posted on February 8, 2006 08:28:15 AM new
Tyrants do their work in shadow. The knock on the door in the middle of the night resulting in a loved one taken away, never to be seen again. Oppressive taxes levied, bank accounts frozen or simply drained.
Melodramatic? Maybe.
But given what has happened to me this week -- PayPal account frozen, coupled with an eBay suspension enforced by technology, not by stated policy -- it's time for us to plot the overthrow of the tyrant.
I'll be happy to give details of eBay's latest assault on my business as soon as it is over -- assuming it ends before I am completely ruined.
Meanwhile, let's compile a list of guerrilla tactics.
Here's one I mentioned before.
A flyer that came with my eBay order of earring cards:
4% Buy Direct Discount Window shop our eBay listings and Store Email us (bypassing eBay) with your selections [email protected]
What other means can we employ to sell without paying eBay its pound of flesh?
fLufF
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[ edited by fluffythewondercat on Feb 8, 2006 08:29 AM ]
posted on February 8, 2006 08:41:53 AM new
Oh, here's another one I thought of.
Make sure you keep email from everyone you do business with, forever. Back it up to CD or DVD if you have to. The day is coming when eBay will no longer allow us to have the email addresses of our customers; ALL correspondence will have to go through "My Messages".
As a side note, did you know that it is a violation of eBay rules to have your phone number or email address in your auction listings?
I agree that they've gotten out of hand. As for email addresses in listings, most of the major players have an email address listed. However, we both know that they'll go after the little guy before they knock on the doors of anyone as large as Sears (for an example).
I truly am sorry you are having so many problems with PayPal and eBay. I would be interested in reading the whole saga. Still willing to write the press release? I'm sure you'll have the support of 99.9% of the sellers here!
Cheryl
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
posted on February 8, 2006 08:52:49 AM new
OMG Fluff, AGAIN! - so sorry! One of your competitors must be gunning for you.
I did not know phone numbers and email addys couldn't appear in the listings. Is it a new policy? Must be a gazillion violations of that policy!!
One fellow Vendio user found a LEGAL way to steer viewers to her Vendio store via a link to her gallery there (not the scrolling gallery) displayed prominently in her listings. The "gallery" shows the ebay listings but there are navigation links displayed that can take buyers to view the entire store. A vendio store is very cheap with a small FVF.
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posted on February 8, 2006 09:15:33 AM new
Fluff - I feel your pain. The day after the post office fiasco with the double charge sending my account into the red, PayPal responded to my requests to have the pending charge canceled by locking my account... and THEN canceling the pending charge.
I'm so sick of these people I could spit. One of the advantages of Marketworks is that it automatically grabs the email address of all buyers. I've been downloading those lists once a month.
I am also looking at going down to Phoenix later this month. I would occasionally sell at the swap meet in San Diego and did about $1000 a weekend. The Phoenix one gets 2-3 times as many people so I figured it can't hurt to try, especially since that is one of the cities I am looking at moving to.
There are advantages to having inventory that can be packed into a suitcase.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Never ask what sort if computer a guy drives. If he's a Mac user, he'll tell you. If he's not, why embarrass him? - Tom Clancy
posted on February 8, 2006 09:17:00 AM new
pixiamom: I'm not actually NARU'd. I just can't list anything, nor can I accept PayPal payments.
eBay is still pretending it's a technical error. It's not. It started at the same time my PayPal account was frozen. No one else that I know of is getting this "error".
posted on February 8, 2006 09:30:51 AM new
Yes we need someone like Google to make a payment option then they can do Google auctions. Lets dream. OH best thing no fees for listing and a 1% FVF. and the google pay would charge a flat 10 cents. Yep I call that a dream for sure. Well sounded kinda good anyway.
Sorry fluff you are getting shaft again. Hope it works out fast for you.
**************
Can't touch this! uh huh, uh huh.
posted on February 8, 2006 09:59:11 AM new
Yet another example of eBay being contradictory.... Here's the link to the place I found on eBay's site that says email addresses ARE allowed:
posted on February 8, 2006 10:00:30 AM new
Ohh no, not again fLuff You must have pissed off the ebay god's or something.
