Thanks for buying this for me!

I'd like to thank all the many eBay customers over the years who put up with me, bought all my crap, paid for my Harley and left me positive feedbacks despite my lackadasial approach to eBay.

Feedback

Over the summer of 2008 I had some sort-of-unpleasant things happen and had to abandon eBay for several months. Having never thought about the implications of such a drastic change it never occured to me that I'd end up having my feedback rating drop below 99% for the first time in 10 years of being here. But it happened. At least one bad rating came from a guy who bought something before I suspended my account. He never paid but he still left a negative. Fair enough. Over time that will fade.

Several people did pay though and I have tried to track them down and either get them their goods or refund them. I've been partially successful and a couple of eBay'ers out there now have their loot back and are happy with me. Okay, maybe not happy. How about satisfied?

The eBay changes

Now that I'm back I see tons of changes. Not all of them are what I consider good ones. For starters, the feedback changes. Now I've never been one to just leave negative feedback. I hate that! But the truth is, it's close to impossible to get buyers to leave you a positive unless they're motivated by the prospect of increasing their score overall. That's why in the past I never left feedback until I received it. Well darn it! There's no threat anymore. No seller can leave a negative. So, I'm trying it eBay's way. I'm leaving positives as soon as I'm paid. The response so far has been poor. About 2 out of 5 buyers leave feedback. The rest just take the good one from me and never look back, never return the rating.

I'll give this new way a go until at least Christmas of 2008. If I'm still seeing under 50% return of feedback then I'll just go back to my old method.

Another change

eBay seems to have morphed into less of an auction site and more of a "store" site. When I cruise the auctions by catagory I see that only about 10% of the listed items ever get bids. That makes me sad because one of the cool things about selling here was always the chance that I could actually make a nice profit on the occasional item. Sniping software is partly responsible for lower auction profits and couple that with the fact that most sellers just put their stuff in an eBay store at close to what they value it at and you get less of an auction site and more of just a plain old store site.

Unless eBay buyers complain, in force, that'll never change because no matter what eBay management says, this site is not designed to make us money as sellers and you happy as buyers. It has become a site that demands returns for stockholders and corporate profit is king here. Not the 20, 30 or 40 million members.

Look at it this way

As a seller I was always willing to take the risk of only getting $8 for something I knew as worth $20 or even $40. So I'd put it in the 7 day auction format. If the item drew bidders I got good money. If for some reason it was not drawing bidders I might only have received the initial $8 or perhaps a few dollars more. Most sellers would take that risk for the chance of a good "hit" on an item.

But now why bother. The chances of getting more than one bidder are so low and even then, the sniping software is so brutal that it's not worth the risk. It's better to just put it in the store for $22 and let someone buy it whenever.

What that means is that you, as a potential bidder, don't even have the opportunity for getting something as cheap as you could in the past. Not to mention, the buyer doesn't make the good score from time to time and so the enthusiasm for real auctions drops.

Certainly eBay knows this. And approves of it. I don't own stock in eBay so I'm really just like you: a customer.

Handling fees

eBay also would love to control how much a seller can (or should) charge for handling. Well, big whup. They get their money, and plenty of it. The process of packing an item, getting labels organized and then getting the packages in the mail is time consuming and is real work. So, I charge a fee. The fee is small, too small I think. But I have to remain somewhat competitive. I also use quality packing materials... good boxes and padded mailers and I always ship via PayPal/USPS so there is verifiable tracking on each item in the USA.

For you international buyers I charge more. It's more work and unless the USPS web site ever gets it's label generation and customs forms working online, it'll always be more work. Sorry folks, but that extra dollar or two is needed on my end to justify my policy of shipping anywhere in the world.

Thank you again

I mean that. Thanks for buying from me and thanks for coming back and buying again. I've still got about 5 years or so of goodies to unload so I'll be around a while.

I hope you find something you like!