eBay Shafting the Sellers Even More in 2009

[VegasVince]

Yeah...Ebay sucks for sellers.

But the fact is, Ebay doesn't owe you or me...a living.

Last I checked...the right to sell on Ebay wasn't listed in the Bill Of Rights either.

Fact is, you'se can bitch about it..or move on.

Cuz if enough people do.....Ebay will have no choice but to react to "the market".

That's the beauty of free market enterprise... by the way......it's ultimately fair. A true litmus test for what is real and what aint.

Those who can..do. Those who can't...often bitch about the former. I gave up bitchin' about ebay and the corrupt step sister PayPal a long time ago. Why bother?

I am a former Ebay Powerseller who dropped them like a bad habit after they jumped in bed with PayPal a company I think is evil...and corrupt on many levels.

I choose not to play ball with either of them anymore......but the show has and does go on. I keep selling. With or without those two bastards helping me.

Never give any third party entity.... the kind of power over you that Ebay and PayPal seem to hold over far too many otherwise "smart" Warriors in this joint.

xxx Vegas Vince
Legend.

[Rupps]

I still sell on ebay. Until recently just a few things here or there. I have a store mostly thhat runs on autopilot. With the store I hardly make any sales becuase I do not run auctions to get people to my store. Every time I try that I lose money (this store sell inexpensive items).

I've recently started selling more expensive items, but with the current economy prices are down a little and what once was a sure sale is no longer but it brings a boatload of people to my website which is a decent trade-off.

I really should start using one of the alternatives. Until they get more listers they won't be able to advertise properly to go after ebays near monopoly, but it can happen (remember Yahoo being #1).

[Charles E. White]

Here's the bottom line, when eBay put all the new rules on us in 2008, we should have boycotted them. We didn't!

Now they have more stupid policies in 2009, will we boycott them in 2009? I doubt it and if we don't they will add even more stupid rules in 2010. All against the sellers on eBay!

So, did their wonderful new rules add more revenue for them in 2008? Not according to them......sales were down in 2008. Will these new rules make a difference in 2009? Yep, still lower sales because of less sellers. Will eBay change anything? I doubt it unless they get a new CEO.

[Golelen]

My sales on e-bay have tanked since they put the digital ban into place. Using Auction Acrobat to automate my delivery process has eaten up my profits significantly. My response to these changes has been to just put the shipping costs into the price of the item and offer free shipping. The people pay if they like the item or not if they don't.

This is why I work on multiple streams of income. If one stream trickles down, the others are still paying. It's risk avoidance through diversifications and that is just sound investing strategy. Nothing to get worked up about. It's just another day at the office.

[schabotte]

There is no question that eBay is radically changing the way they do business.

There is nothing wrong with that. It is their business after all and they certainly have the right to pursue the business model that they fell will give them the most success going forward.

As an eBay seller, you also have the right to adapt or leave.

The unfortunate thing for me as an eBay seller is adapting means investing time and energy learning what changes have occurred, adapting my listings and strategies, finding out which eBay changes actually work and which don't or have been released too soon (like the often spotty best match results.)

And then it means doing it again when the next round of changes come around.

I still sell there but it is no longer an area where I concentrate a great deal of time and effort because I've decided that my time is much better invested in opening new markets for my products than in adapting to eBay once again.

---

On, one positive thing about the latest round of changes is that my fees have dropped quite a bit on a percentage basis so my profit per sale has actually increased. Unfortunately, the current model has resulted in less sales so my total net from eBay has dropped from this round of changes.

[nichewebstrategies]

I will admit that selling on eBay has gotten a lot harder to make a profit. I was selling a lot of stuff last year during the holiday season, mostly older toys. There was a store that was going out of business in my area that had 70's and 80's toys still in the box that I bought for really cheap and made a ton of money on.

I tried selling some additional stuff this year and I wasn't getting nearly the demand or price for it. This was pre economy woes.

As an affiliate, I have several eBay affiliate sites that do really well. As a test case, I took one of my sites and did a PPC campaign with Google Adwords and Yahoo Marketing in December. I started this the 2nd week in December and as of the 31st, I had made $1050.00 in profit. Not bad for just one niche over 2 weeks.

I don't plan on selling much on eBay anymore, but I am enjoying some success with the affiliate program. As phase 2 of my test case, I am going to let the same PPC campaigns run through the month of Jan to compare.

So far it is going well.

