SE Asia Sellers Beware! eBay moves liability extra-terratorial

By Garry HJ | August 28th, 2009 | Category: Opinion, eBay MY, eBay SG | No Comments »

eBay SE Asia, headquartered in Singapore and overseen by eBay UK, have joined the march of eBay colonialism by introducing policy to move sellers’ legal compliance requirements out of the countries where sellers operate, and into the countries where they list items.

Before delving into the detail there are two thoughts I’d like to express -

First is that there has always been a need for sellers to comply with the laws of countries where they sell or supply services, regardless of where they supply from. However antiquated and behind the times the laws of individual territories may be, they are the laws of supply and purchase for those territories.

Secondly, there is a duality to the Internet that cannot be ignored. The World Wide Web is supposed to mean that a supplier can create an advertising/sales channel from their own territory, available to all other territories, and even when the server and code is not located in their own territory, the seller is supposed to be able to state in their terms of sale, which territorial jurisdiction applies to transactions – eBay does this in Europe via eBay S.a.r.l. in Luxembourg, and in North America via eBay Inc. in San Jose …. but they are now removing the same privilege from their own paying customer merchants.

However, this must be viewed from the explicit standpoint that eBay has so heavily skewed territorial visibility, that they have removed the first two words from the phrase “world wide web”. Unlike the rest of the Internet, eBay does not believe in a global market place, it has created, and is relentlessly reinforcing, a fragmented, localised, and nationally protectionist, series of market places. Whereas three (or even two) years ago, it was possible to list an item on your “home” eBay site and receive world wide visibility in their global marketplace (the one that contributed so much to their current dominance), today such planet-wide reach is impossible within the eBay platform.

Archived data from Omniture shows me that between 2003 and 2006, when I was listing exclusively on eBay.co.uk and before the introduction of the International Visibility Fee, on average my items would get 50% of their views from the UK and the rest from anywhere else in the world. Sales during that period were shipped to almost 200 countries, including such diverse territories as South America, Caribbean islands, northern and southern Africa, many Middle East countries, and an encouraging list of east and southeast Asian nations.

This year and last, apart from a slim scattering of EC countries plus Israel and Saudi (large expat communities) sales have only gone to the half-dozen primary English speaking nations. This curtailment of sales distribution began in conjunction with the anti-cross-border policies that we have been writing about on BuildaSkill for the last two years.

Seller Beware!

The new policy announcements, specifically from eBay Singapore and eBay Malaysia, use very strict language. There is no compromise on the new policies that a seller will be liable under the laws of the country where the item is listed AND if applicable, also the laws of where the buyer lives, but the laws of the sellers’ countries are irrelevant unless those countries co-incide with the country of listing and buyer. Additionally, the sellers’ terms of sales are completely voided and non-enforcable under the new user agreements being introduced from 29 September.

You can read the new policies (and discuss SG here ans MY here for BuildaSkill forum members) in full on the eBay Singapore and eBay Malaysia Announcement Boards. Some key phrasing to consider (and worry about?) includes (bold is mine) -

The biggest change to the agreement covers the updated and expanded eBay Buyer Protection on eBay.com and on other eBay sites. The expanded eBay Buyer Protection applicable to each eBay site will become the primary avenue for buyers and sellers to resolve eBay transaction issues.

With this update, eBay Buyer Protection now offers more coverage for buyers on the relevant eBay site and provides guidance for sellers on how to avoid adverse claim decisions.

In the event a seller is at fault, the applicable eBay Buyer Protection on an eBay site also grants eBay permission to refund amounts to buyers for an eligible claim and require sellers to reimburse eBay for the refund.

In particular, the program will:

Apply to all transactions on the relevant eBay site, notwithstanding the country of registration or location of a seller;

Cover eligible claims of buyers purchasing on the relevant eBay site but not cover claims filed with PayPal;

Require sellers to comply with the claim resolution and appeal process and accept the sole and final decision of eBay in a claim; and

Allow eBay to suspend or restrict sellers from trading on the relevant eBay site until reimbursement is fully made.

Please review the eBay Buyer Protection details on each eBay site before you list, sell or buy.

Sheesh! That is some scary wording for solely-exporting eBay sellers like ourselves. We now have to become legal experts for each territory in which we intend to sell, and given the nature of export selling, eBay executives should become scared, very scared, too – exporters with the resources to become legal experts in target markets are going to become far more expert in the requirements of those markets that eBay has ever demonstrated in them.

Of more immediate concern is that last bullet point – it is essentially giving eBay carte-blanche to terrorise and extort unfavoured sellers into bankruptcy. If you doubt that eBay victimises certain sellers while lauding and elevating others, then you need to learn how to use Google - there is overwhelming evidence of it published on the Internet already. The eBay announcements close with the “suck it or spit it” polite message about how to close your account if you don’t like the new terms.

eBayphiles may state that if sellers do nothing wrong, they have nothing to fear. This is simply acting like an ostrich on a sand dune. There are now “gangs” or “teams” of buyers roaming eBay (particularly in the US) looking for sellers who utilise additional venues (Amazon, Bonanzle etc) and then targeting those sellers’ eBay listings with all sorts of nasties, from reporting minor policy breaches to buying solely to leave bad DSRs and negative feedback – on the latter issues, they often bid in clusters so that a seller gets a swathe of DSR 1 and 2 scores, and negatives, in a short space of time, causing their “Buyer” satisfaction score to plummet, and yielding a 30-day new listing holiday. Yup, I got hit by them this month too. If you’ve been hit by such a lynch mob, drop me an email, I’m trying to build records or who and when this is happening from/to.

Gaz

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