EBay has been the ideal home based business for years. Most
of us started with the 'clean out the garage' model, and
over time graduated to dropshipping, and in many cases, it
has turned into a pretty significant fulltime income.
Over the last several weeks, several VERY disturbing
changes have taken place at EBay as EBay seems intent on
wiping out the very business base that built the behemoth,
to focus on the corporate clientele that have taken a much
larger position on EBay over the past couple of years,
using EBay to sell off their excess inventory directly,
rather than selling to the large discount chains as was the
previous habit.
Here's an overview of some of the most significant - and
damaging - changes that affect you and I, the folks that
have built home businesses around EBay....
1) The EBay Feedback system now only allows Sellers to
leave POSITIVE for Buyers. On the other hand, Buyers can
leave any kind of feedback they want for Sellers. This
means that if you have a problem with a Buyer (gee - that
never happens, right?) you are pretty much out of luck! So,
if the Buyer feels that he should have received his widget
in 3 working days - even though you clearly state that it
takes no less than 10 working days for the widget to ship -
he can give you a negative! And you are pretty much
powerless since there is no arbitration system in place.
2) Neutral Feedback? HAH!! Guess what? They no longer
exist! All of your neutral comments have now been converted
to NEGATIVE feedback ratings. Top PowerSellers have lost
their PowerSeller status and the perks that went along with
it - including the extra discounts that were often factored
into their pricing. Although the PowerSellers were given a
period of time to 'correct' the situation - the bottom line
is that Buyers are not terribly responsive to such requests
- and this means that a huge percentage of
PowerSellers...aren't. An interesting side note here is
that one PowerSeller that was hit by these changes.....is
also one of the speakers at this week's EBay Live
Conference in Chicago......should be a very interesting
speech.......
3) The Final Straw.......dropshipping is huge on EBay. My
hubby has been very successful dropshipping on EBay - both
through EBay partners such as Doba and others, as well as
resources of his own, through his 25 years in the wholesale
gift industry. Today he received an email from PayPal
stating that any orders that were 'known to be
dropshipping" would result in a 21 day hold on the funds
from the customer! The only way around this is to send
PayPal the tracking notice when the product ships and
supposedly they will 'release' your funds.
Personally - I have dealt with PayPal in the past over
disputes - and the response times are horrible. Basically,
this means that if you have been earning a living
dropshipping - you will now have to be financially solvent
enough to cover all of your sales out of your own pocket,
rather than paying for the product with the funds from
PayPal. This pretty much will kill the entire dropshipping
business model for most people on EBay.
4) No digital products - Ebooks were a HUGE seller on EBay
and it was a great business model! Automated download, a
real 'set it and forget it' business model if handled
correctly. But apparently it was not handled correctly by
many and now ebooks and other digital items must be sold in
DVD format and physically shipped. <sigh> exactly why it
was such a great business - you didn't have to ship
anything!
At one point, we had 4 stores on EBay and thousands of
products, but we have been 'branching out' and are looking
at other products, such as the EBay Affiliate program,
niche store scripts etc.
After this latest round of changes, and the notice today
from PayPal, we will be pulling 99% of our products off
EBay.
As a home business - it no longer works for us.
Over the next few days we will be posting reviews of the
various store models as we take them for a test drive - we
will bring the pros and cons of every system!!
----------------------------------------------------
Melody Wigdahl is a serial entrepreneur, lifelong geek and
founder of http://www.WorkAtHomeIdeasForWomen.com , and
http://www.Womensnet.net , a networking and resource site
for women entrepreneurs. Melody has been working from home
for more than 2 decades - web based since 1996 - and loves
to share ideas and stories with other entrepreneurs!
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