eBay has gotten rid of the ability to give buyer’s negative feedback at the end of an auction. I held back my dismay from public view… until now.
For the third time, in a single week, I’ve had an international buyer back out due to shipping. They didn’t run the shipping calculator until after purchase. Then, when they realize that shipping from the U.S. is a raw deal for them… they proceed to email me, backing out of the auction.
Now, before this, a bidder backing out was rare. The vast majority were scammers, who were easily identifiable.
I’m not an eBay store. I don’t run an eBay business. I simply use eBay mostly to get rid of the tech junk which I have no use for. This is getting out of hand… because buyers know there’s next to no penalty now for bidding like crazy.
Think about it. The worst that can happen to a buyer now is a non-paying bidder strike. No matter, all they need to do is get about 10 positive feedbacks for eBay sellers to feel at ease. And, NPB strikes wear off much faster than the negative-to-positive ratio of feedbacks.
Why did eBay do this? To triple the value of a listing fee. If you have to re-list an item, you have to pay listing fees all over again. eBay doesn’t care if they have to refund the final auction value two, three, even four times. They still get their cut in the end, now with multiples of the listing fee.
In the end, I think eBay will lose from this. Sellers will be much more hesitant to tack on extras. I used to put Featured Listing ($19.95) on my big-ticket auctions (MacBook Pros, etc)… I sure won’t now. A bidder now has twice the power to back out of a deal, with little-to-no reprisal. I’m going to make sure my listing fees are as low as possible because of that.
So, eBay sellers, enjoy paying listing fees endlessly. Enjoy re-listing items and watching them depreciate in your hands. Google, Google, where for art thou Google?
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In the future you may want to try and direct International buyers or interested parties to a mail forwarding company I have used called Bongo International
http://www.bongous.com
There are many overseas consumers willing to buy tech products in the US that they simply cant find where they live or are much more expensive, which is certainly the case in places like the UK and Australia. BongoUS has very competitive rates and it will make sense for many people
Uh, can you say spam? Christopher points out how foreign eBay buyers are running out in droves… and you have the gall to tell him to suggest that they buy from you? Troll.
Who pays ebay bills the sellers with no voice or the buyers? Oh I forgot Skype does
Troll huh? Wow somebody has poopy pants.
I’m not selling anything Joe. Just offering a little advice on something that’s worked for me in the past.
The international marketplace is beginning to get more and more advanced. Companies/Sellers are starting to realize that there are enormous volumes of people around the world that like to buy products online. US products are much less expensive than they are around the rest of the world. Especially with the value of the dollar being so low at this time. There’s a missed opportunity at additional revenue for those who haven’t embraced this yet.
[...] and in case you were wondering about retaliation from sellers… there isn’t any anymore. eBay took away seller’s ability to leave negative feedback, in another moronic move. So, the worst a seller can do is not leave feedback on you as a buyer… [...]