Mutiny on the eBay bounty! June 11, 2008

Argh Mateys! “Captain eBlay” has wreaked havoc with eBay sellers and we seek revenge!

Mutiny on the eBay bounty escalated on eBay Doomsday, May 19, 2008 when neutral feedbacks retroactively were counted as a negative, and when sellers could no longer leave negative feedback for buyers. If you’re among those sellers still standing at eBay, then you can take a stance and take action to make a difference or eBay will continue on the rampage!

Join us in the mutiny!
Your mission, if you choose to accept it is to:

1. MAKE NOISE WITH EBAY: Blog, file complaints, ask questions of eBay representatives, stop buying, stop selling and fight your good reputation with every feature available on eBay. Be sure to use  Live Customer Service and do whatever you can to drive up the costs at eBay to make the senior managers understand of MUTINY ON THE EBAY BOUNTY!

2. SEND UNPAID ITEM REMINDERS: You have two ways to report buyers who don’t pay — the traditional way is through eBay and this will document bad buying habits for all sellers. Best of all, it only takes a couple more strikes for the the bad apple to get a suspsension. You’ll gain satisifaction knowing s/he’s NO LONGER A REGISTERED USER and that negative or neutral will be removed. Another option for reporting unpaid buyers is through a third party service called http://feedback.reliabid.com,

3. REPORT FEEDBACK EXTORTION: Reporting feedback extortion to eBay is tricky — the buyer actually has to spell out that s/he will leave negative or neutral feedback if the seller doesn’t comply with demands to provide goods or services outside the original listing. Buyers can threaten to leave negative feedback as long the demand is NOT outside what was promised in the listing. In other words, they can’t ask you to upgrade them or in a free product, but they can threaten to leave such feedback if “the item doesn’t deliver by Friday.”

4. DOCUMENT AND REPORT FEEDBACK ABUSE. Have you been abused by a buyer? You may think so, but eBay will not remove a feedback simply for having inflammatory language (e.g. “liar”). But eBay will remove it if the comment, reply or follow-up references a completely separate transaction or unrelated experience, or has Profane, vulgar, obscene, or racist language or adult material in it. That’s about the only reason they will remove the feedback. The only other reason is if you have a court order to have it removed. Again, make noise and take up the customer service representatives time, because time is money for eBay!

5. SEND ALL CONCERNS TO TRUST AND SAFETY. When buyers do something strange — ensure they’ve provided the proper contact information to their eBay account and if not you can repor them to eBay. You and should request contact information whenever something goes wrong. A phony phone-number or address is a big tip off for fraud, and can aid your case. Suspiscious activity may encircle a malicious eBayer who provides false or incorrect e-mail address, and you can report such deviances to eBay’s Trust and Safety department. eBay may respond by warning, suspending or terminating, but won’t divulge to you the results of their investigations.

6. CREATE SELLER’S TERMS: Back in the day an establishment might post a “No shirts, no shoes, no service!” sign — today’s eBay is no different. In fact, our eBay representatives have suggested quite frankly that sellers SHOULD make sellers terms, and that they CAN exclude buyers at any time prior to the listing close and SHOULD cancel unwelcome bids. The key is to stop a bad buyer during the bidding process. The specifics are a bit fuzzy for Buy Nows.

While sellers are not permitted to include terms of sale any conditions that limit or restrict the buyer from leaving feedback, they do have some options and can report bad buyers who fail to mee the terms. Examples:
>> Seller states item will only be shipped domestically. Buyer is registered outside the shipping area.
>> Seller states that buyers with negative feedback comments are not permitted to bid. The buyer has negative feedback.

Creating sellers terms will go a long way to thwart unwelcome and malicious buying. Wat’s more, sellers can take note of eBay’s “Report a Problem pages” BOOKMARK THIS SITE: http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/report_problem.html

Generally, eBay is inflexible in removing feedback.

