Is Ebay The Worst Run Company of all time?

[Sportsnutcards]

Originally Posted by rhettyeakley

So I have to vent a little. I have had an ebay account since 1998 and have been a pretty active seller since then and have been active on my current account since 2000. I have 100% feedback (was 99.8% for a bit due to a USPS delayed shipment that the seller hadn't rec'd when leaving feedback but was rec'd the following day but that was a year ago and no longer counts on my %).

I have a feedback score of 4,458 and have on average around 4,000-6,000 items in my ebay store (fixed price). I never had any limits on what I could sell until last month when ebay decided to put selling restrictions on my account and I could only sell 1,650 items (or $59,000 worth or stuff) in my store that I pay $299 a month for that gives me 10,000 free listings a month. So I call and they say that if I get some of my performance #'s up I can request a higher # of items. Keep in mind I am a Power Seller according to their calculations.

I try to remain calm and explain that the #'s they are allowing me are silly and don't even allow for me to relist current inventory I have on ebay within the 90 days that the stuff stays within the system. In the most condescending manner a CSR at ebay just simply tells me they are trying to protect their customer (the buyers) from having bad experiences. Are these people for real? The guy tells me I can petition for higher selling limits the next month as long as I remain in good standing, I do so and wait the 30 days and I find out my seller limit has been raised this month by an extra (get this)... 50 listings every month (or $1000 more), so now I can list a total of 1,700 items (or $60,000) this month!!! Note I am still being charged $299 a month for an Anchor store that allows 10,000 free listings.

I have done multiple $100K worth of sales on ebay over the past decade and a half with no major problems of any kind and then all of the sudden they hit me with limiting how much I can sell?

At the end of the day this is not my livelihood and I do it so I have extra money to buy stuff I like without dipping into "family money" along with the added benefit of making a little money while enjoying my hobby. I truly don't understand how ebay has stayed in business this long making counterproductive changes that end up making them less money.

Why would you tell a customer that pays you over $1,000 a month in fees that you can no longer offer as many items because of no reason whatsoever, thus netting them less money every month?

Hi Rhett, the limits are all based on what your seller dashboard stats are along with your average sales per month compared to what you have listed and if you are maxing out your listings every month. Without seeing your dashboard it is hard to say why they are not making your limits higher, but it usually has to do with a combo of things.

[Jeffrompa]

Rhett there's not much you can do . I have over 11000 feedback and have never understood ebays policy . I have been put on limit and loss $ 1000s . Once they put you on limits all you can do is wait it out until eBay raises it . Seems like good sellers get beat up there all the time .

[ibuysportsephemera]

I have had the middle size store on eBay for a long time and fortunately have never had a problem. I don't understand how they can charge you for a full size store and restrict the number of items that you have. Shouldn't you be asking them to move you to a middle level store until they remove the restrictions?

Jeff

[Brian Van Horn]

Rhett,

I have read your post and I feel for you, but I can still name one worse run company than eBay.

[rhettyeakley]

At the end of the day it isn't that big of a deal for me as, again, this isn't my livelihood at stake as I buy-sell cards for fun but I can only imagine the mom & pop eBay store having the same restrictions and forcing them out of business.

The most frustrating thing is that I do pay to have 10,000 listings and there is no actual criteria to determine how to get it increased. I just want to know what they are wanting and then allowing me to do that. I ask and they say some gobbledygook answer about requesting more listings and then some board then determines the increase but again based on what?

I'll adapt my model of doing business to make it work but it just seems so arbitrary.

My eBay name is kryvintage. I don't feel like I am crazy expensive but I do price my items for what I feel they are worth. I sell quite a bit so I have never really heard anyone describe me as one of the eBay museums so I can't imagine there were complaints about my stuff. My DSR's are all 4.9 except "item as described" is 5.0

[bxb]

Not even close.

The fact that they make a profit puts them ahead of the thousands of companies that have gone broke.

But I share your dissatisfaction.

[SMPEP]

I don't get this.

I don't have a store, and my selling limit is higher than that!

You're paying to get less than someone who pays nothing.

That makes no sense.

[Cozumeleno]

I wonder how they would react if you threatened to close your store. They do anything to try to push sellers to open one. I thought about it a few years ago but don't sell nearly enough there to justify paying a fee.

