Yes...I'm Doing the Ebay Boycott!

So that answers the question for you. If anyone is not familiar with what is going on with ebay this week, they are releasing major changes to both the sellers fees as well as the feedback processes. These new changes are really scaring frequent sellers such as myself. I belong to several yahoo groups (Loops) which all sell and trade boutique children's clothing (I advertise my bows on them.) Anyways there is tons of chatter happening about the new changes and many of these ladies are participating in the boycotting of all selling and bidding on ebay from Feb. 18th - 25th. Here is the sum up of what's happening.....

The listing fees are being lowered which sounds really nice but they are then raising the final value fees. So what used to cost a seller $0.75 to list a 9.99 item now only costs $0.35. Great. But...then after the end of the auction ebay used to take another 5.25% of the closing cost of the item and now they take 8.75% of the final amoun the item sells for! So for people who are selling large ticket items that is a HUGE change. I figured that on a $10.00 sale...which is normal for me....I used to pay $1.27 and now I will be paying $1.22. Ok...so not a bad thing for small item sellers like me but horrid thing for large ticket sellers.

What really has all of us sellers scared is the new feedback process for sellers. Feedback is a great thing because it forces sellers and buyers to do their best in each transaction. Yeah you might get a crazy nut who will ruins it for everyone, but for the most part it helps buyers and sellers know what kind of customer service/product/ect they will be getting before they even bid. Well, now ebay is changing everthing. They are amking it a one sided process in that sellers will no longer be able to leave negative or even neutral feedback for buyers? Hmmm...so for example I have a bidder right now who has purchased 2 auctions and it's been over a month since they ended and still no payment or contact has been made from her? Now that I can not leave negative feedback she can go on and bid on someone elses' hairbows and that seller will have no clue about her past actions.

Another odd thign ebay has announced is that thie siter company...PAYPAL is now going to be able to hold your ebay payments for up to 21 days? Here is what ebay had to say......In a small percentage of cases where it has been determined the risk of dissatisfied buyers is higher, PayPal may delay release of the payment funds to the seller until the buyer has left a positive feedback or 21 days have passed without a dispute, claim, chargeback or reversal filed on that transaction. WHAT????

This is what it breaks down to: if ebay sees you as being high risk for having dissatisfied customers, they can hold the money form those auctions for up to 21 days with paypal. They are saying that if a buyer leaves you a negative feedback, paypal hold the money for 21 days automatically. If you get marked as a high risk seller then they can hold the $$$ until one of three things happens...the buyer with that auction leaves you positive feedback, 3 days pass after you can prove the item was delivered to the buyers mail box, or 21 days pass with you not getting anymore negatives, complants, etc. So basically a person with over 500 positive feedbacks like me can have one person get ticked at me for a silly reason...believe me it happens more than you know...and I could get my $$ froze for those 21 days. Now I would still be responsible for completing that sale and shipping the items to the buyer even though I never got paid for them! Does that seem fair to anyone??? Not every negative leads to being flagged as a risky seller but all it takes is a few run-ins with some crazy bidders and they can easily mess up your selling, especially since you can't scan out the crazies since sellers can no longer leave bad feedback for buyers.

So after lots of research and consideration, I will be participating in this ebay strike from Feb 18th-25th. That means no lisitng, no bidding, no activity of any kind. I got a really neat link from one of my yahoo groups that shows a current count on the numer of lisitngs each auction site has at anytime and how much off precentage wise they are form their normal amount of listings. Anyways I have been watching them all weekend and ebay is hovering at around 3% loss of auctions and the strike does not begin until tomorrow. http://www.powersellersunite.com/auctionsitewatch.php