The Changing World OfeBay
By Cliff Ennico
www.creators.com
"I do a lot of public speaking to promote my small business. Most of myspeaking is for local organizations; I don't charge them a fee, andthere's no contract involved. But lately I've been contacted by someevent planners to speak at trade shows around the country, and theircontracts are several pages long! What are some of the things I shouldbe looking for in these contracts? Do I need an attorney to look ateach of these when I receive them?"
It's no secret.nbsp; It's getting harder and harder to build asuccessful eBay selling business.nbsp; Not only is the competitiongreater than ever before (between 700,000 and 800,000 sellers in theUnited States alone), but eBay itself is making it tougher for sellersto succeed by "raising the bar" for people it will allow to sell on thesite.
To understand the changes that have rocked the eBay community in recentyears, it helps to understand the fundamental difference between"amateur" and "professional" retailers.
When eBay was first launched in the mid-1990s, it developed areputation (rightly or wrongly), as "the world's flea market".nbsp;Anyone with twenty-five cents to spend and a few spare hours to createan eBay auction listing could sell anything on eBay to anyone in theworld.nbsp; They did not have to be a "regular vendor": they did nothave to follow rules of business etiquette, they did not have to keepcareful books and records, they did not have to be disciplined abouthow they conducted their businesses or how they interacted withcustomers.nbsp;
That was the great charm of eBay in the "good old days" of the late1990s.nbsp; It was more than just "online commerce".nbsp; It was acommunity of buyers and sellers interacting with each other on thesite, and you never knew what would happen when you bid on somethingfor sale there.nbsp; You might make a friend for life.nbsp; You mightmeet a world authority on a certain type of antique orcollectible.nbsp; You might even meet your future spouse or lifepartner on eBay.
Often you were buying from people who knew less about their merchandisethan you did, and you picked up some amazing bargains that way because"these people on eBay don't know what they've got".
But eBay's charm was also its greatest handicap.nbsp; Many times whenbidding on eBay you found yourself dealing with the seller from Hell -somebody who was trying to pass off fake antiques as genuine, somebodywho was ripping you off on shipping and handling fees, somebody whoshipped you an article different than the one you ordered (and wouldn'tgive you your money back), or somebody whose sole goal in life was tosteal your personal identity online.
eBay, in short, developed a reputation as the "Wild West" of onlinecommerce - a place where anything could happen, and often did.
In recent years, eBay has taken some dramatic steps to move away fromits "Wild West" image and become more respectable as an online commercevenue for serious sellers and buyers - steps that, in some cases, havealienated large sectors of their selling community.nbsp; Among some ofthe more recent changes:
the development of DetailedSeller Ratings (or DSRs) that enable buyersto rate sellers on a variety of different aspects of the saleexperience (for example, shipping speed, quality of merchandise,communications) rather than an "overall" rating;
eliminating sellers' ability to leave "negative feedback" onbuyers,while allowing buyers greater leverage to leave "negative feedback" onsellers;
requiring eBay sellers to use an "online payment system" such asPayPalfor all transactions, and prohibiting them from accepting checks, moneyorders and other paper-based forms of payment; and
eliminating certain benefits (such as eBay's coveted"PowerSeller"status) for sellers whose DSRs fall below certain percentage levels.
Many sellers complain that, because of these changes, "eBay isn't asmuch fun as it used to be," and numerous newspaper and magazinearticles and online "blogs" have accused eBay of trying to eliminate"Mom and Pop" sellers from the site in favor of large corporateretailers.
But the truth, as always, is a bit more complex than that.nbsp; eBayhas, and probably always will, welcome the small "Mom and Pop" retaileron the site, especially in the "antiques and collectibles" andused/secondhand merchandise categories where eBay still reigns supremein the e-commerce world.nbsp; Because the site is so easy to use, andbecause of the extensive support sellers receive on the site, eBay willprobably for some time continue to be the first place small businessesgo to "cut their teeth" when venturing into e-commerce.
What will clearly no longer be tolerated on eBay, however, are"amateur" sellers - people who don't run their businesses in aprofessional, customer-friendly and, well, "businesslike" manner.
You can be small and thrive on eBay, but from now on, you gotta be good.
Cliff Ennico (
cennico@legalcareer.com
)is a syndicated columnist, author and former host of the PBS televisionseries 'Money Hunt'. This column is no substitute for legal, tax orfinancial advice, which can be furnished only by a qualifiedprofessional licensed in your state. To find out more about CliffEnnico and other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit ourWeb page at
www.creators.com
.COPYRIGHT 2008 CLIFFORD R. ENNICO. DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS SYNDICATE,INC. Permission granted for use on DrLaura.com.
