Disillusioned With Selling And Buying

[rugbyguy1960]

THIS THREAD IS NOT JUST TO POST  COMMENTS  THAT ARE NOT FACT.

I hope that there are now plenty of fed up private sellers and buyers who despise these new changes.

Ebay used to be a fun place to buy and sell but recently thanks to the greed of the shareholders and Owners it's becoming intolerable.

Once my last 5 listings hopefully sell there won't be anymore listed until ebay changes and go back to happier times. I even now buy things from companies direct that I once brought on ebay which now looks over their peak and on the downward slippery slope.

Holding payments, charges, and various fees for buyers and sellers are just a few. I cannot now trust or believe what ebay say.

[rugbyguy1960]

I totally agree.

It might not work for higher value items but works well for the items I sell.

I like the thought of dealing with RM direct if issues occurred.

I only charge buyers the 2.70 that RM charge me.

RM 48hr tracked gives me and buyers a level of protection.

They collect from me and bring the label.

My other big gripe is that MY starting price is no longer the price potential buyers see.

[p728l306]

It's getting worse!

I sold 20 items since new rule,  but i noticed EBAY SCAMMED ME ON MY MONEY on two of them!

Says funds ' completed ' BUT NEVER APPEARED ON 'AVAILABLE FUNDS' !!!

 already two of them.

Now I'm closely monitoring everything else as I'm sure they WILL do it with other items.

It's hard to track if you sell 30-40 items a month.

Will have to fight for my stolen money now like I got nothing else to do with my life. 

[rugbyguy1960]

That is a scary thought.

My items sold is now so low I've only got 5 items listed and if and when they sell that's my selling days done for the foreseeable future.

[morseidiot2]

I'm another one of those collectors who have been affected.

Sitting here with with my morning cuppa Ive decided that the buyers dont need protecting from private sellers they need protecting from Ebay .

I just sold a postcard for £2.20,after which Ebay charged them an 85p "Buyer protection fee" so thats a pretty hefty percentage of the sale.

Now its a postcard,its not the crown jewels,I dont know about any other collectors who like me are getting rid of a lifetimes collection of cards ,but I ALWAYS refund if the card gets lost or the customer is unhappy,well you would wouldnt you ? 

As soon as the change came in I stopped buying on Ebay,and as soon as my 14 day wait for funds elapses I remove them into my bank account.Before the changes I used it to buy on Ebay as well,I wont be doing that any more.

Its a collection,its not as if I rely on the money,Ebay was just a handy place to dispose of what I didnt want.Ive stopped listing as much as I did,well actually Ive virtually stopped listing on Ebay and have moved to listing elsewhere because I'm not too bothered if it sells or not.Its not like I'm a business that needs cashflow.The listings that are still there can stay,offer me whatever you want.

As far as I can see the people who will lose out are business sellers,that microwave I might have got on Ebay with my Ebay balance ?  I would rather spend it on Amazon,in fact I just did.

I dont think I'm alone thinking like this,in fact reading the boards I realise I'm just one of probably millions.

Am I bothered if Ebay crashes and burns ? no I'm not ,they probably deserve it.

I do find it mildly amusing that they think that trying to copy Vinted is the way ahead,the market leader gets so lost is starts to copy a rival thats come up so fast on the rails its caught them napping,and in doing so forgets the core values that drew people  to ebay for in the first place.

Me?..well theres always Etsy,Delcampe,Ebid,postcard fairs and as a last resort the local Auction house for whats left.Its a pretty extensive list when you are not relying on the money and you just want to move it all on before you croak and your kids have to deal with it all !

[goldenwolfman]

sensible post, I too am a collector, but won’t be collecting here anymore. That is unless the bottom has fallen out of the market for certain items - which a couple I’ve seen go it may have done so. Is that an indication that they’ve lost buyers, think they have. As for selling inexpensive items like postcards, stamps and many other cheap items that fools like me collect, they have certainly culled the sellers and the items at a stroke. That’s inflated prices and they are cheaper now elsewhere!

But no consideration has been given to their ‘new tax’ - they don’t seem to know what the hell they are doing??? Neither do they seem to care!

