I've just had my account blocked for 7 days for violating Ebay policy
I'm looking at a slightly tatty R8 which happens to be 5 miles away from my house and my crime is asking the seller if I could come and have a look at it?
Note that I didn't share or encourage the vendor to share any email or phone numbers, in fact I actually had a conversation with him advising him not to try doing that and commenting on how ironic it was that Ebay own Gumtree, where you can place contact details and not pay any commission (in the hope that he'd twig and list it on Gumtree.)
I rang Ebay to complain and get the call centre chappie to read the thread, he agreed that I hadn't tried to do anything egregious, but told me that it was more than his job was worth do unblock me.
Anyone who's willing to put down £2k on a tatty guitar they've not actually seen has much deeper pockets than I have.
You have to assume that Ebay don't actually want to sell high value used items, as you'd have to have several screws loose not to want to get eyes on something like a guitar, amp, computer, cook-coo clock etc etc before you commit
So if you're Ebay account matters to you, firstly give yourself a long, hard look in the mirror and secondly, don't ask if you can see something before you buy it
The answer was never 42 - it's 1/137 (..ish)
Comments
1. Piss off your sellers by making you wrong whatever the situation.
2. Piss off your buyers
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-guardian/20170819/282583083124788
Strangely this article has been removed from the Guardian website
It is a very slowly sinking ship.
I will never sell anything on eBay now. Thank god for Gumtree (still run by the bellends, which is also slowly getting worse. ) Schpock and Facebook groups.
I haven't sold anything eBay for about 6 years.
Basically, fuck them.
Studio: https://www.voltperoctave.com
Music: https://www.euclideancircuits.com
Me: https://www.jamesrichmond.com
She had a webchat with Ebay and got stonewalled and a load of flannel about the rules etc.
Pile of shit.
I used to really like eBay and may well use still use it for low value items. It was great for buying stuff that could not be found elsewhere
The only thing I can imagine is going on is that they have decided to make eBay a professional seller and business startup site. Perhaps they plan to use Gumtree for private sellers and introduce fees of some sort.
It's also very unlikely that they will be able to integrate the two data sets into a single system (it's technically possible, but cost and downtime tend to prevent this kind of 'good on paper' move happening.)
With that in mind, there's no reason not to put you're item on both, note on Ebay that 'the item is on sale elsewhere on other free ad sites' and use this as an idiot filter, so that you don't have to deal with so many tyre kickers, asking questions you've already answered in the description.
Thank god (and the Mods) for the thriving For Sale section on here and Reverb, who have a much more grown up attitude towards this than Ebay - take a profit, but don't be greedy and kill the golden goose
"Hi, can I come to see the table first?" Boooom, 7 day ban! Fucking joke they are, usually very happy with buying and selling on there, this time it's a big goodbye from me.
Ebay was great at the start, 3% selling fee (and paypal also took 3% - but in the early days paypal wasn't jammed down your throats like it is now). Anyway, people started to build smallish sideline businesses, based on a 3% cut to ebay (or 6% cut if paypal was also used).............and I think these sideline businesses really made ebay boom...............at that time everyone seemed to be happy.......... ebays name was "good" and rarely did anyone look to do deals outwith ebay.
Then ebay tripled its sellers fees...............and then all those peoples sideline business models didn't work anymore, with a (now) 10% to 13% cut they would either cease trading, or look elsewhere for other platforms to sell.
So it's not so much that ebays current 10% sellers fee is high for what you get, its just that its too high for the business models that people used in the early days (which I think made ebay a success in the first place).
Then add all the other changes they made (ie sellers not being able to leave neg feedback, you must accept paypal etc etc) and you can see why its probably not the success it once was.
Studio: https://www.voltperoctave.com
Music: https://www.euclideancircuits.com
Me: https://www.jamesrichmond.com