There are even some freeware e-commerce utilities you can use but they are very basic. The only problem is you will have to make the prices cheaper on your own site than ebay to encourage buying and higher on ebay to cover ebay fees.

Setting up a standalone website is a great way to avoid the eBay fees, but like any website, it's getting traffic to it that matters. The best product, customer service and price may well be ready and willing, but if nobody knows about the site, then it's a bit fruitless!

Internet marketing and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a dark science and results are not seen overnight. I was reasonably clued up on this, but it has still taken about 6 months to get front page on the relevent Google search results for my off-ebay products, but I also use ebay to promote aftersales on the website.

ebay can be used as a cost effective marketing tool to promote the website though - only sell your prime products through ebay, and a rate that ensures you do not make a loss - making a profit is not the priority in this case, traffic and exposure is. And regardless of current changes, ebay is still a huge traffic magnet.

anewman

stevew8975 wrote: »

The best product, customer service and price may well be ready and willing, but if nobody knows about the site, then it's a bit fruitless!

A "unique" product is what counts. If you sell various things with no clearly defined boundaries you're unlikely to do well (like the people who just buy up things they see cheap that they think will sell for more). Same with if you sell blank CD's etc, you'll never beat SVP, Bigpockets etc. You have to have a bit of a niche market that will still sell well, and that's the challenge of creating a business to put something on the net. But remember SVP and Bigpockets both came from pretty much nothing, at a time when home writing technologies was in it's infancy really.

If you can provide something rarely sold elsewhere, when people hit the words in Google, your site will probably come up in the first few.

nightswimmer

anewman wrote: »

As for feedback, sellers have nothing to be worried about so long as they provide a perfect service IMO.

Does perfect service include, for example, allowing customers to wear your clothes to a party and then return them, unwashed or stained with no way to do something about it or any wayof warning other sellers? Does it include having to put up with threatening/aggresive behaviour if something goes wrong with the sale (such as an item being delayed in the post) without any means of warning other sellers of the buyers behaviour?

And if they get a nutter hopefully ebay hasn't removed the ability to reply to feedback to explain the issue.

Very few buyers bother to read followups - they look at the scores/percentages.

Also, under this new system your position in the listings and your listing fees are affected by your score. No amount of 'replies' are going to change that.

That's what buyers have to understand. If you get a negative it doesn't affect you, if a seller gets a negative, it does affect them, financially.

Potsdamerplatz

Has anyone bothered to contact The Office of Fair Trading to see what they have to say about the planned changes?

These planned changes are just a scammers' charter.

Everyone should also contact their local MP and ask them to investigate. E-bay are the new Microsoft, they have become too big and powerful and should be regulated by Parliament.

BigBouncyBall

Office of fair trading? What have they got to do with it?

Local MPs??!? Parliamentary Regulation? - couldn't you just not use the 'service'?

greenstreetprince

soolin wrote: »

Cut an dpasted from ongoing thread:

Perhaps all sellers should collectively (sp) stop leaving any sort of feedback at all when the new system is up and running. That way the "powers that be" might have to listen to their bread and butter earners for once.

I would support that one. maybe we could all email our buyers and say that unfortunately due to new regulations regarding feedback sellers are no longer prepared to participate in the feedback system, so unfortunately I will be unable to leave any feedback for you. Any bets on how soon I would get banned?

its voluntary soo.. they cant ban you for not leaving a neg...

whoops, i hope no-one from ebay reads this as you know what... next kick in the mouth for seller is probably going to be....

All sellers have to leave POSITIVE FEEDBACK... you know its going to hapen one day!

BigBouncyBall

positive feedback with negative comment anyone?