So if he bought a Blu ray disc from me and it didn't work on an HD-DVD player it's my fault? I don't quite understand your logic here.

From their fees page:

Amazon.com collects fees only when your item sells. At that time, Amazon.com collects your sales price and shipping costs from the buyer, deducts a commission of 6 to 15 percent of the sales price, a per-transaction fee of $0.99, and a variable closing fee.

15% + .99 + .80 for the variable fee

What the fuck eBay? Now as I seller I get screwed in every single way? NOTHING is an improvement for the seller, only the buyer. They hold all the cards. 650+ feedback over 3 years that I will be most likely walking away from.

Money Orders may be the future again. I don't see how eBay can think any of these changes are a good thing. If you have large feedback, expect that to be zeroed out soon? So my 3+ years of feedback will be gone and John Doe who just joined last week will be competing with me. Great.

I don't like the new feedback policy, but I don't care about it all that much either. What I really hate are the higher fees and the paypal policy. I sell in a high risk category, so I just know I'll be in that group that gets their funds tied up in paypal for 21 days. :(

Just got this email, and :wtf: I don't think there is a decent idea in the whole thing. I hope people stick to their guns so ebay knows where they can shove these new <s>policies</s> benefits.

I do most of my selling on half.com so I'm curious how that will fit in as well.

Beengo. eBay is losing money. They know it. I know it. Most of you probably know it as well. Their stock has slowly been going south since October of last year. Now they're changing the rules to entice idiots to buy merchandise with a fail-safe to boost profits, because let's face it, they can't find any other areas to fuck over their participants. They've already maxed out and pissed off a lot of sellers, so the only next step was to make a layer of protection for buyers and make them feel safe.

Google needs to get their system up and going.

Wow. I guess I dont see the logic in either of your arguments. Apples and oranges here. He bought a PS2 game from the seller, to play in his PS2. If he had bought an xbox game for his PS2, you two would have a point. But, he bought a ps2. If I had bought mac software, you bet your ass I would expect it to work with my mac. Same goes for buying a bluray disc for my bluray player.
Bottom line is that he bought a ps2 game to play on his PS2. It didnt play. He gave the seller neutral feedback because it wasnt really the seller's fault. Why should he give positive feedback when he isnt satisfied with the transaction?

So, I sell an item (regardless of the price) and the person pays me via PayPal, and that payment would include the cost of shipping. If this is an item that they choose to hold payment on - am I now supposed to front the shipping cost and assume the risk of the buyer claiming not to be satisfied? And 21 days is ENTIRELY too long.

Granted, few items - if any - will have payment held up. But how can they honestly expect the sellers to do this? And it would be compounded when you have multiple items needing to be shipped at the same time. I use my PayPal card to pay for shipping of items as needed. Can't really do that if they aren't releasing my funds.

I have items that I have sold where the buyers have not placed feedback, and it has been nearly 3 weeks. How could any business survive having to wait up to 3 weeks for payment on an item?

I can see nothing good coming from this plan.

'member when yahoo auctions were free

Misinformation. The new rules have perhaps the biggest chance for the benefit of sellers - the removal of retaliatory or false negative feedback. Seller feedback rating is WAY more important than buyer feedback rating.

The mere fact that they are introducing a hold period is enough for me to stop using them. Sure the criteria don't seem to restrictive right now, but it could be changed at any time, and they essentially have the right to do it to any transaction they want, whenever they want.

Most real business that accept credit cards directly have to wait a week or two for payment from Visa, Mastercard or wherever, but 3 weeks is just excessive. Of course, I wouldn't even agree to a 1-day hold - it's totally against my principles.

I can see sellers who stick with it telling buyers they have to leave positive feedback before an item will ship, and they would be justified (IMO) to do so. A business like Amazon can afford to ship merchandise without having the money in their hand; the little guy can't.

Bunk, if they ever move to a total hold model, I'm out, and I imagine that most non-power sellers would be as well.

I put in a request for change

I am not a seller on ebay, so I am not sure how this would work. But does paypal notify you when you are paid? If the funds are being held, technically you weren't paid yet, right? Wouldnt you be able to not ship until the payment "clears"? Whether it is a check or a held paypal payment?

The problem is, I thought I read in some cases your payment wouldn't be released until the buyer leaves positive feedback or acknowledges they are satisfied, so you would have to ship without having the funds.

Where does it say they're zeroing out the feedback scores? Your total will still be your total. What they're going to zero are the percent-positive scores and only include the last 12 months in that calculation.

We could wait to ship until after they've left positive feedback, but eBay will probably forbid that, too.

What other reputable and halfway decent auction/sale sites are out there? Just Half.com?

Selling on Amazon is good, however you can get banned there without ever really knowing why, and no one at Amazon will talk to you about it.

The holding of funds does nothing than allow buyers to have an unfair advantage over sellers. Now all they have to do is be unhappy and the seller doesn't get paid.

Fine then - all my sales will have the fee added for mandatory signature confirmation so that there is no dispute over receipt of the item.

eBay is essentially using PayPal like an escrow service - but without the buyer or seller asking for it.

I just ordered 100 bubble mailers and got all my pictures ready so I can start selling the DVDs in my sale pile before Feb. 20th. Since it has been a few months since I've sold anything I was checking the postage rates for Priority Mail, wow, I will no longer offer that as a shipping option.

Still not sure what I'll do after the 20th. Guess I'll have to check out half.com as a possibility.

half.com is owned by ebay - wouldn't the changes apply there as well?

half.com is owned by eBay but they have always been run differently. The downside of course to half.com is that it doesn't have the exposure of eBay or Amazon.

I like their fees a lot more now with eBay changing since PayPal isn't involved and there are no listing fees. From half.com:


What are the fees for selling an item at Half.com?

At Half.com, there are no start-up, listing or monthly fees. We simply take a commission off the selling price at the time of the sale.

Commissions for items sold in the Books, Music, Movies, Games, and Game System categories are calculated as a percentage of the selling price of the item only. The shipping cost is not added to the selling price. (selling price of item sold - commission + shipping reimbursement)

Commission rates are as follows:

Selling Price

$0.75 - $50.00 = 15% commission

$50.01 - $100.00 = 12.5%

$100.01 - $250.00 = 10.0%

$250.01 - $500.00 = 7.5%

> $500.00 = 5.0%


When do I get paid?

Sellers will receive payment by direct deposit and will be paid twice monthly.


Their shipping reimbursement plan is here.

half.com certainly becomes an option for media - at least for now. But I would bet that they will change as well. eBay won't let people migrate to half in order to avoid fees and policies. They'll just extend some of the rules there.