eBay Police (1 Viewer)

[EuroTrotters]

Morning,

Does anyone else have problems with ebay. Specifically more recently.

We have used ebay almost since its outset and for business for around 17 years.

As they have grown, they have become more expensive. And now they have corporate clients, the likes of Tesco and DFS as examples. They have become very fussy and their policies more demanding.

Now, they remove listings if your Photos do not meet their standards, you cannot mention anything in your ad that does not relate to the actual product you are selling. For example, if you were selling Motorhome ramps, you cannot mention in your ad "We also sell bike racks".

Listings with telephone numbers and email addresses are being removed very slowly by the new UK team.

It is difficult enough taking the task to photograph, detail and list 100's of items. But then when they start reacting like they do, it is annoying.

Instead of contacting you regarding an item, with specific reasons. You get a blanket email from them and your item is removed. As the email does not indicate exactly why it has been removed, your are blind as to why and have to try and decipher why and edit the ad. Often only for it to be removed yet again.

We spend up-to £1,000 a month on ebay fees. But I doubt this will continue.

They also own a host of other companies including Gumtree and Mobile.de

 

[magicsurfbus]

Now, they remove listings if your Photos do not meet their standards, you cannot mention anything in your ad that does not relate to the actual product you are selling. For example, if you were selling Motorhome ramps, you cannot mention in your ad "We also sell bike racks".

Photos: I use a graphics program to 'batch process' listing photos, ie resize them to eBay's required width all in one go. I use Paint Shop Pro but other programs would do the same. It means I can take a load of pics then just run them through the batch processor and store them in my eBay folder with one click

To draw attention to other items for sale: As far as I know it's possible to create a link to your other listings summary page by editing the listing's HTML, (ie 'see my other listings'). If you own an eBay shop there's a built in link to your shop page anyway.

I take it you already use page templates for your listings - that speeds things up considerably.

You've never been supposed to use non e-Bay e-mail addresses on listings anyway - that's in the T&Cs.

My most recent eBay problem was as a buyer - an expensive item was 'lost' by DPD couriers (ie nicked at their Birmingham depot). The seller had to replace it and put in a claim against DPD.

 

[chesterfield hooligan]

scammer's don't have a problem

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[Camping Gaza]

scammer's don't have a problem

bluddy wright! Take a look at my post about antennas for mifi

 

[chesterfield hooligan]

if I worked for EBAY I would make 10% of the workforce work at the weekend nearly all the scammers list Friday Saturday knowing they will be removed Monday if I can spot them why is it EBAY can't

 

[EuroTrotters]

if I worked for EBAY I would make 10% of the workforce work at the weekend nearly all the scammers list Friday Saturday knowing they will be removed Monday if I can spot them why is it EBAY can't

And if you report an item to eBay for fraudulent listing, it takes days to be taken down.

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[Lenny HB]

I have virtually given up with eBay probably give what stock I have left to a charity shop. Ebay are only interested in the very high volume sellers the ones that are turning over millions. They very seldom take any action against them and give them preferential treatment and very low fees that of course they don't publish.
For us smaller sellers (my charges were about £500 a month) any problems they always rule in favor of the buy regardless, they couldn't give a toss about the seller, that and fees constantly increasing discount reducing, rules changing to make it more difficult for small sellers.
Another problem is that people think they can make a fast buck don't work out their costs properly. They list items undercutting everyone else so the market responds and everyone drops their prices, the big boys can sustain the lower margins but us smaller sellers means we are selling items at not much above cost. The seller that caused the mayhem after a few months realise they are making a loss and disappear. The item now has a new price expectation and now one is going to be first to put their prices up, so the big boys carry on at a lower margin and us the smaller seller are squeezed out.

 

[olley]

Been using Ebay over the last six months to get rid of a load of plumbing gear and been pretty impressed, especially the posting side, they make it so easy to send parcels, even abroad when I forgot to put "no international" in the ad, cost me half what the pump sold for.

 

[Minxy]

I've set up a spreadsheet which automatically works out the gross profit less Ebay fees, Paypal fees and actual postage and gives the net profit so no messing about trying to do it on a calculator ... I just enter what I paid for the item, how much I want to sell it for (usually with free P&P as it's easier now that Paypal fees are charged on the whole lot) and the actual postage cost then it spits out the net profit so I can see how much I'll make on each one I sell and whether it's worth my while.

I've been selling some items recently and making a nice profit on them of about 33% then some other sellers put on the same items but at silly low prices - I can't see how they were making even 50p on them after fees/costs etc. Rather than reduce mine I just bided my time until they all went which took about 2 weeks, then I reviewed the prices for what was left and was able to put mine UP and still be the cheapest and make a nice profit on them of 42% which equates to an extra £2.90 an item, so the undercutters actually did me a favour! But if I'd panicked and reduced them to sell I'd have been much worse off ... hubby kept nagging me to do this but I held my nerve ... ... humble pie is SOOOOOOO good when you get to feed it to someone else!!!!

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[Lenny HB]

I had a similar spreadsheet set. Some of the changes eBay have made over the last couple of years when you had to edit each a right pain when you have over 200 items listed.
Did have one nice little earner, my mates company who imported it, he withdrew it from general sale and only supplied me. It was only a low value item and deliveries but from China good be a bit iffy.

 

[treetops1]

Being with Ebay many years , the last few year just tend to buy but I have noticed more and more when buying you can see your delivery day or date , but when coming in from abroad you see the delivery date, you buy then when you go back ,the date has changed sometimes as much as two weeks away .I complained to Ebay and they told me they were aware of this and are in the process of dealing with it , that was 9months ago and nothing has changed .If I need something quickly I now tend to give it a miss and use a local supplier,

 

[Spidey]

I have used Ebay for years, selling a lot of stuff in the house. I did try buying and selling which worked for a while but it was a lot of effort. I am about to start again with a whole load of sorted house items. Lots of retro board games, computer games etc. If you hang onto something long enough it goes up in value. For intance play station 1 games are now fetching a lot more than a couple of years ago. I think also spotting a trend helps. Ebay used to play fair with sellers and buyers, but not now! A seller cannot leave negative feedback for a buyer! Whats that about? Luckily only had trouble a couple of times with buyers. I have had more luck with large items on gum tree, free to list and sell. Amazon are good for the books/cds etc.

I will keep going with ebay as not sure how i would sell stuff otherwise.

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[Peter JohnsCross MH]

There are idiots on there who are working on 5 - 10% nett profit after ebay or amazon fees and forget they have to pay wages and overheads to process the orders, eventually they will either learn or go broke.

Amazon is a direct seller of many branded items, Fiamma, Coleman amongst others but they are not competetive................ yet

Peter

 

[peterc10]

I has some stuff to sell a while ago and decided to use Amazon. Bit more expensive but they were very good and very easy.