Alright, so I decided to go into the task of REALLY reading the updates that Ebay is going to be implementing for sellers. And I mean reading the fine print and going to Ebay's forums. I am appuald at what I came across.
The difference in this post is that I can understand some of what they are trying to do and why they are trying to do it, at least I think I do. I am one of very few that is not going to FULLY bash Ebay. Although I do question some of the thinking and practices.
First off is the fact that they opened up a forum topic on this topic (you can find it here, for now) and offered the following: Taking directly from the announcement:
"For additional insight, you’re also invited to:
- Talk with members of my staff during the next two days on a special discussion board we’ve set up for this purpose."
"This forum was open for posting on the following dates and is now read-only:
Tuesday, February 28: 8:00am to 5:00pm (Pacific time)
Wednesday, February 29: 9:00am to 3:00pm (Pacific time)
Off-topic and/or disruptive threads or posts may have been deleted"
Umm... what there is a time limit on this particular forum? LOL, and whom exactly decided what is disruptive or off-topic? Things become even clearer as I begin reading the questions and concerns being asked. These were mainly from sellers, this includes Top-Rated, New Sellers, and Sellers that have been around for many many years.
It seems to start off okay at the beginning of the posting, most were completly on topic and I thought most concerns and questions were very good. Some Ebay representatives did start out answering questions.
It then became clear that after a few to the point or harder questions were being skirted by the Ebay employees. The concerns or corrections that sellers tried to make then in the end became ignored.
In this time frame of the open forum- 32 pages of questions/concerns were asked. And from what I can tell, only a handful (that is being generous) were actually fully or half answered. I am appauld at the way Ebay handled all this.
The Update itself, well that is a whole nother story. I am not so much upset at the guidelines of becoming a TopRated Seller, because I know that I could not achieve it. It would be short-lived if I did. I can be realistic in this fact. For the TopRated Sellers that have the status now, I do feel horrible for most of them. It is hard enough to get that status and to keep it, most know that their hard work was now useless.
I'm upset about the new "Return Policy"- the fact that no matter what the if the buyers states that it is "Item Not Described" the seller pays return shipping (Ebay gets to determine this shipping cost-it is not based off your actual shipping cost). These buyers can have up to 45 days to return the item and say not as described.
Ebay refuses to see this as a issue. They think that buyers will abide by telling truthfully why they are returning it. As soon as any buyer finds out about this loophole, I can gaurantee that it will be used 100% of the time. I am sure that they all probably know this already and are just waiting to "rent" items and send them back when they are done.
The other issue is that tracking is be mandatory for TopRated Sellers. The problem is the confirmation number that you get from USPS clearly states that this is NOT a tracking number. I am thinking what good will tracking numbers be when bad sellers try to keep their status or obtain Top Rated Status by providing false tracking numbers?
So, many questions and hardly any good solid answers. Has anybody really read this new policy? What do you think of it? What problems do you see with it, if any? I would love to hear others thoughts and plans of what they are thinking or doing?
I am having a hard time staying at Ebay because of all the fees and restrictions they have imposed. I upgraded to a higher store just so that I could get extra pictures in for my listings, because the fees were to high for me to pay under the non-store subscription. I then upgraded again to get lower listing fees, all of this is now nulled out, with all the new changes. I am not making enough to make it worth all the time and effort put into staying at Ebay.
I know that I can choose to go elsewhere (honestly I am thinking just that) if I don't like the changes BUT this just seems so extreme to me.
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