Lurch / April 9th, 2008 at 6:21 pm

Yeah – and don’t get me started on disregarded info/advice over the years… Funny how it went from Pierre sending friendly personal emails in those early couple of months from time-to-time to that.

My favorite (although it’s a bit off-topic) is when I was contacted for the 10th Anniversary eBay Live in San Jose. They wanted me to come out for it to talk to media and I don’t know what else (I got the idea that it was essentially to be paraded around) as being possibly the longest existing user – no one knows for absolute certain on that. I ultimately agreed to do it, and said that I could get there on my own as San Jose is fairly close and had friends I could stay with, but since I wouldn’t otherwise be going, that I’d need to be comped in. This seemed like a huge problem – they said they’d check and get back to me. Never heard from them again. Guess they couldn’t take the 70 dollar hit, even though it was no loss, as I wasn’t going except for this. To his credit, Bill did personally apologize for that when I told him about it, but still… pretty pathetic.

CrunchyPostingGoodness / April 10th, 2008 at 4:22 am

@ Richard Brewer-Hay,

Thank you for taking the time to explore with eBay the ability to have tiered levels of sellers! I truely hope eBay seriously considers it, as I believe it will have a very positive effect for the site as well as its users.

I started out selling my household items on eBay, but quickly learned that I could make a business out of my household sales. When I started looking into suppliers for brand new merchandise, I realized that I could not sell these items on eBay for much of a profit. It seems to me that most of the buyers on eBay are looking to pay no more than 50% under retail value.

However, I have sold these new items successfully on a different selling venue for the past year. It has been my experience, on that other venue, that I can sell the these items for only $0.50 to $1.00 under retail value very successfully and frequently, unlike eBay.

I believe the primary difference is in the type of buyer that other site attracts. Buyers who are willing to pay a realistic price for an item in order to have the convenience and ease of dealing with a professional seller. A professional seller, who gets their items from a supplier, can not compete with the low prices offered by the casual, average person who is just getting rid of unwanted items on eBay, unless there is something which distinguishes the sellers level of experience and service from one another.

The current PowerSeller program is not worthwhile to my business, given the lack of profit I would make off of any sale on eBay, when trying to competitively price against hobby sellers. Perhaps distinguishing professional sellers from hobby sellers would encourage those looking to deal with a professional seller to pay a realistic price for the item, rather than going for the lower, bargain price offered by a hobby seller.

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