I don’t see why you’d think that. Sellers that I talk to every day are still just as angry and irritated. Why do you think everyone has suddenly thought, “Oh, well, it’s all okay!” ?

Yeah, people are pleased that the ACCC smacked eBay in the chops, but I don’t think anyone believes it’s a “victory”. EBay is still a foreign corporate body that doesn’t contribute to the Australian tax system at all, and PayPal still isn’t a signatory of the Australian EFT code of conduct.

We tried communicating with eBay too but were dismissed as “noise”.

More importantly. We tried communicating with eBay first but were dismissed as noise!

You, like Ebay, seem to assume that those selling on Ebay are employees and not Ebay’s actual customers. I view Ebay and PayPal as business tools, and fail to see how having to constantly fight with my business tools for the right to run my own business properly, on my own established fair and reasonable terms, is productive for any of the parties involved.

If I went to the grocery store, and was told by the management that I must pay with their fee bearing credit card, and specifically how I must consume my purchases, I’d be shopping elsewhere too. The difference for Ebay, is that there are less choices to access the wider international market, and established customers have to take a substantial hit to their income if they choose to shop elsewhere immediately.

Kevin

Regarding your comment about grocery store clerks in a grocery store, I think your analogy is not congruent. A clerk in the grocery store is an EMPLOYEE paid a wage. His / her salary is known and it doesn’t vary depending on how many customers come in the store or how much they spend or if they decide to do chargebacks later, after taking their groceries home and eating them.

A better analogy might be that if I went in a mall and noticed there was graffiti everywhere and every other lightbulb was out in the hallway then when I went into a particular store and the owner was bemoaning how the owner was not taking care of maintenance issues then I would understand the store owner’s frustration.

And then when he/she complained that the mall owner was raising rates and not kicking out the store owners next door who were selling drugs and also that the mall owner promised a burglar alarm system to prevent theft (that was increasing because of the drug activity next door) but didn’t pay to have the alarm turned on, then I would have a much better appreciation of why the store owner was telling me that he / she was making plans to move his store to a better retail location. I wouldn’t stop visiting that store in that particular mall location because the owner was complaining about his / her conditions but rather I would stop visiting the mall altogether because of the actions (inactions) of the mall owners.

I consider myself to be a “smart” seller and I guarantee you that my buyers realize and recognize they are buying from ME and not from eBay. I am not the same thing as eBay, nobody (including buyers) thinks that I am, and I certainly don’t want my business to be synonymous to eBay and their business practices. Now, the buyers on Amazon and their perceptions… that is a different story.

Sellers are publically complaining to the world of their woes with eBay, meanwhile wondering why buyers (who also read/watch the news) aren’t shopping on eBay anymore.

If I went to the grocery store, and all the clerks told me that grocery store was ‘evil,’ I’d be shopping elsewhere too.

Some sellers are smart enough to know that when it comes to a buyer, eBay and the seller are the same thing. When you cry and bicker about the name brand you represent, the only person you hurt is your bottom line.

Someone’s granddaughter was complimented on the blouse she was wearing and mentioned she’d gotten it on eBay.

It was like a switch had been turned on. Complete strangers started talking with each other about what a ripoff eBay has become. Although a few people mentioned ‘the good old days’, I must point out that none of the residents participated in the discussion (I don’t think many of them would even know how to turn on a computer).

When nursing home visitors start a spontaneous group rant about the evils of eBay, you know you have a real brand image problem.