A friend of Loobalee, Melissa, was a top-notch seller on eBay. In our community, she is considered a go-to expert on anything and everything eBay. So, we were astonished when she told us she was closing her eBay account.
For 6 years Melissa enjoyed a 100% positive feedback rating and sold countless items, from obsolete technology and out-of-style fashions to top-notch new and used items. Now, Melissa has given up on the world’s most popular online auction and is seeking out other ways to continue to buy and sell items on the Internet, but one without all the fuss caused by a company that had for so long brought her success.
So what happened?
7 years ago, Melissa began selling everything in her house that she didn’t want or couldn’t use anymore. Early on, Melissa sold a Skidoo ski jacket for $65, an item she repeatedly attempted to sell in garage sales for just $5. She was hooked. As a mother of two daughters, she had loads of children’s clothing that she found others were apt to purchase, so buying and selling kids’ clothes became an area of special interest for her. Buyers bought, and Melissa sold. She was proud of her high rating (comprising of 346 feedback ratings when she left) and enjoyed the ease at which she was able to do her online sales. Then, things started to change.
In late 2006, Melissa noticed that the Gymboree market, which was often in eBay’s Top 10 for sales volume, had significantly softened. She speculated that a high percentage of listings were being put up by eBay Store owners and high volume Sellers. This corresponded with eBay’s change of focus toward Stores and Sellers and their shying away from independent collectors and auction aficionados. Melissa also suspected that Gymboree began to recognize the demand for their items, since they had been selling so high on eBay, and began to market their brand in new ways.
Eventually, throughout eBay, high volume Sellers and Stores began to take over with high numbers of continuous, repeated commodity listings. The fun started to leave eBay, and people like Melissa stopped enjoying the process. The Stores and high volume Sellers were able to deliver high quality goods at prices that individual sellers couldn’t compete with, and they did so with retail service levels. The expectations of Buyers also increased, and Melissa’s perfect positive rating was marred when a Buyer received a broken item. The buyer didn’t contact her about the issue before leaving negative feedback, taking Melissa down from 100% to 99.8%. Who imagined that a coffee mug, accidentally broken during shipment, could also crush such a great rating? Melissa prided herself in going the distance to make her Buyers happy, and would have more than willingly given a full refund.
“But with today’s new feedback system I would be a sitting duck,” says Melissa, “I’d be unable to leave the Buyer any negative feedback in return.”
More changes came when eBay rolled out their new policies. At first, Melissa wasn’t worried because the new pricing wouldn’t affect her too much, but the new feedback system had further decreased her rating to 98.2%. This was a result of the singular negative occurrence happening in the previous 12 months. Furthermore, Melissa’s detailed Seller Rating for Shipping and Handling Charges seemingly could never be 100% by using eBay’s Shipping Calculator and charging actual shipping rates. It’s now apparent that most all eBay Sellers have below 100% on Shipping Time and on Shipping and Handling Charges. Are Buyers expecting Sellers to subsidize shipping charges and ship via express mail?
Eventually, there came the straw that broke the camel’s back. On July 21st, Melissa received an email from eBay.
“Your account has been accessed by an unauthorized third party.” Apparently, someone was trying to list items fictitiously under her account.
The account was completely suspended, and eBay treated the case with a tone that it had been Melissa’s fault. There was no accusation, but while Melissa was grateful that they had caught the issue, she couldn’t help but feel that they were treating her in an impersonal and unhelpful way. A phone number or customer service contact was not provided to her to assist her with addressing the problems. Instead, she received a link to a demeaning tutorial about generally managing her passwords and securing her eBay and email accounts.
Melissa was frustrated, and knew that what had once brought her a sense of success and fun was now becoming more of a frustration than it was worth. On July 24th, Melissa filed to shut down both her eBay and PayPal accounts, a process which will take up to 180 days for eBay to complete.
The day after, Melissa’s husband was awarded four tickets to a Detroit Lions game — an event they don’t plan to attend.
“Normally, I would put the tickets up for the highest bidder on eBay,” she said, “So, I am forced to search for other options to sell them.” Upon researching, she was easily able to find several other alternatives for selling the tickets.
Melissa has since learned that there are many ways to buy and sell just about anything on the web, and she feels motivated to explore those options now that she is no longer shackled by eBay. We are excited that she is especially looking forward to the launch of Loobalee.com for listing children’s clothing.
Melissa’s story is a part of a growing trend of sellers once loyal to eBay jumping ship. This article on eZine Articles notes the ‘Top 3 Reasons Sellers Have Quit eBay,” all of which are similar reasons to Melissa’s. The New York Times also published a recent article about eBay’s deal with Buy.com, and how it angered many loyal sellers. Finally, here is a story from Tamebay similar to Melissa’s of why two small business owners decided to stop their near decade run with the online auction.
We’d love to hear your experience with eBay. Have the changes become too much for you, also? Have you considered closing your account and leaving eBay? What are your ideas for buying and selling online in today’s environment? Let us know in the comments.