Ebays Changes...important information for you to know

I have been holding back on this post...

this is a blog for photos...and other related stuff....

but i am an ebay seller and i NEED to let you guys know what is happening....

i probably wouldn't have even posted now, except that i was up til 4am last night going over how to "fix" the new improvements...but i am getting ahead of myself......so here is where i will begin

EBAY was begun many years ago by a guy that wanted to create an online auction site...and obviously he was more successful than he could have dreamed..so it GREW and with it came all sorts of changes..because no one had ever done this before.

through the years, as the changes have continued, ebay tried to stay ahead of the market...there have also been many different teams of leaders..but there were consistent heads of ebay (Meg Whitman the past few years)...well last year, Meg, the head of ebay left and a new man was put in her place. (JD we call him on ebay)

he really didnt have experience in this field but he had lots of new ideas.

so he asked us sellers to be patient with him..while he was trying out all his new ideas.

ok

I went to Ebay live...the convention for the sellers..and said..ok..i will wait and see...

SO it began with DSRs detailed sellers ratings..

which are innocent enough.

allow customers to rate sellers on how well they do..

but what ebay doesnt tell you is that if you should choose a 4 or a 3 instead of a 5, this punishes an ebay seller..

ok..maybe some sellers need to be punished..but this is quite hazy to the buyers..

for instance a 1 star means that the listing was very innacurate, a 2 means innacurate, a 3 means neither innacurate or accurate, a 4 means accurate..and a 5 is very accurate.

so if you buy something and you think, yeah this is just fine..you might put a 4, not because the seller isnt good, but maybe it is not that great of an item..right?

(oh and all over that page is DONT BE AFRAID TO LEAVE AN HONEST COMMENT)

well..what they are not telling you is this....

IF the seller if gets more than 3 people who give them a 4 or under

they are now NOT ABLE TO SELL for awhile

selling rights are terminated for awhile..this has already happened to someone i bought items from..he was off for a few weeks.

then

if sellers get lower than a 4.9 on their DSRs they are punished by paying more ebay fees..

(there is a discount for all 5s) now you would never know this...

BUT what actually happened is that ebay RAISED the fees for sellers ..NOW, if you are a good seller.....then you will have to pay the 20% increase and only if you are an EXCELLENT SELLER THAT GETS GREAT DSRs you might not have to pay it and then you will pay what you used to pay just a few months ago...this is where you get the discount..

however it is up to the buyers..

so that was the begining.

then they took away the sellers right to leave negatives or neutrals.

i never really left them UNLESS someone didnt pay at all...and i give loads of time..so in all my time of selling (over 8 years) I probably left 5 if that many.

since this has happened i have had 3 people not pay me at all in the past month alone...!

then..

BUYERS can give neutrals or negatives

and a neutral is counted the same as a negative... for a seller???what???

then

they changed the listing pages so that it says best match..so you cant see the newest listings, or the items ending soonest, unless you know how to navigate the page.. but it doesnt pop up automatically

then

they have decided to change the auction page.

that is the sellers page that they sell the item on...

(this is when i was up til 4am)

*right now it is in testing stages and some of you might be in the test and be very confused..i was...

randomly "invited" to be in the test...and without the ability to "opt out" of the test after a few days.

this is the entire new format. that is supposed to make sense of all of this.

well.

the listing page has changed completely.

the beautiful templates have been cut down so that they are difficult to see.

ebay is opening the door to put ads on the bottom of all of our listings..(oh no not more SPAM!)

only they control the ads....we have NO say so in this

then the most crazy thing of all...next to our listing ON OUR AUCTION PAGE will be other peoples listings of the same items..

so

for the average person, you would think that this is part of the sellers stuff..but NO it is another sellers stuff...and the indivuality of the listing pages are almost completely removed!!!

meaning that you will be inundated with more stuff you may not even want to look at ...and have so much clutter on the page...you will want to get off of it!

i woke up yesterday and all my listings were changed..however...after many hours, i was able to change them back...but ebay wants to make this change to come into effect in December.

ALSO

i didnt mention that EBAY has given added incentives if we just list a "buy it now" item verses an auction item, and that currently they are testing the ability pull listings if the shipping charges arent right.

things have begun to change and slowly ebay is turning from less of an auction house and more like amazon..

and as a seller i am more than sad.

so, i am letting you out there know...that although i love ebay...really do..especially the ebay of old...this new managment team seems bent on trying to change that...and has begun to allienate many sellers...so things will be changing... but it does not seem like it is for the better.

NOW THERE IS NO WAY TO CONTACT EBAY TO TELL THEM YOUR OPINION

really they are very hard to get ahold of...

however..i found ONE WAY

THIS IS THE EMAIL ADDRESS FOR THIS ( I GOT IT FROM BEING IN THE BETA TESTING GROUP)

IF YOU ARE OPPOSED TO THE CHANGES, or at least want to make a comment.....PLEASE TAKE A FEW MINUTES AND ZIP THEM A NOTE..

myebaybeta@ebay.com

i am hoping that we can somehow help this new team of management realize what we the consumers, and the sellers want... or else i am afrraid that the ebay that we have loved will be a thing of the past.

sadly...

cathi