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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;krispy, post: 649929, member: 19065&quot;]GDJMSP! Yes, I very much agree with your comments about the reality and costs of doing business and that those who gripe and complain about these costs or expect a free lunch fundamentally do not understand business nor the vendor they are using that allows them to conduct their businesses online. To me they are greedy and think eBay is a place to go for free money. The reality is that doesn&#039;t exist. </p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;m not sure if you lumped my earlier, lengthy and miffed comment about Sellers shipping responsibility into your reply or not. However, despite my complaints about eBay&#039;s policy, bolded in the first OP, that as a Seller I am responsible for getting items &#039;safely&#039; to a Buyer even after depositing an item (insured or not) into the post and until it reaches the Buyer, I want to point out that up to this point, the option for Buyers to purchase or waive shipping insurance was always there and for them to understand or question what the service was for (not as a protection for use ON eBay as eBay implies was misleading and thus reason for removing the feature.) and the existence of that service option negates eBay now saying it was always the Sellers responsibility. Shipping Insurance was the only way a Seller could provide protection all the way through the distance between a Buyer and Seller. eBay seems to think it&#039;s inconsistent with online retailers who do not offer shipping insurance options, but many do, some by virtue of shipping with FedEx or UPS with shipping insurance either built into their costs for low value parcels and for the customer to pay additionally for when the merchandise exceeds a certain value. All business that I have ever dealt with as a buyer pass on this fee to the buyer, either they build the costs into the cost of the product and do not tell you the breakdown or they itemize it for you, and some give you shipping options. I am a Seller not a Retailer and there is no way that I am to be held responsible for the cost and safety of an item not safely reaching its destination if a Buyer waives their right to insure. There is no way I am going to absorb shipping costs for the Buyers sake. If they want to bid and buy, it&#039;s part of the cost of doing so. The safety responsibility is agreed that the party in between the buyer and seller, the carrier is responsible, but only if the parcel is insured, which again falls back on the buyer.</p><p><br /></p><p>Shipping Insurance is a <u>very</u> important feature and it is a risk that a Buyer was always able to take on with using eBay whereas other retailers force you to pay for it in their service/costs for everything. Risk is a two way street. It&#039;s one of the things many liked about eBay, allowing users to assess the risk and take a chance, risking the odds that you will save money to get your item, spending less by avoiding (subjectively) &#039;unneccssary&#039; shipping fees. Shipping fees and Insurance fees have risen since 1998 when eBay was coming up. Now that eBay is removing the Shipping Insurance feature and saying Sellers are (and always had been) responsible it will certainly great a new gray area of responsibility and it will likely spark greater mistrust between Buyers and Sellers as well allow Buyers to vent frustration on Sellers through misapplied complaints to PayPal as a mediator when it should have been the carrier who repaid for lost/damaged properly insured parcels or the buyers risk/loss for waiving the shipping insurance.</p><p><br /></p><p>I find that it&#039;s another step away from trust between parties using eBay. The bolded segment of the OP is not that black-and-white of a statement for eBay to have placed in the updated policies but in the end it leads to both parties paying more and more for things they buy and sell when systems were already established to handle losses and taking a risk was an option. Taking risk out of eBay is turning eBay away from what it was to begin with. I suspect as you asked where will people go, they will go where the path of least resistance is and where the buyers are willing to follow. Any established trading place venue is going to end up like this at some point as it becomes saturated with less than desirable dealers, scams and too difficult to navigate without this much red tape and fees or responsibility imbalanced. It creates a cycle that disperses the market. I don&#039;t know the economic terminology for this but you see things like this occur in any sector or area of interest. When something is new and not widely or easily found, it has an aura about it, or it&#039;s &quot;cool&quot; or it&#039;s a &quot;good deal&quot;, but when too many people flock to it, or it becomes an easy place to make a profit, it starts to become uncool, and exploited as it becomes more mainstream and routine or filled with rules that once were uneccessary. </p><p><br /></p><p>To be sure, I&#039;m not complaining about the cost of dealing with eBay, with shipping nor dealing anywhere else online but I am taking issue of where responsibility lies when a parcel is insured or the option to insure it was waived. And that this is in principle now very misleading with eBay&#039;s latest policy update and interpretation of how Buyers will read and utilize this.</p><p><br /></p><p>People aren&#039;t just crazy, though they may exhibit the symptoms, they&#039;re more often cheap and misunderstand, costs, values, markets, services and risk/reward.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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