What is Digg?126 Comments
- coheedcollapse, on 07/17/2008, -0/+90What do they expect? They do nothing to curb scammers and they charge commission on literally everything (and they raise fees like three times a year). Ebay has gone from one of the greatest things on the internet to a veritable minefield of money loss.
- WriterSD, on 07/17/2008, -1/+84Hmm... Perhaps due to feedback changes and even greater increases in charges.
- inactive, on 07/17/2008, -1/+83Bring back the days of auctions I hope Ebay falls and is replaced by something better.
- AmyVernon, on 07/17/2008, -1/+63eBay has tried to do too much. it should just simplify and get back to doing what it did well...
- inactive, on 07/17/2008, -0/+51I stopped using ebay because of the ever increasing cost of doing business with them.
- motivatedmama, on 07/17/2008, -0/+39Serves them right after jacking their fees. The irony is that there was a "boycott" after the fee hike and hardly anyone noticed. Maybe now they'll change their tune.
- freshyill, on 07/17/2008, -2/+40I'm not cutting back on spending, I'm cutting back on getting scammed. Screw eBay.
- AussieCynic, on 07/17/2008, -1/+32the beginning of the end...
- austang, on 07/17/2008, -2/+28death to ebay, they don't even have auctions anymore. All this "BUY IT NOW" crap kills it, especially with the $200 shipping on my $10 pair of fuzzy dice.
- jcorn1, on 07/17/2008, -0/+22I agree. I used to sell there and anything I listed flew out the door and the profit margin was good. Then it became so crazy with the fees that sellers had to charge ridiculous amounts to make any profit. When I first sold there, both buyers and sellers would be happy. My buyers were getting great deals and I was still making a profit. Why can't it be that way any more?
- rolf, on 07/17/2008, -0/+20Buy it now! is a feature offered to sellers, they can choose to provide it or not. Personally, I prefer Buy it Now! as I can still buy stuff reasonable without wasting my time sitting there trying to be highest bidder.
The super expensive shipping is something I don't see as much as I used to because the shipping is now listed (most of the time) alongside the bid/sales price in searches. High shipping was a result of ebay not charging percentage on shipping. Therefore the seller tried to make his profit/mark-up in shipping.
Where ebay sucks is how they squeeze the seller's for every last penny through itself and paypal. The people, the sellers, who made ebay interesting with diverse offerings and do most of the work get the least profit. (Yes, some dishonest ones like everywhere, but most I encountered were good.)
I've been seeing an exodus of sellers for a while lately. - inactive, on 07/17/2008, -1/+19Ebay has always sucked for me I hate doing business with them and then if you have problems with them you have problems with paypal
- markbyrn, on 07/17/2008, -0/+17Typical posturing to blame the economy. Look in the mirror GreedBay - you only have yourselves to blame.
- inactive, on 07/17/2008, -8/+25die ebay die!
ive been waiting for this for 8 years...i got banned from ebay in 2000 and they banned my whole family, anyone with my last name would be automatically banned. they're a bunch of pricks who'd end my auctions for no reason.
other ebay crimes:
buying paypal
banning google checkout
being auctioneer nazis
letting powersellers get away with scamming because they bring in revenue for the company
banning users
bury me if you want but i actually love the new feedback change, i hated the retaliatory feedback that sellers would give to buyers who called them out on their scamming ways. now i have begun to think all diggers are ebay jackasses - jcorn1, on 07/17/2008, -4/+20Did they change anything or do they still have that rule, put into place this year, about how sellers can NEVER leave negative feedback for buyers. While this protects buyers, what protects sellers? Maybe they changed that rule?
- jcorn1, on 07/17/2008, -1/+17You summed it up pefectly! Sellers are wary and the increased costs are passed on to buyers. It is a lose/lose situation.
- inactive, on 07/17/2008, -4/+19I thought the title said "Ebay Fails"
- AlanFang, on 07/17/2008, -1/+16Ebay and Paypal both suck.
- kmoed, on 07/17/2008, -0/+13I hope Ebay tanks for good. They have made it completely useless for selling anything. Rape you for fee's for selling then rape you again with paypal(which is just Ebay). Disallowing any other forms of online payments as deeming them "Unsafe".
