Saturday, February 2, 2008

A Buyer Unhappy with eBay's New Policy & Other Mail

I'm continuing to run mail from my readers at www.yardsalers.net and this blog about the eBay feedback and new fees changes.  I am trying to be fair and objective and represent all opinions I get. Although opinion is running in the large majority against the change.



Here is one that's unusual...feedback from a *buyer* who is not happy with the change. I think some excellent points are made here, including that good buyers will no longer stand out among the bad, and that the new policy may drive away the small Mom 'n' Pop operations, the very sellers a lot of buyers most like to buy from for their unique and special items and services:




"Buyers are not comprehending how this will severely effect us as well.
There are many indicators showing this will be disastrous for the
buying community. I have been buying weekly for over 7 years on eBay.
The clues are very clear. What negatively effects the good sellers will
also negatively effect the good buyers. eBay is in fact throwing the
baby out with the bathwater.

"******Good
buyers will no longer stand out among the bad. This means every seller
will be leery of every buyer, going into every sale, and rightfully so.
The greens we have worked so hard for will mean absolutely nothing
since the greens will have to be given to anyone no matter how little
they deserved it. 

"*******Who is wearing a good guy dot?? As a
buyer, I will no longer be able to see the true indicators and decide
for myself who is telling the truth and who is just retaliating in
spite with no warrant. The new system will make it impossible to see
both sides of the story.  IT IS NOT HARD to read through both sides,
red & green, and come up with a clear view of the whole picture. In
7 years I have had very few truly bad experiences as a buyer but while
shopping and checking fb, I see retaliatory feedback from BUYERS daily
over things that give no reason to neg the seller. Just because a
seller leaved fb second does not mean it is in retaliation. A large
percentage of the time it means the seller was  negged first for
something they could not control or blamed for the buyer�s stupidity
and now there is reason to warn the rest of the eBay community. It
always was the only seller recourse. This whole system will make it
quite hard to see the truth. eBay is trying to say this will promote
honesty , it will produce anything but.  Buyers will not truly be able
to see who is in fact *bad.* Why????�..

"As a buyer, when I
go in to leave feedback and use eBay�s �Detailed Seller Rating
Stars=DSR�, which was implemented recently. Not only does that system
not tell the seller what they could have possibly done wrong, so they
can fix their behavior or show if there is merit to the claim, it
allows buyers to ding anyone they want no matter what. And now, if a
seller does not give a buyer their little green dot as fast as the
buyer wants it, whether they deserved it or not, there is no reason to
hold back by the buyer. Every buyer can easily neg a seller just for
that without seller recourse. This is not only unfair, the new ratings
eBay has sellers meet are totally unrealistic. Sellers are now
calculated on DSR, feedback, including neutrals and percentage of
sales. Sellers have to uphold a 95% satisfaction rate calculated over
30 days. WHAT business in the world succeeds at this??  Small, good
sellers, we want to buy from will now be very easy targets for scamming
buyers and we, the buyer lose out. When I click my choices out of 5
stars, if I give a seller ratings that equals = good communication, as
advertised, reasonable shipping / handling charges and quick shipping =
this equals 4 stars. This sounds to me like a very good seller.  This
should sound like a very good seller in any market. This seller
delivered everything as advertised, emailed great, did not scam me on
shipping, and packed my widget just fine, PERFECT��..not so according
to eBay�

**** The new ratings set good sellers up for failure.
eBay is telling buyers and sellers that a 4 star rating is very bad.
eBay is making sellers adhere to a 4.5 rating at the least or their
account can be flagged and power sellers will not qualify for discounts
on fees unless they keep 4.6 or 4.8 and higher. How is this at all
realistic? Any business model, having a 90% customer satisfaction rate
is actually quite good. But eBay has set sellers up to an unattainable
goal while being the target for buyer mood, which will give a totally
false view on the seller's intentions and performance making it very
difficult to truly find the good sellers. 

"***** Good Mom
& Pops will be gone taking their service and goods with them. Do
you like buying from mom & pops? Low volume sellers are an easy
target. A bad mood buyer can see one neg and use that against the
seller knowing two can possibly freeze the seller's account The new
rules have also set small time good sellers up to fail so severely many
good sellers we buy from will not be able to compete and stay, making
the discounts we currently rely on gone, which will effect our wallets
and quality of life. I frequently buy high quality goods on eBay at 65%
off or more for my family and friends. Those days can easily be
numbered and it will effect my entire family community. I find it
interesting that the majority of sellers people claim about most are
high volume power sellers, but there are exactly the type of sellers
who will be able to stay, pushing all the good, small sellers out
quickly. Yes, there are many high volume power sellers that will be
forced to leave�but along with them are the low volume, one of a kind
sellers we have grown to love.

"***** Prices will go up to cover
losses. Many sellers will also be forced to raise their prices to make
up for the fee increases. While high dollar figure sales many not be
effected much, this has crippled the $15 and under items which add up
to millions of sales each day. Millions of buyers come to eBay to find
that great deal or hard to find widget. These new rules will squeeze
those out.  Buyers will be forced to find their widgets in town or
other venues they are not familiar using.

"***** Hard to find
collectibles will be expensive and even more hard to find. With all the
above in place; hard to find widgets will go up in price. If many
sellers leave, that means the items are going with them, which means
there will be fewer to choose from, which means the prices to us will
increase. Start planning on paying $250 at an Antique Mall again for
that Bauer bowl you could buy for $40 on eBay over the past two years.
This will effect many collectible markets and buyer pockets.

"*****
Forget about ever selling. Are you buyers thinking of selling?  It will
be too expensive, too risky, to stressful to even consider selling for
buyers.  New sellers will automatically go into the new stricter rules,
with all sellers under 100 feedback automatically having to take Paypal
or CC merchant with your account on aware status. Paypal is also
raising their fees as well. You are automatically looked at as a fraud.
This has not only maybe put a damper on bad new sellers, this has put a
damper on all good low volume, new sellers as well.

"***** The
convenience of paying easily will be gone. Many good sellers who will
fear the arbitrary Paypal rules will go back to money orders only again
due to eBay's new  Paypal freezes and open season on fraud charge backs
which is very high in the credit card world. If a seller account is
flagged / Paypal account fund frozen, even for an undue reason, sellers
will be required to take Paypal or other cc venue, but then they are
open to more charge backs and more account freezing. This will be their
only way to accept pay. It is a no win situation. Sellers will have no
recourse for this. While big business can figure in loss, most of the
sellers I buy from are family run side things and they offer great
stuff.��. which means less easy buying for us buyers.

"This
new systems put the BAD buyers at a very clear advantage over ALL OF
US, buyers included. This is a horrible system and if eBay does not
retract, I will take my business for my family of 6 elsewhere."








4 comments:

  1. What a SCAM! I am boycotting Ebay and I hope everyone else does too. They are masking a RAISE of fees as LOWERING them? What a joke... it only help out (maybe) Powersellers. That's like giving a tax cut to the rich. The little guy is hurt worse, who wants to just buy/sell a few items for a little money. Ebay's greed has made me sick, I am boycotting it. What a SCAM!

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  2. I'm leaving eBay after 9 years as a buyer/seller. eBay is ruined by their foolish policies.

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  3. It's a disgrace, but ebay will tank without Meg Whitman

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  4. I am one of the small sellers hit by this policy. Because I sell so infrequently, I was unaware of this policy change until this month. Because I had one retalitory feedback, one of my stars ratings is only 4.2. I am effectively banned from selling for ONE YEAR. I also will be finding an alternative for both buying AND selling!

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