In an effort to get rid of some of my excess crap and get a few bucks in the process, I reluctantly put some more stuff on eBay. I started using that site years ago, right as it started to skyrocket in popularity in 1998 (holy crap I feel old now). I didn't use it much between 2003-2010, so I didn't really pay attention to all the changes it went through. A little over a year ago I decided to use it to (again) sell some crap and make some money, and was startled at some of the things they had done.
You pretty much need a Paypal account to do anything there. That was ok, since the wife and I have one. Still a bit extreme, but I can deal with it. I was annoyed after selling something that I had to wait so long to actually get my money. "You need 10 positive transactions to get your money right away" was pretty much what it said. Well, 10 transactions since they implemented this. I guess the 100+ positive and no negatives (half of those from selling) counts for nothing. It's pretty stupid, but sadly not the height of stupidity they have. Also, you need to actually get 10 people to leave feedback. One thing that bothers me is that there are more than a few people who don't even bother. Most times they are buyers, and it isn't eBay's fault, just terrible human behavior. It sucks just the same, though.
The honor of 'height of stupidity' belongs to the "maximum shipping" charge. It's some BS rate that is close to what Amazon charges. That's great if you are Amazon, but I wager most sellers aren't (weren't, since I'm sure many left the site), so...we just lose money. My favorite part is even if you select "flat rate priority", the max you can put is based on the item, not on what the actual charge for flat rate shipping is. So for a video game, you can only charge up to $4 shipping. The flat rate is $5 and change. It's not even an opinion at this point, but simple math proves how stupid that is.
Really, someone needs to step up and offer an alternative. I wondered why I would hear of people leaving eBay a few years ago, and now that I've tried selling things recently, I can understand why. It's stupid, and if something else came along, eBay would get destroyed. I guess the only other choice is Craig's List, so I'll have to start there. It's sad how the might have fallen. Back in the late 90s and early 2000s, eBay was awesome. Now they concentrate so hard on helping buyers that they will chase away the sellers. I guess you don't need to sell stuff to have buyers...wait a minute. Idiots.
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