# How has eBay changed in the last few years? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 11, 2009, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-ebay-changed-in-the-last-few-years/513400 "2009-10-11T14:15:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-ebay-changed-in-the-last-few-years/513400/1 "2009-10-11T14:15:41Z")
Between 1999 and 2005 I sold quite a bit… probably 1000 items or so. Since then I haven’t sold at all and my buying is also more limited… maybe a couple times a month. I hear rumors of certain changes, particularly with PayPal, but I haven’t experienced them myself. Can someone lay out or point me to a summary/chronology of significant changes over the last 3-4 years in the way eBay works ? TIA ---
**Author:** ![NineToTheSky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5a626/32.png) [@NineToTheSky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NineToTheSky)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-ebay-changed-in-the-last-few-years/513400/2 "2009-10-11T16:18:18Z")
I would like to see that answered too. I certainly use eBay very infrequently now, mainly because it’s become more like a regular shop, like Amazon. I used to be able to pick up some real bargains; but not anymore. As a seller, I just don’t get the prices I used to, and the introduction of being forced to offer free postage makes selling many items not profitable enough to make it worthwhile. ---
**Author:** ![joyfool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@joyfool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joyfool)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-ebay-changed-in-the-last-few-years/513400/3 "2009-10-11T16:38:54Z")
One thing that’s supposedly changed… is that sellers can no longer leave negative feedback for buyers. Because this way it allows the buyers to be completely honest in their evaluation of the seller’s conduct. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-ebay-changed-in-the-last-few-years/513400/4 "2009-10-11T16:43:49Z")
> [@NineToTheSky](#): > > As a seller, I just don’t get the prices I used to, and the introduction of being forced to offer free postage makes selling many items not profitable enough to make it worthwhile. Bwaa? Sellers can’t charge for postage? > [@faithfool](#): > > One thing that’s supposedly changed… is that sellers can no longer leave negative feedback for buyers. Because this way it allows the buyers to be completely honest in their evaluation of the seller’s conduct. Or to lie with fear of consequences. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-ebay-changed-in-the-last-few-years/513400/5 "2009-10-11T16:50:55Z")
With_out_ fear of consequnces… ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-ebay-changed-in-the-last-few-years/513400/6 "2009-10-11T16:52:11Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Bwaa? Sellers can’t charge for postage? > > Or to lie with fear of consequences. There weren’t any consequences before. Not if you have another credit card and email address. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-ebay-changed-in-the-last-few-years/513400/7 "2009-10-11T16:54:19Z")
Moved to IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-ebay-changed-in-the-last-few-years/513400/8 "2009-10-11T17:12:25Z")
> [@Rumor\_Watkins](#): > > There weren’t any consequences before. Not if you have another credit card and email address. If I get a large bid on an auction from someone with no feedback, I cancel it. Hard to build up a decent feedback score if you are constantly opening new accounts. ---
**Author:** ![hekk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/50afbb/32.png) [@hekk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hekk)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-ebay-changed-in-the-last-few-years/513400/9 "2009-10-11T17:35:06Z")
By far the biggest change, IMHO, and the one that made me stop selling on eBay, is that PayPal use is mandatory in transactions. Besides being suspiciously monopolistic, PayPal has a looooong history of ripping off sellers with holds on payments, high fees, fraudulent chargebacks, etc. I would use eBay again in a heartbeat if they let me accept google checkout or money orders again, but I have never felt more violated by a company than with PayPal… ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-ebay-changed-in-the-last-few-years/513400/10 "2009-10-11T17:36:15Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > If I get a large bid on an auction from someone with no feedback, I cancel it. Hard to build up a decent feedback score if you are constantly opening new accounts. well i guess that’s your loss, then. you really showed that guy. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-ebay-changed-in-the-last-few-years/513400/11 "2009-10-11T17:55:24Z")
As a seller with hundreds of sales, I don’t need the grief of bidders who don’t pay. I know there will be another along who will play by the rules, and that is reflected by his feedback. Or it used to be; who knows now. ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-ebay-changed-in-the-last-few-years/513400/12 "2009-10-11T17:59:00Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > As a seller with hundreds of sales, I don’t need the grief of bidders who don’t pay. I know there will be another along who will play by the rules, and that is reflected by his feedback. Or it used to be; who knows now. yes, now that you can’t leave retaliatory feedback against buyers who didn’t like your operation, the sham e-bay bidders have come out of the woodwork and are now multiplying their numbers. please. ---
