Title: eBay Is an Absolute Embarrassment — Run by Greedy, Out-of-Touch Dinosaurs

eBay is hands down the worst selling platform on the internet today. It’s a bloated, broken system run by corporate parasites who haven’t evolved in over a decade. They don’t give a single damn about sellers — especially resellers — the very people who built this platform from the ground up.

Let’s be real: their metrics system is a joke. Outdated, irrelevant, and punishes sellers for things they have zero control over. A buyer doesn’t pay? Your fault. Delivery delay caused by the courier? Your fault. You could be running a perfect store, but one wrong move and they’ll tank your performance. It’s pathetic.

The new delivery posting interface is straight trash. Confusing, inefficient, and clearly made by people who have never sold a single thing in their lives. It’s like they went out of their way to make it worse.

And then there’s the Promoted Listings scam. You’re basically forced to pay eBay to get seen — but joke’s on us, because even when you do, it barely works. You hand over more of your profit for less visibility. No keyword control, no targeting, no insight. Just a black hole that eats your money and gives you nothing back. It’s daylight robbery.

eBay isn’t a marketplace anymore — it’s a greedy, bloodsucking machine. They want maximum profit with minimum effort. Seller support is non-existent. Feedback systems are broken. Their customer service is scripted nonsense. And the people running it? Useless. If I were a shareholder, I’d fire every single exec, bulldoze the boardroom, and start over.

They’ve forgotten one basic truth: without sellers, eBay is nothing. But like every other soulless corporation, they’ve traded community for cash grabs. And now they’re bleeding users and still too arrogant to care.

If you're thinking of selling on eBay — don't waste your time. There are better platforms out there that don’t treat you like trash while rinsing your pockets.

eBay is finished. And they did it to themselves.

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Re: Title: eBay Is an Absolute Embarrassment — Run by Greedy, Out-of-Touch Dinosaurs

Agreed …. A successful business HAS to have good staff and a loyal, looked after customer base.

eBay have most certainly not got the later !!!

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Re: Title: eBay Is an Absolute Embarrassment — Run by Greedy, Out-of-Touch Dinosaurs

Agree with all you say.I am shortly closing down my ebay account of 2000+ listings.Absolutly no help from these guys if you have a problem just a stock standard automated reply.I don't want to use their greedy money making simple delivery when Royal Mail costs me less.As for EVRI they could not find the right delivery address most of the time.Maybe their partnership suits them as they are both absolute trite.

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Re: Title: eBay Is an Absolute Embarrassment — Run by Greedy, Out-of-Touch Dinosaurs

I damn well hate ebay they put massive restrictions on people and ask the earth they can SOD OFF. *bleep*S

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Re: Title: eBay Is an Absolute Embarrassment — Run by Greedy, Out-of-Touch Dinosaurs

you are totally right in everything you say, i pretty much gave the same feedback yesterday, my sales tanked when they brought in this new promote scam,so i changed all my listings to the dynamic option,   when i look at the fees i was paying i don’t even cover the costs of materials, so i have changed it back to 2% raised all my prices so i doubt anything will sell and porting everything back to etsy where i started and will close my ebay store in the next few weeks. 

The question i have is let’s say 1000 sellers all selling similar items and promote there listings at 20%, what determines who gets the top spot, some one is still going to be paying 20% promotion yet still is 999 ranked in the list. 

i reckon that creating your own website, driving traffic through google ads and social media will still be cheaper than selling on ebay albeit a bit more work, but as of now i too think ebay is a joke. 

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Re: Title: eBay Is an Absolute Embarrassment — Run by Greedy, Out-of-Touch Dinosaurs

I totally get where you're coming from. It sounds like you've seen both the highs and lows of eBay’s evolution, and how it’s become more of a corporate entity than the open, accessible marketplace it once was. The shift from feeling like a “community” to more of a “business” environment is frustrating for a lot of long-time users like myself who remember when eBay had more of a personal touch.

 

Platforms like Facebook Marketplace and AliExpress do offer a refreshing change in that sense, giving people more autonomy and, in many cases, a bit more control over what they’re doing, without the overhead costs and rigid rules that eBay seems to be enforcing. That flexibility can be huge, especially for people who are selling secondhand goods or smaller items that might get lost in the shuffle on bigger, more corporate platforms.

 

It also sounds like you appreciate being able to diversify your options and adapt to where things are working best for you, whether that’s through lower fees or just a more relaxed atmosphere for buying and selling. It’s really about finding the right balance between cost, ease of use, and community feel.

 

How do you feel about the future of e-commerce? Do you think more platforms will follow eBay’s path, or are we at a tipping point where smaller, niche platforms might offer something more user-friendly?

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Re: Title: eBay Is an Absolute Embarrassment — Run by Greedy, Out-of-Touch Dinosaurs

Not entirely sure how AliExpress offers more autonomy for "people who are selling secondhand goods or smaller items that might get lost in the shuffle on bigger, more corporate platforms."

Especially given that AliExpress is one of biggest and most corporate platforms out there and isn't for secondhand goods.

 

Judging by the rest of the post, your next prompt should be "ChatGPT, why did you even mention AliExpress in this context?"

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Re: Title: eBay Is an Absolute Embarrassment — Run by Greedy, Out-of-Touch Dinosaurs

Exactly my thoughts.... I'm happy to take the risk of non-delivery by Royal Mail, by covering the cost myself... cheaper than increasing my price by including tracking costs.  Now I've been told by eBay that my seller status will be gradually reduced until I'm banned if I don;t get everything tracked. I'm already fed up with the red-tape of selling on eBay.... and the awful back-office rigmarole which among other things means I can't download my orders account to a spreadsheet. It's even reached the point where an email 'notification of sale' does not say how many of an item the customer is paying for (and that's apart from the pidgin English  in the script) Sadly I;ve been a happy seller for nearly 20 years

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Re: Title: eBay Is an Absolute Embarrassment — Run by Greedy, Out-of-Touch Dinosaurs

Well said.

Message 48 of 49
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Re: Title: eBay Is an Absolute Embarrassment — Run by Greedy, Out-of-Touch Dinosaurs

Pardon me for 'hijacking' the thread but in my view, ebay are slowly destroying themselves from the inside. I fully agree there would not be an ebay without sellers, but there also wouldn't be an ebay without buyers.

 

As a buyer you cannot give negative feedback on a blatantly fake item - it's automatically removed. Plus the business seller is given a positive review by the ebay bot  so another fake.  There needs to be a certain element of trust between seller and buyer and this is being eroded by ebay themselves.

 

Amazon went through a while ago the fake goods problem and took positive action to sort it out. Ebay are simply not interested instead adding a few pennies here and there to keep their income stable whilst alienating both sellers and buyers.   

 

The solution is simple. Employ the correct staff and start taking the business seriously rather than a quick money making buck for today as if things continue as they are then they won't have a business.

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