Sellers strike on eBay Feb. 18-26th
A sellers' strike is planned for February 18th through 26th to protest feedback changes, higher final value fees and negative policies that could impact all sellers in the latest round of eBay changes. To participate, schedule your listings so that they end before February 18th and then don't list or buy anything on eBay until after the 26th. The larger the protest, the more likely eBay will have to rethink its new strategies.
This Petition on FVF has a comments function where you can mention the other issues that concern you if you sign. It's been gathering a lot of signatures.
This CNN article about the eBay changes shows some of what motivates them.
This Pheebay article is sarcastic and humorous and brings up some of the big impacts the changes will have.
This CNN Money thread discussing the changes will help bring the strike to CNN's notice and let your views on the issues be seen.
The changes looked good at first. Lower insertion fees, free Gallery, these changes are the bait. Someone did the math on another thread and calculated the point at which you'll pay more on a listing is when it sells for $12 -- at that point you'll pay more in final value fees than you would've with things as they are. So there is the increased overall fees that come out much higher, a way for eBay to raise fees while making it look as if they're lowering fees.
The changes to feedback mean that buyers can only receive positive feedback from sellers. Buyers can use the threat of negative feedback to extort sellers, demanding prices be lowered etc. on threat of negative feedback. Many sellers who have perfect feedback scores may start getting retaliatory feedback because people are people. eBay claims that its enforcement against nonpaying buyers and other problems will be stricter, but it will be much harder to warn other sellers against repeat bad buyers. This issue has a lot of people up in arms.
Another one is that increased visibility will be given to Power Sellers and huge discounts in final value fees to Power Sellers with large volume sales, while "bad sellers" with a lot of negatives and anyone with less than 100 feedback will get punitive lower visibility and restrictions. PayPal will hold funds from buyers for up to 21 days after a purchase unless the buyer posts positive feedback. Putting new sellers in the penalty box just for being new is a bad idea, it will discourage new sellers and it'll eliminate the whole class of buyers that are part-time sellers that just got a big auction and see it as mad money, buying right there on eBay.
The changes are scheduled to go into effect on February 20th in the United States. The boycott is not just an artist groups issue, but eBay wide, the petition is gaining vast numbers and the issues affect everyone. The executives talking about the changes praise the big sellers and emphasize free shipping, are trying to pressure everyone into doing free shipping, and not concerned about part time or "mom and pop" sellers -- without recognizing that it's the part time sellers who are the buyers, who are the traffic.
Buyers and sellers aren't two different groups of people looking for different things on eBay. Members show up to get rid of stuff they don't want or sell what they make, and then have a huge marketplace like the French Quarter spread out tempting their profits right at hand. The executives talk about improving "the ebay experience" but to me that vast open marketplace atmosphere is the eBay experience. It's what made it big, and these changes will make it harder for everyone on eBay in the long run.
I ran into the strike when a shorter one was posted for Feb. 1 through 3d, and I am participating in the short one too. The more I read the changes, the more problems I see coming from them and how they're enforced. I sent a note to a moderator at the NibbleFest Art Contest group about it asking if the contest date for NFAC could be moved or extended, and she's asked me to post about it to make the group aware of what's going on. I hope I've done a decent job of reporting here, I pulled together these links and topics from many different threads. There is much more in the ACEO Art Cards Editions & Originals group on the Strike thread including a petition to Google to start an alternative auction site.
And then after I finished the post, I realized I'd written a pretty good journalistic style article about the strike. So I mirrored it here to my blog, minus the handle of the moderator I contacted and spelling out the NibbleFest Art Contest so my readers would know what I was talking about with NFAC. It's the contest I did Tyrannorooster Rex for, and this month's theme is Rodentia. I plan to do an ACEO depicting the largest extinct rodent ever discovered, there is a Yahoo news article about it under Science > Dinosaurs.
Hope this explains the strike for all of my regular readers! eBay is one of the best ways that a person can start a business and work from home, whether it's art or just buying wholesale baby booties and reselling them. Changes that could hurt the giant marketplace could destroy lives, increase unemployment, create massive problems far beyond one company's growth margins. These policies are intended to retain buyers, but they've missed the point that the part-time sellers are the regular buyers.
I think the reverse of the strategy, giving increased visibility and some discounts to new sellers for say, their first ten auctions or something, could bring in more business. I wouldn't mind a boost to newcomers, after all, once they get there, they're customers. But that would be temporary, not creating an artificial divide between big volume sellers and buyers, trying to turn it into something like a dollar store instead of the online version of the French Market.
However, in a recent very different conflict, eBay showed itself responsive to member complaints. They tried to rearrange the categories and get rid of Self Representing Artists as a category, which would break up my listings and many other artists' listings into different categories by medium -- when sometimes it's hard to say whether something is a painting or a drawing anyway. They listened and while they renamed it Direct From Artist, they will be keeping the umbrella category for "art from the creator" versus "art from a third party" whether that's an agent, a gallery or just someone selling off art from an estate. I support this boycott as communication. Once eBay realizes that this is a bad idea, we need to present eBay with better options for increasing business than shafting the part time sellers who may comprise the majority of regular buyers.
