how? I list stuff every week and havent noticed anything different other than the features i get with a store which i just subscribed too. 

store = great idea

makes things SO much easier, worth every penny

It does make it a ton easier when you have a lot of non video game stuff to unload to. .20 insertion over .50 adds up over time. I calculated it and I was saving 90 dollars the first month alone off insertion. Ive also noticed alot more single cheap nes games i had on there were selling.

Whoa now, what the heck do you think you're doing here.  This is the Ebay/Gamestop/Craigslist rant thread, not Amazon! 

Kidding, but yeah that sucks.  Sorry to hear.  When I buy off Amazon, I specifically request a box prior to paying unless the price is so absurdly cheap that you just have to buy ASAP. 

Same here.  There return policy is good too, but yeah very frustrating when you get a bubble mailer. Had 2 nice games ruined that way.  Tend to be a good amount of reseals on Amazon as well.

Yeah, I pulled it out of the mailbox and it instantly sent me into an unnecessary rage haha. That is my number one thing that pisses me off in this hobby (probably because I've yet to be scammed ) But I ended up getting a refund and she told me to just keep the game to prevent me from negging her.

Just read ebays seller update. Holy crap i hate them. Just made top rated seller effing rediculous to keep. Required 14 day return policy, and 1 day handling time. Wtf ebay? I have to now act like a retail store? If its broken or defective i always refund and they send it back. Now they can just change their mind???? And 1 day handling? I ship monday wednesday snd friday. Thats not good enough???? Ebays making it a full time job to qualify for that stupid discount. Thats exactly what they want. Less people to qualify

Here is the full message


Your commitment to great service is paying off! With eBay growing at double-digit rates, you now have access to more than 100 million active buyers. Updates coming this spring will help keep those growing ranks of online shoppers coming your way, help get your listings in front of the right buyers, protect your track record, and boost your efficiency.

Updates to the eBay Top-rated seller program mean more attention for your great listings.

Ecommerce standards for service have evolved in the three years since the eBay Top-rated seller program was first introduced, and savvy merchants have adapted to compete. Now the Top-rated seller program will also evolve to keep pace.

Starting in June, Top-rated sellers will need to have tracking information uploaded to eBay within their stated handling time on 90% or more of their transactions with US buyers. As of June 1, the 20% final value fee discount and greatest average boost in Best Match will go to those listings from Top-rated sellers that include 1-day handling and a minimum 14-day return policy with a money-back refund option. Your listings without these two services will still have the Top-rated seller badge and some boost in Best Match but will not earn the discounts or the highest average boost in Best Match.

You already upload tracking information, so you're on track to keep your Top-rated status. To keep the maximum benefits, add the combination of 1-day handling and a minimum 14-day return policy with a money-back refund option to as many of your listings as possible.

As an extra reward for adding these in-demand services now, from March 1 to May 31, you'll get a bonus 5% discount off your final value fees--along with your current 20% discount--for all listings with 1-day handling and 14-day or longer returns with a money-back option. Act now to take full advantage of this bonus discount!

Safeguards for your hard-earned performance record

New seller protections help ensure your performance record is an accurate reflection of your great service:

Get an automatic 5-star Detailed Seller Rating (DSR) for Communication when you specify same-day or 1-day handling, upload tracking information by the end of the next business day, and no communication is needed between you and the buyer.

Feedback left for a transaction where the buyer had an unpaid item recorded will be automatically removed.

Earlier this year, eBay started displaying an automatic message on the View Item page to buyers outside the US regarding customs-related delays and customs duties. Because of this, any Feedback from international buyers that only references customs issues will qualify for Feedback removal.

Updates to boost your efficiency and profitability

Manage your business policies from one handy location. Opt in to a new way to create and manage custom payment, shipping, and return policies and apply them to listings quickly and easily.

Streamline returns: An optional new way to manage returns virtually automates the process according to the terms you specify. Your buyer simply clicks a link in My eBay to print a pre-paid shipping label. When you get the item back, simply click a button to issue the refund. Your final value fees are automatically refunded.

New same-day handling time option. Let buyers know you ship the same day for orders received by your specified cut-off time.

USPS® First-Class Package service reclassified from Expedited to Standard. Take advantage of the savings this service offers, while setting the right delivery expectations for your buyers.

A message on the View Item page alerts buyers to the possibility of extended delivery time for items with longer than 3-day handling.

New requirements for pictures. High-quality pictures can make all the difference in enticing a buyer to choose your item over the rest. Starting this fall, all listings will be required to have at least one picture, and all photos must be at least 500 pixels on the longest side and cannot have added borders or text (watermarks okay).

FREE pictures for all: Starting July 2, all pictures will be free on eBay, up to the maximum of 12 per listing, including free zoom and enlarge. (Pictures are currently free only with an eBay Stores subscription).

Best Match using more information to get your listings in front of the right buyers. eBay's default sort order will begin looking at more information--including information in your item description--to evaluate items for ranking. Item Specifics, product codes like UPCs and ISBNs, brand, part numbers, and other descriptors will be increasingly important.

