EBay seller boycott

[FLICKOFLASH]

EBay seller boycott set to start Monday
Ebay sellers plan a weeklong strike to protest changes to the site's fee, search and feedback policies.

By Stacy Cowley
February 16 2008: 12:37 PM EST


Changes to eBays fee and feedback policies have sellers in an uproar and threatening a strike.


5 ex-eBayers: Where they sell now
EBay's planned fee and feedback changes have sellers threatening an exodus. Here are five sellers who already left, and how they've rebuilt their businesses elsewhere.

More from FSB
SEC change helps firms raise cash

EBay boycott set to start Monday

Blasting sales to the stratosphere


Current Issue

(FORTUNE Small Business) -- Activists opposed to eBay's (EBAY, Fortune 500) upcoming fee and policy changes are readying for a weeklong site boycott starting on Monday, with buyers and sellers waiting to see if this strike will succeed where past protests have failed.

The boycott, planned to run Feb. 19 - 25, is scheduled to overlap eBay's Feb. 20 rollout of significant changes announced last month.

Sellers say eBay's new policies are likely to cost them more money, but what's really inspired an outpouring of wrath is an adjustment to eBay's feedback system: sellers will no longer be able to leave negative commentary about their buyers. Critics say that will leave sellers vulnerable to negligent bidders and scammers.

"You get bad buyers as often as you get bad sellers," said M. Owens, a Severn, Md.-based seller of high-end dolls that typical go for several hundred dollars each. On such an expensive transaction, having a buyer cause trouble - by, for example, disputing the transaction and requesting a credit-card chargeback after they've already received their merchandise - can be financially devastating, she said.

Owens, who plans to participate in the boycott and avoid buying or selling on eBay next week, is also worried about the impact of a change to eBay's "best match" search algorithm, one of the least-publicized aspects of the upcoming changes. That search method, which will become eBay's default next month, favors sellers with high and detailed customer-satisfaction ratings. Low-volume sellers, like Owens, say this puts them at a disadvantage by burying their listings.

EBay spokesman Usher Lieberman said the company is taking a wait-and-see approach to the boycott talk

"At this point it's still premature for us to speculate," Lieberman said. "We're empathetic with our sellers and understand that they're concerned, and that some of them object to some of the changes we're implementing. On the other hand, we think we have very good reasons for what we're doing."

Rival sites court eBay sellers
EBay has no plans for listing-fee discounts or other special promotions next week to combat a potential boycott-related drop in listings, Lieberman said. This week, eBay ran a one-day discounted listing fee special offer on Wednesday, a move that increased listings on the site that day from around 12 million to 16 million.

That special offer was not prompted by the groundswell of seller discontent about the upcoming changes, according to Lieberman.

"We shouldn't be reading anything into that," he said. "We're always testing the price elasticity of our market."

Whether or not the planned boycott will be successful in affecting eBay's bottom line remains to be seen, but auction veterans say this degree of seller backlash to eBay fee hikes and other changes is unprecedented.

"I've been getting about 400 e-mails an hour," said Valerie Lennert, an Anaheim, Calif., doll-clothing merchant who became an unofficial spokeswoman for the boycott after posting a call-to-arms video on Google (GOOG, Fortune 500)'s YouTube.

Past eBay boycott attempts have fizzled, and this one may too, Lennert acknowledged. With millions of individuals selling on eBay, gaining critical mass for any organized action is extremely challenging. But simply getting eBay's attention is a worthy accomplishment, she said.

"There are a lot of people who are really upset, and if we choose to go somewhere else as a group, there won't be an eBay anymore," she said. "We don't think eBay understands that. They think they're invincible, and they don't seem to listen to what we need. Even if listings don't go down, we're reached the main goal: to let them know how upset we are. I'm pretty sure they know that at this point."

EBay seller boycott set to start Monday - Feb. 15, 2008

[shotgunlew]

Thats some bullshit ebays doin! GET SOME FLICK! GET SOME!!!!

