A Cautionary Tale About eBay

[devine]

Retailers come and go. In the United States,

Montgomery Wards
Daytons/Hudson
Circuit City
Hyland Superstores
and hundreds of others. When they lose sight of fundamentals, they lose. None of them are too big to fail, including eBay. Hopefully eBay is around for years to come, but they need to change some things.

Considering I haven't even heard of any of these, it's kinda illustrative what happens to companies after they lose their track aha.

 

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[Xavier X]

@Vigilante
Thanks for the reps.

 

[B V Marlon]

Ebay lost the plot years ago. The only reason that they keep going is that there isn't a viable alternative in many markets.

Others have come and gone and either ebay bought them, or they lost all their traffic to ebay, so the buyers and sellers deserted them. The only exception that I can think of is Taobao who really focussed their efforts on beating ebay in China.

It would take a well funded startup, with very brave investors, to topple ebay at the moment, but if they keep declining, who knows.

 

[Andy Black]

It would take a well funded startup, with very brave investors, to topple ebay at the moment, but if they keep declining, who knows.

I don't know much about the eCommerce space, but any generic platform is beatable when you niche down. Maybe a leader in a niche will expand to take on more products.

 

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[B V Marlon]

I don't know much about the eCommerce space, but any generic platform is beatable when you niche down. Maybe a leader in a niche will expand to take on more products.

You have a point, I hadn't thought of that.

Perhaps a whole range of sites targeted at specific niches will spring up and gradually erode ebay's traffic.

 

[Roli]

1. Sell more. eBay is now less for the dabbling seller, and more for the professional sellers. Sadly for eBay customers who like what we sell, we are the ONLY source. In our absence, eBay customers are left picking through the bones of the Chinese importers who sell inferior products.

2. Deliver every order, without question. Count on eBay and Paypal seller protections, and don't put your own safeguards in place. Drink the kool-aid.

3. Anticipate 100% compliance with making sure every eBay customer is 100% satisfied, by taking your customer service contingency accrual from the normal 1% of sales to around 5% of sales.

Hi Vigilante, thanks for sharing this very informative post, it's much appreciated, I just had a couple of small questions on the matter if you don't mind.


Your first point above about eBay no longer being for the dabbling seller, and that the Chinese imports seem to be taking over. I am just about to source a product, most probably from China, and I'm going to use it to start my importing business.

So do you think that I will be frowned upon or favoured? Seeing as I'm small, but I'm importing (quality) products from China.

Also, do you have confidence; or rather would you have confidence in eBay seller protection, if you were a minnow like me starting out?


I am looking to list on eBay and Amazon, using FBA and eBay global shipping; however I am really keen to up my marketing skills and build a business around my own sites. However of course, using the aforementioned platforms will give me a much needed boost; or so I think.

So last question; is it a fallacy that I need these guys to start out; should I approach with a different mindset?

Thanks

 

[Vigilante]

Hi Vigilante, thanks for sharing this very informative post, it's much appreciated, I just had a couple of small questions on the matter if you don't mind.


Your first point above about eBay no longer being for the dabbling seller, and that the Chinese imports seem to be taking over. I am just about to source a product, most probably from China, and I'm going to use it to start my importing business.

So do you think that I will be frowned upon or favoured? Seeing as I'm small, but I'm importing (quality) products from China.

Also, do you have confidence; or rather would you have confidence in eBay seller protection, if you were a minnow like me starting out?


I am looking to list on eBay and Amazon, using FBA and eBay global shipping; however I am really keen to up my marketing skills and build a business around my own sites. However of course, using the aforementioned platforms will give me a much needed boost; or so I think.

So last question; is it a fallacy that I need these guys to start out; should I approach with a different mindset?

Thanks

1. You're not a Chinese importer. You're an importer that is sourcing an item from China. Huge difference. The successful Chinese importers, for whom eBay has carved out these new rules, are the ones that are flooding the United States and eBay specifically with hundreds of thousands of listings. It's a numbers game. They can afford to screw hundreds of eBay customers, and eBay permits that because they're doing thousands of transactions a day.

