so what do y'all think? Think it will make buyers think a little more about giving 5 stars to those who charge for shipping? I tried to help ... get you guys to think.. I think that this will help a lot. It will help get more attention to those who are actually the best sellers. so coincidental.. so Ironic. I must be clairvoyant! ... for those of you following the eBay vent thread. You guys know how passionate my posts are about this subject. see?
Interesting. Not seen that yet - of course been quiet a long time since I bid or won on something on ebay.
Actually - you won't see the message until you go to leave feedback for a seller who has free shipping. When you go to rate the stars, the reasonable shipping category is disabled. When you click on why, a message pops up that Sellers with free shipping automatically get 5 stars.
That's about as bogus as it gets ! I sell my once read books and of course the shipping is often 4 times what the book sells for. So I guess it;s free shipping with a $5 minimum bid from now on ? Looks like an effort to drive all the action to large companies and squeeze out individual traders ? Sure am glad I do not need eBay. I can sell my things elsewhere. lol or give them away, or toss them in the trash.
And so obvious.. when you are asked the question "How reasonable were the shipping and handling charges?", and the S&H charges are zero, anything less than 5 stars would be inexcusable. EBay has merely enabled the obvious and disabled the inexcusable.
Seems to me like an attempt to gain more money in listing fees, since people will want to just start the bid higher and put free shipping for an easy 5 stars. Like eBay needs any more money in fees...
Well, once read books are a tough sell anyway. I never see them sell for more than 25c at any garage sale or flea market.
One more way to avoid selling on eBay for those of you talking about selling books, (or DVDs, CDs or VHS, electronics, other...). If you haven't looked into it, try listing your books on Amazon Marketplace. It's much less hassle than eBay. No obnoxious listing fees but they take a commission if it sells. Amazon factors in shipping which the buyer pays. Listings run until a buyer comes along or you remove the title from your inventory. No pics needed, shipping is predetermined and descriptions are brief.
oh wow.. haha now that won't get abused by anyone, will it? sounds like a sellers dream and a buyers nightmare.
no doubt they are super successful. The numbers they pull are staggering, almost hard to grasp. I am thoroughly confident that with amount of money they have to devote to research and development, that they know exactly what is best for everyone involved. Go with the flow, I say. I don't think they hurt the small guy at all. I look forward to this winter ramping up and selling years of accumulated treasure. ok ok ok.. junk in my eyes.. lol It was fun during my last go around. I met and corresponded with all kinds of people and still do with a few who are doing some historical research. Now, I pose this question. Where else can you get the amount of exposure to an item that you want to sell? For example, I reluctantly sold a vehicle on there after exhausting 2 years of local listings. In 10 days, I had over 6,000 views with 14 different bidders and got 5k more than my asking price locally.
I'm glad they did this. There are always a few bad apples that will NOT give you 5 stars even if the shipping is free. How does this affect the money ebay is making? It doesnt, because free shipping has been around a long time. Plus, if you remember not too long ago, they added a special search category for "free shipping"
There is a feedback system of rating sellers with Amazon Marketplace. Not all buyers utilize it with their orders. I have never had a problem with the Amazon system. Shipping is generally cheap, printed matter gets shipped USPS Media Mail (book-rate / 4th class). Everyone understands that to be the cheapest rate and doesn't complain about the speed of delivery. Typically if you have had sales you get a payout about ever 2 weeks, direct deposit to a bank account. Only on eBay do people seethe about instant gratification insisting on immediate delivery for free and knit-picking one another to death over minutia, whether buyer or seller.
I don't get it. How can free shipping be anything less than 5 stars? And still the majority are gritching about eBay causing problems. The problems came from the idiots giving 0 / 1 star for free shipping who caused the problem. Still, most think it is an eBay problem. Go figure!
I would agree. Ebay has simply done the obvious. To my knowledge has always encouraged free shipping because it helps Ebay bottom line. They do not to have to deal with the shipping issues/complains.
