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A Reselling Blog by Fazoom

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The Big eBay Technical Issues Thread (October 2019 Edition)

In order to try to keep track of the latest issues at eBay with item specifics, we’re posting all of the updates here in one thread for reference.

Jump to the update you want to read:

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Confirmation that eBay is Dying (GMV Takes a Dive)

We have some expected bad eBay news to report. eBay’s Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) is in the toilet.

eBay Growth Turns Negative

eBay GMV was down by $1 billion, and the sold items growth has turned negative for the first time in the company’s history. The company reported $20.4 billion in GMV in Q3, down -5% year-over-year from $21.4 billion on an as-reported basis and -2% on a foreign exchange (FX) neutral basis. Sold items growth was -3%; it hasn’t grown since 2018 Q1.

They want to blame internet taxes, but we all know that’s a scapegoat.

If organic search is broken AND the checkout is broken, how exactly do you expect to sell anything? Can we take cash & money orders again? Please?!

Not to mention eBay giving the bird to Google and announcing that they’re going to rely on social media, including our own, for marketing. Recipe for disaster.

While this confirms everything that we’ve been seeing, it also makes you feel a little helpless on the platform. It’s not us, it’s them.

https://www.marketplacepulse.com/articles/ebay-growth-turns-negative

eBay: Core Business Continues To Rot

With eBay also shedding non-core divisions such as StubHub, there is little room for the company to grow beyond its primary auction platform. And who, these days, really prefers auction-style buying when virtually anything can be bought from Amazon and arrive at your doorstep two days later?

As I’ve stated in the past, normal people DO NOT see eBay as a store marketplace at all. We know better, but this is the reality…many people still think that it’s an auction site or a flea market or a yard sale.

But this person inadvertently points out what could save eBay. SELLING THINGS THAT AREN’T AVAILABLE ON AMAZON. Nor via any other “normal” retailer for that matter. Amazon tried those areas and failed.

Looking over what I’ve actually sold on eBay lately, I think only one item is available on Amazon. And it’s a recently out of print item that I bought in bulk as another small business decided to clear them out. Beyond that, it’s almost all rare, vintage and antiques selling. Always buy it now.

All metrics point to the harsh reality that both buyers and sellers are defecting from eBay.

I cannot argue this point at all.

That said, Poshmark & Etsy can be good alternatives, but they’re limited. Mercari doesn’t have the audience. In my opinion, Facebook is poor for online selling but can work for local. And honestly, local may be where it’s at for those of us in larger areas.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4298586-ebay-core-business-continues-rot

Other eBay Notes

eBay Q3 2019: $310 million net.

eBay Q3 2018: $721 million net.

So in Q3 eBay’s net went down $137 million PER MONTH!

While GMV is really the number we as sellers are concerned about, take into consideration that these net numbers include promoted listings and final value fees (some of which increased).

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this really isn’t looking good at all. I can only imagine how much further it has gone down in October due to all of the glitches and an even worse search engine.

And I seriously hate seeing this. But my patience has run out. I’ll give it one more month and if November goes like October has (as of the 25th only 17 sales out of ~1,000 listings), the final store we have will be getting closed in December and we’ll just list 150 items a month (we have 3 accounts) on eBay until they get with the program or close their doors, whichever comes first.

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PayPal: A Business Cyber Attack Dream

PayPal Keeping Seller Fees After Refunds

If you haven’t seen PayPal’s latest update yet, there’s one line, in particular, that should raise a flag for any seller who processes PayPal refunds frequently.

Going into effect on May 7, 2019:

“We’re changing how we treat refunds. If you refund (partially or fully) a transaction to a buyer or a donation to a donor, there are no fees to make the refund, but the fees you originally paid as the seller will not be returned to you.”

Wait a minute. What?!

PayPal: A New Way To Lose Money

First, you have your returns to deal with. That’s a normal business activity. This is going to hurt in that regard and only cause you to raise your rates even more to cover the potential loss.

But secondly, I see a number of people pop in, buy something, pay for it, then right away request a cancellation and full refund. Sometimes for no reason, other times because they entered the shipping address wrong. Either way, that’s a bad deal for you all around.

To put it into perspective, for every $1,000 refunded you’d end up losing $29 at current 2.9% rates. And I’m assuming that the $0.30 fee per transaction is on top of that. That can add up fast depending on what your volume looks like.

PayPal: A Business Cyber Attack Dream

I know, I know, I’m probably a little “out there” in this line of thinking, but hear me out.

In business, we’re competing with other businesses for customers and sales. When you start to encroach on someone else’s bottom line that gets their attention and the war begins.

In some cases, you will see this on eBay in terms of VERO claims. Or on Amazon, you might see IP or unauthorized seller claims and suddenly find yourself “gated” in a certain product line or category. Those are only two examples, but you get the point.

