Beware of EBAY - EASY PRICING 1 1

[justafan]

Not sure if this has already been reported in another thread but it's all over ebay forums and reddit with pissed off sellers and I just encountered it today.  I did a search on here but found nothing so link this post to one that already exists.  Is ebay testing Reverse Auctions (Dutch Auctions) or is this yet just another way ebay is screwing its sellers.  Kind of reminds me of the Freakanomics anecdote about how a seller's agent doesn't have the seller's best interest in mind often convincing sellers to lower the price of their homes for a quicker sale compared to how long they would have enforced pricing for homes they were selling themselves. 

I went to revise a listing and noticed the option to choose easy pricing which was disabled.  It looks and sounds shady so I didn't even bother with it.  After adjusting my BIN with offers listing and confirming the revisions I got sent to a page that promoted the Ebay Easy Pricing option which states:

Make sure your item gets sold

Starting 10 days after listing, we'll lower the price (5% every 5 days) until your item sells or gets to $xx.xx. We'll notify buyers who showed interest each time the price drops. Turn it off anytime by going to your listing."

 

eBay provides you with two options in order to close the dialog box: "Turn on Easy Pricing" or "Maybe next time." 

This basically kicks in 10 days after a listing starts and begins lowering the price by 5% every 5 days thereafter until it either sells or reaches a certain percentage of the original (in my case it was approximately 60% of the BIN price).  That would have been 40% off the BIN and below my lowest Best Offer price autodecline setting.  Buyers interested in your item will then be notified.  LOL, so if you decline a buyers best offer, they can just wait an additional 5-20 days and snatch it for a price lower than their best offer if it gets that far.

I can see where this might work for some sellers but definitely not me or some of the folks out there.  Now if they offered the option to initiate a reverse auction where you start at the highest price and allow it to decrement to a reserve price, that would be pretty interesting.

 

[KryptoMayor]

I turn off the easy pricing option and yes it’s annoying. 

But this morning all my items were automatically set to accept best offers. I didn’t ask for that and I have to open each individual listing and change the settings. C’mon eBay! 

[Pete Marino]

I saw that as well, it just keeps getting worse on their site!

At least they have not reset my opt-out of the Global Shipping program in the last 6 months.

[RockMyAmadeus]

3 hours ago, justafan said:

Not sure if this has already been reported in another thread but it's all over ebay forums and reddit with pissed off sellers and I just encountered it today.  I did a search on here but found nothing so link this post to one that already exists.  Is ebay testing Reverse Auctions (Dutch Auctions) or is this yet just another way ebay is screwing its sellers.  Kind of reminds me of the Freakanomics anecdote about how a seller's agent doesn't have the seller's best interest in mind often convincing sellers to lower the price of their homes for a quicker sale compared to how long they would have enforced pricing for homes they were selling themselves. 

I went to revise a listing and noticed the option to choose easy pricing which was disabled.  It looks and sounds shady so I didn't even bother with it.  After adjusting my BIN with offers listing and confirming the revisions I got sent to a page that promoted the Ebay Easy Pricing option which states:

Make sure your item gets sold

Starting 10 days after listing, we'll lower the price (5% every 5 days) until your item sells or gets to $xx.xx. We'll notify buyers who showed interest each time the price drops. Turn it off anytime by going to your listing."

 

eBay provides you with two options in order to close the dialog box: "Turn on Easy Pricing" or "Maybe next time." 

This basically kicks in 10 days after a listing starts and begins lowering the price by 5% every 5 days thereafter until it either sells or reaches a certain percentage of the original (in my case it was approximately 60% of the BIN price).  That would have been 40% off the BIN and below my lowest Best Offer price autodecline setting.  Buyers interested in your item will then be notified.  LOL, so if you decline a buyers best offer, they can just wait an additional 5-20 days and snatch it for a price lower than their best offer if it gets that far.

I can see where this might work for some sellers but definitely not me or some of the folks out there.  Now if they offered the option to initiate a reverse auction where you start at the highest price and allow it to decrement to a reserve price, that would be pretty interesting.

 

This is funny...I suggested this years ago as being an option for sellers and BIN...lower the price by increments until buyers can't resist, and it sells.

BUT...obviously, not by force.

Boy, eBay is hilarious. They create the "Amazon" model, gut their auction model, and then, when their site gets filled with the millions of high priced BINs that eBay wanted, they panic because sales are down.

Stupid eBay.

[Pete Marino]

Just like Amazon you say?

 

This is what a listing for cobra Commander on eBay brought up today, never seen "often bought together" in eBay before.

 

Edited September 6, 2018 by Pete Marino

[500Club]

Have we reached the threshold where a competitor could come in with a business model identical to eBay circa 2000, and take their business?  I tend to think so.

[Mr.Mcknowitall]

12 minutes ago, 500Club said:

Have we reached the threshold where a competitor could come in with a business model identical to eBay circa 2000, and take their business?  I tend to think so.

Yes. 

[maraxusofkeld]

4 hours ago, KryptoMayor said:

I turn off the easy pricing option and yes it’s annoying. 

