Power Sellers Unite

Brandr · Joined: 07 Mar 2010 Posts: 137

Hello everyone.

One of my sidelines is web developing, and my contempt for greedybay has reached such a fever pitch that I was seriously considering building a new site and buying a new domain for the specific purpose of trashing ebay. I then stumbled upon this awesome site in the process and realised I needn't bother. That PSU had already established a wonderful lifeline for ebayers about to burst a capillary.

I buy much more frequently than I sell. When I sell it is always a major item. Computer laptops etc. When I buy it can be a 3 dollar cable splitter or a 1000 dollar plasma screen tv. I was once an enthusiastic ebay hobbyist, and I am proud of my 100% positive feedback. However, I rarely visit ebay these days. The pathological corporate greed introduced by Meg witless has made the place very distasteful to me. I do not like to give a business the opportunity to screw me over. I am a very proactive consumer.

Pierre used the ebay community to build his billion dollar brand, and then began milking it for all it was worth. His only interest - the corporate bottom line. ebay has established a new bench mark in creating the perfect business model. His company must take in a dollar for every penny expended. ebay is nothing more than a server farm, some web script and bandwidth. A virtual business. Yet ebay nickles and dimes it's sellers, charging a fee for every little auction listings feature, which should be standard. 2 dollars to place a <bold> tag around your listings title? Are they kidding? And then there's the 'final value' fee. A nice way of saying 'ebay's usurious cut-of-the-action'.

Christie's doesn't make such a percentage in a 'real' auction. So how can ebay justify it's blood sucking fees for a few kilobytes of html in a website listing? They would say the market visibility of ebay as a household name justifies such rates. But Omidyar didn't build ebay into what it is alone. He couldn't have made ebay so successful without the enthusiasm and dedication of the founding ebay community. And rather than show appreciation for this, Omidyar has decided a decent corporate profit isn't enough, he want's to redistribute the sellers' profit margin into the bank accounts of himself and his worthless corporate managers, leaving the seller just enough to make a technical profit and on just the borderline of despair to keep coming back for a sheering.

Ebay does everything possible to protect it's own income stream and interests, but precious little to protect ebayers from the exploding litany of crooks, con artists, and scammers preying on the ethical buyers and sellers. God forbid any of you decide to find a car through ebay motors. You'd have a better shot winning at an Atlantic City crap table than coming out whole after winning an ebay motors auction. But hey! As long as ebay get's it's final value fee, who cares if the buyer gets ripped-off.

And I need not tell any of you about ebays self-serving payment options. A seller must put a credit card on file before he can sell, allowing ebay direct access to your bank account or credit card to extract their fees at will. Yet, a seller must wait 3 to 7 days for a paypal transfer to arrive in his bank account as paypal collects millions in interest with this delaying tactic.

Need I go into any great detail about how ebay has transformed from an online auction site, to just another ecommerce portal?

Have I established the fact that I really, really hate ebay? It is wrong to hate someone because of their race, religion, national origin, or sexual orientation. But it is a virtue to hate Pierre Omidyar for his pathological greed and ingratitude.

Hope you enjoyed the well-considered rant,

Your brother in arms,

Brandt S

ehustle · Joined: 18 Mar 2009 Posts: 621

Brandt, welcome along.

PSU in my experience has been about learning independence and best practices on all sites, it's about the experimental and long standing. It's not necessarily a forum about the hate of eBay which some have.

Folks or companies which choose to sell or buy online do have a responsibility to themselves to select and purchase according to their personal needs, or professional needs.

For me, I think Pierre is a fine human being and I'd love to have lunch with him or his family any day of the week. There is more to the man than his stock and interest in eBay.

He is quite involved in some fantastic projects which I follow, and for me; I am glad to see him practice his beliefs and causes.

I'm not so sure everyone with a fortune like that would share it the way he does.

Brandr · Joined: 07 Mar 2010 Posts: 137

@ehustle

Hi Meg, Is that you? Thanks for your well considered reply, even though my innately cynical nature causes me to suspect that you may be an ebay damage control monitor. For all I know this entire site is an ebay false flag operation.

Of course I am not here to plaster the board with an endless tirade of rants against ebay. My initial post was just a safety valve. I needed to blow off some steam. Of course constructive discussion relating to alternative online auction solutions would be a better long term focus for this site; but hopefully a tolerance for dissenting voices will be balanced with this site's mercantile interests.

I hold people accountable for their actions. ebay has betrayed the founding community, and all the extracurricular PR exercises in the world will not distract me from the fact or cause me to grant Omidyar an absolution from my poor opinion of him. How generous that Pierre gives away a minute fraction of some of the ill-gotten lucre he sucks from the neck of his sellers. Robbing Peter to pay Paul is an old expression. Ostentatiously throwing a few dollars at charity is a much more cost effective investment in public relations than paying some Madison avenue firm to run 'I love ebay' commercials on Comcast'.