Would they let you walk or would they work with you? I have to do my annual dance with Sirius every year by calling to cancel my subscription until they give me their lowest rate.

[D. Bergin]

Ok, how about "worst run successful company"?


Based on their initial model and how they got out of the gate almost 20 years ago, they should be way more successful then they are IMO.

They still make a profit, because they'd have to be complete morons to totally screw up the brilliant platform they initially engineered.

That said, I don't know of any company that shoots themselves in the foot (seemingly on purpose) as many times as Ebay.

Ebay trying to position themselves as another Amazon (without having to build the infrastructure) of Amazon has really killed them through the years.

Ebay stock should be through the roof. They are basically a huge software platform that collects untold amounts of revenue without having to keep any inventory. It's all gravy, but somehow they still figure out how to screw it up.

Sorry, this happened to you Rhett. Perhaps it's time to strike out on your own and design your own website with a full shopping cart.

It's gotta be cheaper then what you're paying Ebay now, and the whole Ebay gives the best exposure to items is a bit overblown. Google/Bing/Yahoo and the other search engines give the best exposure to items.....and if you're selling mostly One of a Kind, Vintage or Unique type items, you will crawl up in the search engines quickly.

I use Yahoo/Aabaco for my websites. Use my own domains. Costs $40 bucks a month + $30 bucks additional to use Paypal Pro as a merchant provider in the shopping cart (accepts all forms of credit cards) and can be used across multiple domains unlike other merchant accounts.

List as many items as you want at no additional charge. They never time out or need to be relisted, thus keeping your search engine placement. Final value fee when items do sell is like 1.5% + the Paypal/Merchant account cut of the sale.

There will be many other platforms out there that offer similar if that one is not the right one for you.

Truthfully, Ebay should be killing it right now with a much bigger share of the revenue out there. If they were not so difficult to deal with, a ton of people who are either operating their own websites or have moved to Amazon, Etsy or other places, would still be offering much of their inventory on Ebay.

I'm sorry, people are seeing the same old stuff over and over on Ebay. Ebay "cleaning it up" is NOT making it more palatable. It is driving more and more sellers with unique items away. There used to be much more to choose from on a regular basis.

15 years ago I felt like a kid in a candy shop browsing through all the stuff I was interested in on Ebay. Finding interesting auctions in the corners of Ebay that I thought nobody else was finding. I probably spent more money and won more auctions then I had any business spending or winning.

I barely bid on Ebay at all anymore now. I still sell as it is still a source of revenue I can't ignore.....but it's becoming less and less as the years go by.

[savedfrommyspokes]

Originally Posted by rhettyeakley

At the end of the day it isn't that big of a deal for me as, again, this isn't my livelihood at stake as I buy-sell cards for fun but I can only imagine the mom & pop eBay store having the same restrictions and forcing them out of business.

The most frustrating thing is that I do pay to have 10,000 listings and there is no actual criteria to determine how to get it increased. I just want to know what they are wanting and then allowing me to do that. I ask and they say some gobbledygook answer about requesting more listings and then some board then determines the increase but again based on what?

I'll adapt my model of doing business to make it work but it just seems so arbitrary.

My eBay name is kryvintage. I don't feel like I am crazy expensive but I do price my items for what I feel they are worth. I sell quite a bit so I have never really heard anyone describe me as one of the eBay museums so I can't imagine there were complaints about my stuff. My DSR's are all 4.9 except "item as described" is 5.0

It is very frustrating to hear stories like this, especially since you have paid to have the largest ebay store available. It seems that most companies would just be happy continuing to take your money....for some unknown reason that is not the case here.

The only reason I can see that they lowered your limits is the fact that you are selling an average of 140-145 units a month. With their new "limit" they appear to be allowing you to stock in your store 1 years worth of items to sell....in other words, they are allowing you to list at one time as many items as you would sell in a one year time period.

Unfortunately , there are still many sellers on ebay who have 2-3 times the number of items listed than what they will typically sell during a one year period.

The only suggestions I can offer are first to use a single listing to offer all singles you have from a specific set(IE 1961 Fleer Baseball), or second to sell cards in small lots. With some modern cards there are sellers who are using one listing to offer a number of cards from a given set as singles. Here is an example:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/2016-TOPPS-H...a7MUnFU_pThTRA


Some of these listings have 30 or more unique cards and it is just a single listing. You can add up to 12 images per listing through ebay photo services or even more if you self host your own images. The listings with the dropdown boxes are certainly a workaround to what they are restricting you to now.

[Chris-Counts]

My latest gripe with eBay involves combining shipping for multiple items from the same seller. For months, this seemingly simple task has become very complicated, in part because every seller now has to check some stupid box somewhere saying he or she is willing to offer combined shipping. And because many people don't know the box exists (I've never seen it), they have trouble now combining shipping on orders. When I try to contact a seller about combined shipping, I often get a message from eBay saying my email was rejected because I used the used the words "combined shipping" in it. I called and complained, pointing out that such a policy is total madness. It seems like eBay should be making communication between parties easier, not more difficult.

[Sean1125]

Originally Posted by Sportsnutcards

Hi Rhett, the limits are all based on what your seller dashboard stats are along with your average sales per month compared to what you have listed and if you are maxing out your listings every month. Without seeing your dashboard it is hard to say why they are not making your limits higher, but it usually has to do with a combo of things.

This is the only correct answer in the thread.

I have a pit feeling something happened with some transactions that caused this change.

[swarmee]

He has already responded that he is 4.9s for DSRs with one 5.0. They shouldn't be throttling sellers like that.
Heck, I probably have 300-400 sales on eBay over 15 years, but 200 in this year (sold off a ton of graded duplicate T51s), and can sell 300 items with a combined value of $15,000 per month. Never had a store.

If they wanted to rid themselves of overpriced listings, they would have stopped their relationship from Dean's and never let COMC cross-post. Many cards on COMC are price 8 times going value so that the sellers can offer items at 90% sales. However, sale prices never show up on eBay/Amazon, just original prices.

I agree with the other poster who recommended calling them and asking to cancel your store. Then if the profit margin makes sense, send your cards into COMC anyways. COMC is going to restructure their fee structure in early 2017, possibly getting rid of their 20% cashout fee that makes selling there less interesting. But the fact that they do all the scanning, finding, packing, and shipping makes it totally worth it for me, as I have 12,000 cards on that site for sale and cross-posted to eBay and Amazon. I have never touched probably 9,000 of those cards, just buying them on COMC, leaving them in their warehouse, and then repricing them.

[ibuysportsephemera]

Rhett,

I still don't understand why you wouldn't put your foot down and say if I can only list 1.7k items, I will not pay for the anchor store. You should have them lower you to the middle level store which would give you 1k store items and 500 auctions (which you can price like store items) for $59 a month.

Thanks,

Jeff

[jhs5120]

EBay is getting incredibly smart with their analysis on eBay seller inventory turnover.

A quick eBay search of "1956 Topps 188" (just a generic common) shows 4 auctions and 111 BINs! The buy it nows aren't making eBay any money if they do not sell. They're really starting to look at who doesn't turn over their inventory and who does. If you do not, then they're starting to take actions to force your hand.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by jhs5120

EBay is getting incredibly smart with their analysis on eBay seller inventory turnover.

A quick eBay search of "1956 Topps 188" (just a generic common) shows 4 auctions and 111 BINs! The buy it nows aren't making eBay any money if they do not sell. They're really starting to look at who doesn't turn over their inventory and who does. If you do not, then they're starting to take actions to force your hand.

There would be more turnover if Ebay didn't do their damndest to try and discourage straight auctions for the last decade or so, while they chased the Amazon retail BIN model.

[jhs5120]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

There would be more turnover if Ebay didn't do their damndest to try and discourage straight auctions for the last decade or so, while they chased the Amazon retail BIN model.

Well, it looks like the OP has sold 284 items over the last 3 months, or 95 items a month. If he is limited to 1,650 listings at a time, then he will either have to lower his prices to start turning over his older inventory, or list some auctions.

If eBay were to follow Amazons retail model, a search for "1956 Topps 188" (my prior example) would result in one listing. The listing would then only display the cheapest price and sellers would need to bid against each other to lower their prices to be seen.

I just looked at my store. I have 91 items listed (currently all BINs), but have sold 199 items over the past 3 months (39 BINs).

