I am done with eBay

[Ghost]

eBay has been getting worse and worse for a while now from a sellers point of view, the number of free listings have decreased and the number of free re-listings have also gone down, add to that the fees from both eBay and PayPal and its becoming a less appealing option. However, eBay's most recent scheme of fleecing more money from its users has to be the worst yet and is the reason that once my current auctions are finished I am never selling anything on there again. I am of course talking about the 'Global Shipping Program'. I didn't even know about this when I was creating my auctions on my phone, it was automatically selected and as soon as any bid has been made its not possible to edit it out.

I found out when I got a rather angry email from an Australian who had just won an auction for a single Dreamcast game, asking me why the postage charge was ?15, I too was curious as I put ?2 as the postage fee and was quite surprised when that total had shot up by ?13. I also had another person who so far has bought 5 of my games and has asked for me to combine postage, which I have not been able to do as when an item is sold through the Global Shipping Program I am not able to send an invoice or amend any of the postage fees, so this guy is now being charged ?10 for each game he has bought to be sent within Europe, while if I was able to combine shipping he would be saving about ?40.

Although this is a scheme that is ripping of the buyer instead of the seller, I am still being affected negatively for this. First of all there is a higher chance now for people to decide that the postage fees are a rip off and that they no longer want the item and not pay for it (especially for multiple items with no combined shipping), this is a major pain in the arse as that means re-listing the items again plus having to make sure eBay still doesn't charge you the fees for the auction even though it fell through (which has happened to me in the past). Secondly if the buyer is unaware of the program and how it works then I am more likely to receive bad feedback for the high postage fees. In the last 3 days I have sold a total of 22 games, and so far I have only received payment for 7 of them, and most of the ones I am waiting for payments on are ones sold to international buyers.

Easiest solution would be to avoid selling internationally and only sell inland. But I have honestly had enough of eBay and the way they work, they are getting far too greedy and as a seller I feel like it is no longer worth all the hassle.

[charlesr]

You can opt out of the global shipping program. But yes. Totally rubbish. The whole thing will come crumbling down to a tiny proportion of it's current self soon.

[nakamura]

It's **** yes. I can't get a copy of Parasite Eve 2 because the fees make it far too expensive to buy it.

[Asura]

As someone who's been buying stuff on eBay since 2000, I'm sad to see what's happening to it. I started to become aware of it around the time it was flooded with fake GBA games, but even moreso today, it's become a victim of its own success.

[MartyG]

I thought the whole idea of the GSP is to cover all the import duties and fees that the buyer would have to pay anyway upfront so that there's no messing about at the other end interfering with delivery. Or is this something else?

[nakamura]

It's a con. Here is how to opt out..

http://sellercentre.ebay.co.uk/using-global-shipping-programme#opting

[Decider-VT]

Glad to see awareness of this despicable practice rising. It's effectively killing eBay for me for anything other than really cheap items.

I don't think many sellers realise that it's an opt-out policy, nor do they seem to know that Pitney Bowes will discard their careful packaging and send valuable items to a buyer in what constitutes a bare minimum of shipping materials. (They slashed a BNIB SNES repro I bought when they repackaged it and tried to get me to open a case against the seller. lukemorse1 also had a PCB folded almost in half...)

The trouble is, I find that a lot of US sellers are incredibly risk-adverse and are only too happy to pass it on to the buyer when dealing with international shipping, knowing that the cost of returning it leaves us out of pocket to the point where it's likely that a lot of people simply won't bother. I can't see a lot of them caring about us having to pay extortionate shipping fees.

[charlesr]

In the opt out info it says "Are you sure? This allows you to state which countries you want to exclude".
So are you no longer able to exclude some countries if you don't stay opted in? Or is that just a ruse to stop you pressing the eject button?

[Digfox]

I asked this very question back in mid-October (http://www.bordersdown.net/threads/1...=1#post2168304) on how the opt-in/opt out with the GSP would work for those wishing to avoid international buyers.

I recently sold two PS3 games on eBay and can confirm that even when opted out of the programme you still need to 'block' regions (or specific countries) in the listing itself. Problem is given how most people even struggle to put together a coherent advert (not anyone on here mind ) I'm not surprised this is going to cause confusion.

Things like this shouldn't be enforced on sellers and what's worse is that seller gets zero support when items are returned so you have to pay for the return of the item. I personally stopped international buyers years ago but I can understand that this has a detrimental effect on the final sold price.

