major changes to eBay fees and feedback

[Guest]

[kbmum]

Check this out -- both messages dated January 29:

http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200801.shtml#2008-01-29054823

eBay can word it any way they want, but the net affect is that fees will increase in February.  On top of that, there will be some huge changes to feedback, including that sellers will no longer be able to leave negatives for buyers!   I don't do it often, but when I do, there's a damn good reason for it.

[tialessa]

I'm pretty peeved that I won't be able to leave negatives for buyers.  98% of the time it's positives, so when I give negative or neutral it's for a reason.

I'm not wild about the raised fees either.  Ebay costs me enough to sell as it is...

And damn - reserve fees will no longer be refundable if the item sells....

Reserve
The optional feature fee for items with a reserve price will be changed per the table below
Reserve Fees:   
 Reserve Price                  Current Fee                                                Fee (effective 02/20/2008)
$0.01 - $49.99                 $1.00                                                        $2.00 
$50.00 - $199.99              $2.00                                                        $2.00
$200.00 and above           1% of Reserve Price (maximum of $50.00)        1% of Reserve Price (maximum of $50.00)
Reserve Fee Refund Policy  Fully-refundable if item sells                          Non-refundable

[kbmum]

I've already sent a complaint to eBay about the feedback changes.  I hate the fee increase, but I can kind of live with that.  I can't accept that a bad buyer can't get negative feedback.  I was reading through the eBay discussion boards, and all ready there are buyers who are thrilled that they will be able to leave any feedback they want.  This opens the whole feedback system to major abuse.

I also read that some sellers are calling for a boycott of all buyer feedback until eBay changes its policy. 

[beckham1]

What a load of crap   That really PMO.  I like how they say that ebayers have asked for these things and they have made the changes for the users.  Why have feedback if it can only be left for buyers if its positive.  I would agree that why leave feedback for anyone if it can only be positive, but yet you could leave a negative or neutral for a seller.  I have had a few people complain about my shipping costs in some of my auctions lately.  One person said the $28 for shipping for her 10 boxes of HP GOFU seemed way to high.  Well buyers need to realize how much shipping costs have gone up.  The cost was $30 for priority mail, insured.  I was nice and lowered it to $20 so I end up eating $8.  That sucks.  I am worried that people will leave you nuetral or neg feedback for anything and everything they don't like.

The problem is ebay is a publicly traded company and they need to make more profits for there stock to go up, which I think it has taken some hits lately, so they just keep taking more money in fees.  When you pay listing fees, selling value fees and paypal fees it gets really excessive.  I thought I heard rumors google was going to start an auction site.  I hope so I would switch in a heartbeat.

[kbmum]

I wouldn't have lowered the shipping price.  I would have told her the weight of the item and provided a link to the "calculate postage" section of the USPS site.  I've been wondering if it's better to increase the starting bid or BIN price and state that postage is free.  Then people can't complain about the postage price or ding me in the star rating.

The problem with eBay is that it has no real competition.  Amazon put a lot of work into an auction site which fizzled.  There's UBid, but I don't think it's very good.  Until there's another place where we can run auctions that people will actually see, we're stuck with eBay.

[allender]

The actual "final" press release said:

Sellers may only leave positive feedback for buyers (at the seller's option).

Huh? Either this means that a seller can leave negative feedback if they opt to, or it means that (pretty much) they are eliminating feedback for buyers completely.

[kbmum]

I think it means that sellers have two options: leave positive feedback or no feedback at all.

[terryweasley]

I found this article on MSN Money.  It seems we're not the only ones who are mad about Ebay increasing their fees.



EBay sellers not happy about fee changes
January 30, 2008 6:55 AM ET
 
All Associated Press newsSAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Vendors who sell their goods on eBay are scratching their heads after the company unveiled a new fee structure in effort to boost listings and maintain its share of the online auction market it helped start a decade ago.

While eBay Inc. says more than 60 percent of its sellers will save money with the new plan, several sellers have crunched their numbers and consider the rejigging a fee hike.

"We call it eBay math, it's a different math than most other people's math," said Randy Smythe, who used to sell music and movies on eBay from Southern California.

Under the old rules, for example, selling a purse at auction for $25 would have cost the seller $1.91, including 60 cents for listing the item plus eBay's commission of $1.31. Under the new structure, the seller would pay $2.74, including 55 cents to list the item plus a higher commission of $2.19.

Carol Hearn, who sells antiques on eBay from Washington state, said the fees are modest compared with the cost of selling items in person.

"It looks like what they are trying to do with the fees is make it more difficult and expensive to sell low-end items. The people that are selling low-end items are going to feel this fee increase the most," Hearn said.

