This post on the selling forum tells the story of an early eBay used auto parts seller. He tells how his auto recycling business expanded over the years, but now dreads what he used to love. It’s all about the buyer and the hell with sellers!
From the selling forum partial: It saddens me to do this but as of yesterday I’ve made up my mind to no longer choose to sell on eBay full time. I have been doing so since I was 18 (almost 30 now) and it went from something which I truly loved to do and was excited about to completely dreading. I started with a small 5×5 storage unit where I would store my parts to a 1300 SQ FT warehouse with thousands of dollars in heavy duty shelving, a forklift, office, lift and more.
My reason for leaving all this hard work behind stems from the lack of respect and protection in which they give us (the sellers .) As well as the most greed filled, disgusting, policy yet, the additional 4% hit on final value fees for “high returns”.
I average about $15,000 in sales a month and between my “anchor” store and final value fees I believe eBay is paid quite well. Now, for reasons out of your control if a buyer opens a return and claims the item as “defective” even when it may not be we take that hit. I sell auto parts and it is a tough gig, buyers usually do not have a full understanding as to what it is they are buying or simply have a remorse return for a misdiagnosed part and unfortunately we take the hit.
Just yesterday I sold an air bag (non deployed of course) and the buyer stated it “does not work” now, nothing short of the buyer installing the bag into the vehicle and driving it straight into a wall would this return make any sense. Very upset about this, I called eBay and explained the situation to a staff member, he completely agreed with me however stated that I “cannot have this defect removed” which then causes my return rate to go “up”. I am sorry but a 3% return rate in no way shape or form should be considered “high” nor should a 3.50% be “very high” and subject me to an additional 4% final value fee. This whole comparing you to your “peers” is absolute garbage and just an excuse for them to pocket an extra $600 from me a month (on average ). The rest of this article is here .
Sad to see this once great selling venue resort to nit picking sellers for more money!
FidoSysop
I'm a former Auto Dealer and Mechanic born in the 50s. In 1991 Doc's Place Bulletin Board System was born on the Fidonet Network. Since the net went public I've been studying and mastering it becoming a tech-savvy hobbyist webmaster. I.blog my opinion about many worthy subjects and maintain a large political archive!
