Imagine if you woke up this morning jolly as ever, went onto ebay, and to your horror your account had been restricted for 30 days as your performance had not met eBay standards.

That’s exactly what happened to UK Platinum PowerSeller electronics-save this morning.  They state,

“There was no warnings or anything All my listings have been removed.  Yes I have had a few problems lately but I have been solving these issues like any other business.   As a platinum seller and the shocking amount of ebay fees i pay im just gobsmacked.  My feedback is not perfect its not that bad either.   I have not spoke to my account manager yet as im just trying to get my head around it.  I have another account can I still use that or is it straight to the dole queue.“

Is this the first victim of a new policy by eBay UK, whose paying customers growingly believe they have severely overstepped the mark?  In another eBay UK PowerSeller forum thread, seller greatbigbeadshop relates, “I’ve just received this from my account manager in what I assume is a mass-mailout to all her accounts:”

“Although it has not been announced, eBay are taking Seller Non Performance very seriously with regards to the negative and neutral feedback that you receive as a seller. Whereas in the past you would receive a phone call giving you a 30 day grace period to resolve negative and neutral feedback on your account before action was imposed, we are now taking a more aggressive approach to this policy and there will be no more 30 day grace period.

(more…)

Several new announcements from eBay in the last 24 hours demonstrate a continual nibbling away at the Value For Money (VFM) sellers get from the sites.

The most marked is on eBay Canada, which BuildaSkill revealed a month ago as having snuck a new fee under the radar.  Now, despite having gouged the extra fee for what was once free, it has been revealed that the payers of the new fee will be disadvantaged in Search & Browse as Canada rejigs Best Match to give priority to domestic listings.  The fact the announcement only appeared on the Canadian site means nothing - As we revealed days ahead of any official announcement, the new fee would become de facto in eBay land, and thus we expect this disadvantaging of “foreign listings” to also become de facto on eBay sites worldwide.  eBay has, for the last year or more, been trying to reduce the international leverage that sellers have on the platform, this appears to be “xenophobeBay” beta 2.0

On the opposite side of the planet, the rapidly emptying eBay.com.au has struck a deal with Drive.com.au whereby the listings of both sites will appear on each others platforms.  As a result eBay have launched a beta platform to display the combined listings (cars2.ebay.com.au)  and have left me wondering about how the drive.com.au sellers will feel if faced with being forced to accept PayPal only (and PayPal’s fee) if an eBay buyer wins their motor through the new joint interface?  It also leaves me wondering about the contractual & legal sides if drive.com.au has no PayPal-only enforcement in it’s user agreement. 

The increased competition on a rapidly shrinking site (as both buyers and sellers abandon eBay in favour of Oztion) does eBay’s existing customers no favours either.

Ed

As mention and reminders on eBay’s discussion boards, globally, become more frequent, regarding the planned indefinite seller strike from May 1st, eBay UK has launched a pre-emptive counter-strike.

Not yet publicly announced, but available to “those in the know”, is that the UK site are running a 5p Auctions-only Cheap Listing Day (CLD) on May 1st.

May 1st, variously known as Labour Day, Worker’s Day, and other pseudonyms in various socialist and communist states, is the targeted launch date of an indefinate on-eBay activity strike by a large group of eBay buyers and sellers.  They are protesting at the policy and practices changes announced in late January, and being implemented in stages worldwide by the online auctions giant.  The association of the date with populist movements and worker’s rights organisations appears to have not been lost on either the striking sellers, or on eBay UK’s management and their “gift for the masses” of a CLD. (more…)

The long-winded case involving UK Banks and the charges they levy on consumers for unauthorised overdrafts and other “defaults” reached it’s first-stage conclusion on Thursday.

The High Court confirmed the British Government’s Office of Fair Trading’s (OFT) view that personal current account unarranged overdraft charges should be assessed for fairness.  This does not mean a judgement was made regarding what are fair charges, only that further procedings could be started in order to adjudge exactly that topic.

This is an important early milestone for the OFT and their investigation into this area of high consumer interest.  They are now analysing the implications of the judgment for their overall investigation into the fairness of the terms, but there may need to be further hearings to determine any outstanding issues arising from the judgment.  The timetable for next steps will be decided by the court at a hearing before the end of May.

This case was brought by the OFT in agreement with eight of the largest current account providers - both banks & Building Societies.  The OFT will be working with them and other interested parties to ensure this market works well for consumers.

