Very interesting to read your take, on how you've responded to all the crazy changes to eBay of late, as both a buyer and seller, and, more interestingly, how you've found yourself feeling about your responses. It is to eBay's great shame, that it seems, you are way less bothered about it, than perhaps even you thought you'd be. Finding other ways, to source items that used to be littered all over eBay, for fair prices, is something we would all do naturally - when one avenue closes off, in pretty much all aspects of life, we will find other avenues open to us.
Surely, all this is something their project teams would have talked about, when incepting, and most saliently BEFORE implementing, the various, inane, and, for most of us, intolerable changes to the site, how it works and we interact with it? Or, maybe, they don't have project teams - there is no bank of contracted business analysts, guiding their processes, procedures and protocols? It certainly seems that way. I have some experience in the IT arena, working as a project co-ordinator, user acceptance tester, some of my role at one company was more like a junior business analyst - I have, as only a buyer, been driven slowly round the twist, with all the changes to the interface - there is less functionality than there was - I mean, removing the search bar from Purchase History, has killed my repeat buying from sellers going back years - I am not trawling through years of purchases, to find one seller!
Also changed for the worse, the ways of doing business with sellers - who, it seems, have become jaded - in fact, my negative experiences with sellers in the last two years or so, have led me to do a lot less business on here. I no longer buy multiple items from anyone; being stung by people saying they combine postage, then charge an exorbitant rate, has happened more times than I have fingers in the last year - these singed fingers will play that game no more! I recently had a seller mess me about, having no intention of completing the sale on eBay, of three bags I won fair & square; she failed to invoice me, told a load of lies, then asked me to go on Vinted to buy them - so she could avoid eBay fees, no doubt. I will not throw over my integrity, I will not risk suspension, or termination of my eBay account, in breaching eBay terms by buying off-site. Bang goes buyer protection, for a start - and, how much more would she have listed the bags for, on Vinted, I don't care to know?!
It is clear, to all of us, buyers and sellers, eBay is just not what it used to be; there can't be much profit in it for them, with us all turning away in droves, so, I wonder, if this has all been done, to drive down the value of the business, in readiness for some financial cheat or work-around in the market? I dunno, nor do I care...
I have not been to a car boot sale in yonks, thank you, for reminding me they are still a thing! I love, that at a car boot, you can see, feel & smell the item (one eBay seller sent a top that stank to high-heaven of cigarettes - I ended up chucking it away, 16 GBP down the drain!); you can make an offer - haggle, without having to enter card details that won't verify; you can get a measure of the seller, as they are standing right in front of you; AND, they won't sting you on postage for multiple purchases - win-win-WIN! I have felt sad about how down the drain eBay has gone, but, like you, I have just gone elsewhere, mostly to the South American Jungle, but, also other sites, and I'm coping just fine with that. Soz, eBay, but, you lose.
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