posted on October 24, 2001 02:46:38 PM
I am not participating in this program at all! If I didn't read these boards, I would have known nothing about it. I had a buyer contact me about buying an item that I no longer had listed. I re-listed with a BIN price and she purchased it. This is the first letter I received from eBay:
Dear dixiebee,
The buyer, anonymous, would like to know the total amount for the item below. To help you calculate the total, the shipping address is included below.
To enter the total and send an invoice to the buyer, click here: (URL deleted)
The buyer entered the following message: Hi! Finally ready for the transaction!
Hope you have a great day! Your buyer
Details:
----------
Item Title: Item for Sale
Item #: xxxxxxx
Item Price: 9.99
Quantity: 1
Buyer: anonoymous buyer
Buyer email: [email protected]
Date of Request: Wednesday, Oct 24, 2001 11:15:06 PDT
Buyer Shipping Address:
Her Name
Her Address
City, State, Zip
United States
(123) 456 - 7890
If you have any questions, you can contact the buyer at [email protected].
Remember: eBay will not ask you for sensitive personal information (such as your password, credit card and bank account numbers, Social Security numbers, etc.) in an email.
Copyright 1995-2001 eBay Inc. All Rights Reserved. Designated
trademarks and brands are the property of their respective owners.
**************************************
I sent the buyer my usual EOA letting her know the shipping charges, etc. The next e-mail I receive from eBay is the same except for this paragraph:
The buyer entered the following message: Hi, I'm trying to check out via Ebay instructions, but guess I need your help to complete this. Thank you.
What kind of freakin' "instructions" did she receive from eBay? I have re-sent my usual EOA advising her that I will not be participating as a labrat in eBay's checkout program. AARRRGGGHHHH!
posted on October 24, 2001 03:04:04 PM
Checkout sucks. Plain and simple. Go read the OTWA boards for some good insight on the problems people are having.
I'm surprised that there hasn't been more discussion here at AW today about this. It is causing major communication problems between buyers and sellers! I was not going to put a disclaimer in my auctions, but I sure am now after reading up on what is going on.
This is a HUGE issue for all of us. When the TOP part of my auction will say XXXXX you are the winner, so CHECKOUT now with a huge 'ol button to click, you KNOW that newbies are gonna' click the dumb button!
posted on October 24, 2001 03:08:23 PM
BTW, for all the buyers out there, did you know that when you go through checkout it not only gives the seller your address but it gives the seller your phone number?
posted on October 24, 2001 03:10:27 PM
From the ebay Checkout Discussion Question of the Day thread..
Q: Why will the Checkout button appear on all Closed View Item pages? Why can't I opt out of this feature?
A: The Checkout button will appear on all Closed View Item pages because we hope that Checkout will, among other things, make the post-transaction process more predictable for buyers. More predictable in the sense that buyers will clearly know what to do after the listing ends in order to complete their purchase. Sellers still dictate their terms of sale (shipping, insurance, tax, etc.) -- Checkout simply informs the buyer of the seller's terms of sale (if provided in Checkout) or how to obtain these terms of sale (e.g., seller tells the buyer to contact him/her via email instead). We also hope Checkout will save sellers time, but also maintain the personal touch with their buyers.
When we say that sellers are not required to use Checkout, we mean that if the necessary Checkout Details are not provided by the seller and the buyer goes through Checkout, the buyer will only be able to communicate his/her shipping address and payment method to the seller, information the buyer will need to communicate to the seller.
We think we can accomplish this without losing the personal touch. What we're asking you is to give Checkout a try -- if you don't like it after you've tried it, then by all means, tell us why.
posted on October 24, 2001 03:30:30 PM
Checkout is horrible...a total fiasco. Go to the eBay threaded "Checkout" board to see what's happening. This is not a minor little "feature" as has been implied here, in the recent past. This is a major move on eBay's part...to force us to accept Billpoint...and destroy any chance of a relationship with our buyers. They are attempting to make them eBay's customers...not ours. No longer the middleman...eBay is the SOURCE. We're just suppliers.
posted on October 24, 2001 03:34:26 PM
Ok.... I guess we can throw some verbage out like:
A winning bidder notification will be sent via e-mail. Pleas use that form to enter your buyer information.
But...... how do we do that??? I was trying to modify my auction, and it wont take the changes.. I keep getting error screens.
Also, would be a great idea if we could choose a default in preference section..
posted on October 24, 2001 05:16:09 PM
Yikes! I noticed that phone number thing. I'm sure glad I have a onebox phone number registered with ebay. Sounds like it's getting more & more intrusive!
I'm really beginning (I know, DUH!) to believe everybody who has been saying ebay is trying to get rid of all the little sellers in lieu of the big businesses...
posted on October 24, 2001 05:23:20 PM
I'm confused about checkout and don't see anything about it in closed auctions. I bought something today just to see if "checkout" info would appear on the closed item page, and it didn't. Is it only effective for items listed after checkout went into effect?
Hasn't eBay publicly stated that they're pulling away from the small sellers and collectibles-type market and moving more toward retail and bigger business? That's obviously bad news for many sellers, but it could be good news for other auction sites which have been trying to compete against eBay. If eBay kicks us out we'll go someplace else.
posted on October 24, 2001 06:45:31 PM
""disclaimer" time? You BET!
right into the "return policy" box I think... "
I do not check any checkout boxes or fill in any info EXCEPT that I write in the "return policy" box to IGNORE checkout and that I will send the winning bidder instructions...
posted on October 24, 2001 07:16:18 PM
Doesn't seem to be any problem with the phone number... Change your registration info to a bogus number: (123) 456-7890. I'll bet a ton of us will have that one!
posted on October 24, 2001 07:46:57 PM
Well, I don't care for it, listed an auction tonight and didn't check the option to use it. So, checkout appears on my auction page with shipping, tax, etc. blank.