Unless you have huge margins to play with, Ebay is useless, they take all of the profit you can make out in there outlandish double dipping fee's. - aristan, on 07/17/2008, -0/+13I sold stuff on ebay for years. Now I get fees from ebay for selling things, I get fees from PayPal for taking money for selling things, and if someone decides to scam me I can no longer leave negative feedback. Ebay has made the business of selling on their site a series of hurdles that no one wants to jump.
I've noticed lately that there have been a lot of nickel and quarter listing days. I can only assume this is because -no one- is starting auctions anymore. I have a big box of stuff that would normally go on ebay. Now, the nicer stuff will probably go on Craigslist (No shipping fees since the buyer is probably local) and the other stuff goes in the trash where it probably always belonged. - ssjdoob, on 07/17/2008, -1/+13with about $1.00 minimum listing fees, it's no wonder there aren't many auctions anymore
- Ryan0617, on 07/17/2008, -0/+12We need to get google to start up an online auction site. It already has googlecheckout for payment options. Ebay is trying to be like online retailer rather an an auctioneer.
/prays google will one day do it! - bte101, on 07/17/2008, -1/+13Ebay has totally shut out the small time seller who wants to occasionally auction low priced items.
It is cost prohibitive to sell anything under $25.00, destroying the old feeling of an Internet yard sale or swap meet.
The whole site has been overrun by those guys who sell baseball cards and action figures at the mall kiosk. - dalittle, on 07/17/2008, -0/+12My ebay days are over. You can only be so hostile to buyers AND sellers before you no longer want to use their stupid website. They ran me off. I hope ebay fails and google or someone else puts out something.
- inactive, on 07/17/2008, -0/+11Here's why I will not use ebay again. I hadn't used it for years, but recently I listed 2 computer accessories I no longer needed. The total price before shipping for both items was $45. eBay fees were $4.14. PayPal (eBay's co-conspirator) fees were $2.40. The eBay/PayPal cartel took 14.5% off the top and I didn't even use any of the additional "seller tool$". It's not worth it for a casual seller like me to get rid of junk and I can't imagine how someone could make a living off it. Somebody ambitious needs to develop a better model. The biggest challenge will be attaining the critical mass that eBay has amassed.
- inactive, on 07/17/2008, -0/+11me too, those middle men are a bit too expensive.
- jeffinfremont, on 07/17/2008, -0/+11I was an eBay Power Seller way back in the late 90's. I think it was some point in '01 that I first saw an online infomercial for a "Get Rich Selling on eBay" program and I pretty much abandoned the site shortly thereafter.
Too many fees and red tape, not enough quality customers, not worth the hassle. - emkaysmith, on 07/17/2008, -0/+11I signed up on eBay within six months of their opening and did very nicely (in a modest way) selling books online for about six years. I had (and still have) a 100% feedback. Then the costs suddenly began going up very rapidly and the amount of crap being peddled on eBay (CDs on how to make a million bucks selling CDs on how to make a million bucks, etc) exploded, and I quit. They also ruined PayPal, and they screwed up Blackthorne. Time to start over.
- hexydes, on 07/17/2008, -2/+13eBay is the perfect example of a small company with a great idea and a good userbase, who just couldn't adapt and scale their business. Long, long ago, they should have had something like "store.ebay.com" to differentiate between commercial sellers and your Dad selling hockey skates he found in the garage. Charge people that sell things commercially, but for the online garage sale user, let them do it for free. That's why Craigslist has cannibalized their business so badly, as of late. It's sort of similar to classmates.com vs. Facebook.
- brianmuse, on 07/17/2008, -1/+12Ebay doesn't realize that they are losing sellers in droves. Additionally, their PayPal business is losing popularity fast. Ebay doesn't back the seller ever and as a result of this and always-escalating prices, so many people are moving to craigslist. Craigslist is free and offers a more localized, personal experience.
They'd better shape up their policies and make their site much more user friendly, or their in for a world of hurt. - qwertydvorak, on 07/17/2008, -0/+10@rolf: i agree totally that the fees are the worst part. it costs ebay next to nothing per listing to run the site. they get to squeeze you for a million and one charges and fees. i like the option of buy it now, but i like having it or auction. most listings now are just buy it now only.
- inactive, on 07/17/2008, -0/+9meh i don't know.....corporate greed never seems to chane it's
tune until it implodes. - RyeBrye, on 07/17/2008, -0/+8@qwertydvorak:
The reason you see only one or the other is that a Buy It Now option will disappear on an auction that has no reserve once a bid has been placed. If a bid is placed but the item is below reserve, you can still "buy it now" until it reaches the reserve.