[Alton Hargrave]

I sell or try to sell on Ebay too. The sales dropped when they made us mail the cds instead of giving people digital downloads. I still send the instant digital downloads, but also mail the cd. I make up the cd along with the label and envelope myself and charge 3 dollars to mail within the USA. I think that fairly covers my material cost and postage. But, it is stupid to do things that way. That is not what the sellers OR the buyers want. Why should they be interfering?

I know there are lots of alternative sites out there, but are any of them going to make that many sales? What do you guys suggest? My suggestions to Ebay about their policies are shrugged off. They are determined to trash their company like so many other companies have done lately.

[bio prez]

i think eBay is creating a recipe for disaster with all these changes...problem is that there is not any comparable alternative right now to use...

[Charles E. White]

Well, I shut down my eBay Store today and will no longer be a powerseller soon since I'm not listing anything there to sell. It's kind of funny, I feel like I lost an old friend but the damn friend was shafting me, so overtime it won't be a big loss, I guess.

I am going to try bonanzle for awhile and see how it does. I added google page rank on fire fox or foxfire (whatever it is) and it says eBay is only 5 of 10. That's not very good at all. Wonder if that is correct?
I also did Bonanzle and it says it is 4 of 10. So, we'll see how it does.

[Alton Hargrave]

I setup a shop (booth) on Bonanzle too. They are really user friendly. Importing all my 43 items from Ebay was a snap. But, since I never heard of them until yesterday, I wonder how many people will visit there. Replacing Ebay may mean setting up shop at several other auction sites.

Has anyone had any luck with an Amazon shop? My experience with them has not been worthwhile so far. And, their site is not that easy to use.

[adamv]

Originally Posted by Scott Ames

Wow.. I didn't know this.


I used to pop a nice bonus book or something extra in the package for customers, but now with the shipping police I"m sure that has to stop.

Originally Posted by valftyli

I used to pop a nice bonus book or something extra in the package for customers, but now with the shipping police I"m sure that has to stop.

Is there an echo in here? If you want to pad your post count could you be a little more creative than copying and pasting from Scotts post?

[zigstonk]

Great day! You can't ask your sellers to absorb shipping costs (particularly when you still get your cut)!

[askloz]

Originally Posted by Charles E. White

Beginning 2009:
They are now telling you how much to charge on shipping.
This doesn't work, I had a heavy book I wanted to send media mail, the cheapest way for the customer and the most I could charge was $4.00. I had to pay the rest just to ship it.

What's your DSR score? 4.5? 4.8? or higher?
Higher it is, the less you're charged.
Longer you've been with them, less you're charged.
More sales you make per month, the less you're charged.
100% feedback rating, less you're charged
Be a power seller, less your charged
higher your star icon is, less your charged.
and several other factors.

*** the thing about the shipping costs, you can charge what ever you want. It's not just shipping, it's Shipping & HANDLING, shipping is one fee, handling is another, though most, including myself, don't charge handling fee.

Your best bet, is if you keep having these problems, put the extra fee on top of your initial bid price. problem solved

Start it at 0.99 cents, and set a reserve price. That way, you can sell it to the next highest bidder if you want and protect yourself from losing your account if you don't deliver it cos you only had one bidder at 99 cents.

Originally Posted by Charles E. White

Checks and money orders no longer allowed

Well, I spoke to an ebay staff, and I said if it was ok to receive a check, they said it was ok. I told the person who bought an expensive item from me ($400 or so), that I wont send it until it's been cashed.


I understand that you're a powerseller, but hey, i'm not being forced to do anything like you mention.

Are these just for the items you listed above, cos the items i sell are electronic ones.

[Charles E. White]

Originally Posted by askloz

What's your DSR score? 4.5? 4.8? or higher?
Higher it is, the less you're charged.
Longer you've been with them, less you're charged.
More sales you make per month, the less you're charged.
100% feedback rating, less you're charged
Be a power seller, less your charged
higher your star icon is, less your charged.
and several other factors.

*** the thing about the shipping costs, you can charge what ever you want. It's not just shipping, it's Shipping & HANDLING, shipping is one fee, handling is another, though most, including myself, don't charge handling fee.

Your best bet, is if you keep having these problems, put the extra fee on top of your initial bid price. problem solved

Start it at 0.99 cents, and set a reserve price. That way, you can sell it to the next highest bidder if you want and protect yourself from losing your account if you don't deliver it cos you only had one bidder at 99 cents.



Well, I spoke to an ebay staff, and I said if it was ok to receive a check, they said it was ok. I told the person who bought an expensive item from me ($400 or so), that I wont send it until it's been cashed.


