HisMastersVoice wrote:gramophone-georg wrote:This seems to be the latest rip eBay is on. In fact, if your item is up for as little as a week eBay will sometimes jump in and stick a "best offer feature" on it for you- unannounced, which is angering a lot of sellers because they aren't informed that eBay did that and they think people are being bottomfeeders.
I've not heard of this, have you personally had this happen? As an active eBay seller I've never had this happen in my 18 years of using it.
Don't get me wrong, eBay does plenty of things that I could rant about. Like charging final value fees on shipping money now (though we can blame the people who charge $40 to ship a "$1" item for that.)
I am actually the admin of a private discussion board of eBay and ecommerce sellers so I actually have a really good ear to the ground on this. If you review the sometimes twice yearly, sometimes more often than that eBay Seller Updates you'll learn way more than you want to know about the many ways eBay can boink you. There's also a quite good online publication called 'ecommercebytes.com' that seems to do quite a good job of keeping up on eBay shenanigans.
I'm heavily invested in this because I am partners with two other people in a fledgeling online collectibles marketplace. We are visible online, but haven't been promoting it yet due to dissatisfaction with the software. Hunting around for a better replacement package.
Here are some of the things eBay has implemented that sellers are not happy about:
1. The "Forced Best Offer" thing: They'll add this to fixed price listings that they feel have been on too long with insufficient interest. They were doing it on auction listings that had no bids by about Day 3 for awhile, too, but seem to have stopped this. I guess they are auto emailing sellers now after they have done this, at least.
2. Forced "Instant Payment Required" on fixed price listings. This is a pain in the behind to buyers of multiples (like me with records). Instead of hitting "buy it now" and merely committing in order to request a total when done buying, the buyer is forced right to a checkout page where they have to complete the transaction including full boat shipping on each item RIGHT THEN in order to take the item off the market. If the buyer tries to bypass this by using the cart and then hitting "request total", a pop up informs the buyer that this seller does not offer combined shipping discounts, even when the sellers listing states they do.
The only way around that is for the seller to refund shipping overage amounts through
PayPal... which means eBay still keeps the fees on the full shipping amount the buyer pays.
eBay personnel have also stated in their discussion boards that the Paypal refund *might* trigger an out of stock "defect" for the seller but I have not heard of this happening yet.
3. Increased the amount of "best offers" allowed from the same visitor from 3 to 10. If you can't make a deal in 3 tries, you will have to endure up to 7 more bottomfeeder best offer attempts from your "potential buyer". Waste of time.
4. On offers, eBay always stated upfront in the past that stated shipping charges were not negotiable. However, they dropped this- unannounced, of course- one day over the summer and now if a buyer submits a "best offer of $xxx including shipping"... it suddenly sticks.
5. Now they are playing all kinds of games with returns automatically processed, refunds automatically deducted, etc. when a buyer opens a case, and this new "3 day shipping" thing is a mess also- basically making sellers responsible if the carrier misses a delivery date.
And, as usual, eBay enforcement of this garbage is really hit and miss.
eBay is just treating sellers like their own personal wallet. They buy off scamming buyers with YOUR money, and the new rule now is that if they "have to step in" they get to keep the fees. Meanwhile, the happy buyer goes on a shopping spree and eBay doesn't seem to care until the scams start costing THEM money.
Fortunately, our niche consists of serious collectors who want the goods and aren't going to anger sellers who have what they want so eBay is still pretty viable for phono/ record guys, although the crapophone garbage is off the hook.
But in the auto parts world there are really serious issues. Several friends of mine in the business have pulled out of eBay because they can't handle the shrinkage. People buy new parts, claim they are defective, and open a case with eBay. eBay dings the seller for a return label and has PayPal freeze the funds. Buyer sends their old part, or a brick, or a phone book back and eBay refunds with seller's cash as soon as that label shows 'delivered'. They will NOT look at any evidence whatsoever that you got rooked. They'll claim they have no idea what you really sent, so they'll take the buyer's word... keeping the fees, of course.
I agree with you about the fees on shipping. The proper way to handle it would have been to kick those sellers off, but this is a classic example of eBay monetizing and making a new profit stream off a problem instead. The hell of it is is that those listings with huge postage charges on a cheap item are still out there- sellers are using that strategy to get around selling limits now since shipping costs don't count towards that. eBay stopped caring because now they are making money on it.