Example #500 For Why eBay is Going the Way of Circuit City
gemint
Posts: 6,126 ✭✭✭✭✭
So I log into my Paypal account this morning and see that my payments are on hold due to low DSR rating. It appears one or two buyers gave me low ratings due to shipping charges. I charge $3 for the first card and $1 for each additional graded card up to $12 max; the same I've charged since I joined eBay in 1998. However, that's another story and one that has been discussed here before.
The real story is the absolutely abysmal customer service at eBay. After waiting 10 minutes to get a CSR on the line, they take another 10 minutes to research my complaint. I simply asked them to remove the hold if it was one buyer making the complaint due to my high seller rating throughout my 13 year relationship with eBay. The CSR finally comes back on the line and tells me he doesn't have a way to see who or how many buyers left low ratings for shipping charges and that he's sorry but the low performance rating will remain on my account. I question whether PP has the right to quarantine funds due to some buyers thinking you charge too much for shipping. It's not like I'm not shipping them items or even getting negative feedback. It's not like I'm charging ridiculously high fees and/or not specifying it in my listings. What right does PP have to hold up payments??? But again I digress.
I then asked for a supervisor to speak with. A supervisor gets on the line and gives me the same shpeel. At that point I gave her a piece of my mind about how they mistreat sellers and about why they're losing market share and having to beg sellers to list items through unlimited free listing days. Circuit City dissolved with the general consensus being they lost the customer through pathetic customer service. eBay has one advantage in that they don't have strong competition unlike the electronics retail market. However, there are a lot of smaller auction houses and sites that are nipping at their heels, chipping away at their market share.
As I've stated in another thread, I've about tapped out on selling through eBay due to:
1) Poor customer service
2) High selling fees all loaded onto sellers (12-14% when all fees are added up while I do all the work scanning, listing, packing and shipping the goods)
3) No protection for sellers
4) Poor promotion of items in return for those 12-14% fees (items get no individual promotion aside from being listing amongst thousands of dormant BINs.
5) Being forced through Paypal as a payment collection method
6) Having the IRS sicked on you when you do a certain volume
I project that in the not too distant future, eBay will be a boneyard full of dusty items with inflated prices that nobody buys with a woefully low overall sell through rate. I'll still buy through eBay since it's very buyer friendly but I believe it will be harder and harder to actually find items worth buying.
The real story is the absolutely abysmal customer service at eBay. After waiting 10 minutes to get a CSR on the line, they take another 10 minutes to research my complaint. I simply asked them to remove the hold if it was one buyer making the complaint due to my high seller rating throughout my 13 year relationship with eBay. The CSR finally comes back on the line and tells me he doesn't have a way to see who or how many buyers left low ratings for shipping charges and that he's sorry but the low performance rating will remain on my account. I question whether PP has the right to quarantine funds due to some buyers thinking you charge too much for shipping. It's not like I'm not shipping them items or even getting negative feedback. It's not like I'm charging ridiculously high fees and/or not specifying it in my listings. What right does PP have to hold up payments??? But again I digress.
I then asked for a supervisor to speak with. A supervisor gets on the line and gives me the same shpeel. At that point I gave her a piece of my mind about how they mistreat sellers and about why they're losing market share and having to beg sellers to list items through unlimited free listing days. Circuit City dissolved with the general consensus being they lost the customer through pathetic customer service. eBay has one advantage in that they don't have strong competition unlike the electronics retail market. However, there are a lot of smaller auction houses and sites that are nipping at their heels, chipping away at their market share.
As I've stated in another thread, I've about tapped out on selling through eBay due to:
1) Poor customer service
2) High selling fees all loaded onto sellers (12-14% when all fees are added up while I do all the work scanning, listing, packing and shipping the goods)
3) No protection for sellers
4) Poor promotion of items in return for those 12-14% fees (items get no individual promotion aside from being listing amongst thousands of dormant BINs.
5) Being forced through Paypal as a payment collection method
6) Having the IRS sicked on you when you do a certain volume
I project that in the not too distant future, eBay will be a boneyard full of dusty items with inflated prices that nobody buys with a woefully low overall sell through rate. I'll still buy through eBay since it's very buyer friendly but I believe it will be harder and harder to actually find items worth buying.
