What Do You Think of the eBay Consignment Center?

by: buffalochick

Hmmmm.  Trust ebay.  I would rather make a deal with the devil himself.  Will NEVER trust that company. Keep every single thing I can, OUT of their greedy hands.

by: iheartjacksparrow

I don't know how the average eBay seller is going to participate in this program since eBay states participants have to be "independent trusted partners with valuable industry expertise who are hand-picked by eBay staff."

There are some things I would consider myself extremely knowledgeable about, but I don't know if I have "valuable industry expertise." This seems more like some sort of paid advertising scheme for the sellers in the program.  

by: pace306

Maybe its me - but I read through it all and dont understand it.

1) why trust the idiots at eBay - they obviously know nothing about selling

2) why not just "sell it yourself on eBay" if you think that eBay is the place for it

3) why give up a portion of your fees to enrich Devin Wenig

4) theres a "contact" button under each sellers name that automatically takes you to some email (thats NOT past of eBays system) ... what happened to not taking sales off site/having direct communications with sellers?

5) eBay Valet service still exists (no idea what for though) "Another option is to use our eBay Valet service here."

More craziness from YOUR partner over at eBay !

by: FeelingFroggy

HA HA HA HA Its the Ebay joke of the day HA HA HA HA

by: Rexford

Will be gone in 6 months or less.  Like most of eBay's hit and misses.

by: DingDong

With all the effort that eBay puts into these "new ideals"
they could clean up the eBay site of glitches and such.

by: Stig of the Dump

How they must laugh at eBay around the Azon watercooler.

eBay, if you really want to increase sales on eBay, develop a shopping cart that works properly, that allows the seller to set combined shipping amounts ahead of time. Make that work properly and market that to buyers. You have such an advantage over Azon in that buyers can get genuinely increased value by getting combined shipping from a human -- and you don't know it (or act like you don't know it).

Fix the image upload function, which hasn't worked properly now for years.

Redesign the website from the point of view of DECREASED NUMBERS OF CLICKS for the seller, instead of just redesigning it for pointless cosmetic reasons, just to say you did something -- like the guy who stands swishing the broom around his feet in case the boss arrives.

Do whatever needs to be done to SPEED UP the website generally.

I'm sure others can give you plenty of real work that would INCREASE YOUR PROFITS if you are willing to listen (no, not say you're listening -- actually listen).

by: The End

My time here (on Earth) is priceless. I have wonderful things on my plate. I would Never entertain this.....

by: eXtinctBay

As we all know, the less that eBay has their hands on your merchandise and your business, the better off you will be as a seller.

I was researching a price of an item on eBay to sell, and saw a Valet listing that sold for MUCH LESS than the other completed items.

Why did it sell for way less money? Whoever listed it placed it on auction AT 5:30 A.M. ON A WEEKDAY!!

Glad I wasn't the poor guy who entrusted eBay to make max dollars for my widget, only to have the auction end when not that many folks are near a computer or smartphone. And for much higher fees than doing it (correctly) myself.

It would be a better idea to donate your things to Goodwill and receive a tax deduction than let them do so, this is for certain.

by: mcposty

No way would I trusthink ebay especially with such one sided terms

by: Ming the Merciless

@ eXtinctBay

I suspect that item was intentionally listed/ended at 5:30 am for the express purpose of driving down the price of that item in ebafia's self destructive race to the bottom.

@Rexford

No hits, no runs, hundreds of errors -- all misses.

What a looney bin of losers.

by: Snapped

I was a 'consignment' seller who's business model was specifically designed to directly integrate with, and exclusively operate via eBay for almost 8 years (07 - 14).  During that time, we recorded over $2M in sales;  20k individually documented listings in every category, including motors.  We were top rated, maintained almost 100% +FB, with all the stars available in their little universe lit brightly.  More importantly, we paid FEES to be there.

Then, over the course of the last 4 years active, eBay systematically and purposefully decimated that model with their pathetic attempts (ongoing today) to become a cheap commoddity trinket retail model venue.  