Originally Posted by FLICKOFLASH

EBay seller boycott set to start Monday
Ebay sellers plan a weeklong strike to protest changes to the site's fee, search and feedback policies.

By Stacy Cowley
February 16 2008: 12:37 PM EST


Changes to eBays fee and feedback policies have sellers in an uproar and threatening a strike.


5 ex-eBayers: Where they sell now
EBay's planned fee and feedback changes have sellers threatening an exodus. Here are five sellers who already left, and how they've rebuilt their businesses elsewhere.

More from FSB
SEC change helps firms raise cash

EBay boycott set to start Monday

Blasting sales to the stratosphere


Current Issue

(FORTUNE Small Business) -- Activists opposed to eBay's (EBAY, Fortune 500) upcoming fee and policy changes are readying for a weeklong site boycott starting on Monday, with buyers and sellers waiting to see if this strike will succeed where past protests have failed.

The boycott, planned to run Feb. 19 - 25, is scheduled to overlap eBay's Feb. 20 rollout of significant changes announced last month.

Sellers say eBay's new policies are likely to cost them more money, but what's really inspired an outpouring of wrath is an adjustment to eBay's feedback system: sellers will no longer be able to leave negative commentary about their buyers. Critics say that will leave sellers vulnerable to negligent bidders and scammers.

"You get bad buyers as often as you get bad sellers," said M. Owens, a Severn, Md.-based seller of high-end dolls that typical go for several hundred dollars each. On such an expensive transaction, having a buyer cause trouble - by, for example, disputing the transaction and requesting a credit-card chargeback after they've already received their merchandise - can be financially devastating, she said.

Owens, who plans to participate in the boycott and avoid buying or selling on eBay next week, is also worried about the impact of a change to eBay's "best match" search algorithm, one of the least-publicized aspects of the upcoming changes. That search method, which will become eBay's default next month, favors sellers with high and detailed customer-satisfaction ratings. Low-volume sellers, like Owens, say this puts them at a disadvantage by burying their listings.

EBay spokesman Usher Lieberman said the company is taking a wait-and-see approach to the boycott talk

"At this point it's still premature for us to speculate," Lieberman said. "We're empathetic with our sellers and understand that they're concerned, and that some of them object to some of the changes we're implementing. On the other hand, we think we have very good reasons for what we're doing."

Rival sites court eBay sellers
EBay has no plans for listing-fee discounts or other special promotions next week to combat a potential boycott-related drop in listings, Lieberman said. This week, eBay ran a one-day discounted listing fee special offer on Wednesday, a move that increased listings on the site that day from around 12 million to 16 million.

That special offer was not prompted by the groundswell of seller discontent about the upcoming changes, according to Lieberman.

"We shouldn't be reading anything into that," he said. "We're always testing the price elasticity of our market."

Whether or not the planned boycott will be successful in affecting eBay's bottom line remains to be seen, but auction veterans say this degree of seller backlash to eBay fee hikes and other changes is unprecedented.

"I've been getting about 400 e-mails an hour," said Valerie Lennert, an Anaheim, Calif., doll-clothing merchant who became an unofficial spokeswoman for the boycott after posting a call-to-arms video on Google (GOOG, Fortune 500)'s YouTube.

Past eBay boycott attempts have fizzled, and this one may too, Lennert acknowledged. With millions of individuals selling on eBay, gaining critical mass for any organized action is extremely challenging. But simply getting eBay's attention is a worthy accomplishment, she said.

"There are a lot of people who are really upset, and if we choose to go somewhere else as a group, there won't be an eBay anymore," she said. "We don't think eBay understands that. They think they're invincible, and they don't seem to listen to what we need. Even if listings don't go down, we're reached the main goal: to let them know how upset we are. I'm pretty sure they know that at this point."

EBay seller boycott set to start Monday - Feb. 15, 2008

[thefishingline]

What other options are there to selling on Flea Bay?

[Harpozep]

Yeah, Yahoo autions folded in the US. They say they still operate in other parts of the world.
Is the ebay boycott world wide, or just the US site?