0
Comments
I won't disagree ebay has problems, however ....
1) Poor customer service
=> you said you had a wait time of 10 minutes? At least you were able to talk to a real live person immediately. Last time I called the IRS for a tax question, I was only hold for nearly 2 hours.
2) High selling fees all loaded onto sellers (12-14% when all fees are added up while I do all the work scanning, listing, packing and shipping the goods)
=> auction houses charge ~20% buyer's premium + 5-15% seller's commision. Still higher fees than ebay. True that you can get your item in a nice, shiny catalog and they write a promo for you.
3) No protection for sellers
=> pretty much true
4) Poor promotion of items in return for those 12-14% fees (items get no individual promotion aside from being listing amongst thousands of dormant BINs.
=> you do see TV ads for ebay every now and then. Therefore the general populace knows it's out there, so you can get buyers who know little about cards, but just want a small present for their dad or something.
5) Being forced through Paypal as a payment collection method
=> true, but they own paypal, so obviously they're going to leverage that.
6) Having the IRS sicked on you when you do a certain volume
=> I don't think this is their fault. The IRS probably mandated that they do this.
Lou Gehrig Master Set
Non-Registry Collection
Game Used Cards Collection
<< <i>Ebay isn't going anywhere; they certainly aren't going the way of Circuit City. As Amazon has taught us, the trick to bringing buyers and sellers together online is run a very tight ship when it comes to monitoring sellers and their business practices. This is what Ebay is trying to do, and for all the system's faults it's better than the alternative. >>
Correct, but I still don't get how Ebay/Paypal can survive an antitrust suit. When they basically only allow one online payment method, they are negatively impacting the customer.
Working on the following: 1970 Baseball PSA, 1970-1976 Raw, World Series Subsets PSA, 1969 Expansion Teams PSA, Fleer World Series Sets, Texas Rangers Topps Run 1972-1989
----------------------
Successful deals to date: thedudeabides,gameusedhoop,golfcollector,tigerdean,treetop,bkritz, CapeMOGuy,WeekendHacker,jeff8877,backbidder,Salinas,milbroco,bbuckner22,VitoCo1972,ddfamf,gemint,K,fatty macs,waltersobchak,dboneesq
looks like one of your troublemakers.
let's face it: you can moan to them all you want and back up your position by simply claiming that your policy is right there in the description, and yet, they will still make you miserable. it sucks.
i don't believe the seller, our member here, has done anything any differently than he always has. i've been tracking his auctions for quite awhile.
how does a 13+ year member suddenly get dragged down by one or two mean-spirited people? that's what it boils down to.
eBay is a haunted house. watch your back.
EBay please fix this!
Joe
<< <i>I recently made the decision to go to free shipping on my auctions. I charge a reasonable opening bid to protect me from losing money on anything and go from there. This method of rating us on shipping charges is WRONG! There should be some simple guidelines (other than free) that sellers have for shipping charges that is deemed reasonable. As long as seller charges within these guidelines buyer should not be able to "ding" ratings.
EBay please fix this!
Joe >>
The problem is that ebay isn't soley there to sell baseball cards. They have a lot of other categories that they're concentrating on, like electronics. So basically, they want to be able to compete with Amazon, and we all know how much every loves the free shipping via super saver shipping on Amazon. Therefore, I think ebay is trying to hammer their sellers into trying to have stores, BINs and free shipping via all of these carrots and sticks.
Lou Gehrig Master Set
Non-Registry Collection
Game Used Cards Collection
<< <i>namaste4u-me?
looks like one of your troublemakers.
let's face it: you can moan to them all you want and back up your position by simply claiming that your policy is right there in the description, and yet, they will still make you miserable. it sucks.
i don't believe the seller, our member here, has done anything any differently than he always has. i've been tracking his auctions for quite awhile.
how does a 13+ year member suddenly get dragged down by one or two mean-spirited people? that's what it boils down to.
eBay is a haunted house. watch your back. >>
I don't understand why people react with shock and outrage when they find themselves-- or their complaints- marginalized by a large organization. Large organizations have policies, and they generally have to apply these policies in a uniform manner across all users. There is no viable alternative to that, since any alternative would require a massive influx of trained, intelligent and largely autonomous CSRs-- and that kind of re-engineering of internal processes would come with huge up front costs, significantly larger variable costs going forward, and would do very little to increase revenue.