I understand that you're a powerseller, but hey, i'm not being forced to do anything like you mention.

Are these just for the items you listed above, cos the items i sell are electronic ones.

Actually, your DSR is not according to anything you do. You're DSR goes down just because someone doesn't leave you any dsr at all. My feedback is 100% positive but my dsr is down and I don't get the discounts I should because people decide not to leave any dsr at all. Each time that happens your dsr goes down.

You must have a different deal than I do, I have been with them for years and my fees aren't any less than anyone who just started selling except for the 5%. They now do the powerseller discount according to your dsr, it is not my fault people don't leave me a dsr, there is no way I can control that but I get penalized for it by them.

Even with a 100% positive feedback I get a whopping 5% powerseller discount because my dsr is down, again, which I can't control whether people leave me a dsr rating or not. Before I reached powerseller level again my dsr was very high like 4.9 in all categories. Once I reached powerseller it went to to below 4.5 in some categories almost overnight. I think it is just another con game by eBay! The reason I say that is only one person that day even left me feedback so why would my dsr go down so much from one person, even if they left no dsr at all?

[Shane F]

I feel your pain! I used to make good supplemental income on ebay. $1000 a month range, now its too saturated and I only use it to unload junk. I've had better success or higher profits using craigslist if your willing to put up with the emails and phone calls from buyers.

[forest1]

Hello

I know this is an old post but reading about the ebay problems I thought I would make a suggestion I used to turnover about £8000 per month on ebay now its down to about £500, for those that dont know amazon is a fantastic place to sell, this stopped my business from going broke, I know their fees arent great but we seem to get a continual flow of orders and it does very well on products I could not shift anywhere else, I hope this helps someone with ebay problems.

Ebay are shooting themselves in the foot and will pay the price in the end!

[Jenna Paulson]

Originally Posted by forest1

Hello

I know this is an old post but reading about the ebay problems I thought I would make a suggestion I used to turnover about £8000 per month on ebay now its down to about £500, for those that dont know amazon is a fantastic place to sell, this stopped my business from going broke, I know their fees arent great but we seem to get a continual flow of orders and it does very well on products I could not shift anywhere else, I hope this helps someone with ebay problems.

Ebay are shooting themselves in the foot and will pay the price in the end!

Good idea. How do you sell stuff on amazon if it doesnt fit in one of their categories though?

[Craig Fenton]

Hi Charles:

It is a shame that EBAY was able to build such a distance between themselves and all the competition combined. How many corporations do you know that have the luxury of knowing that your entire competition combined has less of a market share than you?

Coke has to battle Pepsi as well as others, Hertz and Avis fight it out, Ford, GM, etc.

For whatever reason EBAY captured the hearts and the wallets of buyers and sellers from the beginning. Each year those that buy/sell have less of a voice.

Hope the weekend will be great.

[Doctor Article]

While I never got banned from Ebay, I did stop selling a while back. Why? Because I simply can't be bothered kissing their backside all the time. Sure, I was making relatively good money but it was a constant pain.

One thing that is hurting Ebay to a certain extent, is the new launch of Auctiva Commerce. Auctiva has been used by Ebay sellers for ages and from the way I see it, they were waiting patiently to make their move. Already, thousands of Ebay sellers have shut their stores and are signing up with Auctiva Commerce. I've been invited but I just haven't had the time to dig deep enough yet.

Anyway, if you sell on Ebay, go and have sneak around Auctive Commerce. If I remember correctly, if you sign up now then you lock in the monthly charge and also, I think it's free through to the end of April.

Hope this helps some of you.............

[dsmpublishing]

i was often nicknamed the queen of ebay, i was at one point selling 2000 ebooks a day on there and have also sold lots of other things and made a very good living. But once i discovered how profitable it was to have websites i pretty much gave up on it.

i still sold a few things but more on your 50 sales a day scale.

then i was selling products last year and had the typical bad buyer experience the buyer hadnt paid and gave me a crap rating on the stupid star system with this ebay stopped all my auctions on the grounds that my selling status i.e bad customer feedback wasnt good enough (99.9%) 4.8/5 for my stars.

Then a week later they simply said we have re-opened your account and you should consider improving your relationship with your customers - what a nerve they have!

Then when i tried to list a dvd from personal use that i didnt like that i had purchased from woolworths before it went bust i was told it had been removed as it was a copied dvd - it even said in the listing where it came from.

Now there doesnt seem to be any say for sellers at all, these new postage costs dont surprise me at all.