EBay's commissions will rise on items auctioned for less than $1,000 or sold at fixed prices lower than $100, while eBay's cut on more expensive auction items will remain 1.5 percent. It will take less off the top of higher-end fixed-price sales -- 2 percent or 4 percent, rather than 3 percent or 5 percent.

One of its main rivals in fixed-price sales, Amazon.com Inc., charges no fee at all to list an item, though it charges a commission as high as 15 percent.

EBay said the changes were designed to boost listings, which have stagnated in recent years. The company is accustomed to a "vocal" and "passionate" seller community, company spokesman Usher Lieberman said.

Martin Pyykkonen, an analyst with Global Crown Capital, said eBay's rising fees have in the past caused sellers to look elsewhere for places to practice the online skills they perfected at eBay, whether it's their own Web sites, Amazon, or other shopping sites.

"The more savvy sellers look at a multitude

[kbmum]

of options," Pyykkonen said. "It's not like Amazon is taking market share from eBay in a big chunk, it's more of a gradual shift.

"This commission going up will be a telling point over the next months to see what kind of reactions it gets," he said.

Lieberman said the company's internal pricing experiments and number-crunching show listings overall will rise in response to the changes, which come as longtime Chief Executive Meg Whitman announced she would retire at the end of March.

EBay most wants to encourage growth in fixed-price sales, the area where it sees the most potential for growth.

"It's too little too late," said Steve Grossberg, one of eBay's top 100 sellers and the founder and president of the Internet Merchants Association.

Grossberg, a Florida-based vendor of video games, spoke by phone from a conference of 200 of North America's top eBay sellers in Washington, D.C., where incoming CEO John Donahoe announced the fee changes Tuesday. EBay makes 80 percent of its revenue from the top 20 percent of its sellers.

"I think you are going to see a listing decrease, you are going to see some sellers leave the site or pull back quite a bit and think of other ways to make revenue, and it's going to backfire," Grossberg said.

Listings on eBay's various sites rose 4 percent in the fourth quarter, reversing two straight quarters of declines, the company reported last week. The number of people actively using the site has stagnated, rising just 2 percent from a year ago, while revenues have risen modestly.

"EBay does sincerely want to compete. They are reacting to the competitive threat of Amazon," said Ina Steiner, editor of AuctionBytes.com, a trade publication for online sellers.

Amazon already has "cherry-picked" a lot of eBay's high-volume sellers, Steiner said.

[PepperD]

Well phooey!!

I am reading this right aren't I when I come to the conclusion that the price hikes could increase the price of single card sales!!!   :'(

As a collector who cannot afford to buy one case let alone more, I have to be lucky in my bidding to fill in what blanks I can and now it looks like my occasional *Wow what a great buy* experience could be a thing of the past.  I can count on two fingers the times I have paid over $100 for a card   

And cutting out negative comments.   SHEESH!!  I have never yet given a negative report but I sure as heck take notice of them when I am searching eBay for purchases   

I cannot believe there has been a strong public request for the current feedback system to be changed....  and if there has  I reckon it would have to be from those who consistantly get poor feedback because who else would care!!

[Hikarist]

I heard about this from someone on DA... it's ridiculous. The part I'm most angry about is that (according to the DA artist) if your rating as a seller drops below a certain percentage (easily done by a jerkwad of a buyer who buys several things and leaves negative feedback for each) their items won't show up on the search pages. :S  This seems horribly wrong, and perhaps they misunderstood and I'm misquoting due to that, but it seems like a screwy way to do things...

And not being able to leave feedback for a buyer? I agree with kbmum... it leaves a lot of room for abuse from nitpicky (or just plain 'bad') buyers.

*boycotting*

[kbmum]

The items will still show up on a search.  However, eBay started something called "Best Match."  When you search, the default will be this so-called Best Match that goes by the search criteria.  The buyer can then change the sort to time ending soonest, lowest price, or a few other options.

Problematic sellers will find that their items appear lower on the search list with Best Match, but the auctions will still be on the list.  The items will also appear in the correct place for all of the other options for sorting.

Personally, I think there should be something done to affect sellers with many negatives.  eBay should just suspend them, but the company doesn't want to lose the income some of those sellers generate.  However, some of the changes that eBay has initiated over the past few months have made a difference.  Look at the feedback profile for this seller:

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=jrssportscards&ftab=AllFeedback

I had the great misfortune of BINning some of the seller's items a few years ago, which I never received.  A PayPal claim refunded my money and I left the seller three negatives.  I was furious that even though he has so many positives, the number of negatives he received every month (all for non-receipt of items) should have prompted eBay to take action.  Well, the changes that eBay has made obviously "helped" this seller to provide better service, as you can see from the number of negatives over the past 12-month, 6-month, and 1-month periods.

