Scammed on eBay With the help of PayPal – A Common Sellers Tale in 2009

Posted on October 5, 2009 by Scott Pooler

eBay is sold to the public on many different levels...

To the consumer eBay is offered as a great online place to find anything - cheap

Consumers are also told what a "safe" and easy place eBay is to shop.

All well and good, in most cases, except for the fact that eBay does not have to stand behind the promises they make to the consumer, eBay leaves that bit of dirty business to the individual seller and they use PayPal as the big stick of enforcement to make sure that the sellers keep the buyers happy, no matter the cost or situation. (more on that later)

To the Individual Seller eBay is offered as the easy and fast way to sell the junk that accumulates in the garage or attic

eBay has been promoted as the place for anyone to start a business (selling junk from your garage) for years. (More recently eBay went courting the corporate world, offering enticements and sweetheart deals to big sellers like Buy.com and others). For awhile it looked as though eBay would turn its back on the small individual sellers in lieu of the huge volume possibilities offered by the Buy.coms of the world.

Some eBay Kool Aid?

Thankfully, eBay has not completely forgotten the little guy, they are happy to take his/her money and they have taken some minor steps to entice the small seller back. To be honest, I still don't understand the "selling junk from the garage" business plan "drink the kool aid" approach, but that must just be me...

2008

2008 was a long year in eBay-land, the changes and turmoil wrought by the eBay executives decisions (right or wrong) made an impression on the rank and file. The effect of these constant changes on eBay's core audience of sellers (the little guys and gals) became more than an annoyance. For some of these smaller sellers the constant state of flux of 2008 - early 2009 ended a long term love affair.

I will admit that my own love affair with eBay ended in 2008.

It was just too frustrating at times, not only dealing with the changes in my own eBay selling business, but also fielding questions from my clients regarding unexplainable and sometimes indefensible new rules or policies and outrageous games with fee structures. I pretty much shut down all operations on eBay myself and quietly told my good clients that they might want to take a fresh look at eBay, it was time to evaluate whether the price in terms of time, frustration and costs, had possibly become too high for some to do business on eBay.

Continue reading “Scammed on eBay With the help of PayPal – A Common Sellers Tale in 2009” »

What is Scott Pooler Doing Now? – Part 1 – Bonanzle and BonanzleStore

Posted on June 17, 2009 by Scott Pooler

This is the first in a series I would like to call "What is Scott Doing Now"?

It seems that I have "gone missing", people ask me where have I been, what am I doing? Well, I have been busy and have not had the time required to keep this and many of my other blogs current.

I love my Trading Assistant Journal readers just as much as I hope they appreciate me, and in fact I want to thank the readers who have sent me notes of concern, wishing me well, and asking me to come back. I am still here, I just have been so busy working for clients and on my own projects, that I have not had time to keep up with a lot of the stuff I used to comment on here in the Journal.

So without further adieu, Part 1 - "What is Scott Doing Now"?

BonanzleStore

BonanzleStore Opening Late Summer 2009

In our vast eCommerce world Bonanzle.com has been one of the hottest topics of discussion for over a year now .

As a venue Bonanzle has many advantages for sellers.

Simplicity, Social interaction, seller camaraderie, ease of use, customer service from the founder himself... Bonanzle has a lot to like.

When a new merchant comes to Bonanzle from eBay or elsewhere, they are usually struck with the speed and ease of use of this well laid out platform. From the very first day of operations, this site has been clean and quick both on the front end and on the back end where merchants spend most of their time.

The speed of listing product, either one at a time, or through a bulk upload and then a bulk editor (both included) is a major factor attracting merchants familiar with the multiple page listing processes of eBay. This simplicity and speed are major factors that can improve the bottom line of any seller. The fact that there are no listing fees and only a small final value fee - if an item is sold, is another top pick on the feature list at Bonanzle.com.

Sellers are joining Bonanzle by the thousands, the growth curve of Bonanzle has been phenomenal - some say... even faster than the original eBay.

Yet with all of the great features of Bonanzle, and there are many, it struck me that the one thing that was missing from the merchant experience at Bonanzle was a home base or store. Come to think of it, at eBay the "eBayStores" product has never been a real home base or place to build a business for merchants. I say this, even though I was at one time an eBay stores promoter, designer and owner, because at eBay you had no way to bring your customer back to you. The entire eBay Stores strategy was sold to promote the idea that a merchant could have that "home base" but in reality the home was just a temporary shelter - with high fees.