7. GO TO THIRD PARTY RESOURCES: Show eBay how you feel by reporting your bad experiences to third party resources. Make noise in various forums:

Here are some wonderful eBay forums:
http://www.auctionbytes.com/

http://www.auctioncut.com/

http://www.powersellersforum.com/

Here are some places to report bad experiences with buyers:

http://www.ebuyer-feedback.com

http://www.afterthegavel.com/

http://www.mermaidmonkey.com/eBayBlockedList

http://www.buyerbackground.com

http://www.rapleaf.com/

Please add to the list and tell us your eBay Mutiny story!

dropping like flies for eBay alternatives like etsy.com (handmade items), rubylane.com (collectibles) and Amazon  which has opened the doors to a variety of online merchants.

Ten Truths About your eBay Business June 5, 2008

So you’re on your way to becoming an eBay PowerSeller, and you’re ready to quit your 9-5 job. Hold on! Before you tell your boss where to shove it, get a reality check.

Here are the ten truths about your eBay business you may not want to know about:

1. Most buyers come to eBay already knowing what they need or want –they head straight for the search bar. This makes the keywords in your title incredibly important, because it’s the keywords in the title that generates results for the search bar. But even if you have the best possible title, the truth is you might have junk no one wants. Your job is to supply the needs and wants of eBayers; and not your own needs and wants to unload stuff. Find what people want using eBays WANT IT NOW section. And be sure to use eBay’s advanced search of COMPLETED ITEMS to evaluate the potential of your products in comparison to a previous seller’s success on similar items.

2. Your home will become a warehouse of inventory (and someday you will move your operations or inventory elsewhere if you are destined to be a top tier PowerSeller). Sure there are drop-ship opportunities, but the real deal is to cut the middle-man profits and get direct wholesale sources that you can resell for 25-100% profits or to create products of your own that fill a demand. So start thinking in terms of getting a seller’s permit so you can buy wholesale, and then plan your future storage needs now, before it’s too late.

3. eBay and PayPal will rape you of profits, but they are the necessary evils to generate traffic for your stores and to get paid efficiently. Knowing that 95% of eBayers use PayPal should be incentive enough to continue using it. Likewise, you simply can’t turn away knowing that eBay ranks in the top 25 most frequently visited Web sites according to Alexa rankings with it’s 40-60 billion page listings. Even so, these internet giants aren’t invincible, so keep your eyes peeled for alternatives: http://www.mermaidmonkey.com/eBayalternatives.html

4. Funding your eBay store will be a problem if you don’t have a plan to replenish inventory. Simply, you must reinvest profits in more inventory (and not live off the profits) to keep your business thriving. It sounds simple enough, but often eBayers depend on the profits to feed their families. Your strategy must include a plan to effectively maintain and grow your inventory.

5. You must take massive action to make your eBay business successful. It’s a simple thought, borrowed from Tony Robbins, that you must take massive action to succeed. The good news is that success leaves clues. Follow the clues you get from studying PowerSellers (modeling them), then take action to repeat processes to reap the rewards. You simply can’t fail. Believe that you can get the same results and you will succeed.

6. You will need to leverage help of family, friends or employees. The day will come when you spend all your time answering e-mails, ordering new inventory, printing labels, packing, leaving feedback, and dealing with challenging situations that you won’t have time for yourself or to grow your business further. The best place to start is to hire family and friends for more trusted tasks. You can also use a temporary placing service to help. Hiring from a temporary agency means you won’t have any long term commitments or employment tax issues to deal with. The bottomline is that you won’t be truly free until you are not doing the work yourself. Hire yourself to freedom.

7. Someday your employees will steal. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 20% of all business fail because of internal theft and fraud. Awareness of these statistics should be enough incentive to manage inventories and put mechanisms in place to keep theft at bay.

8. Someday you will get negative or neutral feedback. You will run into an unforgiving soul on eBay at one point or another. It doesn’t matter if you goof of if they just think you goofed, someday you will get a bad apple that won’t budge. Don’t bother getting a negative or neutral feedback erased — because the only reason eBay will remove a feedback is with a court order. The harsh reality is that since May 19, 2008 sellers no longer have the ability to leave buyers negative or neutral feedback for buyers.  If you sell low ticket items, you should just get out of eBay as it’s too risky for you to sell.  Buyers will not bother working things out with you for small items — they’d rather just give you a negative or a neutral.  For more on surviving eBay’s feedback changes, visit http://www.mermaidmonkey.com/eBayFEEDBACK.html

