Yay, more eBay format changes

[the.golden.ax]

I noticed while listing some SNES games on eBay (because no one in any forum wants them not even NintendoAge.... for some strange reason) that eBay is now encouraging people to "sell yours" and throwing up the "average price" right there under your photo. The nerve! I'm paying to list on their site trying to make a sale, and they are going to tell my customers that my boxed and CIB games are worth on average less because they lump every shit label lose cart in to the mix and spit out a non-researched result. Just bloody great.

[FND]

Another great idea . I am not sure what they are thinking. The sellers pay all the bills but are treated as though

they are in the way and should be held back at every turn.

[Grig]

Yep, saw this too. I was listing my NES and GENNY carts and saw CIB ToeJam & Earl avg price at like $8 no matter what condition - as if! Asphincter says "Ebay's avg price is ..." Needless to say I sold it for $20 despite Ebay's advice. Ebay, just like Goodwill, can suck it. They are both only necessary evils to make a few bucks here and there.

[HatefulGravey]

You know I find selling on eBay only slightly more pain in the ass then CL or forums to be honest. This sucks a bunch, but in the end people are still using them so they feel they can do what ever they like. Maybe all those yardsale and flea market types that talk about how much they can get on eBay will be forced to shut up a little.

[bomberpunk]

the seller in me doesn't like this, but the buyer in me might actually benefit from people actually thinking about my offers, which are significantly less than their jacked up prices for stuff that just isn't as rare as they think (non-video game crap). and then there's the kid in me who likes the frosted side.

[+frankodragon]

Their new format is assinine. I want the old format back and they don't have an option to do so. It's just like Yahoo mail when half of the time it doesn't work.

[akator]

eBay sucked before, then started sucking more, then sucked balls so bad it was painful, and now has become a black hole that will rip your balls off so fast and hard that you will only notice much later and after the pain sets in.

 

eBay hasn't made a positive change to their system, interface, or fees for many years. Everything they do makes thing worse for both buyers and sellers.

 

For example, this week I searched for a replacement video game item. No matter what I did, I was forced to experience their "new and improved" jackass interface that isn't just inconvenient because it's new and different, it's massively more difficult to find what I was looking for. No matter what I did, I couldn't find a straightforward way to scroll the page and visually scan hundreds of items within a minute or two.

 

Be warned, eBay also tries to force sellers to do free shipping. Last month I posted a few items and they were all automatically marked as free shipping even though I specified shipping weight, package dimensions, etc., and even though I reviewed everything before finalizing the listing, I didn't catch how they screwed me until 2 items had been sold. I quickly went through everything else and made sure it was no longer free shipping.

 

eBay was OK, then became greedy. Now they are outright evil.

Edited June 20, 2012 by akator

[Grig]

The "Free Shipping" thing happened to me too. I almost got screwd out of $60 in international shipping fees.

 

Here's a good way to tell when something is out of control and too greedy/evil for its own good: Whom can you call to speak to to tell them to stop the changes? No one. You can "email" and "tell them what you think" - but what good does it do? It's just there to patronize you and delude you into thinking that ebay gives a shit what you think. I am getting close to not needing to use ebay at all once a few more bills are paid off and I'm near debt free. I can't wait.

 

Suck it ebay.

[the.golden.ax]

I've been to the point of not WANTING to use eBay for a long time. Most months forum sales can and do give just barely enough to scrape it by. This month I was caught off guard and screwed up thinking there was no way with $2K worth of stuff in a sale thread I wouldn't get $200 over the weekend. I paid my electric (could have been payment arranged for 10 days) on Friday and then not a single sale over the weekend. The autodrafts for the life and car insurance came out today and left me NSF. I started putting stuff up on eBay, but thus far little action there too. I've had two sales on eBay and two on Azon, zero on NA/AA in a four day period.

[oldjd]

I dont think that price thing shows up in the actual ad.Its just there while doing the listing,and it only shows when you use thier dumb catalog.

As everybody has vented on this,its obvious that ebay,could give a rats ass about small potato sellers.Its become a do it our way,or leave we dont care business

I use to get worried when they threatened to remove my power seller deal,because it was tied into the discount on fees at month end.Now unless you have 100 % on thier feedback and you dont list enough,you lose the discount anyway.