[thefishingline]

anyone sell on Vintage Guitar .com?? I logged on and put up five items for free and unlike Gbase I can pay $50 for the year!! not $35 per month like G Base....

[Robespierre]

I'm all for sellers not being able to list feedback about buyers. The customer is ALWAYS right, right? -RIGHT!

Let's say I stay at Hotel X and dislike the service. I tell ten friends. Then Hotel X comes back and puts some kind of permanent mark on my hotel "record", as retribution. I then go and try to stay at Hotel Y and they find out about my hotel "record", and Hotel Y refuses to let me stay there.

That doesn't make sense. Good for eBay!

I've never had any disputes on eBay, but I'm glad they are changing things.

[Harpozep]

Lots of customers are opinionated asses, so , no they are not always right.

A lot of time they suck.
Just my opinion from dealing with the public, or pubic as I sometimes call them, for 35 years.
We, as humans suck at times. Feedback and revenge on ebay is but one of the many symptoms of our deep seated hostility to one another.
BAHH.............: shock:

I have never had trouble with sellers, all my troubles come from buyers, I do about 50/50 buying and selling. It is much easier to BUY on Ebay than to SELL on Ebay!!

[M.T. Pockets]

So, let's say I buy a guitar from Kink.
It's been honestly described, safely packed, and quickly shipped.
I do a lot of buying on ebay, but I never, ever sell anything, unless I use my seller ID, which of course, no one would ever do, because everyone uses the same ID to buy and sell. Right?

Anyway, let's also say I can't find anything wrong with the guitar. He even described the bugger on the end pin. END PIN? WHY, THAT THING HAS DUG INTO THE END OF THE CASE AND HE DIDN'T TELL ME THAT!!!!

Think I'll ask him politely for a small rebate before I send the whole guitar back and leave him negative feedback for the description not matching the item. $15.00 ought to do it.

[gravy]

Originally Posted by Robespierre

I'm all for sellers not being able to list feedback about buyers. The customer is ALWAYS right, right? -RIGHT!

Let's say I stay at Hotel X and dislike the service. I tell ten friends. Then Hotel X comes back and puts some kind of permanent mark on my hotel "record", as retribution. I then go and try to stay at Hotel Y and they find out about my hotel "record", and Hotel Y refuses to let me stay there.

That doesn't make sense. Good for eBay!

I've never had any disputes on eBay, but I'm glad they are changing things.

I feel ya brother. But ,let me give you a little example where the buyers should be warned about asshole customers.
I sell vintage clothing,mostly export to Japan,but I do some eBay too,for just a little extra$$$.Recently I sold a Junk Food brand ski vest in perfect/unworn condition ,size small(retail value about $100).tags and all.Right.I use hand measurements,tons of pics and check my account for any questions very frequently.My wife and I were just messin around one day & I put this thing on,because it was so ugly,I thought it would be funny(it wasn't).I'm 6' & 170 lbs.It was tight but not too tight.
So the thing sells for something stupid like $20 .The lady gets it and leaves me negative feedback claiming we lied about the size.She claimed it was so small her 8 yr old daughter couldn't even wear it.(hmm....I wonder what she feeds the kid).I told her if there was any kind of mistake in the listing I would gladly refund her money.She admitted that all the measurements were correct (and obviously it has tags stating the size).Keep in mind,I'm making the story much shorter.This went on for days.She was a complete bitch with every message.I still offered to give her money back if she would retract the feedback.She replied that she'd make the vest work and still refused to retract the feedback.So obviously I left my feedback for her,to let others be warned.
I did everything in my power to try to please this woman(you know the type that thinks she's a small?...........ya ,a small whale!).I have experienced way more problems with bad buyers than bad sellers.EBay has made so many bad changes lately we're considering not listing at all anymore.It's just a little extra money anyway, and a ton of headaches.
By the way this is not an isolated incident.I get this kind of crap fairly often (almost all women....sorry girls). I once had a lady who refused to pay for an item ,because the payment was going to our email ( satanichooch@....).She swore that we were devil worshipers and left some crazy feedback ,saying not to buy from us,because we are satanists.(there's a long story there too,but I'll spare you)
People are nuts & seller should be warned.