2. Quality has nothing to do with this discussion. Quality is not one of the criteria by which eBay is judging your business or your items. It's all (and ONLY) about how you manage the metrics.

3. I can't tell you what you should do. I can only tell you what I have experienced. You have to make the call.

I would do business on eBay. I wouldn't build a business that was eBay dependent. Do you NEED them? Nope. Can they help you? Yep. Can you sell successfully on eBay? Go back to the OP where I said towards the bottom how to succeed in today's landscape on eBay. I laid out a plan for you if you want to succeed on eBay.

 

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[Roli]

1. You're not a Chinese importer. You're an importer that is sourcing an item from China. Huge difference. The successful Chinese importers, for whom eBay has carved out these new rules, are the ones that are flooding the United States and eBay specifically with hundreds of thousands of listings. It's a numbers game. They can afford to screw hundreds of eBay customers, and eBay permits that because they're doing thousands of transactions a day.

2. Quality has nothing to do with this discussion. Quality is not one of the criteria by which eBay is judging your business or your items. It's all (and ONLY) about how you manage the metrics.

3. I can't tell you what you should do. I can only tell you what I have experienced. You have to make the call.

I would do business on eBay. I wouldn't build a business that was eBay dependent. Do you NEED them? Nope. Can they help you? Yep. Can you sell successfully on eBay? Go back to the OP where I said towards the bottom how to succeed in today's landscape on eBay. I laid out a plan for you if you want to succeed on eBay.

Thanks, good solid advice; I have my listening ears on ;-)

 

[Vigilante]

Almost 2,000 hits to this thread.

 

[Lions]

As someone who has been selling on eBay for years, and having multiple family members make their living off eBay, this is in no way a unique case. I also ran into this problem, and it was a real killer but unfortunately the buyer will always have the upperhand and that's all ebay cares about. It is a somewhat dirty trick, but the only way around this when you are out of an item is to lie and say the item is extremely damaged, then ask the buyer "would you like to cancel the order or do you still want to buy it?" Once they say they want to cancel you can file as buyer requested to cancel order and all they have to do is confirm it. This is the only way to not get to the magic number because it doesn't count against you. I have never actually had somebody say they still want the item. I have had to knowingly give full refunds when I knew I was being scammed because I couldn't risk them opening a case because it would add another strike. Losing $50 on a refund is worth not having your limits reduced and listings Supressed.

 

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[Ing]

Bump. Thank you!

 

[Ing]

BTW:
I bought different goods from Chinese providers on ebay some years ago.
As the outcome didn t satisfy me (crap.crap...) I gave them a bad rating ( as detailed and honest as possible) about 10 times.
Every bad rating disappeared after not one day. Without ebay contacting me in any way.

 

[ShadowOne]

BTW:
I bought different goods from Chinese providers on ebay some years ago.
As the outcome didn t satisfy me (crap.crap...) I gave them a bad rating ( as detailed and honest as possible) about 10 times.
Every bad rating disappeared after not one day. Without ebay contacting me in any way.

This similar thing happening, but with larger sellers that ship domestically.

Also if you buy shipping supplies like bubble wrap and tape, although it appears cheap, a lot of the bigger sellers short you on the length advertised (knowing that a ton of buyers don't really bother to count the length and trust that what the seller sends is the correct amount) and/or provide you with terrible quality (cheap tape that's extremely smelly or doesn't stick well).

 

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[CFitz]

While eBay and Amazon can surely drive traffic to your offers, it’s clear they each have their cons.

I had to stop welling in Amazon after they automatically computed shipping cost for rather large goods at a rate 30-60% less than what I had to pay, just for them to make 2-3x my own profit while simultaneously never touching the product sold & shipped. This is likely due to being a “small“ niche seller.

eBay has become very buyer-centric, so those left of us selling on the platform need to have very explicit and visible policies for buyers to read and understand prior to purchases, ultimately lessening returns etc.

 

[Johnny boy]

Maybe it's time to start a ebay scamming business instead

When the winds change, so should your sails