Lets face it,first,feedback is just an extortion tool,used by ebay and the buyer

Second,they want you to offer free shipping,although we all know it isnt free

Third,I see them pushing for the BIN on almost everything,and of course they charge for that

Whats the other choice?GAme Gavel?They dont seem to have much traffic,and Ax,I think you said you were selling on Amazon,and after reading your stories about them,I wont be using them...so that leaves what?CL,and all the dorks that it attracts,or selling on a game site(AA)and hope buyers are there,who have money.

Any internet millionaires on here who want to start a business???

[HatefulGravey]

The problem with free shipping is you can't auction the item you are selling anymore. I like to start things at super low and let them auction. I don't want to BIN everything I sell. If you don't BIN you can't be sure you will cover shipping. So, eBay is not longer and auction site at all. I guess its another thing we have to deal with.

 

The format they list things under is the greatest offense to me as a buyer though. I can't stand the catalog idea. I search for a game and instead of a list I get a link to other links of links to items that might be what I'm looking for. Its great times.

[Tempest]

This is why I sell things on the forums. Sure I probably make less money, but it's worth it not to have to deal with ebay.

[Mayhem]

For example, this week I searched for a replacement video game item. No matter what I did, I was forced to experience their "new and improved" jackass interface that isn't just inconvenient because it's new and different, it's massively more difficult to find what I was looking for. No matter what I did, I couldn't find a straightforward way to scroll the page and visually scan hundreds of items within a minute or two.

Maybe the new interface is what broke my saved searches, none of them have been working properly for the last week or so. Just return garbage or nothing.

[HatefulGravey]

So, I'm looking around eBay today (I do this alot while I'm bored at work) and the number of prices that are way to high still kills me. If a person puts an item up for sale with 1 picture and a BIN that never gets picked up what does eBay charge that person? It would seem nothing because these people would be loosing money like crazy on listing fees.

[FastRobPlus]

I went up and looked at a listing just now. I see what you are upset about. That's not only low on eBay's part, it's also a little perplexing, as it could harm legitimate collectible sales.

I do also see what the others here are pointing out - that this new tactic does help kick the legs out from under sellers who want to sell their Toe Jam And Earl for $3000 because it's so "rare"

 

I think I have a solution to both problems. Use eBay against itself! With their (relatively) new bigger photos, there's almost too much screen real estate devoted to the picture of the item. But if you create the item image in eBay's native recommended resolution, you can put text into it that looks as if eBay put the text there:

Problem solved! Suddenly, this person's $14 ToeJam and Earl looks like a steal compared to the $64 it "should really be going for", and makes you think those $8 carts must be loose or poor.

[the.golden.ax]

I went up and looked at a listing just now. I see what you are upset about. That's not only low on eBay's part, it's also a little perplexing, as it could harm legitimate collectible sales.

I do also see what the others here are pointing out - that this new tactic does help kick the legs out from under sellers who want to sell their Toe Jam And Earl for $3000 because it's so "rare"

 

I think I have a solution to both problems. Use eBay against itself! With their (relatively) new bigger photos, there's almost too much screen real estate devoted to the picture of the item. But if you create the item image in eBay's native recommended resolution, you can put text into it that looks as if eBay put the text there:

 

 

Problem solved! Suddenly, this person's $14 ToeJam and Earl looks like a steal compared to the $64 it "should really be going for", and makes you think those $8 carts must be loose or poor.

 

I like it quite allot. It's some extra effort but if as you exampled it isn't a lie but true data and you have something worth significantly more valuable ($50 game they say is only worth $11) then it makes good sense.

[Hatta]

What changed? I don't see any difference.

[ianoid]

eBay, like most companies, is addicted to growth. How do you grow when you already dominate your market? Increase your market. They hope they can take sales from Amazon and Gamestop.

 

Unfortunately it's just too complex to simply add more product. It turns out they have no product.

 

So they are trying to add buyers. How do you do that? Dumb it down with lots of surveys and try to figure out what the incompetent public wants. "We don't know what it costs and it's too much trouble to search. eBay should tell me what I need to pay!"

 

In fact, I would like to see them do something with their search. They should have from day one. Search should have more intelligence. They missed the opportunity to have legacy price data available with advertising or for a fee. They missed the opportunity to establish a social network between buyers and sellers. They missed the chance to be an applauded brand by putting shareholders in front of customers.