Its just a shame its gone so downhill whatever happened to the ebay we used to all enjoy selling from?

[RedMatrix]

Downloadable products can't be BIDDED on anymore. You, the seller, have to create a Classified Ad and the cost is $9.95 for a 30 day run. You choose a "buy it now" price and that's it.
(You can't make it less days... AND YOU CAN'T GET FEEDBACK)

[mydavis3]

I know this is an old post but glad I found it. I was thinking about getting a store and know it doesn't seem like its worth it. It seem the seller is at the mercy of ebay and your pass history of 100% positive feedback, means nothing. All it takes is one stupid customer and their goes your rating.

I guest the only way to really make good money is to be a power seller or higher if you can ever there with all these changes.

[singleshooter]

I am with ebay from 2001. I was silver power seller. I closed my ebay store last year on November because ebay does'n care about seller anymore. Now I am using ecrater, bonanzle and ioffer. Much friendly environment. Amazon and craiglist are definitly better but too much competition for me. For me is better to be King among ****s as a **** among Kings.

[Mario Brown]

I gave up on Ebay 1 month ago.

I was selling Jerseys to Germany (I'm German living in the States) and It just wasn't profitable anymore, Ebay wants a too big piece of the cake.

I had to pay for listing, then after selling the product, I had to pay for Terapeak and paid for Supremeauctions.com, let alone the ebay shop.
Furthermore I had to give my customers shipping discounts because I was selling interenationally and they weren't willing to pay 13 bucks shipping for a jersey.

Now don't get me wrong, I've still made around 500$ profit each month and in the beginning that was nice for me, cause it was my first money made online.

But now It's just not worth the hassle ->ordering, taking pictures, making the listings, sending mails, packaging, waiting at the post office, handling complaints .....

Nah I gave up. But don't get me wrong, it's not like I was crying all day.

I gave up and I jumped on the IM train, now I'm selling my own ebook and I have
No shipping, No packaging, No ordering, No inventory and unlimited supply.

Good bye ebay in terms of physical goods.

So far I had no chance to tap into selling digital products on ebay, but I hear a lot about it. I will look into that for sure.

My 2 cents,
mario

[1bad55]

I had been with EBay since 02 and started mainly as a buyer. After a while I thought it would be good to become a seller and that was going great up until a few years ago when they started playing "GOD" they put all their efforts into supporting the buyer and completely ruining their relationships with the sellers.

The sellers are the ones paying the bills and EBay could CARE LESS!

I sold antiques that were heavy and usually cost anywhere from $50.00-$100.00 to ship and EBay was telling me to ship them for free. If I want a discount from EBay offer free shipping what a joke.

Because of their stupid star rating system that no one understood I lost my Powerseller discounts because people didn't like how much I charged for shipping. I only charged what it cost me to ship and not a penny more. I can not help it if the shipping companies all raised their rates because of fuel costs.

I down graded my store 10 months ago and since I am not selling on EBay anymore I am just going to cancel my store period.

I have had it with EBay as a seller and I hope they get what they deserve!

It sounds like I am not the only one here that feels the same way.

[B00T]

What currently are the largest auction sites besides ebay?

[hotlinkz]

FeeBay is simply paving the way for a "deep pockets" competitor to come along and start snatching away their market share. Hopefully it happens sooner than later.

[InfoRose]

This is horrible news. I'm really sorry to see these changes. I've used and loved ebay for a long time and this is really taking the fun out of it.

[grumpyb]

And we down under in Australia thought it was only us getting shafted by EBay.

Last year they tried to force a Paypal only payment policy on us and we had to take them to the Goverment regulatory body our ACCC. Just before the ACCC ruled that EBay was acting ilegaly they EBay backed down but they did manage to get in a rule where Paypal is mandatory for all listings.

There is growing discontent among the Austrlaain Powersellers but several attemps at getting an alternate selling site up and running have not worked.
So we are stuck with EBay.
However the cahnges they are making every 5 minutes have made EBay an unstable platform for selling products.
I have 3 Poweseller IDs and in each case sales are seriously down and no sign of any recovery. They have change everything and very little of he changes have had any positive effect on sales outcomes.
The answer in my opinion is to further develop our web sites and continually strive for page 1 on Google. couple this with outside advertising campaigns to increase trafiic and awareness of your web sites.
EBay is becoming a much smaller part of our business because every time they EBay cause some more greif by their constant and often unneccesary changes I spend a bit more time and money protecting myself against what I see as the inevitable CRASH of EBay.
Its no longer a question of IF its just a question of WHEN.
They Ebay have totaly lost the Plot!