[Hikarist]

I agree that the e-bayer you linked should have been booted from e-bay a long time ago... looks like bad business. And while I also agree that something should be done to stop bad sellers (E-bay admittedly moved far too slowly to remove members with repetitive bad feedback, especially once it got so big) to improve the e-bay community, the new system is deeply flawed. I guess what I'm saying is, e-bay had a good system (the difficult-to-enable booting policy aside), why change drastically what worked so well?

[kbmum]

eBay doesn't have as many buyers as it used to, because many have had bad experiences with sellers.  It made the changes so that buyers will think it's a safer place to do business.

[grecopa]

I hate the new "Best Match" that ebay forces me to look at when I make a search.  Usually it isn't the best match and sometimes it's stuff that doesn't match at all.  I think the no bad feedback for buyers is ridiculous.  What is the point for buyer feedback at all now?  They might as well just eliminate it.

[Kindli]

I think this has more to do with buyers who complained that they were afraid to leave deserved negative feedback to a seller, in fear of received a negative feedback in return.  Too often a seller waits until after the buyer leaves feedback before they will leave it. 

I leave feedback every week or so. I don't wait until I have received it, just until I have time to devote myself to giving correct comments.  (communication and speed of payment or receipt of item.)

However, many times when I buy from someone, they ask me to leave them feedback, so they may return the favor.  This new policy may speed up the feedback process, so that either side doesn't feel they have to wait for the other to leave feedback.

Anyway, I disagree with Ebay that sellers *can't* leave negative feedback, but I understand why they put it into effect.  I think kbmum is correct in believing this is an attempt to make the buyers feel safer.  Unfortunately, it also leaves the sellers open to abuse.

I sold some cards overseas recently, and she gave me a positive feedback, but on shipping fees I received less than 5 stars.  I sent the package flat-rate Priority, and charged the exact fee.  How is it good business to be 'bullied' into taking a loss on shipping fees, for fear of less than a 5 star rating? 

[kbmum]

I hate the star rating for shipping time.  eBay should specify that this category is the time it takes the seller to put the item in the mail, not the actual time it takes the post office, UPS, or any other carrier to deliver the item.  I ship out items within 24 hours of receiving payment (unless there's a holiday) and often the packages go out the same day I'm paid.  It's great when the post office delivers First Class mail within a few days, but I've had a few parcels take up to two weeks.  I certainly can't control the amount of time it takes for the post office to deliver the item, so I shouldn't have to take a hit in the star rating.  I've also found that I have to state that Media Mail and Parcel Post are the slowest USPS shipping options and can take a month or more for delivery, despite the delivery time stated by USPS.  I've been burned there, too, especially when a package leaves my home on the East Coast and heads to the West Coast.

[rns91294]

I hate those star ratings. My shipping fee rating was down, and I managed to get it back to a 4.6.  I was charging almost exact shipping prices (maybe going over by $0.40 at the most) and still getting bad stars on it. I started to actually put the shipping cost on the labels now so people can see, as sometimes I even pay more than I charge. Finally, the rating started going up. I hate it because they know the shipping cost prior to bidding, but still get angry they have to pay shipping. I just don't like the star rating, but what can you do.

I think that sellers should still be able to leave negative feedback as well. I want to make sure that my buyer will cotnact me prior to leaving a negative if there is something wrong. I am more than willing to work with people and make the experience a good one. A buyer should not jump to leaving a negative without first trying to make things right. To me, that is all a part of it and they shuoldn't just jump to a negative. Also, if a buyer does not pay and you need to file a complaint, you mean to tell me I can't leave a negative that they never paid?  It just doesn't seem fair.

[kbmum]

According to eBay, sellers have other options for dealing with bad buyers, including a non-payment claim.  When a buyer loses a certain number of the non-payment claims, they get suspended.  Of course, those buyers will just start a new eBay account.

[blackcat20]

I hate those star ratings. My shipping fee rating was down, and I managed to get it back to a 4.6.  I was charging almost exact shipping prices (maybe going over by $0.40 at the most) and still getting bad stars on it. I started to actually put the shipping cost on the labels now so people can see, as sometimes I even pay more than I charge. Finally, the rating started going up. I hate it because they know the shipping cost prior to bidding, but still get angry they have to pay shipping. I just don't like the star rating, but what can you do.

Ive had the same problem; out of all my star ratings, my postage one is the lowest. I usually only charge about 50c extra..I think the problem is that people forget, postage is not just the cost of the actual postage stamp, but the bubble envelope (which is about $1), and any packaging they get, like plastic sleeves, and toploaders which certainly arent free to us as sellers. If I took into account the cost of the packaging, Im most likely making a loss on postage, especially when you take into account the ebay and paypal fees which we pay.

Ive started stating the packaging details in my auctions, so that hopefully it makes a difference...