Here's a way to work around problems like this in the future. I myself set up 3 ebay user ID's and also have 2 PayPal accounts. If this ever happened to me I would just start using one of the other accounts until my main account was straightened out. I from time to time sell on the other ebay user ID's just to feed them some feedback so they are not 0 feedback user ID's if I ever needed to use them.
If ebay or PayPal ever caused a problem like you are having for me I would just switch my vendio account over to one of the other ebay user ID's and PayPal account. Cancel all my listing's with the problem ebay account after copying them and relaunch them with the other account. It would at least get you up and running until your problem with the other account was fixed. Granted you would temporarily loose repeat customers with the new account but you could do a mass email to inform prior customers of the account change (your emails on CD would come in handy here).
Good luck getting your current mess straightened out soon.
They say your memory's the second thing to go, I just can't remember what the first thing is.
posted on February 8, 2006 10:05:34 AM new
Hi Mike. Thanks for your good wishes.
If this ever happened to me I would just start using one of the other accounts
Okay. This might be useful for some people to know so I will explain.
You can have one Business/Premier account, and one Personal Account. If you have a Business account, you cannot have auction proceeds sent to your Personal Account, regardless of the status of your Business Account. PayPal is very clear on this.
I have lots of eBay IDs; however, my customers would never find me if I started selling under another one. The mailing you suggest is verboten under eBay's spamming rule.
fLufF
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[ edited by fluffythewondercat on Feb 8, 2006 10:10 AM ]
posted on February 8, 2006 10:09:16 AM new
eauctionmgmt: Actually, I don't think that one is contradictory. You can't publish your email address in your listing. You can, however, include a link that opens an email client or Web form. (eBay suggests 'email me' as a good tag for the link.)
posted on February 8, 2006 10:17:10 AM new
I have two Business/Premier accounts. Two seperate checking accounts, two seperate credit cards on file, two different names, two address's and of course two different emails. One account is a Business account set up under my repair business using my business address and the other is a Premier account and is the one I currently use on ebay set up with my name and home address.
I have actually had a couple of customers pay for truck/tractor repairs via PayPal before. I email them a invoice and then a PayPal money request and they pay online. I have copies of there key's for the trucks so they can stop by any time and pick up there tractor trailers any time they like even when I'm closed. This would be the account I would fall back on if I had to.
They say your memory's the second thing to go, I just can't remember what the first thing is.
posted on February 8, 2006 10:18:53 AM new
I just did some analysis of my numbers comparing January 2005 and January 2006. Business is up about 3%, so that is good. What is interesting though is that I went from about 97% of my online business on ebay in 2005 to about 62% this year. I'd like to see that ebay number decrease even further, but for my listings, the ebay store (though expensive) makes much more sense to me, as I get prefilled category info that I would have to manually add (and time is money) - I've got a good track record of getting repeat business, so I could probably do okay without the ebay exposure, but I will only make that move when it makes sense.
That being said, I've looked at your listings in the past, and I think you would have a difficult time moving to a different platform. I think you have a great business model, but you are probably attracting a lot of bottom feeders who are trying to get something for nothing. You protect yourself with your shipping policies, but my guess is you get a lot of bidders who like to brag to their friends that they got this great item for 84 cents, and fail to factor in the shipping charges. On a website outside of ebay, you aren't going to get the same factors to make it successful - I think you would have to change your business model.
It really sucks that ebay has the power to destroy someone's business like this. Who knows, maybe google will one day take them on - Or maybe it will be a smaller player who takes away some market share. The key isn't getting the sellers, it is getting the buyer. It would have to be an idea that moves buyers away from ebay.
posted on February 8, 2006 10:39:56 AM new
fluffy,
But... even if you put a link that only says "email me" you're still technically putting your email address in the listing as part of the HREF link.
Not to mention... that if they allow you to put the "email me" link in... then that just makes their other justifications for not putting in email addresses totaly bogus.
If not contradictory... then it certainly isn't clarified well.
posted on February 8, 2006 10:40:26 AM new
Well that has to be one of ebay's dumbest rules yet. You can't put your email address in the listing but you can put in a link that will open a email client THAT HAS THE SAME DAMN EMAIL ADDRESS!
