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eBay screws over sellers again

They've been continually making things worse for buyers, too - not only have they revamped the format of their saved-searches emails to waste even more screen space recently, they also appear to have made saved searches no longer stay confined to the category you select - so my search for Prophet keyboards in the musical-instruments section is now turning up Prophet comic books. Ye gods. It's enough to make me wonder why I bother anymore.
 
No ability for buyers to go back and see what they bought. They remove items from your list if you didn't get them, so you can't go back and complain. (Yes, that's happened to me.) My gripes goes on and on about how buyers are getting screwed.

I don't bother even looking at auctions, and basically just go to Ebay to get cheap Chinese stuff. Only occasionally do I get something from this continent. Things that are used are generally too expensive for me since if it was made two weeks ago it's considered rare because the seller was born yesterday. I don't mind paying a decent buck for something which is tested and sold by someone who knows what it is. But on Ebay, people ask huge prices for something they don't know what is or if it works. I'm sorry, but few things are worth more than a dollar (including shipping) if it's sold on those terms. If I want something vintage I'll ask the nice people here. Then at least there's both good will and expertise.

I'm sure many people agree with me when I say that Ebay has had its day.
 
Ole Juul said:
No ability for buyers to go back and see what they bought...
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I dunno, Ole. I can see everything I bought for the last three years, selectable by year. So I can view everything from January, 2012 thru today. Go back and re-check your Purchase history.
 
Stone said:
I dunno, Ole. I can see everything I bought for the last three years, selectable by year. So I can view everything from January, 2012 thru today. Go back and re-check your Purchase history.
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Yes, that's the one good thing they've done recently -- previously, older purchased items would drop off the list, with no apparent way to view them. Unfortunately, in exchange for that ability to view older purchases, they've made that page "touch optimized", with oversized fonts, huge brightly colored buttons instead of text links, and excessively large amounts of wasted "white space" around everything, to allow for "fat fingers". The result is that while the page used to be able to display four or five items on the screen at a time, now it only has enough room to display two!
 
Using eBay seller records to profile product markets.

Using eBay seller records to profile product markets.

Stone said:
I can see everything I bought for the last three years, selectable by year. So I can view everything from January, 2012 thru today. Go back and re-check your Purchase history.
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I used eBay's past records access a few years ago when I discovered those off-the-book sales during a consult for the company that was unknowingly getting ripped off.

While I discovered that someone had been selling their product for about 15 years on eBay (backstory: it was a friend of one of their senior executives) I used those eBay records with lists of products, pricing and monthly volume to create a good profile of their seasonal sales patterns to re-adjust their production schedule.

Ironic using a crooked eBay seller to help the company he was ripping off. I enjoyed that aspect. :)

While it was tedious to access and compile the records through eBay, they were available at the time and it was great data for marketing and production analysis. The company was too stupid to do with their own sales records. I recall that after so many years back the eBay records only had the monthly sales volume in dollars of the eBay seller and not the itemized sales records.

Anyhow, considering how useful that information was to outsiders, I can understand eBay removing that sort of records access... if not instead making it a for pay service like Linked-In tends to do with anything moderately useful.
 
JDallas said:
I used eBay's past records access a few years ago when I discovered those off-the-book sales during a consult for the company that was unknowingly getting ripped off.

While I discovered that someone had been selling their product for about 15 years on eBay
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That reminds me, I recently broke my headphones and wanted to get a new pair. Amazon had a better price, but I didn't have $35 worth of stuff to order to get free shipping, and their shipping charge was more costly, so I bought them on eBay to save a few bucks. To my surprise, the headphones arrived in an Amazon.com box, shipped from Amazon as a "gift" sent to me!