Haven't you guys ever tried to navigate your way through a large bureaucracy before? Maybe at a university, or within the armed forces? This is not a problem with Ebay specifically; it's a problem that's endemic to all complex organizational structures.
<< <i>Let's be honest here; did you recently overcharge anyone for shipping costs? Plenty of people sell on ebay here and we don't get hit on DSR. >>
I mentioned my shipping rates above. I've been on eBay since 1998 and never had a problem or complaint. I combine shipping for multiple items. However, if someone wins a dozen cards from you and thinks charging $1 per card is abusive, they can ding your DSR 12 times. I guess I'll be better off just lumping $3 shipping into the minimum bid and then not charging shipping. We both lose that way though because I sell less or the buyer pays $3 more for every item, i.e., no savings for multiple purchases.
eBay is ALLOWING anybody to take potshots at sellers simply because they want to. it's mean-sprited bullcrap. the buyer commits to paying for S/H at a certain fee which is right there in the description and then eBay ALLOWS them to drag down sellers in the Feedback Forum, simply because they want to.
that makes NO sense.
it has absolutely nothing to do with trying to be like Amazon or anyone else. they just don't care if you aren't feeding their hog.
/end of rant.
<< <i>namaste4u-me? >>
Bingo!
<< <i>Ebay is not going away. It's a monopoly, and it'll be there until WW3. People will continue to complain about the same things until the end of time. There are simply no viable alternatives. Auction houses are only good for high value items. If you're looking to sell a few $5-10 cards, Heritage or Legendary Auctions won't be returning your calls. Huggins and Scott or Hunt would probably try to lump all of your items until the listing had a value of at least $100 for the lot. If you're looking at places like GrandSlamBids (GSB), that's difficult also because no one looks there. I tried for a couple of weeks, and I barely got any page views. Do you want great customer service, low fees and no buyers or horrible customer service, high fees and a bunch of eager buyers? That's what sellers are left with these days. The only sorta decent alternative are BST areas such as on this board and net54 (and possibly some other boards also). Otherwise, you are stuck with ebay. Everybody knows about ebay. You can really have true finds there since when people who know nothing about cards find something in their grandpa's attic (when it's not a scam), they'll sell the stuff on ebay. (Either that or a garage/estage sale which you'll never see.) And people who are not hard core card collectors will go to ebay. They have no clues about auction houses or these other places. >>
I disagree. Smaller auction houses like Serius, Bussineau and Sterling are growing in popularity. They charge 0% or even lower in fees but the best part is they handle all the listing, promoting and shipping of the items. Some of them even publish and distribute a catalog and your competing with a few hundred items rather than tens of thousands. Sure the items may sell for less vs eBay since there's still a buyer premium but not always. If I'm going to absorb a 10-15% hit on the front end or back end to move an item, I'd rather have someone else do the work rather than have to do it all myself. The added bonus is I don't have to deal with eBay's bullsheet.
BST is a great option and I use that as much as possible. However, when breaking a large set like 1971 Topps, it has its limits in effectiveness.
I'm not judging you for charging that much, ESPECIALLY since you clearly state your shipping charges in your auctions. Ignorant buyers...
If you don't like ebay, you can use Amazon or another site to sell your cards. Even though ebay has the biggest on-line market, they can argue that it is natural for there to be a dominant player since buyers and sellers need critical mass.
Regarding forcing Paypal on everyone, the party being affected by that is the other processors, not the buyer or seller. Bidpay and other other processors would have to sue Ebay for antitrust in order to change that policy. The fact that they haven't leads me to believe that this practice does not meet the antitrust requirements.
If anyone has tried Amazon Marketplace, their rules are just as harsh or even harsher than ebay's.
<< <i>$12 is a lot of money to ship 12 graded cards (you can ship them for less than $6.00), but it's NOT worth getting bad DSR ratings for. Those things are a joke anyway.