9. Figuring your taxes will be a year-end nightmare unless you plan for it. Keep all receipts organized and be sure to use Excel or QuickBooks to electronically capture the data for easy retrieval at tax time. Lastly, try Diane Kennedey’s Tax Loopholes, which is your ultimate source for paying less taxes, legally. http://www.taxloopholes.com/

10. You will need to earn passive or residual income beyond eBay to free yourself financially. Of course you already know the power of earning passive income right here on Lazzeo — the best social networking site for entrepreneurs. Earning affiliate commissions is one way to earn residual income. Another example is to earn royalties from published work, such as a hardcopy book, or automated sales of digital products, like eBooks. While eBay instituted a digital download policy March 31, 2008 to disallow sales of eBooks, templates, backlinks, and other digital products, you can still place a classified advertisement on eBay. Or you can abandon eBay altogether and sell your digital wares on Amazon or other eBay alternative.

To learn more ways on how to make money on eBay and beyond, visit http://www.mermaidmonkey.com/

Get cash back and news on eBay:

• For eBay buyers surf: http://www.cashbackatebay.com/eBaybuyers
• For eBay sellers surf: http://www.cashbackatebay.com/eBaysellers

M.C. Nygard was a Platinum PowerSeller on eBay with 100% feedback and high detailed seller ratings who closed all listings May 18, 2008 in protest of eBay’s retroactive feedback policies. She is now an avid supporter of eBay alternatives, such as Amazon.com, Etsy.com and RubyLane.com,

eBay vs. Amazon: who is the winner? June 4, 2008

MERMAIDMONKEYS invites your comments:
eBay versus Amazon: who is the winner?

Here’s our take: Amazon wins!

Here’s why Amazon gets the Winner’s Cup: 

eBay has created an environment of distrust between its sellers and buyers. The dicotomy between buyers and sellers culminated May 19, 2008 when eBay set forth its “No negative feedback” policy whereby sellers are unable to leave negative feedback for buyers; meanwhile its buyers can leave positive, neutral or negative feedback without any repurcussions.(Incidentally, neutral feedback now counts the same as negative, which is just another way that eBay is tipping the scales in favor of buyers and forsaking its sellers.)

Amazon on the other hand has embraced buyers and sellers alike!
Buyers barely know that they are buying outside of Amazonbecause Amazon  of the company’s co-branding — the user experience transcends eBay in representing a platform. This leverages high marks for Trust and Safety between buyers and sellers! Personalized recommendations is a wonderful cross-sell tool that buyers certainly appreciate too. And having ONE listing for items that have different sizes or color options simplifies the experience for all. eBay only recently made modifications to play “catch up” to Amazon. Another key feature on Amazon is that it has a shopping cart and wish list — buyers on eBay often inadvertently make purchases then squibble over the hard lined contract instilled by eBay in the interest of its own pocketbook.

Amazon wins for SELLERS because:
1. There’s no per product listing fee and it doesn’t cost you a penny until your product sells.
2. Amazon makes it easy to have a branded online store.
3. Blog authors can monetize their sites with loads of help from Amazon.
4. If have the digital rights to a book, you can make it available as an eBook on Amazon.com (eBay banned digital items March 31, 2008).
5. You can get a free 30-day trial to open your store! And you can earn 10% commissions on all sales for opening a bookstore. Check out our bookstore on Amazon: http://www.mermaidmonkey.com/eBaybooks.html

Amazon wins for BUYERS because:
1. Buyers can shop without commitments (wish lists and shopping carts).
2. the personalized shopping experience helps buyers find what they need.
3. Feedback doesn’t feel compulsary as it does in eBay’s forum.
4. Amazon estimates delivery time, while eBay leaves sellers guessing.
5. Amazon streamlines packaging tracking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why it’s too Dangerous to Sell on eBay May 21, 2008

Sellers on eBay are vulnerable now more than ever to buyer abuse thanks to eBay’s ”no negative feedback” policy installed May 19, 2008. The new policy enables only sellers to receive a negative feedback.

Have at it buyers! You are now free to post false, inaccurate, misleading content without recourse — and add insult to injury! Yes, in addition to posting insults, buyers can simply tell eBay that an item is “not as described” — this process penalizes sellers by withholding PayPal funds during the investigation.

