Just a couple of things I see that are commonly complained about eBay features or services, but that I haven’t personally experienced:
(Quick disclaimer: Let me just say this. People aren’t making up their problems with these features or services, but I do think the problems are generally exaggerated because people are just more naturally inclined to speak up when something is broken rather than when it’s working well. I’m not posting this to intimate “this guy says Markdown Manager is broken, he must be an idiot,” no, no, no. I’m just trying to offer the flip side and say I’m someone who likes these things.)
Markdown Manager is broken - Have never had a problem with it. It always seemed like the problems stemmed from Good ‘Til Canceled listings. I typically use Markdown Manager on Fixed Price listings, but occasionally on Store listings as well (I use 30 day store listings). Never a problem.
Shipping Calculator is broken/never worked — Once or twice, yes, it has been, but it’s been around a number of years, I’ve been consistently selling that entire time, and I’ve only noticed it being off once or twice. Usually it’s dead on. I’m pulling this number out of thin air, but I almost feel conservative saying the Shipping Calculator has worked properly for me 99.9% of the time.
The Google/eBay war has conspired to keep my eBay listings out of Google Base - This is a recent one, I replied to a post on the eBay Boards (a rare venture there for me) and while I had a few people sympathize with me the bulk of the replies were some combination of eBay/Google-bashing accompanied by a few conspiracy theories. The Google Store Connector is broken as I write this. My eBay items are in Google-Base because of this post on the Google Base Help Discussion board.
PayPal Shipping is broken - This is another that I don’t totally disagree with, and honestly, out of the problems mentioned above is probably the one I encounter most often. It was down once for close to a week if I remember correctly. But hey, it always gets going again. Back before PayPal Shipping I used to ship items only once or twice per week. Now I ship 5-6 times per week. PayPal shipping is great for buyer and seller alike. I just wish you could print First Class International labels!
Auctions are Dead - Not mine. Auctions have been around a lot longer than eBay and they’ll be around after eBay. They are for rare items though, not for TVs or DVDs or salad tongs or socks or board games or anything else you can comparison shop for (Exception: out of print items, items under produced with greater demand than supply, luxury items, but then again these are all rarities of one type or another). Auctions work best when you don’t have any idea of an item’s worth because that means you couldn’t find one anywhere else to compare it to. There was a time all of those items I mentioned above did get bid up at auction, but personally I think that’s a phenomena that was created by the novelty of eBay itself.
PayPal is unsafe - I’ve been using it since 2000. I got screwed once as a buyer for $400 and a few times as a seller probably totalling under $100. My account has never been frozen. My money has never taken an unreasonable amount of time to reach my bank account. I’ve never had a problem paying for eBay items with PayPal or other items with my PayPal debit card. 8 years, practically zero complaint (I was upset over the way my $400 buy was handled, but I’m over it). In that time I’ve had my bank account taken over through an ATM scam, have had my identity stolen in separate incident and have been ripped off by alternatives (one form of BidPay got me once). I love PayPal.
eBay is unsafe for sellers - I had my seller account hi-jacked once. It was scary, I was checking my email after dinner, somebody had written asking about a listing because it didn’t look consistent with the other items I sold. Sure wasn’t, I had a couple of pieces of jewelry priced at a few thousand dollars mixed in with my collectibles. I couldn’t log-in! I was in a panic. eBay Live Chat had me straightened out within a half hour. I’m just glad I was basically on top of my listings/email that night, or who knows. But eBay was very helpful and understanding in this situation.
eBay is unsafe for buyers - The time I was ripped off for the $400 I was pretty inexperienced. I was part of what turned out to be a million-dollar plus scam (I have the emails from the FBI agent telling me so) on video tapes. Some guy had listed tens of thousands of rare and out of print (OOP) VHS and kept the scam up for about 3-4 weeks before the negative feedbacks started rolling in and his account was suspended. While the listings were suspicious, his ID was not, the seller had over 10,000 feedback with single-digit negatives at the time my bids were placed. I don’t know what to say about this one, I got ripped off, I never got my money back, it still burns me.
To contradict this though I can say that I buy regularly and this is the only time in 8 years that something I bought didn’t show up. I had an experience earlier this year that nearly became my second time getting ripped off, but honestly I was pretty careless, and in the end while there was no item to receive I didn’t lose any money either. (I detailed that transaction on the blog when it happened). Now I have had items come that weren’t up to snuff or been damaged, but it’s usually cost-effective to just eat the losses there. I try to buy items I can’t really lose on anyway.
Which leads me to my point about eBay being unsafe–disregarding my $400 loss above (which I don’t think would happen today), eBay is generally as unsafe as a buyer is willing to make it. I never spend more than I’m willing to lose (okay, that is more like gambling than a good buying experience, but read on), but I generally have expectations that all will go well. I’ve found enough deals and made enough money off eBay to eBay transactions over the years that I’m reasonably confident about all of my buys. I’ve gambled on a few deals too good to be true that did actually come true. That said, I don’t like spending a lot unless I know the seller, or…and this is key, their seller feedback is strong. It is important to take a look at the seller’s feedback in detail, not just glance at their percentage. Generally I try to avoid sellers under 98%, but I make exceptions to that rule too and will probably lower that number in the future due to the new feedback process (more on that below).
eBay Customer Service is terrible - Okay, maybe, but is it any worse than other online companies you’ve dealt with? Not for me. I find Amazon’s customer service, both as a buyer and a seller, severely lacking when compared to eBay’s. The eBay Live Chat may not always provide the answer you want, but it usually does provide closure. My experience is that the e-mail customer service is actually terrible, mostly because of canned answers and a lag in response time. When you’re having a problem first stop should be the eBay Discussion Boards, if the problem is unique or new, next stop Live Chat (assuming it’s open). I have yet to try Power Seller customer service by phone, so I can’t speak on that subject.