If you are not an eBay seller, you can still support the strike by not buying anything on eBay during the strike period, February 18-26th. Plan your shopping trips before or after it, and spread the word. Please feel free to mirror this post to your blog (and credit me) or link to it.
This Petition on FVF has a comments function where you can mention the other issues that concern you if you sign. It's been gathering a lot of signatures.
This CNN article about the eBay changes shows some of what motivates them.
This Pheebay article is sarcastic and humorous and brings up some of the big impacts the changes will have.
This CNN Money thread discussing the changes will help bring the strike to CNN's notice and let your views on the issues be seen.
The changes looked good at first. Lower insertion fees, free Gallery, these changes are the bait. Someone did the math on another thread and calculated the point at which you'll pay more on a listing is when it sells for $12 -- at that point you'll pay more in final value fees than you would've with things as they are. So there is the increased overall fees that come out much higher, a way for eBay to raise fees while making it look as if they're lowering fees.
The changes to feedback mean that buyers can only receive positive feedback from sellers. Buyers can use the threat of negative feedback to extort sellers, demanding prices be lowered etc. on threat of negative feedback. Many sellers who have perfect feedback scores may start getting retaliatory feedback because people are people. eBay claims that its enforcement against nonpaying buyers and other problems will be stricter, but it will be much harder to warn other sellers against repeat bad buyers. This issue has a lot of people up in arms.
Another one is that increased visibility will be given to Power Sellers and huge discounts in final value fees to Power Sellers with large volume sales, while "bad sellers" with a lot of negatives and anyone with less than 100 feedback will get punitive lower visibility and restrictions. PayPal will hold funds from buyers for up to 21 days after a purchase unless the buyer posts positive feedback. Putting new sellers in the penalty box just for being new is a bad idea, it will discourage new sellers and it'll eliminate the whole class of buyers that are part-time sellers that just got a big auction and see it as mad money, buying right there on eBay.
The changes are scheduled to go into effect on February 20th in the United States. The boycott is not just an artist groups issue, but eBay wide, the petition is gaining vast numbers and the issues affect everyone. The executives talking about the changes praise the big sellers and emphasize free shipping, are trying to pressure everyone into doing free shipping, and not concerned about part time or "mom and pop" sellers -- without recognizing that it's the part time sellers who are the buyers, who are the traffic.
Buyers and sellers aren't two different groups of people looking for different things on eBay. Members show up to get rid of stuff they don't want or sell what they make, and then have a huge marketplace like the French Quarter spread out tempting their profits right at hand. The executives talk about improving "the ebay experience" but to me that vast open marketplace atmosphere is the eBay experience. It's what made it big, and these changes will make it harder for everyone on eBay in the long run.
I ran into the strike when a shorter one was posted for Feb. 1 through 3d, and I am participating in the short one too. The more I read the changes, the more problems I see coming from them and how they're enforced. I sent a note to a moderator at the NibbleFest Art Contest group about it asking if the contest date for NFAC could be moved or extended, and she's asked me to post about it to make the group aware of what's going on. I hope I've done a decent job of reporting here, I pulled together these links and topics from many different threads. There is much more in the ACEO Art Cards Editions & Originals group on the Strike thread including a petition to Google to start an alternative auction site.
And then after I finished the post, I realized I'd written a pretty good journalistic style article about the strike. So I mirrored it here to my blog, minus the handle of the moderator I contacted and spelling out the NibbleFest Art Contest so my readers would know what I was talking about with NFAC. It's the contest I did Tyrannorooster Rex for, and this month's theme is Rodentia. I plan to do an ACEO depicting the largest extinct rodent ever discovered, there is a Yahoo news article about it under Science > Dinosaurs.
Hope this explains the strike for all of my regular readers! eBay is one of the best ways that a person can start a business and work from home, whether it's art or just buying wholesale baby booties and reselling them. Changes that could hurt the giant marketplace could destroy lives, increase unemployment, create massive problems far beyond one company's growth margins. These policies are intended to retain buyers, but they've missed the point that the part-time sellers are the regular buyers.
I think the reverse of the strategy, giving increased visibility and some discounts to new sellers for say, their first ten auctions or something, could bring in more business. I wouldn't mind a boost to newcomers, after all, once they get there, they're customers. But that would be temporary, not creating an artificial divide between big volume sellers and buyers, trying to turn it into something like a dollar store instead of the online version of the French Market.
However, in a recent very different conflict, eBay showed itself responsive to member complaints. They tried to rearrange the categories and get rid of Self Representing Artists as a category, which would break up my listings and many other artists' listings into different categories by medium -- when sometimes it's hard to say whether something is a painting or a drawing anyway. They listened and while they renamed it Direct From Artist, they will be keeping the umbrella category for "art from the creator" versus "art from a third party" whether that's an agent, a gallery or just someone selling off art from an estate. I support this boycott as communication. Once eBay realizes that this is a bad idea, we need to present eBay with better options for increasing business than shafting the part time sellers who may comprise the majority of regular buyers.
If you are not an eBay seller, you can still support the strike by not buying anything on eBay during the strike period, February 18-26th. Plan your shopping trips before or after it, and spread the word. Please feel free to mirror this post to your blog (and credit me) or link to it.