To a newbie, this could appear that the shipping+ is included in the bid... I have added the info on the page that shipping is additional... but, I'll bet we'll still have that confusion going.
posted on October 24, 2001 08:07:17 PM
Its very simple. Time to bail. At least until another auction place pops up that can replace ebay.
I have bailed. Hopefully yahoo will wake up and charge only a fee when the item sells. If they would it could really hurt eBay. I see no reason to keep paying all these fees for nothing. I would sooner pay a larger fvf fee. Insertion fees stink.
posted on October 24, 2001 08:18:07 PM
I'm with chum....YAHOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
I am hopeful that the changes in progress at yahoo will be productive ones. Even if they don't do anything at all with their price structure, I prefer yahoo to ebay more than ever these days.
posted on October 24, 2001 08:22:36 PMChange your registration info to a bogus number: (123) 456-7890. I'll bet a ton of us will have that one!
I understand the spirit in which you said this but realize that having an invalid contact number on ebay can earn you a nasty warning or a suspension if you are caught.
Have you seen how this is setup, you may not choose to use it, but "checkout" mis-leads the buyer into thinking they have to use it and billpoint. This is one of the lousiest business decisions, I have ever seen. (New Coke, the Edsel,Mc Ribs, Titanic,Ebay Checkout etc.....)
posted on October 24, 2001 09:07:25 PM
I HATE checkout....hate it, hate it!!!! Its taking me twice as long to relist or list anything because I have to jump through all these stupid hoops and I keep getting error messages that I forgot to do something or fill something in so I have to go back. Then all my stuff I typed in is gone..poof! I don't want to use this but it keeps filling the info in on the relists. Aaarrggghhhh.....!!!!
posted on October 25, 2001 05:06:02 AM
I loaded some last night using Channelfusion, which now does have places to fill in Checkout information. I passed. On my auction, with BIN, the Checkout information is blank and it says that seller will provide the information after the auction closes. That seems clear enough to me. I am just unclear if buyers will get some sort of different notice from ebay once these auctions end.
posted on October 25, 2001 06:48:02 AM
Where is the community in this "community",
all we get is changes from the supreme dictator.
There is no democracy in Ebay, I wish some of these associations OTWA and OAUA would have a real voice and stand up to the Ebay Dictators. This just the reasons unions unite, to take on the large corporation. THINK ABOUT THIS > IF ALL OF US STOPPED POSTING FOR A WEEK WE WOULD MAKE A REAL STATEMENT. EBAY FORGETS THAT IT IS US WHO BREAK OUR BACKS TO MAINTAIN "EBAY'S FEEDBACK". JUST ONE WEEK AND THEY WOULD START TO REALIZE WHO PAYS THE BILLS AROUND HERE. BUT LIKE IN MOST CASES PEOPLE DON'T HAVE THE BACKBONE OR CONFIDENCE TO DO IT. IS THIS ALL WE CAN DO, PUT OUR CAPS LOCK AND SCREAM IN A MESSAGE BOARD. NO! WE CAN DO MORE WE JUST NEED A UNITED VOICE AND THAT WILL WORK. WHY SHOULD WE GO TO OTHER WEBSITES WHO CREATED THE EBAY COMMUNITY. I'LL GIVE YOU ONE HINT IT WAS NOT EBAY OR THEIR CORPORATE FRIENDS. LET'S MAKE A STAND.
posted on October 25, 2001 07:13:36 AM
My husband participated in one of those eBay conference calls several months ago on this Checkout business. We were 1 of over 30 high volue sellers invited to attend. I had the impression that around 100 sellers had been invited to attend and participate.
To make a long story short, 3 sellers participated. We were sworn to secrecy about discussing the idea being discussed. Jay (my husband) and I do not take Billpoint, so it seemed pretty apparent to him that this Billpoint business is probably the real reason behind Checkout. He smells Billpoint behind every corner. That and, as others have pointed out, an effort by eBay to further distance the sellers from the customers. What a senseless, short sighted idea...
Anyway, nothing much came of that call. Jay emphasized that for a dealer like us (where fully half our customers win more than one inexpensive auction) the Checkout feature was worthless without combining items. All 3 sellers pointed out that they had systems in place to generate EOA emails, follow up, etc.
The people from eBay were friendly, but clueless. They said that the entire Checkout idea was being generated in response to requests from buyers and potential buyers for an easy-to-use, consistent method of buying on eBay. Many buyers, they said, had complained of inconsistent treatment by various sellers.
It was one of those phone conversations where you say one thing and the other party hears something else? We'd say 'this system is useless without the ability to combine items' and they'd HEAR 'we like a lot of what the system has to offer'.
If eBay is reading this then please read the message below, written in ALL CAPS so it is VERY CLEAR: ANYTHING that ADDS WORK for the SELLER will REDUCE the participation of SELLERS on eBay. CHECKOUT does NOT reduce my work and potentially ADDS TO IT. IT will SLOW ME DOWN and it will CONFUSE my customers and employees.
I am certain eBay's intention is to eventually completely move to Checkout and remove the contact between seller and buyer. What a senseless, short sighed idea. The only way for the 'big boys' (and that's not me, folks) will move to eBay is to have a completely genteel, hands-off, automated system for moving product. This only works for generic, ISDN products like what is offered at half.com. Sellers of the unique and unusual items that have made eBay interesting and viable will be too distanced from the transaction to communicate with customers and potential customers and will move their offerings to other venues. And that will be the end of it.