If you are starting or running an online business selling products, unless you are happy to be anonymous, it is best to build a "location" on the net. A Storefront or a business office so to speak. A Place where your customers, new and old, can find you, and find out more about you and your business. A place where, as a business owner, you can choose to educate the public (your customers) with more information than is included in a standard description of a product for sale.

Now I don't want to say that at Bonanzle there is no "Store". Bonanzle's "store" is called a booth. A Bonanzle Booth is a central location grouping all of your listed products together by category. The booth is great, but since it is dedicated to the Bonanzle tenants of simplicity and clean design (something I do not disagree with), a Bonanzle Booth does not lend itself to merchant branding or education of the public or much of anything more than presenting the merchants products, with 4 images and a very clean description to the outside world. For many merchants, this may be all that they need. For others, something a little more personal may be appropriate.

Late Summer 2009

As a result, my company, iBusinessLogic has created a new way to optimize a Bonanzle merchants business and Internet marketing capabilities with what we call the BonanzleStore.

A "BonanzleStore" (launching late summer 2009) is an outside website, separated from Bonanzle and allowing the merchant to brand themselves with a completely customized eCommerce Web 2.0 Site. This website (A BonanzleStore) will include many features never seen before in eCommerce. Continue reading “What is Scott Pooler Doing Now? – Part 1 – Bonanzle and BonanzleStore” »

Chicken Little is Alive and Well – eBay Stores Fear Mongering/Marketing

Posted on January 15, 2009 by Scott Pooler

Everything changes and yet oddly some things never change. (yes, an old statement ringing true once again)...

It seems that every year about this time eBay chooses to make announcements which had heretofore been cloaked in secrecy. Just recently the announcement was about a change to the eBay Stores format. The eBay Stores format is becoming the eBay Stores "Experience".

I say Halleluah! - It is about time the standard (off the ebay shelf) issue eBay store was updated to look like something designed post 1995.

I have no argument with eBay for this change or its implementation. Everyone who owns an eBay Store has 45 days to make whatever changes are necessary to update their custom templates or 3rd party providers store design. This seems like plenty of time in most cases and in the cases of the large third party certified eBay stores designers, the work has already been done. eBay actually worked with these designers and developers to be sure that they were aware of the new standard (yeah, I know - now THAT'S a change, right?). In any case the look will be new but there is absolutely no need to panic.

Yet Panic is what some want to instill... Continue reading “Chicken Little is Alive and Well – eBay Stores Fear Mongering/Marketing” »

FP30 eBay Listing Format Fixed Price 30 Days – Velocity and IT Dilemma

Posted on September 19, 2008 by Scott Pooler

Surprise

I was surprised after a presentation I gave at the Product Sellers Seminar with a question from an eBay seller who did not know anything about the new fixed price 30 day format on eBay. The persons question was not a surprise, the fact that anyone who has an eBay account and did not get a notice or a phone call about the FP30 program was my quandary.

Here I thought everyone knew...

OK - for those of you who did not know about this change ( I know, another change at eBay - groan in unison), here is eBay's explanation of the program.

Fixed Price - 30 Days

Starting September 16, we are lowering the listing fee for all items sold via the fixed price format to only 35 cents, and a special rate of only 5 cents through the end of the year for Buy It Now™ fixed price listings in the Media categories (Books, Video Games, Music and DVDs/Movies) using pre-filled item information. (See our new Fixed Price fee structure here.)

Accordingly, we are shifting the majority of our costs for most categories to the back end (final value fees), which you only pay if you're successful in selling an item. In extremely competitive e-commerce categories such as Consumer Electronics, Cameras and Computers, we're decreasing final value fees. This means we're giving you an even bigger incentive to list these types of items on eBay.

In addition to the pricing change, we're extending the listing duration of all Buy It Now™ fixed price listings to 30 days, up from seven with an option for automatic renewal. For sellers whose items that may take longer to sell, this change will be a huge cost reduction and time saver. Taken together, these two big changes – 35 cents for up to 30 days - represent a 70 percent reduction in listing fees on fixed price items

My original take on Fixed price 30 days is that its a good thing but as with all things eBay - it depends...

Depends upon: Continue reading “FP30 eBay Listing Format Fixed Price 30 Days – Velocity and IT Dilemma” »

Google Base Store Connector – Broken? – eBay Stores Owners Try This

Posted on June 30, 2008 by Scott Pooler

Google Base is a wonderful thing, when it works... With Google Base and the store connector (works with more than eBay) a feed of product can be uploaded to Google shopping (the old Froogle) for free!