Category and other updates

Category and Item Specific updates:As always, changes to categories and item specifics are included with the rest of seller updates. Find out if your listings are affected.
Clothing, Shoes & Accessories
Coins
Computers & Networking
Consumer Electronics
eBay Motors
Home & Garden
Toys
Jewelry & Watches (Category adjustments in Watches only)
More information
Get details on the 2012 Spring Seller Update.
Use the Seller Checklist to stay on top of important dates.
Find out how you can update your listings quickly and efficiently with bulk editing tools.
For additional insight, you're also invited to talk with members of my staff during the next two days on a special discussion board we've set up for this purpose. Join me and other leaders from eBay in a Town Hall meeting on February 29, 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. PST.
As always, thank you for selling on eBay.

Sincerely,
Michael Jones
Vice President
Merchant Development


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Those are non issues IMO, I already do 1 day handling and moving my return policy from 7 days to 14 days is no biggie.  However, they also lowered the annual minimum threshold for Top-Rated sellers to $1k.  That's really cheap so they are encouraging more sellers, just making the policies stricter.  They want "Top-Rated" to be the best of the best, and I don't blame them since the discount is 20% on final value fees.

The biggest issue that you should be complaining about is the max auction final value fee getting bumped from $100 to $250 on May 1st.  Of course that's in the fine print.  It doesn't affect eBay stores though (which I think you are?) so it only affects us low to mid volume guys.

You dont get it. When you are shipping 40-60 things a weekend and 15-20 a day 1 day handling is ridiculous when you work fulltime. I am not walmart.com or bestbuy.com. I dont have manufacturer support. They dont even get stuff out in 1 day. Its opening up for buyer scams. The problem is I already offer refunds for defective or damaged goods which is not the same as returns which buyers dont understand. I get the top rated seller program. But people love me as a seller already. 99.9 percent of my buyers brag on shipping time. I usually ship stuff next day. But this screws up my whole schedule because I ship Monday Wednesday Friday. I wont have time to list anything or find more inventory if I have to pack stuff up every night. This policy doesn't help anything. Who cares about 1 day handling? Its not realistic especially for people who sell quite a bit.

and what about the sellers who live a decent distance from a post office. They have to drive everyday now? The top rated seller program should not be about that. I understand they are giving us the 20%, but when you meet all there already difficult obligations for over a year or two, its just taking it away at this point, changing the rules mid game for me. This is all about greed and appeasing shareholder profits not about buyers.


For you, I ve seen your listings before. The quantity you list, its easier to keep track of and I wouldnt blame you for getting out everything next day. This aspect of this change affects me a great deal. I dont do auctions. Im sure a lot of sellers are furious right now. Especially people who deal in clothes and jewelry.

Business changes, and we must adapt. I wasn't happy at first, but now I have to adjust. I work more than full-time, and I'll find a way to do 1-day handling.

The 20% (25% for the next 2 months) is well worth it. If you sell as much as you said, your fees have to be well over $1,000. Is it worth that extra $200/month or more, plus the top-rated seller badge? To me, it is.

Can't you just charge for priority shipping and use the scheduled pickups?

Technically, you only need 1 priority package to qualify for scheduled pickups.

Since I have stuff going out nearly every day, there are plenty of days where everything I send is First Class, yet they still come pick up for me.

There we go.  Problem solved.

I never really had a problem with eBay and gamestop I only had a problem once with them when they forgot to my game in the case.

They've lowered top rated savings in the U.K to 10% so that sucks.

Im not leaving my stuff on the porch for them to pick up. No ones home. Yeah thats smart leaves 200-300 dollars of merch on my step.....

When can i do anything else if i have to package stuff for 3 hours every night. I already get stuff out 3 days a week and people rave on my feedback about shipping time. I dont think u non ebay sellers who sell in this quantity truly understand.

Believe me, i understand top rated u should have to work for to get, but they are becomming unreasonable. I have many questions still because ebay operates on pacific time. If i sell an item at 1am it says its on the previous day. If i work till 5 the next day how am i supposed to pack and ship that item. I can handle 2 days, but 1 day is unreasonable. Even big corporate websites dont do that. Why cant they just let me offer 1 day for a price or something. 

Oh and to answer the question no i cant ship everything priority. That would cost as much as the item most times snd i wouldnt make any money. I offer free shipping so im not charging more. 

Yes its worth keeping but its getting to the point of absurd since i bend over backwords to satisfy buyers already. Ebay makes all these tight restrictions and impossible to keep ratings and they dont have to deal with sny of it. This is just another buyer ploy and to save more money to please shareholders. I pay them sooo much money already snd have top notch feedback but since i cant ship every single day im not a top rated seller? they have to stop . 1 day handling when u sell this much is ridiculous.  And yes my fees are around that.

Sorry double post

I get mad at ebay because it seems every time a game sells at a higher price people think they can get that price for there game as well causing many games that use to be easy to get to sky rocket in price. Curse you ebay shakes fist

Jeff I think we're just gonna have to agree to disagree on this one. I leave packages on the porch most days of the week and I live in kind of a shitty neighborhood. knock on wood, zero issues so far.