They don't explain this well to the sellers, so a quick way to lose $0.25 o $1.00 or whatever that fee for putting the Buy It Now option on is to start a listing a $0.99 (low insertion fee) but put a Buy It Now on at $10 or something... the second someone bids on it - your Buy It Now option you paid for is gone.
The other thing about eBays fees are that they get you on both ends. Not only do they charge you a ton to list it, and then a ton based on what it sells for, they also charge you a percentage fee on the transaction if you use PayPal (which, by the way, they almost force you to use) - so in the end a $20 item has about $2 or more in fees attached to it - depending upon what listing options you use. - inactive, on 07/17/2008, -1/+9agreed.
- nutsackninja, on 07/17/2008, -1/+9If you try to sell anything below $20 on scamBay, basically it won't cover the fee's and shipping on it. I might as well just chucked it in the trash and saved myself an hour of my time.
- isage, on 07/17/2008, -0/+8Hmm. Let's see some of the recent changes... You can give feedback to a buyer as long as its happy talk (no negative feedback). Even if the buyer doesn't pay for the item or threatens you. What this means in the future is that buyers no longer need to give any feedback at all since they can only receive positive feedback.
Oh ya, buyers can't mention your own website anywhere, even on your About Me page. So if you own your own store outside of eBay, don't even try to mention that to your buyers, even as a passing reference on your own About Me page.
Maybe its creating a new platinum class just so that Buy.com can come in and flood eBay with it's listing and not pay a cent. This just means that eBay will now just be a listing house for huge companies choking off any hope for the little guy to make a sale.
Go to hell eBay, what you sow is what you reap.... - jayscot, on 07/17/2008, -1/+9Ebay is far from what it once was. I don't see any advantage to using Ebay over normal retail online stores anyway. They need to learn their place in the market, or be overtaken by a replacement.
- ssjdoob, on 07/17/2008, -1/+9Yes, as a seller, the new feedback is horrible! I had a customer send back something totally different and said that they got the wrong items. I called Paypal 4 times and they still got their money back. I have a feedback of over 12000 and theirs was about 50. So basically, a buyer can send back a piece of sh*t and paypal will give them their money back as long as they have a tracking number. It pissed me off beyond belief and I couldn't even leave negative feedback.
- rolf, on 07/17/2008, -0/+8In the meantime, Ebay wants to charge almost as much as a real auction but without any of the work involved (catalogueing, photos, etcetera) which is left to the consignor!
- aspec, on 07/17/2008, -0/+7I always thought that the problem wasn't the stuff they're trying to do, but their uncaring attitude towards what happens to their users. The whole ebay community sucks, and now that a lot of people have no trust towards ebay, it seems a lot of those people are jumping ship to Amazon. Which is a shame.
- springboks, on 07/17/2008, -0/+7Meg Whitman's timing is immaculate, she cashed out right when the company started to fall. She's the mastermind behind the PayPal/Ebay machine.
- ScottG, on 07/17/2008, -1/+8Exactly why I stopped using it. I got netural feedback, which hurt my 100% rating, and I couldn't fight it or anything. And taking 8,9% or whatever of what I sell, plus insertion fee's, *****!!
- TheMachine1, on 07/17/2008, -0/+7Reminds me of starbucks blaming milk prices when their sales first fell.
- dentarthurdent1, on 07/17/2008, -0/+7the worst is thinking you're going to get a really good deal on something, only to have your bid raised by the auctioner him/herself using a fake account.
- mandarin, on 07/17/2008, -0/+6For a big company with a ton of well paid people, their customer service sure sucks.
- bjornski, on 07/17/2008, -0/+6"Customer sent me bad check"
"Credit card could not be billed, stolen"
"buyer has tried to scam me about a dozen times now"
There are plenty of reasons for feedback about a purchaser. - rolf, on 07/17/2008, -0/+6Craigslist is okay, but the localization will always keep it away from upsurping ebay. It's great to sell furniture, because most of the time only locals will want it (shipping too expensive) but collectibles and other things need a national/international audience and it's hard to find that through their search.
Craigslist is negating the reach of the internet in that way. It's too bad, because I wish someone would eat ebay's lunch. -
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