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Another eBay "benefit". Limiting sales to help the seller focus on customers
jessewvu
Posts: 5,087 ✭✭✭✭✭
Anyone else get this helpfull notification from eBay? I've been selling for 10+ years with consistent sales volume for the past year. As a matter of fact, they recently (last week) downgraded my powerseller level because of declining sales...
Hello [me]
This message is to notify you that in order to assist you in building a strong foundation for future transactions on eBay, we have placed a selling limit for your listing activity. These limits are not in place as a consequence, rather as a preventative measure to help our seller's keep from becoming overwhelmed with large increases in account activity.
Many members already have limits placed on their account. Account limits allow us to learn about your selling activity and make sure you're adhering to our selling practices policy and performance standards. Limits vary by seller and can change over time.
During this time, we want to confirm you are continuing your positive history by ensuring you are keeping focused on creating great transactions for your customers. Doing so will greatly increase the chances of an ongoing successful eBay business and help to avoid any future account issues that may arise. These limits will allow you to continue selling while also allowing us to monitor your incoming Feedback, Detailed Seller Ratings, and any customer complaints. Please understand that the actions we have taken do not mean your account performance is not good, but we do this to help all eBay sellers further improve their selling history and account performance.
Because you are doing well at selling at these volumes, you should not hit your selling limit unless you dramatically increase your sales. However, if you do wish to grow your business, we will gradually increase your limit as you show that you are able to successfully handle the higher sales volume. The selling limit on your account is based on the number and dollar amount of open (active) items and successfully sold items per calendar month.
You can now sell up to [not many] items monthly or up to [not much] monthly.
(Keep in mind that this includes multiple quantity listings which can greatly influence this number.)
If you do reach one of these amounts during the course of a month you will be unable to list additional items or increase the price or quantity of your active items until some of your items end without a winning bidder or until the 1st of the next calendar month, (If you are still exceeding the selling limit at the first of the next calendar month your selling activity will continue to be blocked.)
We believe that your limit is flexible enough to allow you to sell any current items and is in accordance with the volume you may have listed in the past. If you do reach the selling limit on your account and want to increase your sales, please work within the amount for at least 30 days. Once that time frame has expired on 10/26/2013, please reply to this message and we will conduct a review to see if adjustments are appropriate.
We hope that you will use this selling limit to your advantage and focus on succeeding with your current sales. We value you as a seller and hope to work with you in order to continue to establish a strong selling history and successful business relationship. It is in our best interest to help our sellers succeed so that we can have a positive trading environment and eliminate bad buying experiences on the site.
Thanks,
eBay
Hello [me]
This message is to notify you that in order to assist you in building a strong foundation for future transactions on eBay, we have placed a selling limit for your listing activity. These limits are not in place as a consequence, rather as a preventative measure to help our seller's keep from becoming overwhelmed with large increases in account activity.
Many members already have limits placed on their account. Account limits allow us to learn about your selling activity and make sure you're adhering to our selling practices policy and performance standards. Limits vary by seller and can change over time.
During this time, we want to confirm you are continuing your positive history by ensuring you are keeping focused on creating great transactions for your customers. Doing so will greatly increase the chances of an ongoing successful eBay business and help to avoid any future account issues that may arise. These limits will allow you to continue selling while also allowing us to monitor your incoming Feedback, Detailed Seller Ratings, and any customer complaints. Please understand that the actions we have taken do not mean your account performance is not good, but we do this to help all eBay sellers further improve their selling history and account performance.
Because you are doing well at selling at these volumes, you should not hit your selling limit unless you dramatically increase your sales. However, if you do wish to grow your business, we will gradually increase your limit as you show that you are able to successfully handle the higher sales volume. The selling limit on your account is based on the number and dollar amount of open (active) items and successfully sold items per calendar month.
You can now sell up to [not many] items monthly or up to [not much] monthly.
(Keep in mind that this includes multiple quantity listings which can greatly influence this number.)