If anybody could be deemed an ''independent trusted partner with industry expertise'', it was us, and all the sellers like us, similarly modeled, similarly decimated in turn.  And no longer viable on eBay as a (planned) result.  More significantly to eBay - no longer paying fees.

However, even beyond the steady, eventually unsustainable decline in sales leding to an eventual shuttering (on eBay), the biggest challenges faced toward the end was the ability to attract consignors (read inventory).  In the beginning, one could conduct accurate research of sold items to determine fair market expectation, and conduct operations via applicable selling and self-managed business process options available that actually led to achieving that.  And that too, was a 'selling point' to potential consignors; our experience (and results) in achieving sale value well above that of the DIY seller that almost paid the cost of any commission paid to avoid the hassle of a DIY effort.  These aren't idle boasts - they were backed by objective and tangible performance.

Now, however, with every potential listing likely to be hidden, with every listing subject to error prone VERO, with every potential sale subject to return on a whim, or false SNAD claim with attendant collusion of eBay themselves ( so they can falsely inflate GMV) - with every potential research episode showing severly depressed value, and/or false expectation of sale for those sold then returned (but not showing as such), or falsely valued when a price is incorrectly associated to a sale (aka B.O. at offer price vice sold price), or with research made difficult to impossible due to so many trinket (-like) dupes (think jewelry category as a worse case example), the consignor owners themselves would be fools to rely on eBay as a venue upon which to achieve fair value.  We know this because THEY told us so.

So, couple that with eBays elimination of the trading partner support program, and their directly competing, thus preferentally treated ''Valet Service'', and just two words come to mind when considering this latest unidirectional 'partnership innovation' in ''exclusive'' consignment selling to be spewed by this cesspool of a venue -

Hypocracy.  And disgust.  

by: Paul W

No interest either as consignor or seller.  EBay will exercise too much control over the sellers and I think I know how to sell my stuff better than someone else would.

by: Chicago48

The consignment center is news to me.  When did they send the email notice to sellers?
Online consignment only seems to work with high-priced luxury items.  And at sites like the Realreal.  However, if Ebay wants to consign, I'm all for it.  Most B&M consignment shops have a 3-month stay.
It seems that Ebay is throwing everything against the wall trying to figuring out how to get the customer back.  They need a "hook" like Prime.  They actually had a good thing with Half.com - which IMO could have been turned into a streaming service for ebooks, movies and music.

by: angryllama

D.O.A. ...   Nothing more to ADD than that.

by: Chicago48

Yep, I took a look at the consignment center and it's other shops that want you to send them your stuff so that they can sell it for you.  Heck, I can go to my local consignment shop for that.

by: QueenMab

And another attempt by GreedBay to hit some poor delusional peeps with more fees. This won't last. Remember the b&m shops that would-be sellers were able to drop off their stuff & then pay these places to do all the work and get a pittancein return when their items sold? This won't last either.

by: eebart

Although I hate to admit it, eBay had a great idea with the Trading Assistant program. I actually landed a few outstanding accounts. But eBay never promoted the program properly. Nobody knew it existed! I now get more calls in a week through my website and Google Adwords than I would get in months from the TA program. After selling for almost 20 years on eBay, I am convinced that they can't do anything right, not even fix the 100s of glitches in their website, or convince sellers like myself that they are trying to make things better for us.

by: a_c_green

Aside from eBay's questionable technical and business skills, my concern would be over the chain of custody for any items I sold on consignment through them, in particular the inevitable fingerpointing that will occur when the end buyer receives a damaged or Significantly Not As Described item.

eBay seems to have a longstanding habit of wanting to inject themselves into the middle of a transaction, without taking on any of the responsibility or accountability that comes along with that.

by: Chicago48

These are private consignment centers that have rented space on EB.  It's no different than sending your things to Swap.com  or going to your local B&M consignment store.  It's adding on another fee, because the consignment store is going to give you a cut of the 60/40 sale and charge you the EB fees.