Problem is, where else do you sell? Amazon reseller don't always say complimentary things and ultimately you're accepting (sometimes far less) to sell elsewhere.

[Sketcz]

Glad to see the crap that is the Global Shipping Program get some attention. I noticed it months back, and I hate it.

I wanted to import some rare GameCube games from the US, like SoA and Cubivore, but the GSP adds another $20 or more on top of the price, plus postage, plus any tax when it arrives in the UK. I emailed sellers and none of them even realised what it was.

In the end I just bought the games from the LukieGames website and cut out eBay completely.

But yes, GSP jacks the prices up so much it's just not worth buying games from America any more. Thankfully. Japanese auctions seem unaffected.

Bloody depressing though. Where else can you go for second-hand retro imports at a decent price?

Like everything which is **** in life, once it's implemented, it will never be undone. It'll be crap forever.

[Dogg Thang]

Problem is given how most people even struggle to put together a coherent advert (not anyone on here mind ) I'm not surprised this is going to cause confusion.

I realise I am no Alan Bradley but I can understand some people struggling with it. I very rarely sell on eBay but went to sell something earlier this year and where it was once a very simple process, it now seems to be stupidly messy with conflicting options - especially where it pertains to shipping. It was so easy before but now it wanted exact shipping on things and then it tried to work them out using US shipping options that were completely irrelevant. Lots of it seemed to try to sell me extras that either once were standard or are still standard and so I couldn't work out what the extras actually did. It took two goes to even get the listing up at all. So what I did was put in the listing that I would refund any difference in shipping compared with the quotes and I did just that. Not sure you're supposed to do that but it doesn't serve anyone getting ripped off on shipping.

[bash]

Let's be real, eBay for some time no longer give a crap about the dude finding some gems in his attic who tries to make a quick buck. They just want massive wholesalers on there with massive turnover while they continue to take theirbfat slice off the top. Things like those sellers who sell sg1tloads of crap Chinese 99p clothing/underwear, Tesco or Dixon's outlet make them cream in their pants. It stopped making sense a long time ago . . . I hate evilBay and so do most people I know. Its such a shame as I wanted to import some Dreamcast stuff but I'd rather bide my time and buy from the UK off forums like these.

[Digfox]

I realise I am no Alan Bradley but I can understand some people struggling with it. I very rarely sell on eBay but went to sell something earlier this year and where it was once a very simple process, it now seems to be stupidly messy with conflicting options - especially where it pertains to shipping. It was so easy before but now it wanted exact shipping on things and then it tried to work them out using US shipping options that were completely irrelevant. Lots of it seemed to try to sell me extras that either once were standard or are still standard and so I couldn't work out what the extras actually did. It took two goes to even get the listing up at all. So what I did was put in the listing that I would refund any difference in shipping compared with the quotes and I did just that. Not sure you're supposed to do that but it doesn't serve anyone getting ripped off on shipping.

Fair challenge, I don't disagree, although I'm not sure I have ever personally been that happy with the eBay template for listing items. Even back in the old days. There are massive improvements eBay could make to the usability and simplicity of their templates. However even the current template isn't rocket science. There is no excuse for not having a reasonable selection of photos (remember they used to charge for more than one and now you get 12 free) and a detailed description of the item. A lot of private sellers are simply lazy or don't sell that often which means from a buyers point of view a transaction might be bit of a lottery. Also despite the detailed descriptions of what item conditions actually mean some sellers simply lie, which is why I'm a bit happier I can choose to return the item hassle free now. Although note I never actually done this yet.

I do echo a lot of what's been said here. The new GSP seems unnecessary but the implementation has been messy.

[buster_broon]

For some reason as a seller this has avoided me - maybe because I opted out when it first started but I can't remember

Of all the stuff I've sold in the last few years if it wasn't for ebay I would still be left with more than half of it, So for me ebay is a necessary evil - I always offer my goods on forums first and eBay is always the last resort

As a buyer I've had to pay it once and I wasn't happy since the game itself was under customs level and the seller wasn't interested at all if I was happy or not to pay it just as long as I paid

[Ghost]

Got a notification from ebay saying that the Aussie has opened up a claim and wants his money back because the postage is too high, I'm also still waiting for payments on 15 items which this will have been the third day.