eBay Furtively Changes Payments Policy

by: Scotty

GSP is at the root of many evils on eBay.  They (Pitney Bowes) are directly responsible for ruining my international sales (from 60% of my business pre-GSP...to less than 1% now).  That is a fact.  Remember when they were inserting ''does not ship to'' countries into your listings when you had checked ''ships to worldwide''...this is Pitney Bowes.  They are pulling more levers regarding sales at eBay than eBay will admit.  One of Dingle-hoes deals with a devil that benefits his strategic partner and screws sellers.  They ruined international sales and are now trying to limit sales to one-by-one for some unknown reason.  Collecting email addresses and beefing up non-ebay options (i.e. my own site).  Ebay is dead.

by: Marie

@scotty

I that that award goes to USPS.  It is the incredible international rates that killed international sales.  And because of the huge increases my largest group of non paying bidders are international buyers.  IPR can not fix that!  Unless you have a shipping rate stated on your listing for certain countries, then IPR will work for those, but not the ones you don't have on the listing.

Personally I don't thing GSP has anything to do with it.  If they tried to force GSP on me as well, I would just completely stop shipping internationally period.  I would hate to lose those sales, but there are near as many of them anymore, so I would do it.

I think the problems you describe are real, but don't have anything to do with IPR.  Just my opinion though!

by: Ming the Merciless

Perhaps the monopolistic, anti competitive agreement with The Ho's PreyPal has gone south, and ebafia is falling short of their commitment.

If the REAL reason for this manifestly excessive policy is actually to reduce non paying buyers, ebay could offer carrots to sellers to list using the IPR option AND NARU non paying buyers.

But nooooo. Ebafia once again punishes sellers for bad buyer behavior.

Once again this smells like Brian Burke.

What in the world does it take to convince the IRS that sellers are unpaid employees?

by: Frank Abagnale

All buyers pay. They all have 100% feedback!

This is what happens when ebay took away sellers ability to neg buyers.

by: BuildingMyOwnSite

@Ming the Merciless:

I do like your take on the the  unpaid employee issue.  But I think Ebay might defend their behavior with arguments along the lines of “Internship, Apprentice, Restaurant Wait Staff, Etc”.  I have modified the statements by the Ebay Moderator quoted above.  I changed a few words (SHOWN IN CAPS), to illustrate how easily they may respond to your proposal:

“We tested this a ways back but have recently made changes to help in our efforts of INCREASING unpaid SELLER INTERNSHIPS. There isn't an option to opt out of this feature................  We've shared YOUR feedback with the relevant team.

by: BuildingMyOwnSite

How easy was that.  I just realized I sound like I work for Etsy.

by: Scotty

GSP has everything to do with many behind the scenes functions.  I suggest all have a look at the B2B offerings from Pitney Bowes related to international shipping and their ''guides'' to customs and import taxes, etc.  They sell this product as a ''compliance'' product to keep entities out of foreign tax issues.  Dig deep into these offerings and you will see many entities outsource this completely to PB with the product white labeled as their own...i.e. eBay GSP program.
Yes...the USPS rate increase did not help, but this goes way beyond that....I have researched the cause of this drop for quite a while now and everything points to PB influencing visibility in certain markets, etc.  The rules and regulations and enforcement of them (in regards to global shipping) did not come from ebay...they came from PB....sell on Bonanza, Etsy or most any competitors of eBay and you do not have these restrictions.  Nor do you if you have your own site.

by: Scotty

For the record...I DO NOT use GSP and never have.  That does not mean its tentacles do not influence and affect international sales as they do....just not transparent.

by: toolguy

@Marie

You can avoid the immediate payment by adding another payment option in addition to accepting Paypal. Which would be payment on local pickup.

I have no problem checking the box that allows customers to pick their item up.

COME ON OVER!

by: BackInBlack

As with nearly every tweak eBay makes, this sucks on both ends for me.

As a seller since '99, NPBs have never been an issue for me, and I don't like being *forced* to use IPR when it's not an option I usually choose.

As a buyer, I almost *never* pay immediately as I prefer to use gift cards (for gas points) often purchased with cash, and I don't always have enough of them lying around until I actually "commit to buy" something on eBay.  But I *always* pay, usually later the same day or the next day.  Now, I'll have to run to the store and hope the item I wanted is still for sale when I get back.

Also, like @Dan's Parts said, I often like to shop multiple items from the same seller to combine shipping, sometimes over a couple days, and I do NOT like the 'shopping cart' because it never seems to work right-- I avoid it like the plague.