[Beastmode]

Originally Posted by jhs5120

EBay is getting incredibly smart with their analysis on eBay seller inventory turnover.

A quick eBay search of "1956 Topps 188" (just a generic common) shows 4 auctions and 111 BINs! The buy it nows aren't making eBay any money if they do not sell. They're really starting to look at who doesn't turn over their inventory and who does. If you do not, then they're starting to take actions to force your hand.

++ hit the nail on the head. Let me translate E-bay's policy for everyone: "either sell your shit in 30 days, or sell a lot of shit, or pay us for showing a photo of your overpriced listing for 90 days..we're not shutterfly"

[Tabe]

Like anything ebay does makes sense. We're talking a company that put a counterfeit Peyton Manning jersey on the cover of their Christmas catalog touting their low prices.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by Beastmode

++ hit the nail on the head. Let me translate E-bay's policy for everyone: "either sell your shit in 30 days, or sell a lot of shit, or pay us for showing a photo of your overpriced listing for 90 days..we're not shutterfly"

The OP was paying 300 bucks a month + final value fees to show his listings.

[Sportsnutcards]

Originally Posted by swarmee

He has already responded that he is 4.9s for DSRs with one 5.0. They shouldn't be throttling sellers like that.
Heck, I probably have 300-400 sales on eBay over 15 years, but 200 in this year (sold off a ton of graded duplicate T51s), and can sell 300 items with a combined value of $15,000 per month. Never had a store.

If they wanted to rid themselves of overpriced listings, they would have stopped their relationship from Dean's and never let COMC cross-post. Many cards on COMC are price 8 times going value so that the sellers can offer items at 90% sales. However, sale prices never show up on eBay/Amazon, just original prices.

I agree with the other poster who recommended calling them and asking to cancel your store. Then if the profit margin makes sense, send your cards into COMC anyways. COMC is going to restructure their fee structure in early 2017, possibly getting rid of their 20% cashout fee that makes selling there less interesting. But the fact that they do all the scanning, finding, packing, and shipping makes it totally worth it for me, as I have 12,000 cards on that site for sale and cross-posted to eBay and Amazon. I have never touched probably 9,000 of those cards, just buying them on COMC, leaving them in their warehouse, and then repricing them.

Dsr's are no longer considered when rating you as a seller. Everything is based on your transaction defect rate which considers shipping time, Cases opened against you and your response to them, tracking being uploaded for all packages, and the amount of returns. You have to maintain a certain percentage rate across the board for these categories along with doing a certain number of sales to get you limits raised. Its not really turnover which ebay is looking at as they allow many sellers to have large stores with slow turnovers. They have actually courted sellers like COMC, Burbank and Deans to get their full inventories listed with discounted upfront rates.

[savedfrommyspokes]

Originally Posted by Sportsnutcards

Dsr's are no longer considered when rating you as a seller. Everything is based on your transaction defect rate which considers shipping time, Cases opened against you and your response to them, tracking being uploaded for all packages, and the amount of returns. You have to maintain a certain percentage rate across the board for these categories along with doing a certain number of sales to get you limits raised. Its not really turnover which ebay is looking at as they allow many sellers to have large stores with slow turnovers. They have actually courted sellers like COMC, Burbank and Deans to get their full inventories listed with discounted upfront rates.

If this were the case, there are two sellers, who are higher dollar sellers, who ebay seemingly should have long ago limited their listing privileges based on their feedbacks received and apparent disregard of their customers.

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAP...edbackAsSeller


http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAP...ab=AllFeedback


It appears that ebay is aligning these seller limits more along the lines of a seller's current amount of sales and turnover the seller is experiencing. I tried to have my limits raised on my second selling account and when I inquired why there are limits like this, I was told they did not want me selling more than what I was capable of handling (IE shipping out in a timely manner) so I would not disappoint any of "eBay's" customers.

[Jeffrompa]

Yes . eBay will put you on limit albeit arbitrary .

[glchen]

Interesting. On ebay, I currently have ~270 items listed, all BIN, in my ebay basic store, which I pay $20/month for. I've sold 44 items in the last 3 months for a total sales figure of about $8K over this period. Yet, my selling limits are 6000 items per month with a $1.2 million limit. I've always been a Top Rated Seller Plus, so I assume that must factor into why I have much higher limits than others.