[Bert Ritz]

Originally Posted by singleshooter

I am with ebay from 2001. I was silver power seller. I closed my ebay store last year on November because ebay does'n care about seller anymore. Now I am using ecrater, bonanzle and ioffer. Much friendly environment. Amazon and craiglist are definitly better but too much competition for me. For me is better to be King among ****s as a **** among Kings.

I just recently heard about the alternative auction sites you mention plus one called bluejay. Fellow Warrior Sparrow had a WSO recently about them.
I'm curious...are you selling as much as you did at Ebay? I mean are there a comparable number of bidders, views?
I'm on dial up and it is almost painful-well, at least very frustrating, making my listings on ebay. Pages take from 15 to 45 minutes to load, then about 25% somehow get dumped and I must start over. I would love to find an easier, more profitable site!
I'd really like to know!
Thanks,
Bert

[reapr]

I was heavy seller on ebay back in 99-2000 then I discovered affiliate marketing.

I was going to reenter ebay back a while ago but when they changed the feedback policy I backed out. I had even purchased a few scales and had things in order ready to go ...

I really have to thank eBay for my affiliate marketing career taking off. Heck I even get a check from them each month as ... an affiliate, how ironic is that. I came full circle and don't even have to deal with feedback.

There is one bright note to all you internet marketers out there. Think of creating an niche auction site ... I am not promoting guns but gunbroker dot com comes to mind ... there are plenty of possibilities.

[pj413]

This is why I am glad not to be apart of ebay anymore.

[Joe Giannetti]

Well I sell on ebay and I think you guys are overreacting......
sure if you ship priority mail in the us.....you can only charge $3

But if you ship first class international overseas you can charge as much as you want.....

Most of my customers are overseas so.....

[Tony Vercetti]

Well this is bad. The shipping maximums are set too low for some items. I do understand that some sellers were taking advantage of ebay, for example by selling an item for $0.99 and charging $29.99 shipping while it only costs $5 or $6 to ship.

I think its time to look for other alternatives to ebay for now.

[Floyd Fisher]

I hear ebay is taking a royal beating over this. Whether they learn is up for discussion....but realize the crap they have been pulling has had quite the effect.

[NBN]

So I wonder, what's going to happen to those in Hong Kong, and other places that sell on ebay. Usually their shipping costs are higher.

[NBN]

Originally Posted by Tony Vercetti

Well this is bad. The shipping maximums are set too low for some items. I do understand that some sellers were taking advantage of ebay, for example by selling an item for $0.99 and charging $29.99 shipping while it only costs $5 or $6 to ship.

I think its time to look for other alternatives to ebay for now.

While that me be true, but more often then not their listings were pulled. That's how that was solved. Shipping is going up, not down and feebay--oops I mean ebay is capping them really low, so you don't even get the handling costs, materials (boxes cost). Shame.

[NBN]

Originally Posted by Joe Giannetti

Well I sell on ebay and I think you guys are overreacting......
sure if you ship priority mail in the us.....you can only charge $3

But if you ship first class international overseas you can charge as much as you want.....

Most of my customers are overseas so.....

Yeah, that may come to an end shortly.

[Chris Lockwood]

Originally Posted by Tony Vercetti

Well this is bad. The shipping maximums are set too low for some items. I do understand that some sellers were taking advantage of ebay, for example by selling an item for $0.99 and charging $29.99 shipping while it only costs $5 or $6 to ship.

As long as the shipping charges were clearly listed, the seller should be able to charge whatever amount he wants for it.

A rational buyer will look at the total shipped cost of the item. (If they don't, that's their problem.)

The actual cost of shipping charged by the post office or UPS is irrelevant.

[bottomline11]

Tanks for the info.. Also, if you sell anything over $100 and have not sold 20 or more items in one year your money will be held by Paypal until 3 days after the product is received by the customer.
It seems that Ebay is trying to put constraints on its sellers that will cause sellers to leave. They are a convenience but people will find other options if they keep these types of changes.

Best of Luck

Matt

[MichaelHiles]

Here's the problem with EBay's stupid policy.

Sure the actual parcel shipping cost may only be a few bucks.

It actually takes time to put the item in the box. Tape it up. Etc... It takes time to procure the box and the tape.

There's an aspect to shipping called HANDLING. The time costs money, and for one, I am not going to work with any channel which dictates my operating profit or loss based on their arbitrary rules.

I stopped using ebay in 2007. Haven't missed it a bit. Power seller here. $250K a year in t-shirt sales.