I doubt this 'IS' an ebay front, but if it were, I'd imagine ebay would rather have me venting my spleen here where they have some ability to manage my activity, than have greedybay.com appearing in Google. And IT is my bag.

I'd love to have lunch with Pierre too, at the ebay commissary. Of course I'd be courteous and civil, but the conversation would definitely not centre around my fawning admiration for himself.

I'm a Ron Paul libertarian/Conservative Independent non-Republican affiliated Tea Partier from Southern New Jersey. Just so you know what your dealing with...lol

Best regards,

B

craig75-01 · Joined: 12 Jun 2008 Posts: 34

Brandr wrote (View Post): › docWrite("quote")Hello everyone.

One of my sidelines is web developing, and my contempt for greedybay has reached such a fever pitch that I was seriously considering building a new site and buying a new domain for the specific purpose of trashing ebay. I then stumbled upon this awesome site in the process and realised I needn't bother. That PSU had already established a wonderful lifeline for ebayers about to burst a capillary.

I buy much more frequently than I sell. When I sell it is always a major item. Computer laptops etc. When I buy it can be a 3 dollar cable splitter or a 1000 dollar plasma screen tv. I was once an enthusiastic ebay hobbyist, and I am proud of my 100% positive feedback. However, I rarely visit ebay these days. The pathological corporate greed introduced by Meg witless has made the place very distasteful to me. I do not like to give a business the opportunity to screw me over. I am a very proactive consumer.

Pierre used the ebay community to build his billion dollar brand, and then began milking it for all it was worth. His only interest - the corporate bottom line. ebay has established a new bench mark in creating the perfect business model. His company must take in a dollar for every penny expended. ebay is nothing more than a server farm, some web script and bandwidth. A virtual business. Yet ebay nickles and dimes it's sellers, charging a fee for every little auction listings feature, which should be standard. 2 dollars to place a <bold> tag around your listings title? Are they kidding? And then there's the 'final value' fee. A nice way of saying 'ebay's usurious cut-of-the-action'.

Christie's doesn't make such a percentage in a 'real' auction. So how can ebay justify it's blood sucking fees for a few kilobytes of html in a website listing? They would say the market visibility of ebay as a household name justifies such rates. But Omidyar didn't build ebay into what it is alone. He couldn't have made ebay so successful without the enthusiasm and dedication of the founding ebay community. And rather than show appreciation for this, Omidyar has decided a decent corporate profit isn't enough, he want's to redistribute the sellers' profit margin into the bank accounts of himself and his worthless corporate managers, leaving the seller just enough to make a technical profit and on just the borderline of despair to keep coming back for a sheering.

Ebay does everything possible to protect it's own income stream and interests, but precious little to protect ebayers from the exploding litany of crooks, con artists, and scammers preying on the ethical buyers and sellers. God forbid any of you decide to find a car through ebay motors. You'd have a better shot winning at an Atlantic City crap table than coming out whole after winning an ebay motors auction. But hey! As long as ebay get's it's final value fee, who cares if the buyer gets ripped-off.

And I need not tell any of you about ebays self-serving payment options. A seller must put a credit card on file before he can sell, allowing ebay direct access to your bank account or credit card to extract their fees at will. Yet, a seller must wait 3 to 7 days for a paypal transfer to arrive in his bank account as paypal collects millions in interest with this delaying tactic.

Need I go into any great detail about how ebay has transformed from an online auction site, to just another ecommerce portal?

Have I established the fact that I really, really hate ebay? It is wrong to hate someone because of their race, religion, national origin, or sexual orientation. But it is a virtue to hate Pierre Omidyar for his pathological greed and ingratitude.

Hope you enjoyed the well-considered rant,

Your brother in arms,

Brandt S

If your looking for a new site try eBid.net, its free to list and free to sell, upgrade to seller+lifetime within 24hrs of joining and get lifetime membership for £49.49/$49.49 and a free t-shirt, you also get 5 free stores for life and 5 free photos

Brandr · Joined: 07 Mar 2010 Posts: 137

craig75-01 wrote (View Post): › docWrite("quote")

If your looking for a new site try eBid.net, its free to list and free to sell, upgrade to seller+lifetime within 24hrs of joining and get lifetime membership for £49.49/$49.49 and a free t-shirt, you also get 5 free stores for life and 5 free photos

Ay Up Craig, thanks for the input. My Mum and dad are from North Yorks by the way. But I have been in the states a looooong time. I still talk a little funny though...lol

B

craig75-01 · Joined: 12 Jun 2008 Posts: 34

Brandr wrote (View Post): › docWrite("quote")craig75-01 wrote (View Post): › docWrite("quote")

If your looking for a new site try eBid.net, its free to list and free to sell, upgrade to seller+lifetime within 24hrs of joining and get lifetime membership for £49.49/$49.49 and a free t-shirt, you also get 5 free stores for life and 5 free photos

Ay Up Craig, thanks for the input. My Mum and dad are from North Yorks by the way. But I have been in the states a looooong time. I still talk a little funny though...lol

B

That's ok just use the same link but change uk to us. I.e.:

UK sellers/buyers
http://uk.ebid.net/perl/normal.cgi?ref=419856&mo=register-main

US sellers/buyers
http://us.ebid.net/perl/normal.cgi?ref=419856&mo=register-main

ehustle · Joined: 18 Mar 2009 Posts: 621

I'm the daughter of a paid assassin who took 5 bullets in his body for your right to exercise your opinions.

