I am always willing to host the whines of other sellers on this blog and I got a request from a seller who wishes to remain anonymous who wanted to tell his story about why he went from an eBay Powerseller to an ex-eBay seller.

I’m posting this verbatim without correcting any of the errors or typos because I don’t feel right changing someone else’s writing. 

The death of my sales on March 30th

I sell primarily industrial parts and plumbing. My sales did a death spiral. After subtracting a few auctions, which I rarely run unless its just a get rid of an item bought and sold every day on ebay, my sales just died. A little bit of plumbing, which is expected as we go into spring. Business industrial parts were my core business, and sales of them completely disappeared. I closed my store on April 19th and moved to http://www.bonanzle.com/ None of my items were showing up on google, which is a death sentence for rare industrial parts. Now they all are showing up on google on the first page, and I feel things will turn around. I went from $1500 in sales a month to 0. I was aiming for 3k a month in a year tops.

When my sales died I read thru ebay’s forums. All I found was many angry long term sellers. I tried editing my listings. No effect. Page views way down. My items aren’t high page view listings anyways, most got 30-60 views over 6 months and sell.

I tried calling ebay 8 or 9 times over a week. Each time I got some person in India who was obviously reading a cue card “there is no problem, this is the first time someone has called with no sales”. Really?

Ebay has made a point of no longer giving us a level playing field. Their diamond sellers get far more exposure, lower fees, no listing fees. They can spam listings all day long. DSR hits don’t effect them, which is not fair either. Meanwhile they keep raising the DSR bar so nobody can keep Top Rated Seller status. 1 or 2 angry new people to ebay is all it takes to ruin someone’s DSR.

Finally after I closed my store very early on the 19th, I called and was dead serious about demanding a refund for this next months bill. I actually got someone in the US, who did the same deny “there is no problem”. They did give me a credit for my next months bill with no sales just store fees, I had just paid my $250 bill a day or 2 before.

With the latest statements from John Donahue of 2-3 quarters for ebay’s new search engine to get dialed in, there is no way I am waiting that long for them to fix it. I have bills to pay now, and see no reason to keep paying ebay when they aren’t doing their job.

I searched for my own items when not logged into ebay and often could not find them. Why am I paying them then? Or found them somehow listed on ebay singapore.

I am a 1 time felon, and ebay has been my primary income since release, and I have been both buyer and seller since 1998. Top rated Seller, Bronze Power Seller and premium store for about a year. I have quit buying on ebay also, and spent well over 5k there in the last year.

I have written many posts on forums for felons, encouraging them to do ebay, which was the most felon friendly low cost way to start making some money. I have actually had to go to those forums and warn people away from ebay because I cannot in good conscience lead other people into the nightmare .

I made a point of contacting and calling some other ebayers, who had the same exact problem. All long term power sellers, who had been doing ebay for years. Freaked out, not sure how to pay this months bills, many with ebay fees greater than sales.

Ebay has a responsibility to both give us a level field with other sellers, and a solid guide on how to fix our listings for the changes. Not that fixing them worked.

They lost a seller who had every intention of selling on ebay forever.

The smart changes ebay needed were much easier fraud reporting, put a link right on the items. So many fake coins etc, and it takes far too long for ebay to take action and far too hard to report them. Yeah I got rid of a few of them, but really it should have been much simpler. A smiple F that you click on next to the listing number, which takes you to another page. What type of fraud is it? Stolen, fake coins, fill in the blank etc. Have some ebay employees who just deal with looking at fraud reports and quickly get them taken care of in minutes not days. Ignore any further fraud reports on an item the ebay employee feels is ok and remove the F to report fraud for that listing then. Ebayers who report fraud and are consistently correct should get credit for it too, we are doing their job of policing ebay. If your fraud reporting ratio is not very good, then your reports get ignored. Giving the fraud reporter a credit for the listing fee of the fraudulent item would improve things significantly.

If you spam a bunch of the same item at the same buy it now price, you only see one as a buyer. If that one got bought, you just buy the next one in their listings. Give people a reason not to spam them just do a listing with multiples. A search engine smart enough to recognize duplicate listings and auto combine them. If you buy that one, it asks if you want to buy more of them.

Instead of long surveys they expect us to fill out for free, give us a credit on our fees. Ask us what we actually feel would improve ebay and listen.

Instead of increasing fees, realize many people are hurting, and ebay was the difference between them making it and not. Do not victimize sellers with a badly botched beta test of a new search engine.
-Ex Power Seller

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