Business was booming, customers were happy, more and more requests were coming in so we opened a sister website to offer even more coordinating decor. Customers purchasing off our eBay store were re-directed to our website to check out. Often you would find additional items that matched your purchase there. This in turn increased our business which enabled us to offer you even more. Unfortunately, we could not offer the same discounts on eBay as we do on our website partially due to cost of which we were willing to forgo if it kept our customers happy. The main reason was eBay's markdown sale manager stopped working in August 2007. We called eBay constantly asking when it would be corrected only to hear that they knew there was a problem but didn't know when it would be fixed. It was not physically possible to manually adjust 1000's of items prices that were to be offered in conjunction with our online web sales. Our customers were getting upset and rightly so. eBay was to be a cheaper way to purchase and now they were finding out it wasn't. What most of you didn't realize was it wasn't our fault but that of a faulty system eBay refused to correct. We manually corrected invoices so that the pricing and free shipping offers were the same no matter where you purchased from us.
We waited patiently for months and hoped after the busy holiday season eBay would correct the problem. Instead of correcting this and other failing aspects they rolled out a new pricing structure. I certainly understand most everything has had a price increase and it's part of business. On the other hand would you and our other customers accept price and shipping charge increases where we had offered free shipping prior for the sole purpose of paying for eBay's fee increase? Our monthly eBay fees at that time were $1300 to $1500 a month and were increasing by whopping 67%. Our profit margins were already as low as we could have them and still stay in business. With this historical increase in fees, eBay and its subsidiary PayPal would make more off a $200 sale than we would.
The answer to our dilemma was clear; we can no longer offer on eBay the same items we do in our store at the same prices. This is one of the many reasons we no longer carry our full line on eBay.
Most of you have heard many eBay sellers are complaining and striking due to eBay’s new rules. eBay executives are selling these changes as a benefit to buyers and sellers. What they fail to tell you is that you are paying more for most purchases on eBay than you would on another auction site or the sellers own website. With online website security certificates and credit card fraud systems in place there is less buyer protection and security on eBay than a stand alone website. Website owners have time, sweat equity and money invested in building their business. Like us, they are not going to risk all they have worked long and hard for the quick sale like a once in a while transient eBay seller will. This is the type of seller that will be remaining on eBay as they have no reputation to protect and nothing to loose. eBay thought they had the look of a flea market before, what will it be now? Why would any shopper feel more secure buying on eBay with this grim outlook? This is why eBay enacted the 21 day hold on funds for new sellers and sold to the buyers as added protection. They already know these risky sellers are the only ones besides the large department stores that will be still selling on their failing venue in the not so near future. Neither of which is what you were looking for or you wouldn't have been on eBay shopping to begin with.
The best real deals on the Internet besides one of a kind closeouts are on the smaller mom and pop websites. They are knowledgeable in their products, give personalized customer service, have lower overhead costs, can offer you discounts and package deals without approval from a higher up. A customer service rep from a major chain department store can't do that nor do they care about you or your purchase. Family owned businesses offer back to basics trading one on one. Isn't this what you, as a buyer really want? I certainly do and insist my customers have it too!