Of course eBay has to take steps to please their shareholders. Knowingly or not, many people on this forum own eBay stock in mutual funds and ETFs. Like it or not, eBay is the big dog on the block - look how many tv commercials there are for these new auction sites. None of them are really going to even dent ebay's market share. For all the issues we sellers have to deal with, there is absolutely no better way to sell certain items with a nice balance of price and speed of sale.

I'm dealing with something similar in my career as well. I'm a broker at Merrill and they just decided we are not getting paid going forward on any new accounts under $250k. At first I was pissed and feeling sorry for myself but my partner told me I can either sit around and mope about it or I can prospect for accounts over $250k. If I fail, I fail. Someone else will hire me. But I'm not going down without a fight.

In any business, we have to continually improve to be the best. When I buy or sell things, I truly believe that I am the absolute best at what I do, and I want my customers and "vendors" to feel the same way so I can continue to prosper until I get bored of this, or the market pops. If that means adjusting my schedule so that I can continue to compete, then I gotta do it.

Man Im not moping. I understand ebay and I know why I use it. Im a customer as well. Im discussing what I already told ebay on the phone today. They are weeding out smaller mid range sellers. You dont understand in this instance. I understand what your saying. It seems no one else on here deals with ebay like me apparently. You have a bit of stuff on there link, but when my "store" was that size it wasnt difficult to ship next day. I can ship 5 or so things a day in 20-30 minutes. The problem for me is I sell nearly 20 things a day with a good chunk international and it takes quite a bit of time to pack. This is a much needed income for me, and spreads my hobby along. Im not going to just sit here and watch 200-300 dollars a month be taken from me because of ludicrous demands when all my customers are happy already. This is not adapting to business. I follow the rules, I do my best to appease all customers and have speedy delivery. This is then squeezing the mid level sellers out of top rated seller so they can save money. I strive to be the best on ebay, but 1 day handling time is not trying to be the best.

Havent even discussed the new auto 5 star feedback adjustment for communication. It basically means if you dont contact your buyer and ship 1 day handling you get auto 5 star unless they message you. Once the message is received or sent, you lose automatic 5 star communication. Its ass backwards. This company is doing all it can to appease short term shareholders, and this will hurt them in the long hall. When its set up for mid level sellers to suffer the most, then they will back out. Ive heard on many ebay forums of sellers already backing out just because of these updates because its not worth it. Alot of new clothes dealers and jewelry dealers suffer big time from the 14 day return policy. People will just rent those expensive items for shipping cost to wear for one occasion and ship it back.

Im glad you havent had a problem with leaving stuff on the porch, but Im not going to leave a complete sega cdx etc on the porch exposed to weather and other people. I cant risk that. I wish I could.

I guess we need to agree to disagree. This policy affects me differently than most. Trust me I havent given up, and Im nope moping. Im still hard at work. I just dont see how long I can keep this up.

Do you have any opportunity to sell on Craigslist or at the flea market?

Doing that has saved me a TON of time, and it might help you, too. I got a bunch of those big, long, shallow plastic storage bins from Target and I toss all my carts, PS1, PS2, Xbox, etc. into those, set up my tables, and go. Packing and unpacking takes 5 minutes, at most. I can fit well over 1,000 games over 3 tables.

1 spot, $20, a couple hours of time, a free tan, and a lot of fun. I've never come home with less than $200, and many times well over $1,000. Boxed, rare, or expensive stuff goes on eBay. Also a great way to get inventory, if you tell people that you take in trades and offer them a good trade-in value (I typically give 75% on trades, if I actually want the stuff. I won't take junk).

I have never looked at your eBay store, so I really don't know what you sell, but it's often counter-productive to sell games worth less than maybe $10 shipped. That takes just as much time to photograph, list, package, and ship as a $40 item. Especially doing international.

The problem is I have a bulk amount of stuff. Thank you for the suggestions. The problem is I live in a town where no one knows anything about games. Hell the game stores dont even know anything. I couldnt sell anything close to what I get on ebay for these items. I buy lots in bulk often. Listing isnt too hard. All the small games actually add up nicely. It also gives me exposure on the site to alot more buyers. I dont dislike what Ebay is because I def. take advantage of it. I just a see a very bad road they are traveling down. Thats why I take my frustrations out on this site.

edit: and the poor ebay call represntatives. Id hate that job.

edit: and as we speak, i better stop responding for now. 25 items to ship tomorrow. FML

I find it amazing that you claim to sell 20 items a day and don't consider yourself a full-time seller? 20 items a day is almost 7,000 transactions a year? That's a lot bigger than small to middle sized.

Part of "staying alive" is adapting your business strategy as the climate changes. Maybe do more bundling or selling in lots if you can't afford to ship that many individual items. And I don't wish to argue, I'm just giving you a suggestion. Ignore it or take note, but I don't need 3 paragraphs blaming eBay again.