I was looking for the *real* ulterior (profit) motive, and I think @eXtinctBay nailed it--

1) FeeBay collects their 'cut' on FULL shipping cost on EACH item, and the seller has to hassle with trying to refund excess shipping costs to the buyer
-and-
2) They threw JD a bone over a PreyPal too.. the 'swipe fee' (where they 'swipe' 30¢ from you, before they get 2.9% more) on EACH and EVERY transaction, instead of one swipe fee on a combined purchase of several items.

Freakin' greedy crooks!

by: Paul W

Hey,eBay!  Just remove the ''Buy it Now'' button so every item goes to shopping cart.  Then nothing is bought until payment is made.  

Simple, easy, effective.  

by: ySirTinLee

Unless I'm misunderstanding this article, I've seen this in the past many times where there was no "Add To Cart" option. I would have to pay then and there for one item even though I wanted to buy additional items from the same seller.  

by: BobNJ

As a buyer, I typically try buying multiple items from the same seller and have them combined. The items are smaller collectibles and shipping is typically more than the items. If I run into an immediate payment required I simply don't buy so the sellers will lose sales. It's just not economical as a buyer to buy a single item. And the sellers who have raised prices in my category to offer free shipping have priced their items out of the market and never sell. eBay has totally killed my category.... Once listing thousands of items now down to 50 to 100 items.

by: Marie

@paul

Then that would mean that Ebay would do away with auctions.  Someday they might, but there are still sellers that do fine at the auctions.  I wouldn't want to do anything to encourage Ebay to shut them down.

by: phil-k

Also by not letting sellers combine p&p and charging the customer more, Ebay get a higher final valuation fee which they will not refund to the seller

by: Jono

This was applied to my UK account around 2 years ago & cut 50% out of my sales overnight. When it happens the buyer is not able to ask for an invoice! To this day my buyers are not able to buy multiple items without paying postage on every item. I used to get multiple purchases at least twice a week but since they enforced immediate payment I have only had 3 multiple sales YES three in two years! All three have been from Germany supposedly because Germany has a multi currency shopping cart. How on earth can eBay see this as a good solution is beyond all sanity. Why force it? I can only assume they want buyers to pay more on postage & force more sellers into the Global Shipping Programme. I have been screaming about this for 2 years but gave up because nobody was listening & not everyone was affected. This will seriously damage your bisiness I guaranteee it. When it happens the buyer is not able to ask for an invoice either. Wait & see. eBay is being run by wrong headed aliens from planet stoopid!

by: Barbbie

I hate cancellations after payment WAY more than non paying bidders.

I have a 179 dollar, very heavy item which is very popular with international buyers who never pay for it that has IPR on it .... but I have sold it 3 times this year and no payment yet. So not sure marking IPR yourself actually works.

by: Jono

HOW TO FIGHT BACK! I intend to use this sign I just created as my third eBay pic. https://ibb.co/i1r17v

by: Jono

HOW TO FIGHT BACK! I intend to use this sign I just created as my third eBay pic. https://ibb.co/i1r17v You are all welcome to copy & use it or create similar signs. I have been doing this for months now. eBay say they do not allow borders or signs & graphics etc but we all know they don't enforce this rule. But I have to say... do not make it you second picture as there is a bug on eBay that randomly changes the second pic to the first pic but never the thrird pic.

by: HardWorkingSeller

I had noticed that I could no longer disable the requirement for immediate payment.  

It isn't a big deal most of the time and I usually have immediate payment required by default but I do need to be able to turn it off in some situations.

When the buyer has a sales exempt tax certificate I remove the immediate payment hurdle so they can send me the certificate before I send a revised invoice.  Now that the eBay 'bots close down sellers for trying to communicate before the buyer hits the buy it now button I cannot risk giving my email address for them to send me the pdf before they commit to buy.

I also sell to a lot of corporate buyers who will expense the item and they need a document with the word 'Invoice' at the top to satisfy accounting requirements in their county.  Unless you have Selling Manager Pro you can't generate an invoice on eBay once payment has been sent, which has long been a pain.

This smacks of more trying to close down the off-eBay sales.  I think they see a lot of deals close that never result in a payment through the platform and this, coupled with the email 'bots, is a heavy handed effort to close that down.

I wish that eBay were up front about changes that they make.  There should be a page on their site where all seller affecting changes are posted, preferably in advance.  I don't see how sneaking them out helps their credibility.  It's not like we won't notice them?