I'm not judging you for charging that much, ESPECIALLY since you clearly state your shipping charges in your auctions. Ignorant buyers... >>
Usually as the number of cards goes up, insurance becomes necessary since the $ value of the shipment increases. Like I said, I could lump that cost into the starting bid but then the buyer doesn't have the opportunity to save with multiple purchases. If I sell 10 cards for $500, I'm paying ~$70 in various fees (listing, FVF, Paypal), charging $12 for shipping and maybe, at best, $6 of that $12 in shipping costs goes to offset a small fraction of the $70 in fees. How's that not fair to the buyer?
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
<< <i>How much a seller charges for shipping should be completely irrelevant. I buy way more than I sell on ebay so this isn't coming from a sellers perspective. If a seller charges 1 dollar or 1000 for shipping it shouldn't make any difference because as a buyer I would figure that into my final bid. In other words an auction selling an item for 99 cents with 9.01 for shipping is the exact same as an auction for 10 bucks with free shipping. If a buyer is to stupid to realize this they shouldn be allowed to leave feedback. The only time you should be dinged for shipping is if you charge more than what you stated in the auction. >>
I buy and sell equally on eBay...and agree with what you are saying. That being said...I treat my buying and selling practices completely different. I understand both sides of the table...unlike people who strictly do one or the other. For example...as a buyer, I recently won 27 separate auctions in the same night from the same seller. His policy was clearly stated in the auctions...$2.00 for the first card, and $1.00 for each additional card with no cap indicated. And yep...he sure did charge me $28.00 to ship 27 graded cards. I factored that into my bidding and didn't pay more than $3.50 for any of the cards. So I was happy to get my cards at an average well under what grading fees would cost me. I left him 5 Stars across the board.
As a seller...I would have NEVER charged an individual bidder $28.00 for shipping. Even if my general policy was $2.00 + $1.00 on shipping...in cases like this, I would have charged the guy whatever the actual rate was to ship the cards. By buying 27 cards at once...he saves me tons in fees and the overall hassle of shipping to multiple buyers.
I believe as a seller...you have to put yourself in the buyers shoes...and think about what would make you happy as a buyer. Not every buyer is going to understand all of the minutia that goes into selling. I see people on here justifying their shipping policies by figuring in the cost of a .40 cent bubble mailer and the 4 miles they have to drive to the post office. The buyer doesn't care about that crap.
I obviously don't think dinging the seller is right when their policies are spelled out clearly...but you have to realize that many buyers don't have that mindset. You have to cater to them...like ir or not.
~WalterSobchak
Unless you have an incredible newsworthy item no auction house is going to sell your cards for 0%. Either you're paying the auction house, or the buyer's paying them, and most buyer's premiums will be running 20%. Ebay's a bargain at only 12-14% less whatever profit you manage to generate from collecting $3 to $12 from each buyer's purchase. You also have complete control over how your cards are marketed and with BIN, the minimum you will accept for them. Most auction houses will not individually offer the low priced stuff you're selling. They'll only want to put large groups up and the prices will be low.
Ebay crybabies have no idea how good they've got it. Before Ebay the only avenue for selling that most collectors had was shopping it around to dealers for their highest offer. If you went with an auction house your type of stuff would be one big jumbo lot on a page with four other collections.
1) Poor customer service
Avoid self inflicted issues like $12 shipping and item #3 and you won't need customer service.
2) High selling fees all loaded onto sellers (12-14% when all fees are added up while I do all the work scanning, listing, packing and shipping the goods)
Fantastic deal for Joe Collector as noted above.
3) No protection for sellers
So many seller protection issues are due to that "one time" you chose to ignore the seller protection rules in place. You take a chance and don't use DC or SC and then need #1 and complain when they don't make an exception for you.
4) Poor promotion of items in return for those 12-14% fees (items get no individual promotion aside from being listing amongst thousands of dormant BINs.
There's no limit to the number of pictures, words, colors, fonts, and flowery adjectives you can put in your Ebay listings. It will also be seen by more potential buyers than it will in any auction house. If you're trying to sell something that doesn't sell well on Ebay then it can only do worse in an auction house.
5) Being forced through Paypal as a payment collection method
You don't have to accept Paypal but it sure makes it easier to sell. Buyer's are turned off when sellers want to be paid in ways uncomfortable to them.
Perfect together
Chaz
There, got that out of the way
<< <i>They charge 0% or even lower in fees but the best part is they handle all the listing, promoting and shipping of the items.