As stated they are taxing the hell out of cheap items - 20% effectively on items below £5 - crazy. So they all leave and go elsewhere - or become business sellers, LOL. My stamp collection deserves better!!!

I noted yesterday that Vinted were emailing me telling me I could now sell collectibles and stamps - so they now seem to be promoting themselves on a larger scale to obey sellers. They are coming after a bigger percentage of your once great market obey - it can only end in tears and it serves you right!

[kath3735_wxmjn]

i think you will find the majority of genuine private sellers are also buyers.   I for one have bought several items in the past few weeks (sometimes i go months without buying anything), all with a BPF.  It has not bothered me at all because i got the items i wanted within the price frame i was wanting to pay.  Maybe different for someone buying the usual postcards/coins etc where there are masses of the same items on sale but then again all those sellers will have the same problem and they will either drop their price, stay the same or leave.  Whatever they do the buyer will basically still have to pay the same type of pricing or go elsewhere if they can find  such a large market place for their needs.  One thing most complainers do not seem to take into account is the general economic condition at the moment.  Do not know about anyone else but the past two months i have struggled to pay my electric bill and that is only one large item.  Take into account also all the shopping going up and you have the perfect storm for e bay selling!

[kath3735_wxmjn]

they always say 'truth hurts', you must be hurting really badly!  Just because people say truths that you do not want to hear does not make them 'bootlickers' means they have the sense to see things for what they are.

[1956glyn]

Ok........a bit of positivity 🙂

Generally my items are selling well and i am being paid out 2 days after tracked delivery 🙂  Yes my tracking is updating property (at the minute anyhow)

and to add.....yes i would buy if what i want is at a reasonable price even with the additional charge 

[kath3735_wxmjn]

oh for goodness sake!  People start companies to make money, they get shareholders who also want to make money.  These people put their money into companies always at a risk.  You use the platform with very little risk to your income.  You may have to pay a fee but it is a service and they always have fees/charges of some kind.   Do you expect something for nothing.   Who cares if you have been on e bay forever, what difference does it make.  You used the service at whatever the cost was because that was what it was - a service not a charity.   Of course we do not like changes and quite rightly complain about them but so many are going over the top here. 

[theelench]

One reason there are few complaints on the Buyer Board is probably because there are so few buyers these days.

I can dimly remember when ebay was fun but now it takes someone else to mention it before I can.

The fact is that ebay was once useful to collectors, easy to use and no matter what one collected, it could be found on ebay. 

Then ebay started messing with the search.  Results were streamlined, results from 'unfruitful' categories were not shown.  Un-promoted listings shoved to the back of the visibility queue.  But the worst mistake of all (IMO) was when ebay decided that rarer items visibility should be curtailed because they don't sell very often and have no sales history,  hiding the very items that avid collectors are searching for.

Then we had the disaster that is IS.  A project that's still incomplete, is still useless to try to search with and is still guaranteed to show anything but what is being searched for.

That's just some of what now makes ebay useless to me as a buyer.

As a Private seller I've been pushed further and further away from the intuitive, easy to use, un-complicated formats designed with ordinary people in mind.  Now I would have to struggle through page after page of a complicated, designed for businesses morass of stuff I just don't need or want.

So here we have todays ebay, over complicated for my needs, top heavy with businesses pushing private sellers into the background, my buyers disappearing because they can't find anything to buy (although google can).  My Selling pages haunted by Watching vultures (probably business re-sellers buying on private accounts) but few, if any real collectors.  My sales have gone from several a week in '13 to 4 in the whole of '24.

Even this board has changed.  Years ago I would get into lively and (mostly) friendly discussions between listing items on Sunday mornings, with a mix of business and private sellers where both would be heard and respected.  Now almost every thread is derailed, private sellers have almost gone and can you blame them when it's more like an on-going witch hunt than a discussion board.

I gave up on ebay last November.  I'm just hanging around to see how the story ends when SD hits the fan and if it provokes a massive re-appraisal.  Sadly I have to say I doubt it will happen.

[kath3735_wxmjn]

so how have you 'been unable to continue to use the ebay platform safely'?  That does not make much sense as it stands.  