The following scenarious illustrate how dangerous it is to sell on eBay:

SCENARIO: Buyer clicks BUY NOW or BIDS and wins an auction (contract of sale). Buyer writes seller to say that he “purchased an item in error” and requests that the seller cancel the sale (tries to renege contract).

OPTION #1: Seller says “no” and enforces unpaid item:

• POSSIBLE RESULT 1: seller is vulnerable to negative feedback; does not get paid.
• POSSIBLE RESULT 2: seller is vulnerable to negative feedback; however seller may get paid without further incident.
• POSSIBLE RESULT 3: seller is vulnerable to negative feedback; and may get paid, but may suffer penalization for “item not as described” or other possible false violation such as “box was empty.” PayPal withholds funds. Seller loses product, seller is not reimbursed for shipping

OPTION #2: Seller says “okay” so as to avoid a negative feedback”:
Seller does nothing. Just lets the sale slide and does not file unpaid item process:

• RESULT: seller is vulnerable to negative feedback because buyer is able to leave feedback (and yet buyer hasn’t paid).

Seller completes mutual agreement for an unpaid item:

SCENARIO 1: “If the buyer confirms the seller’s statement about mutual agreement not to complete the transaction, the buyer will not receive an Unpaid Item strike and the seller will receive a Final Value Fee credit:

• POSSIBLE RESULT #1: seller is vulnerable to negative feedback because buyer is able to leave feedback (and yet buyer hasn’t paid); however, seller gets final value fee commissions refunded.

SCENARIO 2: “If the buyer disagrees with the seller’s statement on mutual agreement, the buyer will not receive an Unpaid Item strike and the seller will not receive a Final Value Fee credit. The dispute will be closed immediately after the buyer responds and the seller will not be eligible to re-file an Unpaid Item dispute for that transaction.”

• POSSIBLE RESULT #2: seller is vulnerable to negative feedback because buyer is able to leave feedback (and yet buyer hasn’t paid). Seller also now must unfairly pay consequences of final value fee commissions

SCENARIO 3: “If the buyer does not respond to the email or pop-up message within 7 days then the seller will be able to close the dispute. The seller will receive a Final Value Fee credit and the buyer will not receive a strike.”

• POSSIBLE RESULT #3: seller is vulnerable to negative feedback because buyer is able to leave feedback (and yet buyer hasn’t paid); however, seller gets final value fee commissions refunded.

It’s clear to see the sellers have no real options!

TEN WAYS TO EXTORT AN EBAY SELLER May 21, 2008

Buyers, have at it on eBay! Starting May 19, 2008 you are free to extort any seller stupid enough to sell on eBay.

Here are ten ways to extort your favorite eBay seller (or just have fun messing with them):

1. Click “Buy Now” but don’t pay for the item, then send the seller a negative for not delivering. (Hey you can give a negative, even if you haven’t paid a cent!)

2. Pay by eCheck and ask for Priority Mail, then give the seller a negative for not delivering fast enough. (eChecks take 4-5 days for PayPal to clear.)

3. Buy a book and pay for media mail, then give the seller a negative for not shipping fast enough. (Media mail takes & + days to deliver.)

4. Buy anything cross border and say you didn’t receive it even if you did and then give the seller a negative. (Sellers can’t buy postal insurance for a foreign country and can’t track whether you got it.)

5. Buy from a competitor, then give them a negative just to decrease their rating.

6. Buy something fragile and don’t purchase insurance, then give the seller a negative because the item arrived broken. (You can give a negative, even if you didn’t pay for the insurance!)

7. Buy something on eBay because you like the picture (but don’t bother reading the dimensions in the listing), then give the seller a negative because it was too big or too small.

8. Buy something with insurance. Then after the item comes nicely packaged and in good condition. Tell the seller that you didn’t get insurance, so you want your money back. If he doesn’t give you your money back, then give the seller a negative.

9. Buy something and click Paid by Money Order, then don’t send the money order. Then give the seller a negative for not delivering. You don’t even need to send an item not as described because then you’d actually have to come up with a number. Or if you have a number, cash it under the sellers name, then extort the seller using that number.

