eBay Hampers Sales Due to Messaging Crackdown

by: Cyclewizer

RE: by: eXtinctBay

Mon Jun 19 01:46:18 2017
@Vernfern

Once the item is sold, both buyer and seller have access to the other party's e-mail address. So communication through eBay Messages would be unneccessary.

I just had a potential local sale fall through because I could not leave my phone number so the buyer could pick up the item, which he needed immediately.

But this buyer did not actually purchase it yet, so the communication was suppressed.

How about when I buy something from a seller who has their own website and sends an e-mail stating that they sell the same merchandise directly for less than eBay prices??

I can see the next move being no address exchanges becoming available, even after the sale. All correspondence would take place strictly through the site's messaging system. This is already the case on Amazon.

If this did happen, there could be even more ''unintended consequences'', since bots would cancel certain necessary communications.

You do not have access to a sellers email address in normal or after sale correspondence.
So the miserable circumstance that you are warning us all about, that day is already here.. LOL

Sellers can access email from a buyer once the buyer has paid. Sometimes there may be a valid telephone number available, however since ebay doesnt require a valid number, more times than not it doesnt work. About 18 months ago when you received an email about a purchase made by a buyer, that email would provide the buyers email address. That is no longer the case. Ebay is plain and simple restraining trade and attempting to condition sellers to forcibly require them to only sell through the ebay platform. This goes beyond the ebay terms of service. The question is, is it your customer or ebays customer?? Is it your item listing or ebays item listing?? Are you the seller of record , or is ebay the seller of record? Where in the ebay agreement does ebay preclude me from making ancillary sales to my customers that have already purchased from me??
If I sell an item and my customer asks me for an item accessory that I do not have a listing for, nor that I intend to make a listing for for whatever reason, where does it say that I cannot sell an additional item to my existing customer?? When ebay enticed me with illusions of grandeur to star an ebay store and build my business with them, there was no mention of them putting impediments to business communication, which I believe is highly regarded and required if one was going to build said business on the ebay platform. Communication is vital for functionality. Communication is more vital in light of a lack of functionality, which we all know plagues this site on an ongoing basis.
If ebay were the middle east, this would call for a regime change.. LOL
Just my 2 cents...

by: Bidderboy

Here's a perfect example of a number of problems happening at once - a potential buyer contacted me with interest in issues of a certain periodical from a specific year. I checked my listings and found I had 12 which met her criteria. I messaged her and told her but she wrote back and said she could only see 9 of the 12. When I tried to message her the 12 item numbers, eBay popped up the warning about conducting business off site! They are hampering me from making a sale of 12 items! They can't tell their own item numbers from other info? I feel like I'm in the twilight zone!!!!

by: Cyclewizer

@eXtinctBay

@Vernfern

RE:Once the item is sold, both buyer and seller have access to the other party's e-mail address. So communication through eBay Messages would be unneccessary.

I just had a potential local sale fall through because I could not leave my phone number so the buyer could pick up the item, which he needed immediately.

But this buyer did not actually purchase it yet, so the communication was suppressed.

How about when I buy something from a seller who has their own website and sends an e-mail stating that they sell the same merchandise directly for less than eBay prices??

I can see the next move being no address exchanges becoming available, even after the sale. All correspondence would take place strictly through the site's messaging system. This is already the case on Amazon.

If this did happen, there could be even more ''unintended consequences'', since bots would cancel certain necessary communications.

You do not have access to a sellers email address in normal or after sale correspondence.
So the miserable circumstance that you are warning us all about, that day is already here.. LOL

Sellers can access email from a buyer once the buyer has paid. Sometimes there may be a valid telephone number available, however since ebay doesnt require a valid number, more times than not it doesnt work. About 18 months ago when a seller received an email about a purchase made by a buyer, that email would provide the buyers email address. That is no longer the case. Ebay is plain and simply restraining trade and attempting to condition sellers paradigm, to forcibly require them to only sell through the ebay platform. This goes beyond the ebay terms of service. The question is; is it your customer or ebays customer?? Is it your item listing, or ebays item listing?? Are you the seller of record , or is ebay the seller of record? Where in the ebay agreement does ebay preclude me from making ancillary sales to my customers that have already purchased from me??
If I sell an item and my customer asks me for an item accessory that I do not currently have a listing for, nor that I intend to make a listing for for whatever reason, where does it say in the ebay UA that I cannot sell an additional item to my existing customer?? When ebay enticed me with illusions of grandeur to start an ebay store and build my business with them, there was no mention of them putting impediments to business communication, which I believe is highly regarded and required if one was going to build said business on the ebay platform. Communication is vital for functionality. Communication is more vital in light of a lack of functionality, which we all know plagues this site on an ongoing basis.
If ebay were the middle east, this would call for a regime change.. LOL
Just my 2 cents...

