Comments on: Comments on Auctionbyte eBay Survey http://www.trevorginn.com/52/ Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:55:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Mike Stollov http://www.trevorginn.com/52/comment-page-1/#comment-1225 Mike Stollov Wed, 21 Feb 2007 01:02:26 +0000 http://www.trevorginn.com/52/#comment-1225 The fact remains that eBay is pricing itself way too high, the fee increases introduced for Stores format was explained as an attempt to drive sellers back into the "core Auction listings" yet when that had taken effect a massive increase in Auction listing fees was imposed. This is a blatant money grubbing exercise designed to fleece the sellers as much as possible. Margins are increasingly squeezed by this, not simply because of the increase per item, but “reverse leverage’ whereby a successful sale has to carry the fees of all the unsuccessful sales too. The results can be devastating for sellers, especially with falling Selling Ratios where less & less items sell as a % of inventory. Back when I started on eBay in 2001 I had only to sell 1 item out of 20 to break even, managing an average ration of 7 out of 10. At the last, in late 2006, I had to sell 1 in 4 items to break even, but only managed 1 in 12. No attention is paid to buyer fraud, only seller fraud is mentioned. There is a healthy trade in scam purchases where buyers simply claim to have not received their item, or received & the sent back items, yet not had a refund. Stolen credit cards, hijacked PayPal accounts & forged Money orders also abound. All result in losses for the seller & eBay/PayPal will ALWAYS back up the buyer not matter how obvious the fraud is. My money making businesses on eBay went from great profit to regular losses, all due to fee increases. I cut my costs time & time again, only to see this hard work go into the pockets of eBay after another fee increase. I eventually closed them all in 2006 & went elsewhere, returning to profit & cutting my work hours tremendously. I would never deal with eBay again as a seller. The fact remains that eBay is pricing itself way too high, the fee increases introduced for Stores format was explained as an attempt to drive sellers back into the “core Auction listings” yet when that had taken effect a massive increase in Auction listing fees was imposed. This is a blatant money grubbing exercise designed to fleece the sellers as much as possible.

Margins are increasingly squeezed by this, not simply because of the increase per item, but “reverse leverage’ whereby a successful sale has to carry the fees of all the unsuccessful sales too. The results can be devastating for sellers, especially with falling Selling Ratios where less & less items sell as a % of inventory. Back when I started on eBay in 2001 I had only to sell 1 item out of 20 to break even, managing an average ration of 7 out of 10. At the last, in late 2006, I had to sell 1 in 4 items to break even, but only managed 1 in 12.

No attention is paid to buyer fraud, only seller fraud is mentioned. There is a healthy trade in scam purchases where buyers simply claim to have not received their item, or received & the sent back items, yet not had a refund. Stolen credit cards, hijacked PayPal accounts & forged Money orders also abound. All result in losses for the seller & eBay/PayPal will ALWAYS back up the buyer not matter how obvious the fraud is.

My money making businesses on eBay went from great profit to regular losses, all due to fee increases. I cut my costs time & time again, only to see this hard work go into the pockets of eBay after another fee increase. I eventually closed them all in 2006 & went elsewhere, returning to profit & cutting my work hours tremendously.

I would never deal with eBay again as a seller.

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