Taking that a step further, there are stories of people having their entire inventory purchased, presumably by a competitor, then returned. This leaves the seller stuck with refunds, excessive shipping fees if you offer free shipping and free returns, and to add insult to injury, a product that can no longer be sold as new, if at all. Oh, and you can add the loss of PayPal processing fees on top of that.

With this new PayPal refund return policy, someone could set up a bot attack that makes multiple large purchases through PayPal, then immediately cancels the orders requesting a refund. While this is somewhat better than the scenario above, it could also be scaled much larger.

PayPal Protections

While I don’t think my cyber attack scenario is very likely to happen, it is feasible.

I’m going to assume that PayPal has some sort of measures in place to stop this and would work with you to refund you those fees. But even then, it’s still a waste of your time. Time that you could be spending working on your business instead of dealing with such headaches.

E-Commerce Platform Protections

While I could see this sort of cyber attack happening on any platform, you’d probably be more likely to experience it if you’re running your own platform on your own website. I know that we see people trying to push through fake orders on our website.

Also, if you’re using a third-party platform that keeps your money until a bank deposit is made, you probably don’t care what changes PayPal is making. Amazon, Mercari, Posmark & Etsy all come to mind. eBay is on the road to join them.

Suddenly eBay’s new payment system doesn’t seem so bad, now does it?

 What’s Your Take?

What are your thoughts on this change? For those of you who use other payment processors, what is their refund policy?

Read the entire update at https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/ua/upcoming-policies-full.

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eBay’s Forced “Good ‘Til Cancelled” Has Arrived

Good ‘Til Cancelled Is Here

As announced in the eBay 2019 Early Seller Update on February 26th, as of March 18th eBay is now forcing all fixed price listings to be “Good ‘Til Cancelled” instead of the previous options of a certain amount of days of which 30-days was a popular choice.

When you list now you’ll be greeted with the following notice:

To help you sell your item, fixed price listings can only be listed with a Good ‘Til Cancelled duration. Listings renew automatically every 30 days, based on the listing terms at that time, until all quantities sell or the listing ends. Each time a listing renews and when an item sells, you’ll be charged applicable fees.

Sellers Confused by Good ‘Til Cancelled

A quick stroll through the various eBay groups and forums makes it apparent that many eBay sellers do not read the seller updates that eBay puts out. Post after post I saw numerous complaints and people wondering if this was yet another “Glitch Bay” issue and if anyone else was seeing this. If the groups & forums are like this I can only imagine that the eBay phone bank was off the hook making it difficult for those with real concerns to get through.

This is a major communication breakdown on both sides. And if we sellers won’t read the details how can we expect our buyers to?

Sellers Up In Arms over Good ‘Til Cancelled

Many seasoned eBay sellers have been up in arms over this change.

For various reasons, many sellers like to run items for only 5, 7 or 10 days at a time. Personally, I opted for 30-day listings so I can be forced to tweak items the longer they sit. Regardless of your choice, the argument is that eBay is dictating how you run your business. The truth of the matter is that it’s eBay’s playground and eBay’s rules. Adapt or move on.

But the biggest concern seems to be getting slammed with extra listing fees once your items renew and push you over the threshold of your “free” listings each month. That was actually my first thought as well. And eBay could fix this quite easily by extending the duration of listings to 31-days. If you’re over your allocated number of listings you should be able to see that fairly easily. By keeping it at 30-day renewals it comes across as eBay just grabbing for additional cash from the sellers.

How to Avoid Additional Fees For Automatic Renewals

The current solution being reported by eBay to avoid additional listing fees within a calendar month is simple. At day 28 of a listing, end it.

That was my initial thought as well, but I can see where that might be troubling for some. Say you’re in a premium store with 1,000 listings that auto-renew after your 1,000 monthly listings are depleted, then you’re hit with an extra $100 in listing fees. While I think that example might be extreme for most, that is concerning.

Why Are They Forcing Good ‘Til Cancelled?

While I cannot say for certain why eBay is making this change, my hunch is that it’s related to the Terapeek data which should start to be accessible soon, if not already. (We received our email about it yesterday.) But I don’t believe the statement of “to help you sell your item” at all. I’ve listed both 30-days & Good ‘Til Cancelled for years and don’t see Good ‘Til Cancelled selling more than 30-day listings.

Comp Research Implications


When searching comps on eBay one thing I like to look at are the completed items that did not sell. We need to get an idea of what sits and how long it sits. If everything is Good ‘Til Cancelled that info will go away. TBD what kind of information Terapeek gives, but maybe they give you an idea of days listed. TBD.

Good ‘Til Cancelled Prediction

My prediction is that this will be reverted, much like the experiment that eBay ran last year with forcing items to be unchanged for weeks before being able to run sales. If people flood them the people will be heard.