by: mindelec

@Bidderboy

I've had that happen too, crazy cause I am trying to keep the sale on ebay by directing them to a listing.  I've even tried sending full links to items on eBay and been blocked.

by: Lightning

@toolguy  Re: ''I have no problem sending or receiving phone numbers thru eBay's messaging system. They don't even need to be spelled out, the numbers work fine. . .''

That is true AFTER the sale is made.  If you can do it BEFORE the sale is made, you could be the only on ebay who can.  Anybody else out there with this super-power??

by: eXtinctBay

@Cyclewizer

If you go to your My eBay page and search your sold item history (only through this page, not Search), an e-mail address for each buyer is shown in parentheses after their user ID.

But this feature is only available for, I believe, 60 days. After a certain amount of time, just the ID is displayed.

I am amazed they even show this information at all, since Amazon never gives out actual e-mail addresses of either buyers or sellers. Ever. All addresses are encrypted through their messaging system.

And, as we all know, eBay wishes to emulate or copy everything Amazon does.

by: Small Guy

Keep on with these ugly practices Ebay and Amazon may winding up buying your company for $199

by: lynnea1

Im thinking sellers need to stage a mass exodus.

by: Dburn

It may be worth ones while to go to the SEC and read eBay's 10K - Annual report. Particularly manager's discussion of operations.

I'll summarize some take-always   that I gleaned from it.

Your customers are eBay's customers unless there is a problem.

Your Inventory is eBay's inventory, unless there is a problem, then it's your inventory.

UP Coming: Your copyrights on your images are eBay’s copyrights unless you stole the image from someone else. Then they no longer lay claim to that image. You however will be isolated and taken out and shot at dawn.

All of this despite the 1976 Copyright act and the 1989 Supreme Court ruling that clarified the transfer of copyrights.

The postage you buy from eBay is their postage as it's seen by the Post office.  EBay's profits on Postage are somewhat hidden in their Income statement as Freight forwarders don't get too high of a valuation particularly if sales are stagnating and profits are slipping.

Let’s see how they apply this to messaging with their customer. They aren't scared to death of anything as they have repeatedly demonstrated to me when they flaunt both criminal and civil statutes.

In their minds, they no longer run a marketplace that brings buyers and businesses together. They believe eBay is a branded store in which they take no inventory risk (unlike Amazon) and are end destinations for their customers. The seller is merely the supplier of the inventory and the back office operations that deliver the inventory to the shipper.  They want the seller to ship the same day or in 24 hours and at one time were willing to give a reasonable discount of FVF in order to make that happen. That’s like Amazon prime customers. The fact that Amazon was able to collect $99 or more from customers to get that kind of service seems to be lost on eBay. Or maybe it isn’t if they can just screw the money out of the sellers/back office people rear-ends

In that way, they believe that a seller has no more rights to a customer than a warehouse worker at a business that has inventory. You don't see warehouse workers communicating with customers very often.

Of course they are concerned, like any business is, that employees like us will steal their customers and open their own direct business.

It's my opinion that people are missing the boat and all the signals flashing. EBay wants to compete with Amazon. They have said so. The reality is they want Amazon's price to earnings ratio of 185 vs the lowly 5 they have this year because of a onetime tax benefit. They think of their personal net worth expanding from mere millions to billions. At least in the C-suite.

The fact they are trying to be an Amazon without a Prime program, without their own inventory and without any responsibilities is so much beside the point. We sellers or back office employees as we are thought of by eBay and fortunately not the IRS, know better.  It’s more of a picture they are trying to paint to investors to get that stock price up. It is amazing that during the biggest bubble we have had since 1929, 1987 and 1999 combined, that eBay languishes with a lousy PE of 5. I’m sure it’s a great source of frustration to shareholders.
What really scares eBay is that shareholders will unload their investment if the finally conclude that eBay stock is dead money. That the business has topped out and frankly the cash earnings are not large enough to be a good dividend stock. Nevertheless that doesn’t stop management from buying back stock to make it looking like there is growth in earnings per share.