What don’t I like?
I’m on the fence over the feedback changes. Theoretically I don’t have a problem with Sellers no longer being allowed to leave Buyers feedback. In practice what I’ve noticed is that I leave feedback a lot less often as a buyer now. I still leave good feedback (when I get to it), but without any kind of stick being waved against me, well, what do I care about leaving any feedback, except to be a good citizen? In fact, my guess would be that a good portion of positive feedback goes left unsaid now, while the negatives are probably a little accelerated and, of course, no one misses the chance to leave a well-deserved neg.
As a seller I don’t like that discounts based on Detailed Seller Ratings (DSR’s) are not computed to the exact dates covered by my invoice. It only seems fair that any discount I may potentially receive be based upon the actual fees accrued during that exact period.
I don’t like the idea presented by one eBay representative that “The fact of the matter is that free shipping is the standard for eCommerce now” or that “Buyers are becoming used to Free Shipping offers in the general e-Commerce market” as stated in one promotion. As someone who does most of their shopping online I feel qualified to say that neither of these statements are true. Do buyers like free shipping? Hell yes. Do buyers hunt for free shipping? I do. Do buyers expect free shipping? Not really. I pay an annual subscription fee to get free 2-day shipping with Amazon (Amazon Prime). Before then I was accustomed to loading at least $25 into my cart to qualify for free shipping. I order my supplies from Staples, but I always buy at least $50 worth because it means free shipping. I wait to do an order from Kohl’s until I receive or find a free shipping coupon. Free shipping is good, buyers love it, but it’s really not an entitlement or the standard that those eBay quotes claim. It’s often a promotion or more commonly tied into spending $X or more.
What do I have against free shipping? Most sellers will raise their prices to offer free shipping. In fact, if you need an expedited shipping service, chances are you’ll be paying more for the item than before because you’ll be paying the potentially higher base price plus the true expedited shipping fee. Who benefits from higher prices? eBay’s Final Value Fee is raised.
Finally, I found all of this talk about Free Shipping to be especially insensitive, possibly ignorant, timed as it was, right on the heels of another USPS rate increase.
In conjunction with the above points, I also despise the shipping DSR’s which I feel is predicated more on the actual charges of the shipping service I use (USPS) and their ability to deliver the product, especially overseas, much more than it is on any general skill of my own as a seller.
The new links policy. Okay, I can see the point of this one. Most independent sites don’t have outside links, if content is missing they just create it. I typically placed either a link to one of my grading guides in the listing or a link to a Photo ID Guide for movie collectibles which would provide further information on an item. I’ve put a copy of the grading guide on one of my eBay Store pages, for the Photo ID Guides potential customers are more likely to see them if they go to eBay from my site rather than vice versa. I have to admit, I did like the idea of buyer’s clicking from eBay to me. So I don’t like this one going away, but I totally understand.
On the flip side, eBay should not pretend to be my partner if they are not allowing me to promote myself off of eBay. If you’re an eBay affiliate you’re aware that they’re affiliate program shifted to an in-house program called eBay Partner Network (EPN). When I place a link to eBay on my site, then yes, I am eBay’s partner. When eBay disallows me from placing a link on their site, well, that is just the opposite. I don’t work for eBay, or at eBay, or even with eBay, but my new stripped-down listings confirm that eBay is just a tool for me to use to sell. I use eBay. As nothing more than a user I can say that the old eBay spirit of community is dead. Not to be a jerk, but I’m okay with that, I’m there to sell, I was never really a community guy. I don’t do eBay Guides or My World or Blogs (aside: without outside links, what the hell are on the blogs but people spamming their own listings?), I save original content for my site. I embrace community on my site. I’ll reply to the rare comment found here and encourage people to sign-up for my newsletter so I can chat to them. I do my best to go above and beyond with my emails…of eBay. After all, I only have so many characters that I can place in an eBay reply and none of them can be a link to further information, so I save my good emails for those who write me off eBay.
I could add things to both columns here for eBay, maybe I will, but most of these opinions can be found posted by me on the blogs covering eBay. I’m pretty consistent in defending eBay, but do disagree when I think something is just plain wrong (as I do with the whole “Free Shipping” thing).
To be honest, this post took a turn from the time I started writing it. I came across notes on other blogs today mentioning how lousy Markdown Manager was and that the Shipping Calculator didn’t work. I wanted to defend those two tools and a couple of other things I hear griped about that I liked. Instead the post turned into my personal state of eBay address.
That’s okay, this is my place and if you know me, you know I’m prone to rambling. Hope you enjoyed!
Cliff
