New eBay policy starting late October

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Posted By: Richard Dwyer

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080923-ebay-fuels-fires-of-resentment-with-new-paypal-only-policy.html

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Posted By: leon

I know a lot of folks think ebay is STILL the best thing going...and it might be. But, this action is going to cost them dearly......imo.....What a tremendous mistake.......This might be their biggest one yet...again, imo...

I have sold 1 item on ebay this year....and I think that frequency will drop ......

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Well by the time ebay is completely run into the ground by their new CEO I hope there is a law against the golden parachute I'm sure he is hoping to retire on.

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Posted By: D. C. Markel

Amazing isn't it how a company that basically has a monopoly for on-line selling with the common folk can do such a stupendous job of running a business into the ground. I plan to dump the remainder of my inventory before this "Paypal only" policy is enforced. It's crystal clear to me that the people running this outfit don't have a clue of the dynamics of everyday buying and selling that goes on.

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Posted By: Ed Hans

PayPal is a bad joke and I will not accept it as a form of payment. I wonder if someone will challenge the new policy in court. It's been a great eight years selling on ebay, but like you, I'm going to dump as much of my post war inventory as I can for the next six weeks. I'll set up at a few more shows and use the B/S/T for the better stuff.

I don't necessarily see this as the death knell of ebay, but I very much doubt that it will have the effect that management foresees.

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Posted By: whitehse

I have not sold anything on Ebay in almost a year and to be honest I really dont miss it. I was not going to bash them because my not selling was a matter of me just being burned out on listing, emailing and shipping! But now I think I will bash. This is the worst idea they have come up with and it will cost them dearly I believe.

The article mentioned something about this policy being tried in Australia and the government would not allow it. Do you think the government will get involved here as this looks more and more like a paypal monopoly on Ebay?

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Posted By: Chris

As a 10 year seller on Ebay, I understand the argument made here, but have to tell you that while I am a small-time seller (once was a power seller briefly), that currently allows buyers to use paypal or money orders, over 90% of them choose to use paypal. My purchases are all made via paypal, and if it isn't accepted I am faced with heading down to the Post office or bank and paying a service charge to buy a MO. I just don't have time for this. If you aren't working elsewhere full time and have to kids, etc. perhpas the ease of paypal is not a bonus, but for me, I think it works well. chris

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Posted By: Lance

I guess Ebay is just trying to reach the same plateau of our wonderful oil industry.

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Posted By: Richard Dwyer

Once a seller gave me the wrong email address to send the money to using paypal. (email address was wrong by one letter) Paypal refused to stop that payment, and double charged me $400 twice. I ended up having my bank cancel the credit card, and reissue another. Paypal likes to screw people and then draw interest over their own mistakes.

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Posted By: D. Bergin

Saw this coming from a mile away.

I to enjoy the convenience of Paypal skimming $3-$6 of every $100 of merchandise I sell and knowing full well I could lose the item and be charged back the money if the customer is not happy with the color of the box the item was sent to them in by simply checking a box on their computer screen titled "Item not as described".

I'm also sure my customers enjoy the convenience of having to sign up for a payment service that is prone to constant phishing attacks, increasingly sophisticated scam artists using the Paypal name as a front and sharing their financial information with a company that is not FDIC insured and has a nasty habit of dipping into peoples personal bank accounts.

Luckily for me my customers have mostly been pretty great and I've sidestepped most of the obvious problems.

You'd have to be blind not to see the potential for disaster however.

Ebay is micromanaging themselves right back into being the little niche site they were 10 years ago or so.

Let's hope so anyways. The worse is more likely.

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Posted By: leon

I agree with you about the ease of taking and sending paypal. That is not a dispute from me (though the horror stories I have heard have a lot of merit). The problem here is FORCING a square peg into a round hole. Many, many folks absolutely hate paypal.....I see this move as hurting ebay's bottom line...in the short, mid and long run....

In our card sector there are more and more websites from collectors who fiddle around a little with flipping. I see that activity picking up. I know of 2 very good hobby folks who are doing websites right now but not opened yet. One of them is because ebay is becoming so much less friendly in their ways....regards

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Posted By: Jay

As a buyer only I love the change. I tend not to bid on non-paypal auctions just because it is too slow a process.

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Posted By: brian

I think Leon is correct and this policy will be the one that cooks eBay's goose. I have always preferred to pay with checks and money orders, but will finally have to sign up for a PayPal account in the next couple of days and not happy with having to do so. One of my favorite sellers just posted their very 1st auction with "PayPal only" allowed. And they have listed an item that I have never seen listed on eBay before and maybe only 4 times in the last 20 years. Incredibly, the same item is also for sale in another internet auction right now, but it ends today and the bid is a little more than I am willing to pay.

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Posted By: robert a

Ebay is losing me. Why do they continue to alienate their sellers?