I think what happened is that the eBay seller has an Amazon Prime membership which gives him discounts and free shipping on everything, and is taking advantage of that to resell items on eBay at a markup without even needing to have them in his possession -- he just orders them from Amazon as a "gift" sent to the eBay buyer.
 
vwestlife said:
I think what happened is that the eBay seller has an Amazon Prime membership which gives him discounts and free shipping on everything, and is taking advantage of that to resell items on eBay at a markup without even needing to have them in his possession -- he just orders them from Amazon as a "gift" sent to the eBay buyer.
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Hah! Easy way to turn a few bucks with little effort! Still, I'd be scared to do that, as Amazon is well-known to fluctuate pricing by the individual account (google it if you doubt me)

re: ebay....

I think that they had it perfect about 10 years ago, right after they introduced BIN and reserve pricing. That allowed the "storefronts" to go that route, we still had true auctions, and sellers were protected from bad buyer groups, while buyers were protected from bad seller groups.

.... and then ebay started figuring that buyers were more important than sellers (wrongly, imo - and I'm primarily a buyer). They seem to forget that without people WANTING to sell their items, buyers would have nothing to buy, and revenue stops flowing.

Then again, for the casual mom or dad looking to unload 5-10 items a year, they don't give a crap about ebay fees or how unfair things are. They don't have enough volume to care. The buyers certainly don't care - everything benefits them. The only people that care are those who list things regularly/semi-regularly (alot of you), or the people that would like to but hear the horror stories and just haven't (this would be me)
 
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Stone said:
Once again, eBay's automated bidding scheme, aka, the 'place your maximum bid' BS, is definitely *not*, in any way, shape or form, even remotely related to a true auction!
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Your wording is a bit extreme. In a "true" auction, most (serious, disciplined) bidders decide on an absolute maximum price they'll pay for something and won't go over it, to prevent buyer's remorse. That's identical to ebay.

That being said, I would like to see ebay allow open bidding (ie. bidding doesn't stop at a fixed time, but rather after a fixed time after the last bid). It's a subtle change, but would mean potentially more opportunity (ie. money) for sellers.
 
Trixter said:
In a "true" auction, most (serious, disciplined) bidders decide on an absolute maximum price they'll pay for something and won't go over it, to prevent buyer's remorse. That's identical to ebay.
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Not even close! In an auction the bidder must announce each higher bid himself. There's none of this automated bidding up to your maximum bid! Deciding on a maximum price (in your head) and having eBay automatically increase your bid up to its pre-selected maximum is like apples and oranges. EBay's so-called auctions are anything but real auctions! If you think the real auction process is identical to eBay's then you aren't thinking. :)

"If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking." -- Gen. George S. Patton Jr.
 
Stone said:
Not even close! In an auction the bidder must announce each higher bid himself. There's none of this automated bidding up to your maximum bid
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My point was that there was little difference in practice, only in execution. If you want to state your point a little more eloquently, you could say that ebay is identical to a silent auction.

I know that many people who rely on auctions for their livelyhood prefer live auctions, as it gives them more tools -- for example, recognizing competitors' preferences, strengths, and weaknesses; using subtle psychological tricks to influence other bidders' behavior; etc. This is valid, if somewhat distasteful (to me personally). However, this is the same opinion given by floor traders, who are nearly extinct -- if being on the floor gave them the "human advantage", then maybe there would be more floor traders left...
 
Stone said:
There's none of this automated bidding up to your maximum bid! Deciding on a maximum price (in your head) and having eBay automatically increase your bid up to its pre-selected maximum is like apples and oranges.
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eBay introduced the automated bidding because people were using "bid-bot" programs to do that for them.

Anyway, eBay is already advertising that "virtually all" items have a money-back guarantee. So in other words, those of us who do "as-is" listings on things like vintage computer equipment don't matter to them. We're a small enough part of their market that they can afford to lose us. They only care about popular and lucrative mass-market items, like designer-brand clothes and iPads and iPhones.
 
