@chouchou:

I have been trying onlineauction.com is 8 a month flat, i urge everyone that sells on ebay to post all they have there too and spend the 16 or 32 dollars for 2 to 4 months and do something about the ebay issue.

As a Power BUYER (a person who regularly purchases items that cost over $1,000) I have to say that eBay and PayPal are RIGGED to protect their power sellers and do nothing to protect INNOCENT customers. I have been ripped off and lied to by at least two (2) power sellers and never got any help in dispute resolution, not to mention the many times I've been ripped off my newbies.

I am boycotting eBay because of their terrible bias towards protecting sellers at the expense of buyers. Believe me, I spent over $60,000 on eBay last year - its the sellers that need me...not the other way around.

As far as fees - We had a number of auctions cancelled last year for "unreasonable shipping fees" - Our rate for international registered / Insured is $12. Canada Post actually charges MORE than this - no company charges less. eBay needs to look more at the needs of the seller - bottom line, it is the fees the seller pays which pay the bills at eBay, and they need to be reminded of this fact.

My wife bought soccer cleats for the kids once, .01 for the shoes and $9.99 shipping. I always look at the total price when buying online anymore.

Oh, one more thing, if you complain to Ebay about shipping costs they will block the seller. THey have some sort of matrix to determine if shipping fees are reasonable, but since they don't get a cut of shipping, if a seller tries to hedge by lowering price and uppping shipping, they will notice

I hated the feedback system. Sellers hsuold be able to leave feedback for 5 days or so after shipping, and that's it, and of course be able to reply to negative feedback. But most Sellers don't leave feedback until you do, so twice this year I waited until the last hour of the last day of feedback and left the truth, preventing them from dinging me.

I didn't know it was all some stupid game; I just thought that this was what the feedback system was for. I then was hit with a negative feedback saying I paid late (which I could do nothing about, even though it wasn't true and I could prove that, but Ebay doesn't care about inaccurate feedback). I left a response but it doesn't matter.

Now here was my real mistake. The seller turned around and "generously" offered me something called "Mutually Withdrawn Feedback". Being new to the game, I refused to withdraw my feedback about the seller. I was being blackmailed and I didn't accept. I guess I should have.

So now I have a 50% rating and I've never bought anything at Ebay again, even though this was years ago. I did finally receive my item after waiting two months. I'm sympathetic to all of the sellers who say they have no recourse against bad buyers, but quite frankly, there is a power imbalance and I'm happy Ebay is trying to rectify it.

Ebay should not raise fees without improving service. This is the cause of many a business going down.

Can't forget how Ebay is dinging sellers with less than 100 feedback, by holding their paypal funds for 21 days after auction closes, pending various factors.

Considering everything else... the feedback system, raising the final value fees, I am willing to bet Paypal will be raising their fees by next fall.

A big problem for international sellers who who sell mostly to the States is the weak American dollar. I'm Canadian, and I used to sell quite a lot of second-hand books on eBay. For most of my sales, my entire profit was pretty much the currency exchange, which was pretty good when a US dollar was worth C$1.40. But now that the currencies are even, this is one hobby I've given up, as the eBay and PayPal fees would pretty much ensure that I'd be selling at a loss, which really isn't much fun.

I really think that there'll be some real competition in this field before too long.

Open a Yahoo! Store. Don't mess around with building your own online store. There are plenty of turnkey packages out there that will let you build your own store without having to be an HTML master. Knowing HTML will greatly help, dont' get me wrong. But you don't have to wait to master Dreamweaver.@shadow735:

ebay changes too much, what with their insertion fees and their paypal income, but i applaud them for sticking to their guns with the feedback thing.

For us there's not another show in town, with Ebay we reach a world wide audience of custom hat makers, costumers, etc. We have clients in Japan, Europe, Australia, and on and on. I can't think of another venue where we could reach that audience. Hosting our own website could be an option, but then we would have to figure out how to drive traffic to it.

We don't like the feedback system (even though we've only had one negative feedback) because it's so random. Even as Powersellers we still haven't figured out whether or not we'll do better, worse, or the same with the changes.

We sell a very specific brand of training DVDs on eBay. We used to sell them for $49.95 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. We send them first class in an envelope and it costs us $1.98 to send them. Now we sell them for $19.95 and charge $24.95 for shipping and handling. It still costs us $1.98. We are very upfront with people that we are doing this solely to skirt eBay's ridiculous fees. At the end of the day, buyers are paying us LESS than they would have a year ago when we only charged $4.95 for shipping and handling. And if they don't like it they don't have to buy it from us. For these items we are the only game in town. MWAH MWAH MWAH!!!

eBay is raising cost/transaction, but does NOTHING to make shopping more pleasant.

As a buyer, I despise PayPal! Their requests, for reimbursement due to defective item are ridiculous. They protect seller by requesting that the item HAS to be returned at buyer's expense, with tracking number. (Tracking to countries like China is too expensive, it can easily cost several hundred dollars). And no tracking, no reimbursment if the seller is dishonest.

