Me, talking to sky news. BOYCOTT EBAY! SUPPORT THE SELLERS BOYCOTT.
Sellers Revolt As Ebay Changes
Julia Reid
Sky News reporter
Updated:06:51, Tuesday April 29, 2008
The auction website eBay says it is not worried by the prospect of a global boycott by sellers and thinks their complaints are ‘unfair’.
Hundreds of sellers are expected to stage a strike starting on May 1, over changes they say are crippling their online businesses.
No more negative buyer feedback
From mid-May they will no longer be able to leave negative or neutral feedback for their buyers.
They are also angry about the increase in eBay’s final value fees - the amount paid as a percentage of an item’s final sales price.
Guy Bell from Plymouth used to be a Power Seller on eBay. He had a positive feedback rating of almost 100% based on nearly 4,000 feedback comments.
He says the increasing fees caused his online collectables business to fold.
“They keep raising the fees and we keep giving back to them a massive percentage of what we earn. The sellers do all the hard work and pay the fees but eBay couldn’t care less.
“We have gone from a large online store to a carboot sale scenario. There are lots of buyers that don’t pay. It is a lot of hassle and we need good protection and to be able to give feedback.
“There are lots of alternative auction websites with cheaper fees but they don’t have enough traffic. If there was a viable alternative, loads of sellers would leave eBay like a shot,” he said.
But an eBay spokeswoman told Sky News good sellers have nothing to fear from the changes.
“We have increased the final value fee, but we have also reduced the insertion fee by a third, so it is cheaper and less risky to list an item.
“If the seller was trading enough he would have been getting good discounts. It is often postage and packing costs that are too high and let people down.
“All the changes are unashamedly focused on protecting buyers and great sellers will be rewarded with incentives, discounts, and more buyers.”
“We don’t want to be dismissive of the boycott, but a similar one in February only involved a small number of sellers.. It is a vocal minority.” she said.
Some sellers will boycott the site
Disgruntled sellers have set up sites on MySpace and Facebook to unite members who share their concerns.
They are calling for no selling or buying from May 1 and claim that eBay is trying to push out smaller traders.
But other sellers support the changes. Chris Dawson sells full-time on eBay and has a blog about the company.
“Ebay is the only business where you can leave negative feedback for your customers. You can’t do that in a hotel or a shop.
“If the sellers going on strike were serious about their eBay business they wouldn’t be able to afford to boycott.
“There is still protection for sellers. They can report the buyer to eBay and eBay can terminate their ability to buy.
“They have also introduced discounts for business sellers on final value fees.
“To get a 20% reduction on the final value fee you only need to be making £750 a month as long as your customer satisfaction rates are high enough. I don’t think the strike will make any difference,” he said.
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Well, that was what sky published today, although i feel that the person from tamebay was not the person to get the alternative new, tamebay are renowned for positive comments about ebay, but they are high volume, high value sellers so the changes dont affect them, however i have spoken with Chris dawson from tamebay and he let me know that the SKY journalist edited his comments to appear that Chris replied to me but he actually didnt. DONT BELIEVE WHAT YOU READ ON SKY NEWS IS ALL I CAN SAY!. What do you think? Send us your comments below……….
April 29th, 2008 at 11:19 am
eBay is really trying to keep only the professional sellers and they are really taking advantage of the cheaper listing fees and powerseller discounts.
Unfortunately, smaller sellers are getting squeezed. I feel your pain Guy.
April 29th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Glad you agree with me. Dont get me wrong, if ebay reverted back to what they used to be like about 5 years ago, i would be quite happy to sell on there again!