Boycott eBay?

Am I pissed off at eBay...? Hell no... This is America, and they have the God given, constitutional right to be stupid. Do I plan on using their service any longer? That is the real question for me and many other sellers. I live by a set of a few basic self imposed rules. One of them is, "never say never", so I am not going to cut my nose off to spite my face. I have for the time being (the week of February 18-25, 2008) not listed any new items for sale there. Time will tell if I do in the future. I have no illusions that this current boycott will change the corporate executives minds at eBay. And even if they totally reversed their policies back to what they were, for me, at this point it would not change anything. When you sell on eBay, then eBay becomes your business partner. The point is I don't trust them anymore, and how can you have a business partner that you don't trust...

Now I'm not a big power seller that sells tons of identical products. I am just a small guy that sells unique little treasures I have come across, and occasionally buy some hard to find item or part for my vintage motorcycle. I was listing maybe four or five items a day, at a low starting price of 99 cents, with no reserve limit, and let the chips fall where they may to give the buyer the power to set the price and find the deal. To be honest, on a few auctions, I could have sold the coins ( I sell old silver dollars and such) to a local jeweler for the scrap bullion price and done better. But, I would rather have these examples of great looking, really old coinage go to someone who appreciates them and will keep them to preserve a small piece of our history, instead of these fine examples getting melted down for jewelry... My initial intention was to sell my things exclusively on eBay, and collect the money fast on Paypal and keep it simple. Even before the rate hike eBay was getting a bigger cut of the profits then I was. There are very thin margins for most sellers on auction sites, that is why the buyers show up. I was OK with that and don't mind paying top nickel if someone does a good job for me. But things have changed and as far as I am concerned eBay has insulted me. They tell me they are reducing rates, but my selling fees go up over 66%, they tell us sellers can not be trusted and treat us like scum even though 100% of my customers have told me they are very happy. And now they let fraudulent buyers, and buyers that never paid and completed the transaction to leave slanderous feedback, but all buyers now only can be left a positive feedback. The way feedback was run before was fair, the auction winner pays, the seller ships and jumps through hoops because they value the positive feedback as it gives them credit for their effort, and only after the customer is totally happy does the seller finalize the transaction by giving the buyer a positive feedback to signal that the transaction is finished. Now either fraudulent buyers who have no intention of paying, or buyers using Paypal can claim they did not get said item or it is not as described, then leave a negative feedback, keep the product, and get his money back to boot. And after all this he is still not flagged to future sellers as a scammer. Then there is this nebulous new policy from Paypal (owned by eBay) where they can hold your funds for 21 days if something seems suspicious. What ever that means. And all this to line the pockets of some stupid exec's...

Basically eBay told the small guys to not go away mad, just go away... They don't want eBay to be the online swap-meet that it has been from the beginning. Screw the small guy, and give rebates back to your Power Sellers... Well, they may not miss my $20-$100 a month, but if you multiply that by millions that is allot of cash flow. I can see how the top CEO and other executives there don't think our business is worth it and we are just referred to as "noise". To people who cash in on 10 to 11 million dollars worth of stock options at a crack, I could see how they would loose perspective. And speaking of stock options, most top executives that really believe in their company, hold those stocks they get when they exercise the options. Those that consistently sell everything the first day they are allowed to generally have the opposite view. Do your own homework and see what they do.

I was taught that every customer is valuable. It is better to have one thousand $100 customers then to have one $100,000 customer. If you put all your eggs in one basket, make dam sure you don't drop it. Also it costs way less to keep an existing customer happy and get return business, then to go out and spend to bring in a new one. These are just real basic hard and fast rules of business, and to not follow them shows how STUPID the business owner or CEO is. But it is not all Ebays fault. The over zealous loyalty the sellers have shown to eBay, has caused a self induced monopoly, and because the sellers were to busy to be bothered diversifying the venues they sell at, they now have someone holding them by the private parts... So what should you and I do? Well do what ever works for you. Am I going to advise people to not buy or sell on eBay? Nope... My advice is if you see something going for a good price on eBay, then go for it. If you are a Power Seller and the new policies work for you, then great... On the other hand I would advise buyers to look around the other auction sites once in awhile as many really great X-eBayer sellers are now at other locations, and you won't find them at the "new" eBay anymore. For small sellers like myself, list on eBay during the transition if you need to pay the rent so to speak. But start building your clientele at, at least one other site plus get your own web site going where you have total control of your future, and not be left at the mercy of some idiots. Myself I will put my things on my own site here at www.30cal.com and I am getting ready to list a large amount on ola.com, that is onlineauction.com. They are much more business friendly for buyers and sellers. I would advise against any free auction sites, as you get what you pay for. And it takes a bit of effort to build up your business on a new site, and free sites are not beneath getting bought up by guess who... Then after a month or so getting shut down so all the sellers return to eBay badly beaten. That's why I decided to try ola.com. A flat $8.00 a month and list all you want. They are not greedy and their business model works and they are still run by their founder. Check them out yourself.

As far as me listing again on eBay... Their attitude has taken all the fun out of it for me... Nothing against my customers, they are great. But with the new rules, the risk is too high. And to sum up my feelings on the matter I think I'll have to use an old quote from John Wayne in "The Shootist"...

"I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, and I won't be laid a hand upon, I don't do these things to other people and I expect the same from them."


Big-T--------->Getting off his soap box...