I am a voter also.

I'd be alright with the Coffee House on the corner, (he lives in Honolulu now) and eBay would never even enter the conversation.

There are many here that are in the IT field, hang loose and make some friends here; some high end tech conversations take place here, there are lots of programmers floating about.

I have a very deep love of the islands, and Pierres projects there mean a great deal to me personally, I follow them closely and am very excited to see them unfold and touch the great communities on the Islands.

I can't even begin to tell you what it means to me. It's important work he is involved in there and it will change lives for the better. I'm very much in support of the work he does.

I've walked the parks there, I've seen the strife.

In a nutshell, what he is doing is opening up new ways of connecting media and communication systems to allow new alliances to form to better the communities there.

The children and families it will impact, their health and happiness, the jobs and access are all part of it.

http://www.omidyar.com/

Carry on.

Brandr · Joined: 07 Mar 2010 Posts: 137

@ehustle

I am glad the 60 USD I will pay in fees for the item I just sold on ebay will contribute to an improvement in your quality of life and help fund Pete's pet projects. You are worth every penny Omidyar is paying you as his public relations liaison. :D

Regards,

B

ehustle · Joined: 18 Mar 2009 Posts: 621

You'll assimilate here sooner or later.

In what quality is up to you.

I do not accept your very personally negative directed tone as an insult or with any power, I realize you are new here.

I issue a peace pass, and again welcome you and invite you to stay.

Brandr · Joined: 07 Mar 2010 Posts: 137

ehustle wrote (View Post): › docWrite("quote")You'll assimilate here sooner or later.

In what quality is up to you.

I do not accept your very personally negative directed tone as an insult or with any power, I realize you are new here.

I issue a peace pass, and again welcome you and invite you to stay.

I have no intention of insulting or abusing you personally, but the negative tone is very intentional when I am discussing ebay. I just want to make sure everyone here is aware of the fact that ebay has many 'observers' here and elsewhere who are assigned the task of defusing any negative content pertaining to ebay. I am not saying you are one of these agents, just that I am aware of the possibility. I understand there truly are many people who happily play the docile sheep as the politicians and corporations walk all over them.

I am sure if we move beyond this subject and encounter each other in other topically unrelated threads, we could have a pleasant and entertaining discussion. I acknowledge you are an obviously intelligent and articulate person, but I strongly suspect that you are also a bleeding heart liberal progressive. Being a politically independent conservative, there may be limits in the possibilities of a truly cordial relationship.

As I said, I am not a Liberal, nor am I a Borg. I will never assimilate into the collective.

But best regards truly,

B

bobp9500 · Joined: 07 Mar 2010 Posts: 11

Hey Brandr,
I enjoyed your rant----and completely agree with you!---Couldn't have said it better.----boB

DaLizardsLair · Joined: 15 Feb 2009 Posts: 4782

Quote: › docWrite("quote")Christie's doesn't make such a percentage in a 'real' auction

Christie's charges the seller a 20% commission and the buyer pays a 10% premium. And that's before they tack on Sales Taxes and/or Delivery Charges. And if you want to have a fixed minimum bid, they charge a fee for that as well.

As for Pierre, the only thing one can fault him for, is taking eBay public. Even he regrets that action.

And no, I'm not an apologist for eBay. I haven't listed anything there in at least two years. Haven't purchased anything in that time either.

PatchDog · Joined: 28 Feb 2007 Posts: 3726

Is this a General All Purpose Hate for eBay and its Founder or did you have a specific issue that made you go off of the deep end? What happened to drive you into our arms?

ehustle · Joined: 18 Mar 2009 Posts: 621

Speaking of best practice, Ryan updated his blog today.

I would be crippled without that site.

http://www.rolbe.com/

Many free calculators for many sites are there, http://www.rolbe.com/ebay.htm one can experiment with different fill fields to see the outcomes of your decisions prior to posting.

I love that thing.

I follow him on twitter at: http://twitter.com/RyanOlbe

With this tool, there is no excuse to be "shocked" at the fee schedules of many major sites. There is also international versions as well.

Can anyone say I love the UK? I do!

It's ten bucks off right now, about 25 dollars for the full spreadsheet program. I think it ends on March 15th or something.

The user guide is here if you want to take a look at some of the things it can do: http://www.rolbe.com/guides/ebay_spreadsheet/index.html

It is an awesome site with lots of free stuff! I personally have the downloads there because I use it for consignment payouts.

This guy is an online sellers dreamboat.

I think I will send him a Valentine someday. :D

PatchDog · Joined: 28 Feb 2007 Posts: 3726

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