It is not the sellers who keep eBay in business, it's the buyers, who keep eBay AND the sellers in business. I have had the opportunity to do business with traders who have set up their own storefront post-eBay, and I have to admit that excepting a few very exceptional merchants, the edge goes to to the seller who has to account in some public, viewable way for their customer service -- and that's even under the old, "hobbled" FB system.

The consumer economy is stalling and I think a lot of sellers who decide to strike out on their own may end up coming back if it becomes apparent that buyer confidence in a system that sellers may well hate, nonetheless makes the difference in terms of making a sale. I'd like nothing better than to see more successful (and less extortion-ary) alternatives to eBay -- yay, Etsy!-- but I'll bet that any SUCCESSFUL alternative will ultimately have to be just as much of a "ball buster" with the sellers or they won't attract an increasingly cautious pool of buyers.

Same sentiment towards those sellers who would like to do away with sniping -- take away all the fun of true, un-rigged bargain hunting and what do you have - a seller's paradise, policy-wise? Or a big, echoing, and largely abandoned virtual mall?

That being said, I've had buyers scam me and at this point there's nothing I can do about that. I raised my prices when the fee hike went into effect and I listed in the auctions for two weeks before the hike that I would be raising prices and why.

Unless ebay can find other ways to increase revenue, they're going to use cop-outs like this again and again.

if you're selling the same thing a thousand other people are selling then you've got trouble. If you've found a way to cut yourself a niche like I have, then its much less of a concern.

@Botch: as a seller I have often been left alone in the dark after I have given good service, made a quality product, shipped it timely and left positive feedback but never recieved feedback in return.

so now I require feedback to be left after the customer is satisfied with their purchase before I will leave feedback. I have never left negative feedback nor recieved it.

Customer satisfaction is #1 to me hence my 100% feedback score.

There must be a better system than either the old one, or the new one eBay is putting in place. But please at least admit that the old one is broken.

Put simply, ebay is busting the balls of the sellers and I appreciate it, even if this golden age kills ebays because sellers have to do so much more work for less money.

If anything, ebay should be cutting their fees to better pay their employees/partners for all this ball-busting.

@pigeonpenelope: Its not so much the starting costs if you know HTML and such, I am currently enrolled in HTML classes just got Dreamweaver for $200 student discount so I will be redoing my own site with online store, the costs come in the advertising dept. My leather stuff is fantasy, goth, monster, evil, and Pirate, movie stuff, along with a bunch of other deviations so I would have to place adds in those type of magazines so on average its $100 per mag so it can get pricey, but in the end it comes back.
I am vending my first pirate faire in calf as well. this is all from my own income no loans and such so its hard but with work and dedication I will be free of Ebay soon heh heh.

I know the response: Then the other sellers will get the business and not me.

Yes, they certainly will, if they can manage to sell at a lower price with similar quality. Tends to be how things work.

99% of my stuff is custom tooled, formed leather products. ebay and paypal take about 15% of my profits. Its all good because once I redo my web site I will have a online store but then I will have advertizing costs. I guess in the end I get stuck with excessive costs.
only reason I stick with ebay is for exposure. Actually I have gotten a lot of business due to myspace and people going from my profile to my ebay store.
Thanks Myspace!!

[powersellersunite.com]

@fhic: not so I changed my feedback policy because 50% of the people that bought form me never left me feedback, I have never had to leave negative feedback for a buyer. I value my customers and let them know that should anything go wrong to contact me so I can fix it.
Not all sellers are jerks.
I value customer service because I treat my customers as I would want to be treated.
Still ebay fees are getting out of control. I will probably be going to etsy soon.

I used to make some good cash on Ebay. I have not sold on Ebay for over a year now. They just take too much of my cash. I sell many other places. Sorry Ebay, as soon as they became FEbay I just quit using them. Until other sellers quit selling Ebay will continue to have personal trainers, golf instructors, free lunches in the Ebay cafeteria etc. Google is the same way. If Ebay loses market you know those amenities get cut first, not the stockholders profit. THE HORROR!

Also, I agree with PigsnBacon, etsy is great for handmade stuff.

I disagree.

I stopped using eBay after being forced to leave positive feedback before the seller would leave positive feedback for me. If I pay for the item and the seller ships it, they should leave feedback right then, not try to hold me hostage until I say nice things about them.

And protesting bad feedback through the eBay system is useless. They have no clue about customer service.

Memory chip for my computer $10 WTF? Padded envelope and 3 stamps.

Ebay and Walmart = perfect marraige? Oh wait Evil will destroy itself, nevermind then.....

Plus, now eBay wants 8% to 11% from whatever you sell. (Plus don't forget PayPal charges you, too. And PayPal belongs to eBay). Compared to 5% before, that's a ripoff.

If anyone knows any alternative to eBay (besides craiglist), please mention it.