Trixter said:
If you want to state your point a little more eloquently, you could say that ebay is identical to a silent auction.
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No, that's incorrect. It's not identical. In a silent auction you pay what you bid, period. In an eBay auction you don't necessarily pay what you bid. You won't pay more but you might pay less -- even a lot less. So they're not identical. In fact, they're not even close in some situations.
 
You're welcome to browse through our online merchandise... just make the seller pay.

You're welcome to browse through our online merchandise... just make the seller pay.

vwestlife said:
eBay is...advertising..."virtually all" items have a money-back guarantee...those of us who do "as-is" listings on things like vintage computer equipment don't matter to them...
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Its like eBay considers frivolous returns to be an online equivalent to pre-auction merchandise browsing.

Who would have predicted that eBay would have stuck the seller with the cost of that? :)

Shouldn't eBay pay for the cost ramifications of their half-baked policies? Well, eventually they'll pay one way or another.
 
There are quite a number of people who tread eBay as a silent auction--I do. I use a sniping service for almost everything. If my bid wins for less than my snipe maximum, I consider it as a bonus. But if my maximum is the winning bid, I'm not upset in the least.

I refuse to engage in the bidding "wars" that eBay seems to be so fond of.
 
Stone said:
I dunno, Ole. I can see everything I bought for the last three years, selectable by year. So I can view everything from January, 2012 thru today. Go back and re-check your Purchase history.
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I just went and looked and it says "last 60 days", but because you insisted, I fooled around some more and discovered that some more clicking is needed. And indeed, there it was! Sheesh! This kind of interface pisses me off. If I'd known that I would have made a couple of purchases from the same place I originally did. So in this case the seller gets screwed. Of course, I'm probably unusual in that I don't have the patience to figure out the game. To me Ebay is a just a place to buy stuff.

Anyway, thanks for that Stone. :)
 
Trixter said:
That being said, I would like to see ebay allow open bidding (ie. bidding doesn't stop at a fixed time, but rather after a fixed time after the last bid). It's a subtle change, but would mean potentially more opportunity (ie. money) for sellers.
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Quibids does something like that, but you have to pay to bid and you have to buy a package of bids. I don't see auctions slowing down for quite a while when they increase by a penny.
 
The concept of the "as-is" language in an auction is another way of saying "no warranty" and consequently "no returns or money back." However, even "as-is" has its limitations. If I show an item in good condition and ship something otherwise, then that is not "as-is", its "bait-and-switch." Similarly, if I package a PCB poorly and the buyer gets it snapped in two, I have something to answer for. But if I say "as-is, unable to test" or "worked for me the last time I tried it, but selling as-is", then the buyer should have no recourse if it fails to work.

I do not think it is reasonable to assume that a thirty year old personal computer or computer equipment is guaranteed to work. Vintage electronics can fail at any time for any reason. eBay still allows sellers to refuse to accept returns, so in my opinion, this hurts people who are not clear in their auction listings.
 
Great Hierophant said:
The concept of the "as-is" language in an auction is another way of saying "no warranty" and consequently "no returns or money back."
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This terminology in the item's description has no value whatsoever. If the listing category is "used" then it's got to work or a refund is in order. It must be 'listed' as "for parts or not working" in order not to qualify for a refund if it doesn't work. Those are eBay's rules.
 
For me, eBay has been the gateway to acquiring things on a global level playing field. Things that in where I live, Australia, could virtually never be found yet appear from time to time in the US.
The worst two eBay changes for me personally have been the discontinuation of wildcard search patterns coinciding with the search term length reduction, and the ridiculous 'Global Shipping Program' scheme involving Pitney Bowes.
Because of the GSP, prices for shipping even small items to Australia have absolutely skyrocketed to outrageous levels and the sellers are not even aware this happens. For example, half an ounce of Lego pieces can attract a shipping cost of $50 USD.
Pitney Bowes claim they pay the destination customs and sales taxes but here in Oz we do not have taxes on imports unless the value is over $1000 so it's a real scam.
 
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