If you do reach one of these amounts during the course of a month you will be unable to list additional items or increase the price or quantity of your active items until some of your items end without a winning bidder or until the 1st of the next calendar month, (If you are still exceeding the selling limit at the first of the next calendar month your selling activity will continue to be blocked.)
We believe that your limit is flexible enough to allow you to sell any current items and is in accordance with the volume you may have listed in the past. If you do reach the selling limit on your account and want to increase your sales, please work within the amount for at least 30 days. Once that time frame has expired on 10/26/2013, please reply to this message and we will conduct a review to see if adjustments are appropriate.
We hope that you will use this selling limit to your advantage and focus on succeeding with your current sales. We value you as a seller and hope to work with you in order to continue to establish a strong selling history and successful business relationship. It is in our best interest to help our sellers succeed so that we can have a positive trading environment and eliminate bad buying experiences on the site.
Thanks,
eBay
0
Comments
the essential context is missing from this post. what are your dsr ratings, feedback score, negs, pos, conversion rate(s), selling limit (dollar and quantity), did you have a limitation previously and some other details.
there are instances where the limitations are a good thing but i cannot say you fall into that category since those other details are missing.
i can honestly say i don't recall ever having a message telling me there will be a selling limit but all of my account do have selling limitations (dollar and quantity) which i never come close to reaching other than active listings but for sure my sales amounts are far from maxed out.
do you sell enough to reach the max? do not include active listing dollar quantity.
.
Drs - all 5.0
Neg - None, ever
106 items sold this past month
No selling limits ever emposed on eBay before today
<< <i>Account limits allow us to learn about your selling activity and make sure you're adhering to our selling practices policy and performance standards. >>
Ebay has in place the tools to accomplish this without limiting listings or sales. Wonder if this is just a policy shift for sellers who deal primarily in coins and currency.
"Money does not care about speeches on morality. Capital asks whether the rules will remain the same tomorrow. With inflation, people assume price is the problem, and propose regulation—but price is simply the message." - Martin Armstrong
<< <i>Feedback - 4000+
Drs - all 5.0
Neg - None, ever
106 items sold this past month
No selling limits ever emposed on eBay before today >>
Store front seller or non-store front?
Was this a sudden increase is sales volume?
"Money does not care about speeches on morality. Capital asks whether the rules will remain the same tomorrow. With inflation, people assume price is the problem, and propose regulation—but price is simply the message." - Martin Armstrong
If you get any more clarification on what exactly this message is supposed to mean, please post here. I seriously cannot understand what the hell they are trying to say in their note. I swear, all of these companies are being taken over by people with MBAs who have no ability to convey a message in ENGLISH. Drop the BS cover story, and get to the point! Sigh...
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My sets: [290+ horse coins] :: [France Sowers] :: [Colorful world copper] :: [Beautiful world coins]
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I have to believe that when small sellers such as myself run true auctions with 99 cent starts and no reserves it angers the full retail sellers ... and those sellers let eBay management know their feelings!
I experienced a similar restriction a few years back (non-store) when my gold coins sales saw a $20K sales increase in one month. I was then restricted on how much of each sale I could transfer to the bank account with ebay holding about 5% of all sales for 60 days. I also had to provide documentation of my business strength to ebay. Restriction eventually disappeared.
Recently switched to a store front, figured out it would more than pay for itself. Last non-store coin I sold was for $2650, ebay FVF was $250. Selling same coin from the store is now only $159 FVF (flat 6%). Now I need to get my sales back up to over 100 per past 12 months to get an additional 20% Top Rated seller fee discount. That would knock another $31.80 off the $159 FVF for that $2650 coin. Store front is the way to go if you are selling on ebay. Ebay has purposely designed it this way. The cost to its customer base will be the loss of the occasional sellers who sometimes provide us with hidden treasures.
"Money does not care about speeches on morality. Capital asks whether the rules will remain the same tomorrow. With inflation, people assume price is the problem, and propose regulation—but price is simply the message." - Martin Armstrong
The most infuriating thing about the email is that eBay pretends they're doing you a favor by imposing the limit. I don't know what the real reason for the limit is. It may be that eBay wants to reduce their need for bandwidth and force people to only list items which are likely to sell. It may be that eBay wants to favor some sellers over others. It seems like a bizarre business practice to me. With this kind of heavyhanded micromanagement, sellers are now working for eBay instead of with eBay.