It is important to note that this judgment only covers points of legal principle and does not determine whether the relevant charges are actually unfair.  The OFT are continuing their investigation into the fairness of these terms and will consider their position after reviewing the detail of this judgment.

The banks have responded with summaries and statements on their websites.  We have added the full texts from two of them, Barclays and Lloyds TSB, in our Finance Department Forum in the BuildaSkill discussion boards, in addition to the OFT’s press release regarding the judgement.  Barclays admit their terms are unintelligible, and LloydsTSB state their’s were found to be understandable by the layman.  I’ll go along with that, having had both personal and business accounts from both, and having had loans from both, for both business and personal use, in the past.

Meanwhile, the UK’s Daily Express newspaper has begun a campaign to get readers lodging claims for refunds of their last six years bank charges for overdrafts, bounced cheques, and unpaid Direct Debits.  Their lead article links through to another that details step-by-step instructions for how to do it, and includes links to downloadable template letters and forms for submission to banks from initial enquiry through to threatening legal action.  There are also links for the Financial Ombudsman service, and for the Citizens Advice Group.

What’s your opinion about it all?  Add your comments here in the blog, or stir up a debate in the forums.

Ed

eBay.com logo” height=”33″ style=”width: 85px; height: 33px” title=”eBay.com logo” />A lot of blog and forum chatter has surfaced in the last few weeks regarding eBay sellers seeing a sudden collapse in traffic to their listings from the early part of this month.

On the UK site, there seems to be a growing support for the notion that traffic collapsed on 9th April, with distinctly different overall traffic totals before and after that date.  eBay forum “pinks” have dismissed the notion as a problem specific to a minority group of sellers, but have promised to look into it.  On the UK PowerSeller discussion board, the sellers were more than mildly miffed when a pink told them to take their concerns to a Community Q&A thread about the topic.  They rightly pointed out that discussing commercially sensitive data such as traffic and sales volume should not be done on a discussion board open to the general public, where it could not be known if readers were eBay registered users or not.

In the US, AuctionBytes have picked up on similar concerns from American sellers with a healthy mix of Australian and Canadian sellers joining the discussions and stating they’ve seen the same issue.  What they couldn’t say however, was exactly when it started, or give an agreed value by which it had affected them generally.

 One underlying cause appears to be revealed in eBay’s first quarter financials, where they admit having again cut back on advertising spend on Google (they did the same in Q1 last year), and some sellers are reporting strange results when using Google to search for their listings.  Apparently the prominence of eBay listings on Google has disappeared unless the searcher includes the eBay name in the search keywords.

How have your listings fared?  Are you seeing traffic drops in your stats, and is the drop more severe from Google than eBay search?  Or is it the other way around?  What do you think is causing it?  Or do you think the traffic stats are simply now revealing the rate at which users are moving to other sites in the face of all the eBay changes?

Ed

I’ve said it before in the BuildaSkill Blog, with all eBay policy changes the devil is in the detail, but sometimes it takes a while to recognise which detail.

eBay UK’s crusade, to bring Business and PowerSellers inline with eBay’s vision of the future for the site, has left many gasping for breath and incredulous at the way in which eBay has tried to extend existing UK legislation - the seller address details on all listings, and the new 14-day returns policy for example.

That 14-day returns policy has however, opened a few eyes to deeper details of existing UK consumer protection legislation, and in my case brought some old eBay announcements back to the forefront of current ruminations …. 

Last year, eBay had a campaign they named “Re-igniting Core”, by which they meant that they wanted people to move away from a heavy reliance of Shop Inventory Format (SIF) selling, and back onto selling by Auction format.  Auctions, they explained, were the core of eBay, and created a buzz for buyers and sellers alike.  Auctions were the heart and soul of the eBay experience, they explained.  They even launched a special “Windorphins” campaign and website trying to move both halves of the eBay community back to core, and ran the buyer-targetted “Shop Victoriously” campaign in the USA to underpin the campaign.

Now I know I criticise eBay management a lot, and often call them out as being unable to plan further than the space limits of a soggy beermat, but on this occassion, I’m wondering if they’ve actually applied all that university education they shared, and came up with a scheme worthy of the darker side of dormitory life?

Within the UK Distance Selling Regulations (the real and original DSRs, not the seller punishing eBay version) are rules relating to when a buyer can return goods for any old reason they can dream up.  In particular, purchases from online auctions are excluded from types of items buyers can return simply because they changed their mind, or didn’t like the goods when they arrived.  eBay’s Buy Now and SIF format sales however, are subject to compulsory return and refund clauses if the buyer wants to return items.

