eBay Motors Driving Social Media

HenriettaOn 07.22.2008 at 11:06 pm Said:

My Goodness RBH, anarchy and revolution in the air. If you aren’t careful you will become an ambassador of common sense and goodwill.

Ask the customers? What a novel idea!

Sarcasm and cynicism apart, it would be a good thing if management would consult with their fee paying customers. It would be even better if they would do it before they got locked into an idea. Best of all if they could hold off implementing their ideas as sellers go into the busiest time of the year. From back-to-school through the Winter Holidays.

Imagine if the sellers could spend some time listing inventory instead of doing ridiculous changes like stripping telephone numbers & Skype IDs out of their listings.

Patricia1On 07.23.2008 at 11:15 am Said:

Hmmmm….ask the buyers and sellers. That IS novel for Ebay! Up till now I was convinced that whenever they said “we had many requests from the community” or “we asked our community” that it was simply a matter of gathering all ebay employees who also buy and sell and ask them…then nod their heads yes or no and all the employees would do likewise! A funny picture maybe…but one a LOT of ebay users believe is exactly what happens (shrug) MOST of ebay’s decisions that supposedly come from their community are so backwards from any thing real users would suggest that it is, indeed, laughable. So, really asking the real community would be very novel!

DakotaOn 07.23.2008 at 9:09 pm Said:

Instead of all of this implementation, why doesn’t eBay fix whatever is causing them to double charge sellers?

I am having quite a time and it seems that eBay doesn’t think I can figure out that they are double dipping on store inventory fees.

I have been making several revisions since all of the changes. I also had an issue with a picture thief so I had to watermark all of my images causing me to have to revise all listings to change the gallery picture.

Please remember, I am talking about store inventory listings.

Last night I noticed that I was billed for 7 items that had more than 3 days left before they were to renew (they are listed as GTC). All I did was revise the gallery picture. I double checked to make sure that I was clicking on the revise link and not the sell similar link and sure enough, I was using the revise link.

I have seen this happen a few other times (1 item at a time) so I wrote it off that I clicked the wrong link and didn’t bother to snoop into it any further.

I am unsure how long this has been going on as I have so many listings but you can bet I am going to go through all of my bills with a fine toothed comb - even go back several months to see what I find.

In the morning, I called my PowerSeller rep and she said she would check into it.

Later in the day, she left me a message on my answering machine that it was just a coincidence that I revised the listings as they were renewing. So, I called her back and said she was wrong and that the listings had 3 days left at the time. Then she told me that the listing was good for 30 days and should end on the 26th - I reminded her that basic math says that means that I still should not have been billed for 3 more days since today is only the 23rd. We exchanged a few more words and then she said she would do some more checking and get back to me. She didn’t get back to me before the end of the day.

Tonight, I went in and only did 3 revisions of store inventory listings that had more than 2 days and 17 hours. Once again, I was charged.

I have more than 3700 listings and if eBay is going to double dip each one of them this month just because I need to make revisions - I am in trouble!

Is there any way you might be able to look into this and find some answers?

Patricia1On 07.23.2008 at 10:23 pm Said:

@dakota wow! that could end up being a chunk of change - and if they’re doing that to others (by accident or glitch I’m sure) no telling what the extra revenue could amount to….and sellers like yourself probably wouldn’t even notice it!

DakotaOn 07.23.2008 at 10:37 pm Said:

You got it Patricia.

Many of my items are 5¢ but there are alot of 10¢ items as far as store fees.

Just think, in a couple of days, eBay is going to hit me again for the same listing!

If they are doing this to all of the sellers with say, more than 1000 items (because it is harder to keep track of things), eBay is going to see a HUGE financual boost.

I am a wreck thinking about going through all of those invoices. Especially the holiday one’s where I paid between $5000 and $8000 per month in fees. That will be a real mess to decipher as far as double charges. You can bet that is what the site is banking on also. If it is intimidating, sellers won’t bother.

I think that these kinds of things are far more important than all these lovely new bells and whistles that the site keeps messing with.

They need to get the basic things working correctly before sweating all of the fancies!

DakotaOn 07.23.2008 at 10:41 pm Said:

Richard,

I just sent you an email.

Thank you so very much for your very fast response!

MechelleOn 07.24.2008 at 12:05 am Said:

@Dakota

eBay had an unannounced (glitch) promotion last month where store listings were listing free during auto re-list. If the renewal and/or revision of the item becomes due after this (glitch) promotion took place the item will accrue its typical fee.

Does this make sense?

so if one of your listings happened to benefit from the glitch and you had done nothing you would have received a free listing for your store items, but because you revised it before the auto re-list you fee for the listing is charged.

Nice promo LOL glitch

DakotaOn 07.24.2008 at 6:01 am Said:

Thanks Mechelle!

I got a not in my inbox from AuctionBytes this morning on the subject also.

Somehow, I must have missed the announcement about this thing.

Anyway, I went in and checked it out by revising several items that are about 10 days out from auto relist. They did not receive a fee so that must be what is going on.

At any rate, I still think that all the new stuff should be less on the site’s minds than getting the current and necessary things running correctly and keeping them that way.

Hey Richard, the problem is solved. Thank you for your attentiveness to my SOS.

Lu McInturffOn 07.24.2008 at 6:32 am Said:

Hey Dakota, Have you tried using the free listing services at http://www.auctiva.com ? I ask in that you can watermark all your pictures and put up to 24 pictures within your listing for the same initial e-bay fee of listing one photo. Just checking. Lu

GailOn 07.25.2008 at 8:57 am Said:

Richard ~
Your last blog entry was on TUESDAY. Are you running out of positive thoughts and announcements?

The purpose of this blog is interaction, not for us to keep it going ourselves.

DakotaOn 07.26.2008 at 1:14 pm Said:

Thanks Lu

I only use Auctiva for the gallery thing.

I watermarked the pics myself and I self host so the pics in the description were not a problem. About 3 hours to download to my computer, do the watermark and upload the pics with the watermark.

My problem is, getting all the gallery pics changed to the watermarked pics.

Does anyone know how long that glitch lasted?

I am all of the way up to the evening of 07-29 and I am still being billed.

I am thinking that there may be more to it than we think.

PowerSeller support is definatly getting a call from me Monday!

MechelleOn 07.26.2008 at 1:30 pm Said:

@Dakota

do you mean you are still being charged for revisions?

DakotaOn 07.26.2008 at 10:07 pm Said:

Mechelle,

I sure am!

I called PS support and asked how long this glitch lasted and they said it started 06-26 and went into July. So, I asked how far into July. They guy didn’t know.

I am going to be choked off this month!

It doesn’t matter if eBay’s glitch made the listings free last month or not. I budget #XX.XX per month (I try to stay close to that amount but most always go a bit over) for fees and here I am, being blasted this month.

I asked PS when the glitch would be fixed, no answer there either. They simply said that they are working on it.

I either have to put up with this and keep revising or let the picture theif have his way with my pics.

I am just sick.

eBay needs to get it’s act straight and forget about all the bells and whistles. All those are is something else to not work correctly.