NO LONGER SELLING DUE TO SIMPLE DELIVERY

[rugbyguy1960]

AS OF 15TH APRIL MY DAYS AS A PRIVATE EBAY SELLER WILL STOP AFTER 19 YEARS.

I AM FED UP OF THE GREED OF EBAY AND I HOPE OTHER EBAY SELLERS DECIDE TO NO LONGER LET THE EBAY CONTROL FREAKS HAVE THIS MUCH CONTROL OVER PRIVATE SELLERS.

[akemp1]

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@sml192 wrote:

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Sellers are always responsible for the accuracy of the description and photos in their listings.  

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I think that concept is becoming increasingly unsafe now that sellers are unable to complete details such as the estimated arrival date. There's an argument that ebay could be broadly misrepresenting the likely arrival dates on many listings for which the seller should not be held responsible because it's not something they either entered or approved. Arguably ebay have acted in deliberate violation of a seller's declared dispatch time so are completely liable for the failure.

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Distance Selling Regulations (now Consumer Contracts Regulations)  and the Consumer Rights Act do not apply to purchases from private sellers.  Buyers have very few statutory rights when purchasing from private sellers.

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Ebay might not want to publicly admit it but because they are now charging the mandatory protection fee the buyer is now buying the item from both ebay and the private seller so it's might no longer be an exempt transaction with a private seller as a business is also party to the sale. So maybe ebay should be telling the buyer they have full consumer rights even if they haven't backed that off with the private seller that just means it's ebay's untransferred liability.

[akemp1]

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@rugbyguy1960 wrote:

The other really annoying thing here now is getting ridiculous notifications regarding how important leaving feedback is.

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When browsing to buy I've noted that ebay have started sending me emails when I get sent seller offers (previously it would just be a phone app notification) and I'm ok with that but then the bizarre thing is that in their desperation to drive sales ebay are then sending me another email a few days later when the seller offer expires, on an item that I wasn't interested enough to buy or engage the seller on at the offered price, telling me other options to buy the item that I'm still not interested in. It used to be you would only get seller offers on items you had favourited but now if you browse the listing twice it can happen.

Still it's worse on the clothing platform where if you favourite an item the seller gets notified with your username and starts sending you personal messages pushing you to buy it. I wish there was a way to anonymously favourite things there as it stops me favouriting things to avoid the unwanted engagement.

[nursediesel]

I havent sold or bought on Ebay since this fiasco. Do they still tell you to leave buyer feedback but take you to a page with just one button that says positive?  Keep flying high Ebay UK!

[crn303]

Many years ago, before Royal Mail this service was known as GPO (General Post Office) by appointment of Her Majesty’s Service.

I can ensure everyone that contracts were unheard of.  Their normal commerce deal for good size companies was Franked Mail (slightly discounted postage rate) and the afternoon collection of it.

Plc’s did not have contracts.  Back then, GPO as a public service had very little competition from other delivery companies. Remember couriers in small vans and motorcycles.

For anyone to suggest 40% off delivery charges from the GPO to Plc’s is being lacking in the truth and should stick to to actual fact.

[crn303]

Yes nursediesel the feedback sitcom remains as you left it.

Once promoted by eBay, feedback carries very little clout these days.
How can it have much of a purpose or use these days with restricted comment allowed.

At this present time, eBay have other damaging concerns to address.  Just read these ongoing threads which carry so much negativity.

[akemp1]

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@nursediesel wrote:

I havent sold or bought on Ebay since this fiasco. Do they still tell you to leave buyer feedback but take you to a page with just one button that says positive?  Keep flying high Ebay UK!

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I don't know as years ago I set it up to do it automatically as soon as they have paid. I figured you can't leave bad feedback anyway and false-positive comments might work against you so it makes no difference. The feedback system is now only an indication of how much ebay experience you have not if you are a good buyer or not. It still serves some use in identifying the really bad sellers who for some unknown reason persist using an account with a high proportion of awful feedback.

[goodibags]

"I wish there was a way to anonymously favourite things there as it stops me favouriting things to avoid the unwanted engagement"

One possible solution is just to bookmark the page. That way you don't even need to login to view the item. The downside is you can end up with a lot of bookmarks. Japanese sellers of toy cars tend to cancel and relist quite regularly for some reason.

[gmij1961]

 "The Buyer Protection Fee is mainly intended to cover the costs of secure payment processing so cannot be made optional. "

This isn't the 1st time this has been quoted on this forum as to me its a pretty ludicrous statement . 

Ebay have been processing such secure payment since they moved away from Paypal and that pre dates BPF by a long time .  Ebays cost in that respect have simply not changed so it really can't be quoted as a valid  reason to charge BPF . Ebay operating as a virtual bank is to Ebay's financial benefit and to be fair to Ebay when they did make that change sellers no longer paid a 4% Paypal handling charge .  

Ebay by selling the buyer postage which is how SD works mean Ebay as business are responsible for the loss of that package and that that is significant element of true buyer protection and if they need to make it clear to the buyer.  Saying that it pays for CS support or to cover such costs is  quite frankly rubbish !