10. If you’ve paid through PayPal, go ahead and file a non-receipt or not as described through PayPal. (That will hold the seller’s funds for 21+ days). Don’t worry if the seller has a delivery confirmation, because you’ll get your money back in that time and the seller can’t do anything about it.

DISCLAIMER: We do not actually wish any buyer extort any seller on eBay. We simply wish to illustrate to sellers how extremely unsafe is is for you to sell on eBay!

eBay PowerSeller Doomsday Blog: May 19, 2008 May 19, 2008

Instead of partnering with sellers, eBay is pulverizing them.

eBay’s controversial new feedback system rolled out May 19, 2008 leaving thousands of sellers with drastically altered feedback ratings — some sellers lost their PowerSeller status at the stroke of midnight.

New rules for lean times

What happened is that eBay changed the rules of the game retroactivally making neutral feedback received over the past 12 months count as a negative. Previously a neutral rating did not count against the score at all. This calcuated move reduced feedback for thousands of eBay’s top sellers effectively leaving them with a score under 98%, which disqualifies them for PowerSeller discounts. A select few improved their scores. The overall net result is that eBay will dish out fewer PowerSeller discounts.

“No negative feedback” policy

eBay seller doomsday was also marked by a new policy to encourage even lower seller ratings, thereby effectively reducing further the PowerSeller discounts supposedly awarded by eBay. Buyers may now only receive positive feedback.

Sellers and buyers today received the following notification when leaving feedback:

“Buyers, you can no longer receive negative or neutral Feedback from sellers. You should leave honest and accurate Feedback without the fear of receiving negative or neutral ratings.”

Perfect timing!

Higher postal rates… tactically eBay could have made all the changes in February 2008 along with the other so called “enhancements,” but eBay likely timed their plans with the USPS who raised postal rates May 12, 2008. Higher postage rates are nudging buyers to further lower Detailed Seller Ratings on shipping and handling. This effectively reduces PowerSeller discounts as sellers must maintain an impossible 4.8/5.0. (No one likes to pay for shipping.)

Bad economy… The timing is also aligned with the delivery of economic stimulus checks roll out. Sales on eBay will surely go up because people have a check in hand, not because buyers are no free to leave feedback. But eBay will surely credit themselves, and its sellers will continue to play the role of “whipping boy.”

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M.C. Nygard is a Platinum PowerSeller who had a perfect 100% feedback score that tarnished overnight by being reduced to 99.8%. She still qualifies for 15% PowerSeller discounts,

Five smart ways to spend your economic stimulus payment May 17, 2008

If you’re one of the lucky ones getting an economic stimulus check, you owe it to yourself to think about five ways to spend your extra loot:

1. Pay off your credit card debt. If you’re carrying balances month to month on credit cards, the first thing you should do with the stimulus funds is pay down the debt. Don’t go out and buy something else! Reducing debt is good for our nation and for your pocketbook. Start by paying off the highest interest rate account first. And while you’re at it, see how you might make an additional payment on your car loan to avoid paying so much interest there too.

2. Make an extra mortgage payment (or pay whatever you can off the principal). Making an extra mortgage payment will cut the length of your mortgage, and thereby the interest you pay over the life of the loan. The higher your interest rate, the more you’ll save by making an extra payment.

3. Save it. While it goes against what the government wants us to do with this money, but we have gotten out of the habit of saving as a nation. Add to an emergency fund, retirement fund, or a 529 fund for your kids’ education.

4. Invest in a business (buy stock) or create a business of your own. Perhaps there’s a stock you’ve been wanting to purchase — well, the government just handed your fun money to get started, so have at it! Many Yuwie members have ideas you can start for little money too, so start reading their money making blogs. Or perhaps you can research ideas first — buy a book or course on how to sell on eBay or Amazon, or how to run a carpet cleaning business, open a bed and breakfast — whatever, invest in yourself.

5. Buy something American. If you simply can’t or don’t want to do items 1-4, then you owe it to the population to at least buy something made in the good ole U.S.A. Hey, this is an economic stimulus for the American economy — please don’t stimulate someone else’s economy.

Read our other blogs, right here on WordPress, to see how you can make money and save money.