[gravy]

Originally Posted by Harpozep

Lots of customers are opinionated asses, so , no they are not always right.

A lot of time they suck.
Just my opinion from dealing with the public, or pubic as I sometimes call them, for 35 years.
We, as humans suck at times. Feedback and revenge on ebay is but one of the many symptoms of our deep seated hostility to one another.
BAHH.............: shock:

+1

[6pack595]

I sell my unwanted stuff on craigslist (craigslist classifieds: jobs, housing, personals, for sale, services, community, events, forums) IT'S FREE!!!

[ArchEtech]

1/2 the buyers on ebay are assholes and scammers. It takes me 4-5 auctions sometimes because people from other countries try to buy them, or someone wins then tries to negotiate terms. It happens at least 1/2 the time. "Oh $50 is too much for shipping." "Oh I saw the same thing sell for $100 less yesterday, I should take $100 off." It costs me money to relist multiple times. EBAY is NOT a store. I am NOT a store. They are trying to turn ebay into a store which mean, regular people who don't run their business on it, that actual people that made ebay what it is, are going to loose out to bulk sellers with 50,000 feedback.

Sellers should absolutely be able to leave negative feedback. There is not 1 logical reason they should not. Buyers should not be able to leave negative feedback at a whim for any reason. Sellers are already the ones who bear 100% of all the risk of the transaction. Ebay and Paypal policy do not protect the buyer at all. If you do the research, it is impossible for a buyer to meet all of the fine print items under seller protection, and even if somehow you do, you are never allowed to know anything about the buyer, other than what they give you themselves without involving an attourney.

Ebay is sell at your own risk. Buyer scams are actually more common than seller scams, and much harder to track down.

I don't sell enough on ebay for the new rules to really bother me that much. Doing background checks, and verifying legal address information on shipping addresses is usually enough to make scammers run. On high dollar stuff, if I get a bad vibe after a personal phone call with the buyer, I don't sell it. On high dollar stuff I require wire transfer.

Papal is a total scam, and anyone who uses it needs to know, it is completely non-secured, and paypal is not liable for anything.

if you sell a used car in the want ads, and someone comes and sees it and then buys it, do you cosider this person you CUSTOMER? No he is just a guy who buys your car. Unless you are a business, people who win a bid and PAYS for the item is not a customer!! He is not BUYING something, he is paying for something. Subtle difference! Someone who buys from my website is my customer, someone who wins a bid off ebay is just the winning bidder.

These buyers act like they are shopping, and if they find something cheaper at Target vs KMart, then they think they have the right not to pay, or for you to match the lower price! Then they wine about PUBLISHED shipping costs!! Telling how the shipping was cheaper from this other guy!

Ebay attracts a LOT of trash!!

[thefishingline]

Originally Posted by 6pack595

I sell my unwanted stuff on craigslist (craigslist classifieds: jobs, housing, personals, for sale, services, community, events, forums) IT'S FREE!!!

If you think scams and E Bay are bad...just wait till you post something...anything of any value on Craigs List...the nigerians and Mid east scammers are hovering like vultures and CL is nothing short of a Tire Kicker's convention...

[M.T. Pockets]

Does anyone speak Latin?
How do you say
"Let the seller beware."
????????????????

[ArchEtech]

Originally Posted by M.T. Pockets

Does anyone speak Latin?
How do you say
"Let the seller beware."
????????????????

Permissum exigo caveo

[155]

that bs no buyer feedback im gonna protest that shit!!

[M.T. Pockets]

Originally Posted by ArchEtech

Permissum exigo caveo

[Sinmastah]

So far I have no horror ebay stories, which is great. I've sold one account for a game and that went well, the only problem was that he resold it for 5 dollars more. Which means he lost money w/ seller fees. I've also bought two guitars and a nintendo DS, and they are exactly as described, amazing. But Buyers should be able to leave feedback. I believe that buyers should always leave positive feedback when it works out.