But this morning all my items were automatically set to accept best offers. I didn’t ask for that and I have to open each individual listing and change the settings. C’mon eBay! 

Can someone point me where this is located? I checked buy it now auctions that are have maybe 15 days left and do not see this option anywhere?

[justafan]

2 hours ago, maraxusofkeld said:

Can someone point me where this is located? I checked buy it now auctions that are have maybe 15 days left and do not see this option anywhere?

It may not be available to all sellers or possibly only on the ebay app.  I encountered it while revising a listing through the ebay app.  It doesn't show up when I try to revise a listing on my laptop.

[musicmeta]

7 hours ago, 500Club said:

Have we reached the threshold where a competitor could come in with a business model identical to eBay circa 2000, and take their business?  I tend to think so.

I hope so and run it right to both buyers and sellers and give up all these gimmick tactics to get listings to sell.

[Buzzetta]

Just checked my listings... they did not do that to me... whew... 

But I would urge others to check as well. 

[BriD.]

I know this is off topic but since it's Ebay related I figured I would ask here. Has anyone else received this message from Ebay? I got it today. It's not very specific and I don't know what return policy they're referring to. I'm assuming they changed something that I'm not aware of. It must have been very recent though since the 2 listings were put up last week. I'm guessing you can't ask buyers to pay for return shipping anymore but I really don't know.

[Dick Pontoon]

You can still require that buyers pay for return shipping, but listings that don't offer free returns are not eligible for Top-Rated status discounts. You also need to allow a 30 day window for returns.

[BriD.]

21 minutes ago, Pontoon said:

You can still require that buyers pay for return shipping, but listings that don't offer free returns are not eligible for Top-Rated status discounts. You also need to allow a 30 day window for returns.

I went to start a listing just to see what options were available and the 14 day option is still there along with 30 and 60 day. So I'm still not sure what the problem is with the  return policy in my listings.

[Pete Marino]

5 hours ago, BriD. said:

I know this is off topic but since it's Ebay related I figured I would ask here. Has anyone else received this message from Ebay? I got it today. It's not very specific and I don't know what return policy they're referring to. I'm assuming they changed something that I'm not aware of. It must have been very recent though since the 2 listings were put up last week. I'm guessing you can't ask buyers to pay for return shipping anymore but I really don't know.

I get them all the time, I've ignored them.  The listings still show, with the return policy I want (I think the issue is some categories they require 30 say returns)

[BriD.]

6 minutes ago, Pete Marino said:

I get them all the time, I've ignored them.  The listings still show, with the return policy I want (I think the issue is some categories they require 30 say returns)

I was wondering if it might be the category since I do have another item in a different category with the same return policy. It's not listed in the message they sent. I don't know how they expect someone to revise the listing if they don't say exactly what the problem is. Thanks for the info, I will be ignoring these now as well. 

[Buzzetta]

2 hours ago, Pete Marino said:

I get them all the time, I've ignored them.  The listings still show, with the return policy I want (I think the issue is some categories they require 30 say returns)

That's what I did with them as well.   There was no way I was going in and changing the return policy for 200 individual items. 

[JollyComics]

On 9/6/2018 at 11:11 AM, RockMyAmadeus said:

This is funny...I suggested this years ago as being an option for sellers and BIN...lower the price by increments until buyers can't resist, and it sells.

BUT...obviously, not by force.

Boy, eBay is hilarious. They create the "Amazon" model, gut their auction model, and then, when their site gets filled with the millions of high priced BINs that eBay wanted, they panic because sales are down.

Stupid eBay.

Desperate eBay.

[Pete Marino]

On 9/7/2018 at 6:11 PM, Buzzetta said:

That's what I did with them as well.   There was no way I was going in and changing the return policy for 200 individual items. 

So, I was bored and started poking around eBay, and found this page linked to my "invalid return policies"

https://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/seller-updates/2018-spring/simplified-returns.html

So, they have decided to do 30 day, or no returns in most categories.  But, Collectibles can still use 14 days, so none of my comic listings are barking at me.  The stuff that is giving the errors are things in "Toys" and "Video Games" for me.  But it's a bit wonky, because shouldn't collectible toys like vintage GI Joe be considered "collectibles"?

It's just the continued bad efforts of eBay, instead of differentiating itself from Amazon, trying to become a bad knock off of it.

[Buzzetta]

3 hours ago, Pete Marino said:

So, I was bored and started poking around eBay, and found this page linked to my "invalid return policies"

https://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/seller-updates/2018-spring/simplified-returns.html

So, they have decided to do 30 day, or no returns in most categories.  But, Collectibles can still use 14 days, so none of my comic listings are barking at me.  The stuff that is giving the errors are things in "Toys" and "Video Games" for me.  But it's a bit wonky, because shouldn't collectible toys like vintage GI Joe be considered "collectibles"?

It's just the continued bad efforts of eBay, instead of differentiating itself from Amazon, trying to become a bad knock off of it.

Exactly... 

 

Also, used books and video games should not be in this category as these are supposed to be items for sale not 'borrowing.'