E-Bay makes the right move…

I’ll start by saying that I like E-bay and I’ve been using for several years. I not only buy stuff but sold stuff on the site and did my best to be an honest and credible to both buyers and sellers. Recently (and I mean a few days ago) E-Bay made some very contrversal changes to the way they’re going to do business and it’s upset a lot of people, those who are doing the selling in particular. In a nutshell, this is what is the huffing is all about.

The Good news for Sellers: listing fees are being cut. This means it will cost less to post items up for sale. This means you’ll be able to post more items for less and that lowers risk since you won’t lose as much if an item doesn’t sell.

The Bad news for Sellers: The cut E-Bay takes when an item sells is going up fro 5% to 8%. This means you’ll lose more money when the item sells. Because the change at the end is much higher than the change at the beginning, this is being seen as a fee increase by the sellers. The good thing is if the item doesn’t sell, E-bay gets less… not more. They only make more money when you do.

Even more bad news for Sellers: because of a lot of unwarranted negative retaliatory feedback, sellers will no longer be allowed to leave negative feedback for buyers. E-Bay says they have been seeing an unacceptable level of relatiation feedback from sellers that was uncalled for, and because of it sellers will no longer be allowed to leave any negative or neutral feedback on buyers.

These are some very interesting changes. As someone who does a good bit of buying and selling on E-Bay, I have to say I’m pleased with the changes being made. These changes are not made to hurt people, and will reward good sellers and prevent bad sellers from doing something they’ve been getting away with for far too long. To put all your profits on the condiction that items sell is actually more of a gamble for E-bay, but they’re betting on sellers doing all right and it’s a gamble that could easily backfire.

I like using E-Bay, but I have a unique perspective as I use the site for more than buying stuff for people and myself. This site was a very profitable source of income for me back when the Beanie craze was in full swing in the late eighties. I sold beanies by the boat load, some selling for as high as $150 each. There was a month where I was able to pay a full month of rent just from the profits I made from my beanie sales. I didn’t mind paying the upfront fees, and I didn’t mind E-Bay getting a cut when it was all said and done. As a seller the site allowed me to expand my clientelle without having to walk out my door. I didn’t have any problems selling because I’m an honest seller. I usually set the price of all my auctions for the minimum I was willy to part with an item (reserves are for pussies) and if it cost $5 to ship the item, I didn’t charge double or triple to make back money from the lost sale. Whatever the price to ship was is what I charged.

I never had any problems with my sales, and never had any negative feedback as a result… the only times I had almost got negative feedback was as a buyer, and that was because I was dealing with bad sellers who were using the feedback to silence my complaints regarding their conduct during the sale. Many times I have been overcharged for shipping, gotten items not in the shape as advertised and sometimes as much as a month after money was received, and I had no chance to voice my displeasure out of fear of an unwarranted relatiation feedback. This is why Sellers no longer have the right to leave feedback, because too many Sellers were abusing it for far, far too long. As a Seller and a Buyer, this is what needed to be done. E-bay already has a system in place to help sellers deal with bad buyers, so the feedback system isn’t needed to dish out punishment, especially when that factor is being used too often when unwarrented.

The moves they made might cost the site a good bit of business, but from the buyers prospective… every move was a good one this time out. Most of the time the sellers were given too many rights, and finally E-Bay is a little more buyer friendly, and that will make it easier for some people to buy and be honest about their sales without having to worry about people trying to get back at them. That will generate some sales but I’m curious to see how sellers will respond to that. I wouldn’t have a problem with the changes, but you know someone will. It’s always the case with any change, but I think this is a good one.

Makes me want to go back and buy something… maybe I will later on when I have a bit more coin to work with.

Peter