Be Excellent To Each Other

They've started doing this new, mostly-white layout where you have to click on auction pictures to get a better view of them, rather than just scrolling down to the bottom like before (for one thing).

I've also noticed that (for a while at least) they no longer reveal the identities of bidders or winners in auctions. Why is this so? Is there a way of disabling it? On a similar note Buy It Now auctions are now less easy to work out if they've ended or not unless you look carefully and spot the small words "Sold for" beside the price.


Why do they always fuck things up?

I spent at least 10 minutes scouring a page yesterday for the "contact seller" button on one of bids that still hasn't arrived 3 weeks later. It's a navigational nightmare.

Have you not seen their latest wondrous idea ?

Billed as 'making things better for the seller' , they now impose "free P&P" on dvd and games and are extending it to (i think) everything.

So if your selling something you need to factor in postage / packing / insurance to the base starting costs , and those costs plus your final balance are all charged by ebay.

So if for example you listed something at 99p , and it sold for that , you put £2 p&p , the buyer would pay £2.99 and you'd pay listing fees , plus final valuation on 99p

Now since you need to factor this all in , you need to start your auction at £2.99 , buyer still pays the same , but ebay take a bigger cut because you paid for a larger start price and they take their final valuation number on the 'total'

Yet another rip off :-(

There really needs to be an alternative to ebay out there

Ebay hate their customers. That's why I don't sell general stuff on ebay. There is an alternative for me but if I keep telling people, it might not be as profitable for me.

"I know something you don't"

Whereas I believe this is the single best thing they've done. I was avoiding ebay because of hidden postal costs and when shown, frequently laughable postage costs. There should be one price.

It makes it difficult for sellers to make any money that way. But then there's little point in selling DVDs on ebay. Ebay is good for big expensive unique items.

They weren't hidden though. It was quite clearly shown on the page. Sure, £15 P&P for a tiny item is daft, but that's not ebays fault. I once heard someone say "..and I made a profit on the P&P!". So I told them I disagreed with their disgusting attitude towards postage costs. (I done this vis the internet of course -- much safer)

Plus you can sort by 'price (including P&P)' so the ones trying to make a bit of cash on the postage could be filtered out that way.

For me, Ebay gets worse and worse - it's the reason I installed AdBlock on my computers as the flash ads got on my nerves. Plus with a company of Ebay's size and profits, I think their pages should be free of ads anyway.

And as already been mentioned, the new auction layout where you have to click the picture for a better view is pretty crap.

But.. I'll still browse on there until a better alternative comes along. I wouldn't sell on there again though.

I quite like it, to be honest. I can see why they did the picture thing - their bandwidth costs must be eye-watering, and a small change like this that saves them perhaps 50k per page is going to make a massive difference.

When are they going to implement the thing whereby sellers don't get to leave feedback for buyers? Or has that been shelved? Because I thought that would have been a good change, preventing sellers from leaving retaliatory negative feedback every single time.

I'm currently looking at EBay, and everyone seems to write "sorry, no returns" on their adverts. Which puts me off them.

EDIT:



Fuck off.

I thought they'd already implemented that? I haven't sold anything on Ebay in a long time, though. I find it a hateful place.

I don't see why they don't just implement a hidden feedback system, where neither the seller nor the buyer can see what feedback has been left until both parties have left it. Obviously have a system for disputes.

True, but the pictures were previously too small and pretty worthless anyway. It's better to upload your pictures somewhere else and embed them inline in your auction html, full size.



I think that was to stop so much "off-ebay" trading. It's made it more difficult to spot a shill-bidder though, I think, the "bidder 1, bidder 2" thing isn't well explained.

Tonight I will be travelling to my Aunt and Uncle's place to teach them how to use ebay to sell their old sofa and armchairs. Pity me.

I pity the fool.

Frequently there was only "Contact seller for postage amount".

WTF? Seriously, that is taking the piss.

My thoughts, exactly.

Hopefully someone has already messaged them and let them know exactly what he/she thinks.

Indeed. I've also had a think and stuck this free advert up on Oxford's decent freeadwebsite: