eBay

I did sell on eBay occasionally, but I no longer have my store there. As of 6 PM CST, 2/14/07 I have been NARU at eBay.  Despite numerous requests for information as to WHY, I still have not gotten any decent response. 12 days after my original NARU email, I finally got another canned email. Here is an exact copy/paste of the email --

Dear eBay member,

Thank you for contacting eBay regarding the suspension of your account.

I've looked at our records and see that eBay suspended your account due 
to violations of the eBay User Agreement. 

We've reviewed your suspension appeal and have decided that your eBay 
account will remain suspended. Our decision is based on evidence from 
our records as well as any additional information you've provided. Due 
to eBay policy, we cannot provide you with more specific information. 

***Note***
Although we will read any future appeals you send, we may not respond to
your inquiries.

I would like to know WHAT so called evidence and WHAT rule I supposedly violated. eBay is acting more like the East German Stassi secret police than a USA corp. Even convicted criminals know WHAT they've been convicted of. But if eBay doesn't like you, you're gone without even a chance to refute the charges or defend yourself.

Before I got the boot, my FB at eBay was aprox 750 pos and I had about 1200 total pos as I had numerous repeat buyers. I only had a few (5) negs and all of them were from NPBs.
 
I do not owe fees, I actually have a small balance on my account. I haven't been selling, so I couldn't have any listing violations. I don't have any disputes ongoing with any buyers or sellers.  I had made a few posts on the eBay stores board that they may not have liked, but I've seen a lot worse there. And I hadn't gotten Pink-slapped for anything since last summer. Most of my posts were just trying to be helpful when someone asked a question. I had been bidding on several items from the same seller and only won 2 out of 8 items. I don't know if  maybe some eBay flunky thinks I'm a shill bidder.

I did have 1 numpty newbie buyer that thought an INVOICE I sent her was an offer to buy off eBay. Out of 30 people that bought the same item pre-Christmas, she was the only 1 that didn't recognize an invoice when she got it. She ended up a NPB but left me a lying FB.

This whole NARU thing has me rather upset since I can't figure out WHY and they aren't telling. Since I use the same ID everywhere, knappschiles, having the NARU behind my name makes me look like some kind of big bad scammer. If I knew where I could join a "defamation of character" suit against eBay, I would join in an instant.

So that's my story. I let you judge if I'm a bad seller or what. But my story isn't all that uncommon any more. If you check the PSU forums, there have been several other sellers with unexplained suspensions.


Actually in March 6, 06 I reopened my eBay store just for the seed season. Sales were quite good because of the merger of search. Then March 28 eBay announced they were going to roll-back the search. That totally killed sales for a lot of us. I re-closed my eBay store before June 06, as sales hadn't even covered the basic store fee any more. With the August fee hike announcement, things have gotten even worse. The eBay fees are just getting too out of line with their dropping sell thru rate. For many, the fees were 15-30% of what we sold.

eBay opened eBay Express (EE) rather than give store sellers better exposure. It's an absolute total FLOP. Most of the store sellers have opted OUT of EE as it somehow seems to sometimes help get you on a server that is ON. Search in the eBay site is broken most of the time, but search at EE is just a joke. It will bring up just about everything EXCEPT what you are looking for.

Here is trick I've been using this year that I don't want to put on the eBay boards so eBay won't catch on too quick and figure out a way to kill it. It will slow down the process, but could up your sales quite a bit too.

Do NOT use checkout. Put in your listing that you accept PayPal (if you do), BUT do NOT use the eBay buttons for PP and do NOT put your PP address in the listing. That forces people to wait for you to send an invoice. I send a "personal" invoice rather than an eBay invoice. I open with just the facts of their sale and the total. But then I add a "check out my other items" paragraph and a discount if they check out my web site where they can get the items here for a little cheaper than at eBay. I also have been offering free shipping for any of the items they buy here with that order. I have "up-sold" about 1/3 of my eBay customers, often much more than the original sale.

Near the end of Feb 06, eBay merged the auction and stores search. Over a year ago when they upped the fees and FVF for the stores, the justification was that they would give stores more visibility in search. It took them a year to finally do something. Then after only a month of great sales for many store owners, on March 28, 06, eBay announced that they were rolling back the search because buyers were finding too much this way. What a load of BS. This change  totally killed sales for many of the eBay stores again. See my other sales page for more info and what to do about it.

Now as of July 06, even more chaos at eBay. At that time they announced another large fee hike for the store owners. This will kill a lot of small businesses who can no longer afford to sell on eBay. The management of eBay seem to be totally oblivious to the fact that they are totally ruining the site.