I would disagree that the private seller were not subject to distance selling  if sending items , if the buyer paid them for a postage service . The exception is if the buyer arranged a courier   (which  is kind of what SD does now ) or the buyer collects in person .  If items are not sold as new,  the condition is sold as seen and unless the description is misleading there is minimal comeback for the buyer. 

My overall point was changes to Ebays' operational model  SD and BPF makes significant changes to the point that private sellers are now in reality selling their item to Ebay and Ebay sell it on directly to the buyer .  If that is the case the buyer contract is no longer with private seller it is with Ebay as a business which gives the buyer an extra level of protection and further negates the value or need for  BPF . 

Whilst that point may be open to debate , the buyer seller relationship was very clear prior to all these changes where it has become a mess since . As much as SD is a very good reason for not selling in the 1st place  ,  all of it makes selling anything off any value on Ebay significantly more risky !

[department28]

'My position is that SD has cost ebay my loyalty to their platform and I'm now playing the field using whatever platform makes most sense for buying and selling items.' 

Loyalty can take a long time to earn - but once earned, it makes sense, surely, to value and build on that loyalty? It feels like eBay are doing the opposite, by introducing things that are alienating and discouraging the original, die hard eBayer. Either they no longer want 'small' sellers, so are not bothered if we leave - or they took it for granted that we will stay loyal, come what may...

Either way, it's clear eBay wants to distance itself from how it used to be - which is disappointing for those of us that liked how things were... the unique look & feel of the place, before all the sponsored/promoted stuff, the freedom from eBay & AI interference, the superior functioning of the site, more auctions, collectibles & unusual stuff, less of the cheap, same-as-everywhere-else stuff. Sadly, it looks more like an online supermarket these days... pared-down, functional - and flooded with 'marketplace' tat.

I think we're now all aware that if we don't like what eBay has become, we have to call it a day/go elsewhere. Sooner or later, things will go full circle - if anyone still cares by then... 😄

[akemp1]

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@goodibags wrote:

One possible solution is just to bookmark the page. That way you don't even need to login to view the item. The downside is you can end up with a lot of bookmarks. Japanese sellers of toy cars tend to cancel and relist quite regularly for some reason.

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Thanks but managing a collection of bookmark links is so late 90s does anyone really do that anymore or do we just search again and/or rely on watchlists, autocomplete or browsing our cached browsing history? I guess if I really wanted an item then I could bookmark it but there''s probably nothing I want that much.

[akemp1]

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@department28 wrote:

'Loyalty can take a long time to earn - but once earned, it makes sense, surely, to value and build on that loyalty? It feels like eBay are doing the opposite, by introducing things that are alienating and discouraging the original, die hard eBayer. Either they no longer want 'small' sellers, so are not bothered if we leave - or they took it for granted that we will stay loyal, come what may...

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Well I'm still loyal to this forum but that's only because the other places I buy and sell don't seem to have forums. I am active on 2 other forums about other topics unrelated to e-commerce (is that still a word?).

The activity on ebay is so interrelated it must be hard for them to model 'what if' scenarios to determine what will impacts if they change something. Like if they decide the low value sales are unprofitable do they hike the fees and make people signup elsewhere as we have done and then that starts affecting the higher value transactions, etc.

The best answer is probably the simplest which is to focus on providing a marketplace which is both price competitive and meets the needs of users and profit from the vast economies of scale rather than irritating everyone introducing extra profit grabs and inconveniences to motivate them to hate and resent ebay and use other sites.

[vinylscot]

I did not state "many years ago" - 

I stated "a number of years ago".

The GPO was abolished in 1969, and I certainly wasn't referring to a time that far in the past. I may be getting on a bit, but....

Since then, what is now Royal Mail has operated under a number of different names, but, as you know, that's not really the point.

I 100% stand by what I wrote in that post. Although our smaller premises would have had franking machines, the bulk of our mail went in envelopes, printed with first class or second class postage details. I'm not sure if we bought the envelopes direct from RM (or whatever they were called at the time), but I do know that our saving was over 40%.

[department28]

'One possible solution is just to bookmark the page. That way you don't even need to login to view the item. The downside is you can end up with a lot of bookmarks...'

I have so many bookmarks... by the time I've scrolled all the way down to the bottom, half the day's gone... 😴

@akemp1 'Thanks but managing a collection of bookmark links is so late 90s does anyone really do that anymore...' 

🤣

[technthread]

If you mean the site I think you mean, go to privacy settings you can turn that feature off so you can favourite items anonymously 👍

[crn303]

NO ONE RECEIVED 40% DISCOUNT OFF ROYAL MAIL “A NUMBER IF YEARS AGO”.

A FALSE STATEMENT.

[crn303]

Hello and good posting reply, moonlight … As many of us are aware,  people that come on these postings stating “facts” about eBay are lacking in truth.

[dunstun365]

Yes i just found that out to my cost when I was way overcharged for a SD postage label when my listing/s were freepost. To stop this in future I had to reset my listings to charge postage separately 

[dunstun365]

but tracked wont work for low value items buyers quite rightly don't want to pay that and many aren't in to receive tracked L letters

[dunstun365]

If you charge postage separately you don't need to send tracked but is that still SD?  I bought cheapest 2nd class postage labels on ebay

[vinylscot]

You can continue to say "black" every time I say "white".

It doesn't make you right.