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Posted By: Mark

Did anyone else receive the Ebay Magazine recently sent in the mail? It was insulting/condescending, and encouraged things like "Offering free shipping to increase your DSR Rating" They also want you to include colored packing slips, and thank you notes in professionally-packed boxes. Things that few people have extra time for (those of us with other jobs, anyway...)

That's great that they now want sellers to eat all of the shipping costs (which have risen sharply) as they rake in their PayPal and Final Value Fees on the full amounts paid.... criminal.

I will be using auction houses a lot more, and Ebay a lot less for selling. As far as I'm concerned, the ONLY advantage they still offer is timeliness of being paid.

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Posted By: Iggy...

I can't wait until PAYPAL raises its fees! Hopefully, early next year. Aferall, providing the best customer service and most secure method of payment has associated cost(s).

Lovely Day, Iggy...

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Posted By: Rob Fouch

Ebay seems to have declared war on sellers -- or at least small-time ones like me. I'm a tag sale junkie and go out every weekend looking for records, books, etc. to sell for extra cash. I've been able to make an average of $200-$300 a week -- sometimes more if I make a nice find -- just doing it in my off hours from my real job. But ebay's making it tougher and tougher.

First, the no negative feedback thing, which still steams me. It leaves sellers with absolutely no protection against idiots and thieves.

Then, the constant raising of fees.

Now the paypal thing, which is a monopoly if ever there was one.

And most frustrating of all for me, is the Detailed Seller Ratings and the "Search Standing" feature, which determines how much visibility your items get. In the Detailed Seller Ratings, mine are 4.8, 4.8, 4.7, 4.7 (out of 5; pretty damn good, you'd think), and I have near perfect feedback. Yet my search standing was just pushed down to "lowered," the worst level. Unbelievable. So now all my listings will be buried.

I just don't understand what they're thinking. Of course, that's my mistake, actually believing that there's any thinking going on. Idiots.

Rob

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Posted By: Alan U

I've always preferred to pay via paypal, but the chargebacks do scare me a little bit when receiving payments.

As far as sending checks, isn't anyone else leary of sending someone all of the account information necessary to print checks on your account?

As to M.O., my only problem with them is how do you replace them if they are lost in the mail?

-Alan

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Posted By: D. Bergin

Sorry, but I've yet to run into anybody who has had their checking account hijacked after sending somebody else a check.

I have run into plenty of people who have had their debit/credit cards and Paypal accounts hijacked, emptied, scavenged and charged to the hilt from so-called legally collected fees, penalties, chargebacks, etc..

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Posted By: boxingcardman

I can see the hamster wheels turning in their brains: 'If we limit the choices to our integrated payment system and some fictional third party system, we will pick up 3% of every sale in addition to our fees." They probably did a Ford Pinto cost/benefit on this one and decided that a % drop in traffic is worth the % gain in fees. That they will erode the best brand in the business by alienating an entire segment of the populace is irrelevant to them, I guess. As far as Ebay's long term planning and client interactions go, a nutless monkey could do a better job:

Studio Executive Rob Slolom: Wow. 8 Oscars, 400 million dollars at the box office, and you saved Tugg Speedman's career.
Les Grossman: I couldn't have done it without you.
Studio Executive Rob Slolom: Really?
Les Grossman: No, dickhead. Of course I could. A nutless monkey could do your job. Now, go get drunk and take credit at all the parties.
Studio Executive Rob Slolom: I wouldn't do that.
Les Grossman: Ah... joking.
Studio Executive Rob Slolom: Ah, there he is! Funny. You're a funny guy.
Les Grossman: Yeah. But seriously, a nutless monkey could do your job.

Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc

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Posted By: leon

I had my checking account hijacked about a yr ago....it had nothing to do with cards or ebay or paypal though. It was a check my wife gave to get my little girl a haircut. Bank of America was awesome and said..."sorry 'bout ya' vendors".....I had my $500 back within 24 hours.....and the folks that took the check(s) were out of their money (they didn't get good id on the person cashing them).....It can happen....but other things are more probable.....

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Posted By: LetGoBucs

I can understand them putting something out that requires sellers to offer buyers the option of using Paypal....but to mandate using it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

There is a segment of society that doesn't like electronic payments, that are old fashioned......and should it be a surprise that there is a decent amount of correlation between those that are old fashioned and those that are collectors???

Many collectors still like to pay with checks and, at least in stamps some of them have been doing it for thirty, fourty and fifty years.....They have adjusted to use Ebay but aren't likely to go and sign up for a credit card just to buy stamps over the internet.

I think that they might introduce this but it will eventually be modified.

Still think that Ebay is basically still a good deal, especially if you compare to the cost of having a retail store or doing shows. How else are you able to find buyers from Alaska, UK, Czech Republic, etc?