**Author:** ![joyfool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@joyfool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joyfool)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-ebay-changed-in-the-last-few-years/513400/13 "2009-10-11T18:21:29Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Or to lie with fear of consequences. That’s why I said _supposedly_. As someone who has bought over 1500 items and has 100% positive feedback, I’ve only had occasion to leave a negative twice (both instances were for non-delivery and zero communication about it). I do not understand people who leave obviously bogus feedback. My sympathies go out to those who’ve been gigged by them. ---
**Author:** ![NineToTheSky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5a626/32.png) [@NineToTheSky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NineToTheSky)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-ebay-changed-in-the-last-few-years/513400/14 "2009-10-11T18:25:23Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Bwaa? Sellers can’t charge for postage? They can for some items, but for many such as video games, phones, consumer electronics and computing, they can’t. ---
**Author:** ![racer72](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/racer72/32/3075_2.png) [@racer72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racer72)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-ebay-changed-in-the-last-few-years/513400/15 "2009-10-11T18:50:07Z")
Ebay never has and from what I can tell, never will force sellers to not require buyers to pay postage. I sell quite a few video games and the buyers pay the full cost of postage and delivery confirmation. I have 12 games listed, over half have bids and the buyers will be paying the postage too. The only changes to postage relate to USPS insurance. You can’t force buyers to pay for it or make it optional at the time of checkout. If you think insurance should be part of the shipping costs, you have to include it in the price of the item. Besides the changes in feedback, the only changes I have seen affect the small low volume sellers. Listing and sale rates have gone up quite a bit the past few years. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-ebay-changed-in-the-last-few-years/513400/16 "2009-10-11T18:59:32Z")
> [@NineToTheSky](#): > > They can for some items, but for many such as video games, phones, consumer electronics and computing, they can’t. What in the world are you talking about? People selling computers can most certainly charge postage. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-ebay-changed-in-the-last-few-years/513400/17 "2009-10-11T19:05:27Z")
> [@racer72](#): > > Besides the changes in feedback, the only changes I have seen affect the small low volume sellers. Listing and sale rates have gone up quite a bit the past few years. This is what caused me, and many other eBay store owners, to abandon eBay. It got to the point where I was paying more in fees than I was getting in sales. We were some of their most loyal customers, and they totally screwed us over. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-ebay-changed-in-the-last-few-years/513400/18 "2009-10-11T19:33:01Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > This is what caused me, and many other eBay store owners, to abandon eBay. It got to the point where I was paying more in fees than I was getting in sales. We were some of their most loyal customers, and they totally screwed us over. Seriously. I used to sell items that had a low cost but I would only get a decent price about 1 time out of 4. The ebay and paypal fees where chewing me a new asshole to the point that I needed to hit a lot more home runs to justifying selling. What also aggravates the hell out of me is in the case of failure to pay by a buyer they make the process of getting a refund or fee credit far more complex than it needs to be. Just finding the appropriate refund menus involves keyword searching. The relative lack of real customer service and aggressive fees makes me wish there was an alternative but there really isn’t for many items if you want maximum penetration to all buyers. You need a pretty big cost to sell spread to justify listing stuff these days and that makes it a less good deal for buyers. If I can’t make $15- $20 net profit on a transaction these days I’m close to wasting my time given the effort in listing and shipping etc. ---
**Author:** ![nivlac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3bc359/32.png) [@nivlac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nivlac)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-ebay-changed-in-the-last-few-years/513400/19 "2009-10-11T20:58:34Z")
I’m strictly an eBay buyer since 2000. Yes, payment strictly by Paypal has become more prevalent. Maybe sellers don’t like Paypal, but I’ve found it great protection for a buyer. I’ve gotten back my money when the seller has failed to deliver. That’s been very rare, but it has happened. It seems that there has been more fixed price (BIN) selling on eBay nowadays – less real auctions. Of course, sellers can still charge for shipping/handling. It’s just that for some types of auctions the tag “free shipping” may attract more attention from buyers. It doesn’t for me because I factor in the total cost of an item before bidding. Finally, I think that there are more foreign (especially Asian) seller on eBay today than before. Nothing wrong with that. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-ebay-changed-in-the-last-few-years/513400/20 "2009-10-11T21:24:38Z")
I’ve only been a buyer and never a seller. I hate PayPal with a passion, though I’ll use it if the item is something that I want badly enough and there’s no other option. I’ve pretty much quit browsing eBay, though, which means that I rarely buy anything. eBay has become just another online store, not a collection of garage sales. By that, I mean that casual sellers used to list their unwanted things, and it was possible to find something like unused craft kits that someone’s aunt had had, but hadn’t used before she died. Nowadays, it seems that most sellers are actual businesses, and a lot of them do drop shipping. Nope, no thanks, if I want to do business with a commercial enterprise, I’ll Google what I want. For me, a lot of eBay’s charm was the fact that I could browse the listings and find things like glass owl piggy banks, which were apparently popular at one time but seem to be no longer made. Nowadays, if I browse owl listings, I’ll have a lot of things like owl figurines made out of marbles (which are ugly, by the way) (the seller makes various figurines out of marbles), or a movie with “owl” in the title, or “UNSEARCHED RUBIES!!1!!!”. eBay needs to keep a much closer eye on bad listings, like the rubies I mentioned. It should re-instate seller feedback, because I think sellers have the right to know if a buyer is batshit crazy. Retaliatory feedback could be prevented by implementing a software change that no feedback gets posted unless and until both parties have left feedback, or unless one party has gone to arbitration. I don’t have personal experience with the higher fees, but I suspect that these fees keep a lot of the merchandise that I would find interesting out of the site. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-ebay-changed-in-the-last-few-years/513400.md?page=2)