 

Most of us have been waiting for eBay to fall. Most of us feel eBay is a bloated greedy service that provides little more than exposure for our sales. Exposure it has only because it made one innovative move and was first to mass market: online auctions. Not a single significant innovation since.

 

Most of us want to jump ship when a legitimate competitor presents itself. It's great to use Gamegavel, but then it's also double the work to list on both sites and the audience is so small, it's hard to be motivated to move there when your sales and rent depend on that exposure. And if you sell niche items, not the most desirable stuff, like I do, you need the exposure to make that sale. I would like to use gamegavel.com more, but then I don't have too much surefire clearcut price items. Most of my auctions only get one bid- the minimum. And most of my store items take an average of 2 months to sell- in the world's largest marketplace.

 

eBay has us against a wall, and we are all counting the days until it does not.

 

Sadly until then, it's the best place to sell used product in general, and find stuff worldwide.

 

I have respect for Japan for sticking to Yahoo. At least that's one significant market eBay hasn't won completely in.

Edited June 20, 2012 by ianoid

[FastRobPlus]

For retro computer gaming (particularly Amiga, but also Commodore, Apple and Atari) Amibay was becoming an alternative.

 

Unfortunately, it imploded, so now it's back to eBay.

[FastRobPlus]

What changed? I don't see any difference.

 

Added all the text between the pic of the toejam and earl cart and the green down arrow, implying that you can probably get $8 by selling your cart, but that complete/good condition carts are worth much more. And it's designed to look as if eBay is telling you this.

 

Interestingly, eBay motors already does something like this - they show a scale of 1-100, and show the top and bottom of the range for the car in the listing, then a guess at the numerical value of the car that is in the listing (based on prior sales, carfax report, odometer, etc)

 

It occurs to me you could do the same thing with games. Example:

 

 

This may even be a way to beat up on some of those "grading authorities" that are popping up trying to get rich by convincing you that nothing has value unless its in thier graded box.

[+wood_jl]

It also sucks because your unique item won't come up AT ALL in a search (by potential customers) if it's even close to one of their "Catalog Listings."

 

For example, I was going to list last year's Intellivision Donkey Kong Arcade homebrew. It kept trying to get me to use the "catalog listing" for the 1982 Coleco release. When I did, mine would get lost in the hundreds of those.

 

I used the title: "Intellivision Donkey Kong Arcade - Homebrew 2011 for INTV by Intelligentvision"

 

NOBODY could find my listing! All I could get to come up by searching for my own listing was a "new" Ebay screen that tried to break down the offerings into how many new, how many used, etc.....and all for the STANDARD COLECO 1982 DONKEY KONG!!!

 

 

 

Then after my listing had been active (for several minutes), I'd try searches such as "Intellivision Donkey Kong," "Donkey Kong Arcade," "Intelligentvision," and my listing would NOT come up.

 

eBay Auction -- Item Number: 280904680901

 

So I put it on the marketplace here. Ebay's lame. I spend enough time trying!

 

(When I edited it OUT of the catalog listing to just "Video Games" category, I still couldn't get my listing to come up.)

Edited June 20, 2012 by wood_jl

[Austin]

For the people that are annoyed with the new catalog feature, you need to remember to sort the listings after you do a generic search (Price Highest/Lowest first, Time Newly Listed/ending soonest). This will list all of the semi-related items in the traditional view.

[Rex Dart]

For the people that are annoyed with the new catalog feature, you need to remember to sort the listings after you do a generic search (Price Highest/Lowest first, Time Newly Listed/ending soonest). This will list all of the semi-related items in the traditional view.

 

Yeah... I have to do that every damn time I search. I wish I could set a sorted view as the default.

[Austin]

For the people that are annoyed with the new catalog feature, you need to remember to sort the listings after you do a generic search (Price Highest/Lowest first, Time Newly Listed/ending soonest). This will list all of the semi-related items in the traditional view.

 

Yeah... I have to do that every damn time I search. I wish I could set a sorted view as the default.

 

To search again while retaining the same view/sort settings, you need to do so from the second search field just above the categories bar at the left--not the one at the very top of the page near the eBay header. Doing so from the top search box will reset the sort settings.