They say your memory's the second thing to go, I just can't remember what the first thing is.
posted on February 8, 2006 10:41:18 AM new
Sorry to hear of your troubles, fluffy. Hope it all smoothes out for you soon.
'
Cheryl,Still willing to write the press release? Im sorry this is lost on me. What does it mean?
posted on February 8, 2006 11:04:45 AM new
That is a shame Fluffy.
Ebay does have too much power and we, the sellers, are letting them get away with it.
We are losing control over our own auctions more with each passing day.
Please keep us posted on your situation!!
posted on February 8, 2006 11:14:34 AM new
I notice that eBay enforces its rules in a very hit and miss way. My husband just had me look for a widget he wanted on eBay. The maker has an eBay store but did not have exactly the version he wanted listed. I noticed that the sellers ID was widgetmaker.dotcom so I put that in the browser address bar took out the word "dot" and there they were. Ordered it directly from them. Now that has to be skirting pretty close to the "no domain name" in the listing!
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The illiterate of the future will be the person ignorant of the use of the camera as well as of the pen.
Maholy-Nagy, Vision in Motion, 1947
posted on February 8, 2006 11:20:46 AM new
My husband has for some time insisted that the only way to go would be to run our own jewelry auction site.
After all, I have over 8,000 unique customers from just the last three years. If I'm not selling on eBay any more, I certainly can drop them an email to tell them about our new auction site.
There are a lot of attractive features associated with such a move, other than the obvious absence of eBay fees.
-We can select payment methods. Cash is just fine, thank you, or use the online payment services that eBay disallows.
-Search engine optimization. eBay does it to promote themselves, not sellers. We can do it to promote US.
-Software supports classified ads, storefronts, forums and more.
I have been resisting this move because I see it as a marketing nightmare. But perhaps we can start small and rely on word of mouth.
The exception is: IDs created before a certain date are grandfathered-in. I had a perfectly legal dotcom ID before I merged it with my present account last month.
fLufF
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[ edited by fluffythewondercat on Feb 8, 2006 11:25 AM ]
posted on February 8, 2006 12:34:41 PM new
I've been thinking of doing the same thing, Fluffy. At the start, just having a mirror of my eBay listings would save on FVF. I've been too lazy but maybe this is a motivating moment!
posted on February 8, 2006 01:33:06 PM new
Fluff - how may PayPal hoops are you having to jump thru? I'm laughing tat this one... they wanted me to confirm my phone number as registered at my address. Apparently the fact that my number is unlisted, unpublished has caused a problem and they claim it cannot be confirmed so they now need to confirm my address by mail. But logically - didn't they already do this when they confirmed the billing address on my credit card or when they mailed my debit card to that address and I recieved and activated it?
I'm about to tell them to get the money now back in the account and to bite me. This is ridiculous. Besides... do they honestly think that after as screwy as this has all been, I actually have enough faith in them to entrust them with my SSN? That's a laugh.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Never ask what sort if computer a guy drives. If he's a Mac user, he'll tell you. If he's not, why embarrass him? - Tom Clancy
posted on February 8, 2006 01:34:39 PM new
I just tried to bid on an item, but ebay won't let me. Seems I owe them $25 from last months seller fees, and they've place a hold on my account!
I could pay the $25 with my paypal account, and be bidding right away again, but I think I'll let Meg sweat the $25 for a few days.
And, yeah, I could bid from any of my other bidding accounts, but I think I'll hold off bidding for awhile unless I see something of really good interest.
Maybe it's a good time bulk list (and bid) at Yahoo's auctions...
posted on February 8, 2006 01:37:05 PM new
I used to have a shop on Rubylane,and I will drop items from my Rubylane shop to Ebay.
Now back then when you see one of those listings we dropped from Rubylane,it has a Rubylane logo and if you clicks on it,it will take you to my Rubylane store.
Another idea is Yahoo auction,I know what you guys are going to say about Yahoo auction,but I sold 10 items to 2 bidders so far.
It is free and auto relist up to 5 times.
/ lets all stop whining !! /
You must have pissed off the ebay god's or something. 