<< <i>I think we will have a better insight when jesse indicates whether or not he runs an ebay store. >>
The selling limits apply regardless of whether the seller has a store or not.
I did find this ebay discussion on limits. But it seems to be something that would not affect a long time, good seller with a proven record such as the OP.
"Money does not care about speeches on morality. Capital asks whether the rules will remain the same tomorrow. With inflation, people assume price is the problem, and propose regulation—but price is simply the message." - Martin Armstrong
you already know ebay is not your friend
"Money does not care about speeches on morality. Capital asks whether the rules will remain the same tomorrow. With inflation, people assume price is the problem, and propose regulation—but price is simply the message." - Martin Armstrong
of months later they slapped a $5,000 a month selling limit to help me "ramp up" and "understand" retailing. We were doing
$1,000,000+ a year at my B+M store 20 years ago!
<< <i>A couple of years back, eBay convinced me it would be to my advantage to open a store, based on my selling volume. Then a couple
of months later they slapped a $5,000 a month selling limit to help me "ramp up" and "understand" retailing. We were doing
$1,000,000+ a year at my B+M store 20 years ago! >>
Have you since ramped up? What's your selling limit now?
"Money does not care about speeches on morality. Capital asks whether the rules will remain the same tomorrow. With inflation, people assume price is the problem, and propose regulation—but price is simply the message." - Martin Armstrong
generic link to check selling limits. if you see them at the top of the page then you will know, if you see nothing, you will have to call to see what they are, or you could just try some test listings at $20-100k and see if they go through.
Monthly selling limits
You can sell up to 1,400 items or up to $50,000.00 per month, whichever comes first.
.
<< <i>Monthly selling limits
You can sell up to 1,400 items or up to $50,000.00 per month, whichever comes first. >>
I think the discussion is about further limits imposed by ebay on a case by case basis and how the OP, a top notch ebay seller, was further limited.
He didn't post his particular limits, maybe he will to show the actual impact.
"Money does not care about speeches on morality. Capital asks whether the rules will remain the same tomorrow. With inflation, people assume price is the problem, and propose regulation—but price is simply the message." - Martin Armstrong
Who thinks up this garbage.
Their language is so superior like you are a child and they are trying to keep you from hurting yourself.
I just don't get it.
The profit sharing will be next to encourage and support those sellers less fortunate than you.
"If I say something in the woods and my wife isn't there to hear it.....am I still wrong?"
My Washington Quarter Registry set...in progress
For those that have speculated that this might in some way be an assist for the larger sellers I don't buy into that. I think it's just an across the board thing. We've filled out more paperwork than you can imagine and submitted audited financials to both eBay and PayPal on numerous occasions.
John
John Maben
Pegasus Coin and Jewelry (Brick and Mortar)
ANA LM, PNG, APMD, FUN, Etc
800-381-2646
what happened where ? … and when ? Who knows ? Who cares ? Use 'em, or lose 'em.
tgif
do not break out sales by category, so I don't know how significant coin sales
are for the company.
They do mention AMZN both as a competitor and by inference a model for
EBAY's future. Amazon has about twice the market cap of eBay.
The only thing could be that coins result in a higher % of complaints.
I have no basis for this idea. When I was a manager at Merrill Lynch
we always said that Options trading was less than 2% of our business but
created 50% of our customer complaints. Merrill's strategy evolved into
asset gathering vs. trading and individual traders were of greatly diminished
importance. (of course before Merrill blew up in 2008)
Clearly EBAY has made moves to discourage (or increase revenues from) sales of
rare coins. In the last 4 years the max final value fee has gone from $50 to $100 to
$250.
They have some reason for imposing these limits, we just do not know what.
It could be just as simple as some algorithm kicked out a list of sellers with
activity that seemed high relative to other metrics and in other instances resulted in problems.
