Internet Auction Blog

John Donahoe is legitimately an idiot for what he has done to eBay…and I’m talking about as a whole, not just the “My Ebay” pages, which are what annoys me most at this minute. Thanks to the garbage new pages, I just left positive feedback for someone who has yet to pay for an item. I also had their item packaged up and put into another customers shipment, because the “Items I Sold” page is a piece of crap that runs together. Is it my fault for making this mistake? Sure it is, but it wouldn’t have happened if the idiots who are running eBay were more in touch with their customers (buyers AND sellers) and would quit changing what doesn’t need to be changed.

John Donahoe should really know that he is a miserable failure with his current company. Every idea he has implemented, from buyers not allowed to leave NEG feedback, to the new design of the website, have been some of the worst ideas known to the modern world and are all contributors to what will be the demise of his company.

If you live outside of the United States, and purchase an item from a U.S. seller on eBay, and they will only ship via USPS Priority Mail, they have a very good reason for it.

Personally, I print all my postage labels with Paypal, and Paypal only allows for international mail to be sent using Priority Mail, therefore I must charge $10.00 to ship an item outside of the United States.

Some people will write and ask “why can’t I just pay you $3.00 and you send it by regular mail?” — well, because that would actually cause me MORE work, and I don’t want to do it. My auctions are a business, and my business has routines, and it is just a hassle to break that routine.

If you buy something from a US eBay seller, and they don’t say how much they charge for international shipping, CONTACT THEM and ask before you bid or purchase the item.

eBay continues to make really ignorant decisions. John Donahoe is an idiot. Yes, I know he went to Dartmouth and Stanford, but he must not have ever learned the saying “don’t fix what isn’t broke.” John Donahoe, you are an idiot. Starting in October, eBay will begin limiting what a seller can charge for Shipping & Handling. They will start in the “media” categories. The most a seller will be able to charge is $4.00 for shipping an item.

I often sell vintage record albums. The albums measure 12″x12″ inches in size. I buy specially cut-out cardboard to use as packaging material. I buy oversized bubble mailers to ship most record albums, or even specially sized cardboard boxes for more expensive record albums. Plus my postage and time, I will lose money by shipping these record albums for $4.00.

The US Postal Service allows for “media mail” to weigh as much as 70lbs! I also often sell large collections of books which weigh nearly 50lbs. These CANNOT be shipped for only $4.00 as eBay insists. So what are we supposed to do? eBay tells us to use the shipping calculator to charge actual shipping costs. Ridiculous. So sellers aren’t supposed to be compensated for their time and packing materials? Only shipping costs?

I know, I know, eBay says to raise my starting price. Are you kidding? I start all my auctions at 99 cents. If I start my auctions higher, eBay charges more. This is all a ploy by eBay to capture more of our money, and they think sellers are too stupid to realize it.

Let eBay know how you feel!
http://pages.ebay.com/townhall/

Next Town Hall – Friday September 19 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM PST

Please join us for our next Town Hall audio event with Stephanie Tilenius, SVP & GM of North America Marketplaces.

Date: Friday September 19th from 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM PST

About Town Halls
Our audio Town Hall events offer you the opportunity to have your questions answered by eBay and PayPal leaders. We love to hear from you! Phone our toll-free number during the event — 1-877-474-3302 — to ask your question on the air.

Alternatively, you can email your question, now or during the event, to townhall@ebay.com. Keep your emails short and to the point, and we will do our best to answer your question on the air.
Tips on submitting questions or comments for eBay Town Halls:

Please be brief when stating your question/comment. We want to get to as many customer questions as possible. Thanks!

We are looking for general comments or questions the audience can relate to. If you have an issue specific to your account, please contact Customer Support by clicking “Help” and then “Contact Us”. Have an urgent matter? Please contact “Live Help” from the top right side of the eBay home page.
Curious about how questions are selected? It is a pretty simple process; we select the topics that the majority of our customers write in about.

To listen to previous events or read the transcripts, please visit our archives. If you’re unable to listen to the audio archives from past Town Hall events, a written transcript is available on the Town Hall Archives page. Be sure to check them out.