[andha-21]

"I for one have bought several items in the past few weeks (sometimes i go months without buying anything), all with a BPF. "

Not trying to speak for all collectors, just myself as I imagine I may be at the extreme end. But there's a completely different scale of purchasing between your example and mine. Without an exact check I'd guess I was averaging 10-20 purchases a week for my hobbies. & Warhammer can get expensive real fast. 

Since I stopped selling, I stopped buying. Without the first I can't afford to do the second.

[faceache65]

eBay recently changed how you describe clothing condition 

What they didn't say was that all conditions would change to good automatically. 

All my clothes for sale are excellent condition or new. 

Last night I realised this and tried to change the condition using the bulk edit option.

None of my updates changed and I spent an unpleasant 1.5 hours changing each listing. 

It was very frustrating.

eBay really don't care about their customers. Doing everything halfway.  They've become a very lazy company.

[gccomics22]

Exactly this the bootlicks are out in force and love everything that Fee bay do .

[effing_wif_figs]

One of them on the thread now throwing around 'the truth hurts' and other buzz phrases without actually saying what 'the truth is' while harping on that they still bought several items over the past few weeks. Not realising people like us were buying that a day and now aren't because we're not seeing the sales of our own stuff. 

[effing_wif_figs]

By the way. Love that TMNT #3. I used to have a big ungraded collection of Mirage stuff but sold it on here when they put out the hardbacks. 

[gccomics22]

It`s my pride and joy ,but as I am basically running everything down and closing ,everything must go sadly no sales no buys used to be great selling and then upgrading my collection ,I got rid of the vast majority of Mirage years ago ,wish I`d saved a few to be honest .

[gccomics22]

I will never buy on here again and will probably sell all my comics in bulk ,collecting since late 80`s ,and spent a small fortune on Fee Bay ,no more ,when PayPal was removed it was the beginning of the end .Still the happy clappers will find something to praise or tell you to be a business .

[gccomics22]

I`m not sure they realise the actual problem is they are removing the buyers in bulk ,as a collector all I did was buy after selling never about profit am not and never will be a business ,I know that a lot of genuine private sellers are doing the same ,the worse thing they could have ever done is destroy faith in the buying community ,that`s what will affect the Business sellers in the long run not just random buyers browsing for a bargain I was a regular buyer pretty much exclusively from business comic sellers because they were the guys with the comics I wanted .End Game .

[goldenwolfman]

Actually I said, they have lost buyers... and with less buyers, there will be less sellers.. knock on, less buyers, less interest and eventually stagnation. Not got there - YET, give it time.

The 'agent provocateurs' that frequent these boards have intent to make everything look rosy and essential to this 'new world Obey ethos' - make money, be safe and pay for the privilege - twice if at all possible (oh it is possible - I forgot). Don't sell cheap, because it's not profitable and we don't want you! In fact too many 'private sellers' who were really always business sellers in disguise ...I'm still laughing! As if Obey did not know a private seller who had 50k items in his garden shed and yet had to divert the goods through its Chinese emporium! Or the extension of Screwfix that happened to have bought too many and needed to rid the surplus! IF I could not recognise a real business seller in private guise then time I retired.

However I've seen collectors of all sorts branded 'business' because they had 2,000 stamps, postcards, beer mats, badges, cheap jewellery, bus tickets, banana labels (yes I knew someone), or other items like a pez (is this where we came in??)  for sale. Forget Star Wars and Dr Who - these might be worth selling, however no longer worth it here. In fact no point looking for hidden bargains, like when I purchased some Hard Rock Cafe Staff pins back in the early years for a pittance because they were so badly listed. Stop looking its as rare as rocking horse Sh1. But we do have AI to assist with badly written meaningless drivel.

So the purge hit the cheap sales ...and it left the not so cheap items, in fact the downright expensive items, because they've culled those little collectors and left businesses who are not so much involved in selling low as making a good profit - essential to every day business! BUT those little sellers were your buyers business sellers, do try to keep up as your degree in business studies is making you look as useful as a chocolate fireguard - but then again ideally qualified to work for Obey at the top level...

Never mind, I'm waiting for this immensely profitable organisation to realise it cannot pay a good return on its investors stock and then we'll see just how blue chip they really may become?