I have noticed that eBay has made some changes to try and keep people selling and buying. I find it interesting that they still do not have any type of insurance for the sellers though. I do know that fewer people are selling and from the amount of advertising going on there are probably fewer people buying. I still will not sell on eBay again but I am willing to look at buying again. The last person I bought from did not ship the item, kept saying they got it back in the mail. Then when it got past the 30 days they would not return our emails. So we figured we were out our $6.00 and gave them a negative rating. The person responded to that. Gave us our money back and a negative rating.
I used to love hunting for things on eBay. Now I check the rate every one has and what the shipping cost and handling cost is going to be before I am willing to bid. I like that they have more information in the rating system now. I think that this is all for the good. EBay was to easy a mark for thieves. Some thing had to be done. I find that if you give a criminal an opening they will take it.
The real problem is that eBay was one of the world’s biggest market place. You could actually get some great deals, or get ride of your junk. I love garage sales and eBay was just one big one. I do think that if you are careful it can still be a good place to buy. However I am not sure what changes eBay could possibly do to make it safer to sell. At this point you must have a large company and can afford the cost of not selling an item as well as absorbing the occasional theft. Or you must sell items that do not have a high theft rate. If you don’t fit in that category you probably are not going to try and sell on eBay.
The other problem is that you can no longer use eBay to do direct marketing. It was great when you could make reference to your website. That way people would look at your items, possibly buy or bid and check out your web site. It was a good way to get your retail web site known. It was cost effective for the most part. Both eBay and your business benefited. Then eBay changed the rules, no more referencing your retail web site. Now I can still send my business card or put my web site address on the invoice to try and capture a client from an eBay customer. It is not as affective as having my web site address in my eBay ads. I used to look at my ads on eBay as an advertising expense. Not any more. There are much more cost effective ways to advertise then selling on eBay.
There are a lot of other auction sites and free retail web sites out there now. EBay has some real competition now. The only way I can see eBay bringing back the volume of sellers is to put some type of insurance protection for the sellers. I don’t think people would have a problem paying a small percentage of the end price to have some type of insurance. EBay also needs to let people advertise their stores or retail web sites on their listings. More people would be willing to sell or at lest list on eBay again with those changes. EBay needs to remember that with out the sellers, they have no business. If no one is willing to sell, there is nothing for people to buy, no money for eBay.
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