But monopoly situations don't last forever. Consider the U. S. automobile industry in the 1970's.
An authorized PCGS dealer, and a contributor to the Red Book.
"Money does not care about speeches on morality. Capital asks whether the rules will remain the same tomorrow. With inflation, people assume price is the problem, and propose regulation—but price is simply the message." - Martin Armstrong
[idiots]
BHNC #203
eBay called today to discuss an email I sent them when I got the limit notification. The representative said that every eBay seller was going to be given limits to avoid losses from sellers walking away from sales and I assumed it had nothing to with that they told the reason was, to help me.
I asked what they were doing to help sellers from buyers walking away from transactions with no recourse. Before he could answer, I stated that for coins, most buyers refused to pay or demanded refunds when the value of the coin dropped enough that they could buy it cheaper. The seller loses $ because they have to pay for the return shipping, loss from the sale because the value had dropped, and we ALWAYS lose our insertion fee. Also, they took the ability for sellers to leave negative feedback for buyers so we had absolutely no recourse to avoid losses from buyers walking away from purchases. He said he understood my concern but the limits would be implemented regardless and if I would like to have my limit raised, he could get me in touch with that department. I said no thanks and not to call me again.
I wonder if ebay looks at your credit score,credit limits etc? I have over 250K listed myself.
............ I get Fantastic Deal on a rare coin on ebay the same day ...........
Just bought a second rare coin on the bay at an awesome price ......
Can you guys start more ebay bash threads? .... please
<< <i>LOL >>
I don't understand why anyone would laugh when a forumite with good feedback was harmed by eBay in an arbitrary and capricious fashion.
<< <i>
<< <i>LOL >>
I don't understand why anyone would laugh when a forumite with good feedback was harmed by eBay in an arbitrary and capricious fashion. >>
I wasn't laughing at that, I was laughing that you brought up another thread ....
BTW as to the seller limits, yes I received the same notice and wasn't pleased, but it is their business ....
<< <i>Update, two ebay bash threads today...
Just bought a second rare coin on the bay at an awesome price ......
Can you guys start more ebay bash threads? .... please
So the sellers are not doing so well if you are getting smoking deals. You have proven Bayards point.
<< <i>
<< <i>Update, two ebay bash threads today...
Just bought a second rare coin on the bay at an awesome price ......
Can you guys start more ebay bash threads? .... please
So the sellers are not doing so well if you are getting smoking deals. You have proven Bayards point. >>
Wrong, I resell the same items I buy on ebay at a profit on ebay over and over again for the past 14 years .....
It's called being a dealer and knowing market pricing
<< <i>Have to remember that eBay bought PayPal and ever since then PayPal is where the primary value lies. It's pretty obvious that the eBay division is trying to find its way in reinventing itself wanting to change and represent a bigger portion of the value pie. The way to do that might be to be more like Amazon and shed the online flea market image.
For those that have speculated that this might in some way be an assist for the larger sellers I don't buy into that. I think it's just an across the board thing. We've filled out more paperwork than you can imagine and submitted audited financials to both eBay and PayPal on numerous occasions.
John >>
bah.... this is all to appease wall street into thinking ebay can continue to grow like it's 1999.
I give them the same advice I give to all publically traded companies: forget wall street. long-term for them is the next 12 months. ebay needs to last into the distant future. placating wall street now by creating a new ebay that satisfies them does not necessarily satisfy the company's basic purpose. What does a wall street analyst, who is covering more than one company, btw, really know about the online auction market?
<< <i>
<< <i>
<< <i>Update, two ebay bash threads today...
Just bought a second rare coin on the bay at an awesome price ......
Can you guys start more ebay bash threads? .... please
So the sellers are not doing so well if you are getting smoking deals. You have proven Bayards point. >>
Wrong, I resell the same items I buy on ebay at a profit on ebay over and over again for the past 14 years .....
It's called being a dealer and knowing market pricing >>
So if they double the rates again to 12% will that be cool as well?