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Posted By: Steve Dawson

Well, as a buyer, I love Paypal for it's ease and quickness. Very rarely do I bid on an auction where Paypal is not accepted; and I flat-out will not bid if the seller only accepts money orders. I am not blind however, and can tell that if ebay pisses off a majority of it's sellers, and the sellers leave, there will be very little to nothing for us buyers to buy. Then, we buyers will be pissed off.

Somehow, ebay has got to figure out that without both buyers and sellers, they are nothing. It is very simple...you need both happy buyers and sellers for it to work...it's called "Synergy".

Ebay is so concerned with buyers' feelings, at the expense of sellers, that they don't seem to be able to see that they're ruining the entire platform.


Steve

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Posted By: kogara

i know im finished with ebay. enough is enough.

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Posted By: Kenneth A. Cohen

"I guess Ebay is just trying to reach the same plateau of our wonderful oil industry."

Are gas stations requiring payment through Paypal at the pump now?

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Posted By: Matt

EBay announced today that they are letting go 10% of their workforce (1000 employees)...

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Wow! That new CEO of theirs sure is the bee's knees.

He probably can't wait to get that golden parachute.

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Posted By: paulstratton

Don't you mean golden shower?

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Posted By: Bruce Babcock

I've gone from averaging one ebay transaction per week as a buyer to one in the last 90 days. I'm certainly not the only one.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

I have seen a dropoff in the number of auction items and a huge increase in the number of fixed price listings. What genius thought EBAY would be better off turning into Overstock.com when they had 99.9% of the market share of internet auctions?

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Posted By: Steve Murray

"Wow! That new CEO of theirs sure is the bee's knees."

And the cat's meow.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

I had read that eBay used to be the envy of online sellers, as it never physically had or handled the merchandise. They made their money on stuff they never touched-- what a sweet deal! Other sellers, like amazon.com and Barnes and Noble, had the cumbersome and costly task of owning and handling the merchandise. Today, the situation has switched. As amazon owns and ships most of the merchandise, they have control over shipping time, authenticity, packaging, etc-- and their quality control is excellent. eBay on the other hand has had problems with these things and is at the mercy of the eBay sellers. Thus, eBay is trying to take more control over shipping, authenticity, etc by clamping down on the sellers. As amazon has increased its inventory-- food to vitamins to CDs to microscopes to clothes-- many every day customers prefer to go there for their needs. So much of ebay's back breaking competition hasn't come from auction houses, as many envisioned, but from online sellers who physically handle and control the merchandise.

eBay takes much of the responsibility for its quality control issues-- selling of fakes, shipping gouging, etc. As many of us noted through the years, they seemed to be in the business of allowing many known crooks on eBay. Crooks and shills and scams appeared to be good for their bottom line-- authentic or fake, eBay took the same percentage of the sale. For example, many collectors complained bitterly over the years to eBay about the sellers of the notorious 'cutout' cards. eBay not only allowed the complained about seller to continue to sell the cutouts, but assigned Power Seller status and even opened up a category for these cutout pieces of crap. eBay seemed to be catering to these particular sellers, not caring that the customers were being deceived out of money and gouged for shipping in the process, nor that many knowledgeable hobbyists regularly complained to eBay that eBay's customers were being scammed. Should it be a shocker that years later eBay discovers it has quality control issues with many of its customers, rather former customers? It's a safe guess that at least a few of these former customers were naive winners of the paper cutout 'cards' who later learned what they had really purchased.

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Posted By: scott fandango

i think some of you may be missing EBAY's point....

they are trying to make it easiest and safest FOR BUYERS..that is they Key, they want to be BUYER FRIENDLY......BECAUSE, where the buyers are, is where the sellers will go....

a site that is great for sellers and has few buyers will not succeed....

EBAY knows that if the buyer is happy, then the sellers will have no choice but to stay...how do you say, they have the sellers by the gallions!

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Posted By: davidcycleback

The PayPal only policy isn't designed to please sellers or buyers, but to make money. If they wanted to please buyers and sellers, they would allow eBay users to use the payment method of their choice, including PayPal. Many users, including I, use PayPal, but many prefer different payment methods.

Knowing eBay's history, a rational fear might be that once eBay has everyone using PayPal and only able to use Paypal, they will do what they want PayPal-wise (lax customer relations, holding money, irrational rules, jumping through hoops, etc). Users having the option to drop PayPal is essential to keeping eBay and PayPal from acting poorly because they have a monopoly. If eBay users have had problems with PayPal when PayPal was one of several options, how do you predict they will act when they they know users can only use them? A safe guess would be that PayPal won't be getting better.

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Posted By: Alan U

With the increased % of fixed price items listed, it sure does seem to promote "outside of ebay" deals between good sellers/buyers. That can't be good for ebay.