What happens in a Share buy back?  Well the company cash is burned. The book value of the company goes down. The share value may not go down too much  but won’t go up appreciably.

No investment is made in bringing a site that was conceived in the 90s up to standards of 2020 and make it easier for the back office employees like us to service the customer. Can’t do that. That leaves less money for stock buy backs.

It’s part of the ongoing deception and the source of eBay’s greatest fear.

The deception: If we have been in business long enough or observed large business, eBay wants to be considered a one stop shop by investors. AS we saw with Enron in the Nasdaq bubble of 1995-2000, Enron was desperately trying to get a dot.com valuation and the only way to do that (so they thought) was to show massive growth rates, huge profits and little debt. The fact they lied to get that is only materiel to Jeff Skilling who is still in Jail and the investors who lost billions.

EBay wants to be measured the same way Amazon is. They will do almost anything to get that valuation.

The best way to bring eBay down to earth is a one month or greater seller strike. I know it won’t happen but if it did:  Let’s see them explain that in their quarterly conference call. Let’s see them explain that in court when shareholders sue them for misleading statements in hopes their shares wouldn't be sold as dead money to invest in some of the more bubbly stocks.

The fact they are losing sales by making it hard for the back office employees to communicate with the customers isn’t true. That would mean they would have to believe us. That isn’t possible. After all they know best. The CEO and his LTs comes from a world where beating up suppliers and employees until they are bleeding is common business practice. Where minimal investment in the business is only made to keep things from grinding to a complete halt.

Not all businesses are run like this. Certainly not Amazon. Businesses that are run like this typically have low PE ratios and are considered dead money by investors. They are also run by hired hands, not founders. Hired hands typically sell their stock options and restricted stock as soon as they are able. They will keep a little bit for PR purposes.

It's not like Bezos who still has 25% of his company's stock and takes a tiny salary out of the company. Nope these guys are paid the big bucks to do...something...they are just not quite sure what that is but it has to have something to with their training as C-Suites execs which for unqualified hired hands is cut costs, raise revenue and spend the majority of their time talking with investors in what is now a futile attempt to invest more into eBay.
I do think there is a glimmer of hope in that Boards and activist investors are seeing that CEOs with the attitudes and training that seems to be at eBay are quickly becoming part of the past. That would be the greatest fear of the current CEO. Losing a CEO post for performance reasons in your 50s is pretty much the end of relevance.

That's where the desperation comes from and that's what keeps them up at night. If their messaging system causes life to be hard on their back office ''employees''. Well tough Sxxt!  

by: Overthere

I had a customer buy an item with local pickup which I had checked off in the shipping instructions.
The buyer contacted me for directions on how to get to me. The message went through to the buyer, but then I got a message from ebay  saying that I was trying to sell the item off site. The buyer had already paid for it through ebay. So i guess we're not even allowed to give the buyer directions to our location after they bought and paid for the item.

by: Ming the Merciless

@dBurn

Excellent analysis! And there's so much more.

As has been observed many times on these blogs, ebay should be a case history in b school about how not to run a company.

by: Filadelfos

WOW!!!  I end listings ALL THE TIME... it's called having a brick & mortar store!  SMH

by: comet

Ebay has never cared what  is legal or not but---this does kinda go beyond.  Hpowever our Govt  seems to feel that our privacy--such as it WAS---is not ours at all any more. Sad.  

by: Docinmd

I have a series of Western Union Telegrams sent in 1948, to a well-known political figure on his election to the US Senate. These were sent by other famous & influential people.

idiotBay flagged the original listing, claiming I was trying to take the payment off line thru another payment processor [Western Union Money Orders]

I spoke with idiotBay customer service who agreed with me that I was not trying to take the sale & payment off idiotBay, however they also said there was nothing I could do, as the words ''Western Union'' as well as ''Money order'' are banned from any idiotBay auctions, messages, or communications.

The solution that works for me is consign the telegrams to an auction house specializing in politicians & other famous people. idiotBay gets 0.00%  

by: kilogirl78

Oh Ebay,

How many times I have not made a purchase from an internet site because I couldn't find a phone number.  People WANT to be able to reach out and talk to a person if a problem arises.  This is dumb move on your part.  I'll stop giving my phone number to customers who request it for technical support so I won't risk a suspension.  But they are going to be mad at me, mad at ebay, and stop buying period on ebay.  Does your management ever think of these policies from a buyers persepective?  Might be why you are losing the internet race.