Unless you have an incredible newsworthy item no auction house is going to sell your cards for 0%. Either you're paying the auction house, or the buyer's paying them, and most buyer's premiums will be running 20%. Ebay's a bargain at only 12-14% less whatever profit you manage to generate from collecting $3 to $12 from each buyer's purchase. You also have complete control over how your cards are marketed and with BIN, the minimum you will accept for them. Most auction houses will not individually offer the low priced stuff you're selling. They'll only want to put large groups up and the prices will be low.
Ebay crybabies have no idea how good they've got it. Before Ebay the only avenue for selling that most collectors had was shopping it around to dealers for their highest offer. If you went with an auction house your type of stuff would be one big jumbo lot on a page with four other collections.
1) Poor customer service
Avoid self inflicted issues like $12 shipping and item #3 and you won't need customer service.
2) High selling fees all loaded onto sellers (12-14% when all fees are added up while I do all the work scanning, listing, packing and shipping the goods)
Fantastic deal for Joe Collector as noted above.
3) No protection for sellers
So many seller protection issues are due to that "one time" you chose to ignore the seller protection rules in place. You take a chance and don't use DC or SC and then need #1 and complain when they don't make an exception for you.
4) Poor promotion of items in return for those 12-14% fees (items get no individual promotion aside from being listing amongst thousands of dormant BINs.
There's no limit to the number of pictures, words, colors, fonts, and flowery adjectives you can put in your Ebay listings. It will also be seen by more potential buyers than it will in any auction house. If you're trying to sell something that doesn't sell well on Ebay then it can only do worse in an auction house.
5) Being forced through Paypal as a payment collection method
You don't have to accept Paypal but it sure makes it easier to sell. Buyer's are turned off when sellers want to be paid in ways uncomfortable to them. >>
Well, you're certainly entitled to your opinion. I can assure you that there are several auction houses that offer sellers zero or near zero commission fees and I'm not referring to the high end auction houses like REA.
I do agree with you that as bad as eBay is to sell through, it's not like pre-internet days where you had to walk up to Mr Mint's table and ask him if he'd give you any money before he took your cards.
if you don't like the policy, DON'T BUY!! how tough is that to understand? but, to buy and then criticize what you originally agreed to?
it is not in the best interest of anyone if individual buyers are allowed to continually determine the economic futures of otherwise decent sellers simply out of spite.
it's BULLCRAP!!
I had them look up an item I purchased that was mailed Jan 11. Should it be here yes, but according to USPS its still in transit. I asked them, should I get mad at the seller and yell at him? No, I use my head and realize its USPS and not the sellers fault. Alot of buyers dont take the time to realize its USPS and instantly blame the seller. So how can DRS even be credible, all it is is someones opinion.
So what it boils down to, is I am unable to ungrade my store because of someones opinion.
DSR is the worst idea eBay ever thought of.
HE STILL COMPLAINED.
I told him if he didn't like it I could readjust the shipping back to full price and he paid rather quickly (One of the lots he won pays for more than all 3)
<< <i>Ok, you realize you're trying to explain why certain corporate policies aren't working to the equivalent of a gas station attendant, right? I just want to make sure you understand you're not actually talking to the board of directors. >>
Sadly this is true. But you'd hope a supervisor would at least have a minute bit of common sense to be concerned when a 13 year seller who's bought and sold many thousands of dollars of goods through their service is unhappy with their service and response. Instead, I get the same canned answer. I could have continued to work my way up the food chain but why bother? If I'm not that important to them, they aren't that important to me.
I was completely shocked Ebay did this in my favor. On a funny, well not to me moment, I sold a 1974 Topps Nick Buoniconti card by Sportlots auction and charged $1.50 to ship. The guy left me a neutral and said he felt violated because the card only booked for a $1.50 and that was what I charged for shipping. He proceded to tell me in his feedback that it was a very nice card though. smh.
Paypal you can get US offices with US employees who are of much help - you just have to know what options to hit. There is an office out here in Arizona actually.
<< <i>Gem - No you wouldn't have they don't have anything higher than the supervisor.
