Is Ebay The Worst Run Company of all time?

[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).

[kmac32]

Poorly run and managed from my opinion as a buyer and seller. A few years back my wife was selling some thing and in the listing we clearly said US shipping only. We had a person from Austria message about shipping to europe and we clearly told them that we do not do that. Jerk bid anyhow so we cancelled the transaction and got bogus negative feedback. We contested it and wven with all the messages clearly stating that we did USA shipping only allowed the feedback to remain. Talk about being seller unfriendly and inconsistent in their policies. And now they try and limit sales. Stupid!!!

[PolarBear]

Originally Posted by kmac32

Poorly run and managed from my opinion as a buyer and seller. A few years back my wife was selling some thing and in the listing we clearly said US shipping only. We had a person from Austria message about shipping to europe and we clearly told them that we do not do that. Jerk bid anyhow so we cancelled the transaction and got bogus negative feedback. We contested it and wven with all the messages clearly stating that we did USA shipping only allowed the feedback to remain. Talk about being seller unfriendly and inconsistent in their policies. And now they try and limit sales. Stupid!!!

I've had the same crap happen to me. I learned the trick though, even if ebay won't protect you, you can protect yourself through paypal.

Set your paypal account to only accept payment from verified US accounts.

Now, when I have an international bidder win one of my auctions, I do nothing. I file a non paying bidder claim after two days, then four days later you can close the case and get your fees refunded.

They have no way to pay you from an international paypal account, and if there's no record of payment, ebay will close the case in your favor. They can't leave negative feedback since they are a non paying bidder and they get a non paying bidder strike as well.

Maybe next time they'll learn to read the "US only" part of the description. The only thing you're out, is your time.

Oh, and the "buyer" will typically send you multiple emails begging you to change your paypal settings. I just ignore them and do not communicate with them at all under any circumstances.

[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.

[Exhibitman]

That's what makes no sense to me, Dave. If Rhett was paying $300 a month plus the usual 1000 paper cuts of fees, WTF does eBay care if items turn over? They make the equivalent fee of $3,000 a month in straight sales from a no-store auctioneer regardless of whether anything sells. I thought the store was a license to sell. And since when is eBay ("we aren't legally responsible for all the fakes and scammers because we are just a platform") dictating what sellers can price at? If turnover is their buzzword, their model isn't Amazon, it is more like Filene's Basement.

I've taken most of my selling to AH's. Sterling and LOTG get what used to be listed on eBay. I try to limit my eBay activity to 5 lots a week. Just too many headaches dealing with their rules and regulations.

[rhettyeakley]

Update:

They looked into their crystal ball and deemed me worthy to have double what they were allowing me to list which is probably sufficient for my needs in all honesty as I rarely have all of my listings live with new items, I tend to resist an item every other month or so so as not to fatigue the community of always seeing the exact same stuff.

After talking with several of the CSR's I was able to learn a bit more. Apparently somewhere around 2009 or so eBay began to implement the seller limits and most every new seller since then has had them to some degree or another from day 1. Those of us that were around prior to that and had been selling regularly were more or less grandfathered into not having limits on our older accounts. Apparently something made my account appear on their radar and they gave me a limit for an unknown reason. I have a feeling they are going to start doing these limits for everyone eventually. At this point I think I will have to request a higher total each month if I want them to (not really the end of the world).

[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.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by 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.

How do you check your selling limits? I've always been curious myself.

[Jeffrompa]

It's in your selling manager .