With that in mind, knowing that most sellers get really unhappy about buyers attempting return-for-refund for the most spurious and nonsensicle reasons, have eBay UK introduced the seller-whipping Business Sellers’ Returns Policy as a circuituous method of getting business sellers to return to core, and to rely less on BIN and SIF listings? (more…)

eBay’s paranoid rampage against digital goods accelerated today with the Indian and Italian sites both announcing bans of the products - with twists.

India’s ban announcement says it comes into force on 18 April, but excludes website domain names and tickets (presumably all types) that can be transferred electronically - some good news for the holiday & travel markets, especially the airline ticket bucket shops?

India also announced today, that they are rolling the same “Punishing Sellers’ Accounts with Dumb Idea of the Year” policy that I blogged eBay US and Oz announced earlier in the week.

The Italian ban on digital items is effective immediately, and both the announcement and the linked policy page are prominently displaying the Centurion’s whip.  However, the policy page is interesting.  It states (emphasis added by me) -

Examples of items that can not be put up for sale on eBay:

• MP3 files copied from a CD purchased or obtained from a recording made during a concert at which the seller was involved;
• EBook if the seller does not own the copyright or is not an authorized dealer;
• Music purchased through iTunes;
• Films copied from a DVD purchased;
• Video games copied from the original CD ROM;
• PDF files of a handbook on a product if the seller is not the copyright owner or an authorized reseller;
• Data and information related to online games such as characters, accounts, currencies and objects.

Examples of items that may be put up for sale on eBay:

• MP3 files of songs written and recorded by the seller (in which the seller owns the rights);
• EBook of recipes written by the vendor;
• Films made by the seller and the seller owns the rights;
• Software developed by the seller and the seller owns the rights;
• Software put on sale by an authorized reseller of software that has the rights for online delivery;
• A digital photo of the Golden Gate taken by the seller;
• A t-shirt imprinted with a photo of a protagonist of a game online.

The Italian announcement and policy page makes no reference to the need to provide the digital goods in a physical format such as on CD or DVD, which is the workaround recommended by eBay US, Canada & Oz.

So far, eBay US & Canada are the only other sites (that have made announcements) that have given sellers a legal workaround for selling digital goods in downloadable format - list them in the classifieds section - apart from Italy specifying certain goods that will continue to be permitted.  Italy’s policy is by far the most lenient and seller-friendly.  The UK, Singapore, Spain, India, and OZ have all implemented complete bans.  Italy is the only EU site that appears to be trying to apply common sense to market preservation.

I haven’t yet seen announcements from any of the other eBay national sites, but expect them to roll in before month end.  The lobbyists for the physically disabled homeworkers, who were so vocal immediately after the first US announcement have gone very quiet on the eBay forums, and it can only be assumed they have taken their wares to other sites, which as eBay continually fail to see, reduces the pool of buyers for the remaining die-hard sellers.

Ed.

eBay.com logo” height=”33″ style=”width: 85px; height: 33px” title=”eBay.com logo” />Just when I thought it was impossible for eBay to come up with dumber suggestions than some of those from the last three months (buyers only being able to receive positive feedback being the grand-daddy of them all), it looks like someone authorised mass lobotomies at San Jose and paid for them with corporate health care.

eBay’s latest Truss & Safety Pin initiative (announced on both the US and Oz in the last 48 hours) is an absolute doozy and appears to have been dreamed up by Junior High students doing an Easter work experience placement.  The intent is good, but it’s impossible to see how it’s workable, and as such, it should never have left the soggy beermat upon which it was created.

Named by John Canfield, Senior Director for Trust & Safety policy management, as “Trusted Selling with Identity Confirmation” I prefer to call it “Protecting Seller Accounts with Dumb Idea of the Year”…. actually, there’d be more merit in calling it “Punishing Sellers’ Accounts …”  On both the AuctionBytes and TameBay blogs, even non-technical users are responding with the loopholes that any sixth-grade IT student should be able to spot, whilst more wizened users are waxing lyrical about the privacy invading alternative data collection that could emerge as the engine behind the scheme.

So let’s take a look at some of this nonsense shall we?  I warn you, I’m going to be really nitpicky with this one, because it deserves it. (more…)