Paypal you can get US offices with US employees who are of much help - you just have to know what options to hit. There is an office out here in Arizona actually. >>
I did contact Paypal in the past to resolve an issue and they were much more helpful/useful.
But they do charge you to sell, and it's more than you're paying Ebay. Lots of places will collect 0% from you as the consignor, but the typical 20% charged to the buyer is still 20% you don't see as the seller. On Ebay if you profit from shipping, qualify for the seller discount, and use a cash back rewards card to pay your Ebay fees, you'll be closer to paying Ebay 10% to sell your cards. On a card that a buyer's willing to pay $120 for, that works out to $100 auction house to you, or $108 to you after Ebay. If doing no work is worth the $8 difference then consign away. If you want to lose as little as possible then Ebay is a far better deal.
The real solution is for someone to make a clone of eBay that specializes in sports cards and sports memorabilia, and for other collectibles categories to spin off their own e-commerce sites.
<< <i>The real solution is for someone to make a clone of eBay that specializes in sports cards and sports memorabilia, and for other collectibles categories to spin off their own e-commerce sites. >>
Done...
Sirius Auctions
Bussineau Auctions
Sterling Auctions
<< <i>Ok, you realize you're trying to explain why certain corporate policies aren't working to the equivalent of a gas station attendant, right? I just want to make sure you understand you're not actually talking to the board of directors. >>
CD always seems to have a way with words - doesn't he?
<< <i>
<< <i>Ok, you realize you're trying to explain why certain corporate policies aren't working to the equivalent of a gas station attendant, right? I just want to make sure you understand you're not actually talking to the board of directors. >>
CD always seems to have a way with words - doesn't he? >>
Not that there's anything wrong with gas station attendants.
I had a problem with TWO payers who said they did not get their item(no DC) I went to mediation and WON! Background check kicked their ass! I back eBay 100%. They back me and I have always had quality help. Can't wait for next free day! If you are not lazy and get your stuff together eBay can be very rewarding and lucrative.
<< <i>
<< <i>$12 is a lot of money to ship 12 graded cards (you can ship them for less than $6.00), but it's NOT worth getting bad DSR ratings for. Those things are a joke anyway.
I'm not judging you for charging that much, ESPECIALLY since you clearly state your shipping charges in your auctions. Ignorant buyers... >>
Usually as the number of cards goes up, insurance becomes necessary since the $ value of the shipment increases. Like I said, I could lump that cost into the starting bid but then the buyer doesn't have the opportunity to save with multiple purchases. If I sell 10 cards for $500, I'm paying ~$70 in various fees (listing, FVF, Paypal), charging $12 for shipping and maybe, at best, $6 of that $12 in shipping costs goes to offset a small fraction of the $70 in fees. How's that not fair to the buyer? >>
I think you're charging a reasonable amount for single cards and each additional.
I wouldn't change a thing. Don't change your business policies due to one or two
pinheads.
USPS postage rates are going up on Jan. 22nd and you're going to see many sellers having to
raise their shipping rates and or raise they BIN item price if they offer free shipping.
<< <i>I had a problem with TWO payers who said they did not get their item(no DC) I went to mediation and WON! Background check kicked their ass! >>
Not trying to call you out or anything, but this I find hard to believe. If you send an item without DC, and the buyer says they didn't get it, no way you should have won.
There is a simple alternative if a seller doesn't want to be rated on shipping charges, offer free shipping. Complaining that it will end up costing the buyer more in the end is complete nonsense. The only reason a seller wouldn't offer free shipping is because they realize it will cost them more in the end, either through fewer sales or no (small) profit center from their existing shipping charges.
Cheers,
Robb
<< <i>There is a simple alternative if a seller doesn't want to be rated on shipping charges, offer free shipping. Complaining that it will end up costing the buyer more in the end is complete nonsense. The only reason a seller wouldn't offer free shipping is because they realize it will cost them more in the end, either through fewer sales or no (small) profit center from their existing shipping charges. >>
For a buyer to "ding stars" because a seller is charging $4 to ship and actual shipping is $3.77 is the most ASSASININE thing I have ever heard of. And sometimes those cards are selling for 99 cents. They are actually getting them cheaper than the grading fees!! If a buyer dings my stars over something that petty, I will block them, and they will no longer be allowed to steal my items ever again.