[Charles E. White]

Originally Posted by Joe Giannetti

Well I sell on ebay and I think you guys are overreacting......
sure if you ship priority mail in the us.....you can only charge $3

But if you ship first class international overseas you can charge as much as you want.....

Most of my customers are overseas so.....

Considering Priority mail is $4.80, doesn't seem like over-reacting to me. Personally, I do business in the U.S. and their limits doesn't even cover first class on most items let alone priority.

[UncleDearest]

Originally Posted by thegoddessofeleven

WOW.

It's getting scary out there, isn't it?

I understand WHY they're doing it-- they don't collect fees against shipping, so they're missing out on profits when sellers list a $20 DVD for $.99 with shipping of $19.00. I think their monopoly has gotten to their heads, though, and they've forgotten that keeping sellers happy is vital to their continued success.

It sounds terrible to say, but I really hope they lose some business from this. It kills me how much crap people just roll over and take.

You got it! I can't believe how many people actually think eBay cares about your "safety" when shopping. Besides, what's the difference to a buyer between paying .99cents for a DVD and $10 shipping or $10 for the DVD and .99 for the shipping? I'll tell you....it's Possible to pay MORE with the LOW shipping because you can be taxed of the purchase but the other wayaround you only MIGHT be taxed on shipping. But people don't think. They just figure they're being ripped off when they see high shipping. eBay knows this and they also know that they lose millions a year with high shipping and low product cost.

If eBay wanted to simplify things all they'd have to do is say all sellers must offer "Free" shipping...as in all the prices have the shipping calculated into them from the get go. Even playing field for all...but that's too easy and would render their "Free Shipping" icons worthless.

I've bought and sold more than I care to say on Bay and I've bought many items for .99 with very high shipping. Nobody twisted my arm. I chose to buy because the price was right! I don't get eBay at all...but I love selling on there. You can get rid of anything and there's no other market place like it!

[Jared Alberghini]

I just read this online, so it must be true...

eBay Inc. - eBay Inc. Announces Three-Year Roadmap For Growth

.jrd

[Davmac40]

Great thread,

the one thing that gets me is what is the alternative to ebay?

Only a business without competition can treat its clients like this so if there is another auction site surely we as sellers can start building that business as genuine competition to ebay.

I am sure that if thousands of articles, blogs, social network postings etc would have the power to drive buyers to an alternative auction site if one exists.

If an alternative does not exist then the only option we have is to use the lubrication, bend over the barrel and allow ourselves to be shafted.

Just my thoughts.

Davmac

[Jared Alberghini]

Originally Posted by Davmac40

Great thread,

the one thing that gets me is what is the alternative to ebay?

Showcase Websites using phpBay Pro

That's just a few examples of thousands of "niche ebay" sites that are popping up all over the place...

Ebay's business model has been proven to work excellent, there are many copy-cats hot on the trail...

[Charles E. White]

Originally Posted by Jared Alberghini

I just read this online, so it must be true...

eBay Inc. - eBay Inc. Announces Three-Year Roadmap For Growth

.jrd

Jared, they reported that their sales were down in 2008 after the new rules they installed and so what did they do, they installed even worse ones in 2009. Matter of fact, I read they were hiding the loss from investors, however they would do that, and not showing them all the complaints they are having.

Anyone can make a report look good, that is how the businesses rip off the people and pad their reports.

[Chris Lockwood]

Originally Posted by Joe Giannetti

Well I sell on ebay and I think you guys are overreacting......
sure if you ship priority mail in the us.....you can only charge $3

But if you ship first class international overseas you can charge as much as you want.....

Most of my customers are overseas so.....

I feel so stupid now! Now that you've explained it, I see that my mistake was selling to other people in the USA. I should have made it overseas only, then I would get to fill out customs forms for every item and wait in line at the post office, rather than use the self-service machine.

What was I thinking, letting other Americans buy from me?

[Chris Lockwood]

Originally Posted by MichaelHiles

There's an aspect to shipping called HANDLING. The time costs money, and for one, I am not going to work with any channel which dictates my operating profit or loss based on their arbitrary rules.

Also, delivery confirmation. I can mail something like a CD really cheap, but if I want proof of delivery to avoid being ripped off by the buyer claiming it was not received, I have to pay for a much more expensive shipping method.

[TE2]

Soon you will be able to buy ebay's new book:

How To Self-Destruct A Successful Business
10 simple policy changes that can kill a business

It will be the last and only thing left for sale on ebay.

Regards,

John