Some girl named Angela from eBay wanted to take 3 minutes of my time to tell me about the upcoming changes to ebay that will “benefit” sellers. Yeah, right.

She starts off by telling me some garbage about having search options set to “ending soonest” would yield the best results. I told her, ok, but eBay has it set to default to “Best Match”. Her response was “Yes, it defaults to Best Match, but you can change that.” I told her, why are you telling me this as a seller? You should be telling our BUYERS that information. I already know I can change my search option, but newbie buyers do NOT know this.

Then she wanted to tell me how the new changes to eBay’s “Buy-It-Now” costs will benefit me as an eBay Store owner. She says I can now send some of my store items over to “Buy-It-Now” for only 35 cents for 30 days! Guess what. I can already list items in my eBay Store for 30 days and it only costs 5-7 cents. Sure, it would get more visibility if I listed the items as “Buy-It-Now”, but it’s also going to make my eBay Store nearly invisible.

At one point in the conversation, she said something about me needing to modify my listings. I told her I have 500+ listings in my eBay store and I’ll be damned if I spend time modifying each one. She said I don’t *have* to but that I might *need* to. WTF?

Sadly, eBay is the only viable game in town right now, and until someone does something to compete with eBay and attract buyers & sellers, eBay can do whatever it wants.

Did you know that if you’ve been printing your postage with Paypal, that you might be getting ripped off? This is especially true if you pay for USPS insurance. Here’s why:

I pay for postage, insurance and delivery confirmation using my Paypal account. This “electronically” lets the USPS know that a label has been printed and paid for, but does NOT indicate that the USPS has received the package from me yet (so the USPS is not responsible for the package yet).

Next, I take the package to the Post Office for them to deliver. They are supposed to scan the label at that time to acknowledge receipt of the package, and that the package is insured. HOWEVER, I’ve noticed that when I take the packages to the Post Office, they DO NOT scan them, they simply set the packages behind the counter and say thank you. I asked a clerk, and he told me they scan the packages when the packages reach their destination point.

So what happens if the USPS loses your package before it reaches its destination point? YOU LOSE YOUR PACKAGE AND YOUR MONEY. But wait, you insured it right? Too bad, because the Post Office didn’t scan the package when you brought it to them, so they’ve never acknowledged receiving it! (in other words, they won’t take responsibility).

This is unacceptable, and we need to make the US Postal Service change their practices. If using Paypal to print postage and purchase insurance, we need to make sure the post office is scanning EVERY package we mail, in order to acknowledge they have received the package from us.

After all, what’s to stop a postal worker from stealing our items before they reach the destination point?

If you’re looking for some new alternatives to buying and selling on eBay, here are a few sites you might enjoy checking out:

• OnlineAuction.com
• eCrater.com
• iOffer.com
• … or better yet, start your own website with an easy to set up Online Store and shopping cart for as little as $5/month!

Wow, this seems really stupid to me. Here is the link to the full article with all the details. I can’t believe they are going to take away a sellers ability to leave negative or neutral feedback.

Basically, here is the short version (copied & pasted from the eBay page):

What changes are being made to the eBay Feedback system?

There are five key elements to the new Feedback system being introduced in the first half of 2008:

1. Beginning in February, buyers and sellers will be able to earn up to one Feedback per week from the same trading partner. Today, members may only affect each other’s Feedback scores one time, regardless of the number of transactions between the parties. This change will both encourage repeat transactions and reward good service.
2. Sellers will no longer be able to leave negative or neutral Feedback for buyers. This change will occur in May, 2008.
3. Removal of negative and neutral Feedback left by members who are suspended or who fail to respond to the Unpaid Item Process (UPI).
4. Positive Feedback percentage will be based on the past 12 months of Feedback, rather than lifetime, since it is most indicative of the seller’s recent performance.
5. Restrictions on when Feedback can be left:
   • Buyers must wait three days before leaving negative or neutral Feedback
   • Instead of 90 days, members will be able to leave Feedback for 60 days