The idea is to create a data feed from your eBay or Yahoo store, directly to Google shopping. All of the information to populate a listing in Google is scraped from your eBay store or yahoo stores listings - automatically.

The only problem being that the Google Base Store connector mysteriously stopped working. I can't speculate on the cause of this mysterious failure (possible re-kindling of the eBay/Google feud?) but in any case this connection is a vital part of eBay stores marketing and I have been searching for a way to get it up and running.

It seems the only way to use Google Base at this time is manually and I have had trouble with that at times. It may be a bit of a bother, but if you put it in your schedule once a week or so, it should help you to put your eBay stores products in front of more shoppers. (This is a feature which should be built in to eBay Stores accounts with an automatic feed, but....)

So, I found this great step by step instruction guideline posted by a Google Base help board user "Collectorgirl". Thanks Collectorgirl, I hope your time and effort in creating these well written instructions helps many eBay & Yahoo stores owners!

-------------------------
By collectorgirl:
JUST UPDATED THESE INSTRUCTIONS....JUNE 18, 2008 - 1:38pm
I don't work for Google, but I have an eBay store on eBay. My seller
name on eBay is snifflesmouse.

I am sharing how I successfully scheduled eBay store items for upload
to Google Base because I want to help other people like me, but any
use of this information is your responsibility. Only store items will
be uploaded, not fixed price or auction items.

How to Schedule your eBay Store Items for automatic upload to Google
Base:
1. Go to eBay and click "My eBay"
2. Click "Manage My Store" on the left side of the page
3. Click on "Listing Distribution" under promotional tools
4. Click "Activate your Store listings via RSS. (not sure if this
is needed for Google)
5. Click "Make a file of your Store Inventory listings available"
6. May need to wait at least 12 hours before you continue with
these instructions
7. When eBay provides you with a URL of your Google Base-specific
file, COPY THE URL - looks something like: http://esssl.ebay.com/GetListings/yourstorename?fmt=g
8. Login to Google Base
9. Click the "Settings" tab
10. Change your Website URL to match the Google Base URL provided by
eBay - again, looks something like: http://esssl.ebay.com/GetListings/yourstorename?fmt=g
11. Click the "My Items" tab
12. Click on the "Data Feeds" link
13. Click the "New Data Feed" button
14. Type a file name with the .xml extention - should be the name of
your store with no spaces - for example, "mystorename.xml"
15. Change the item type in the drop down menu to "Products"
16. Click the button that says: "Register data feed and continue to
formatting instructions"
17. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the button that
says: "I'm done formatting my file. Continue to upload"
18. If you need to, click the "My Items" tab, then click on the "Data
Feeds" link (or continue to step 19 below)
19. Click the "create" link next to Schedule
20. Choose when and how often you would like Google to upload your
file
21. Type the URL of the file - should match the URL provided by eBay
- the same one used in step 10 above
22. CLICK THE SCHEDULE BUTTON
23. Come back and check to see if your products have been uploaded as
scheduled - login to Google Base, click the "my items" tab, click the
"active items" link. You should see all of your store items listed
(they will not upload auction or fixed price listings)
HOPE THIS HELPS!!

Readers - Let us know if you have found a quicker, easier, or automatic solution which works....

Live Help – Communication at eBay – Cornerstone of the Buyer Experience

Posted on June 25, 2008 by Scott Pooler

This is a very long article, the subject is important and it involves my client, my business and eBay.

The crux of the situation is communications at eBay, how eBay strives to inspire the customers of eBay, (the sellers) to provide excellent customer service and communications. And why it is difficult for the customer (sellers) of eBay to take this request seriously when eBay itself can not seem to provide even basic communications to its customers.

As many of you know I run an eBay and blog/website design and consulting company - iBusinessLogic.com... In the course of events we work with many clients on eBay related issues, our clients look to us for answers, especially in the current state of ever present flux for eBay sellers.

Yesterday one of our clients, Cornerstone Commercial Supply, called to ask me why they could not list anything on eBay?

The rest of this story will be detailing my efforts to find an answer as to why they had been blocked from listing...

To tell the truth we still do not know, so first let me give you some background.

iBusinessLogic designed an eBay Store powered by Frooition for this established brick and mortar commercial flooring and hard surface care distributor. The are very pleased with our work. The folks at Cornerstone love the design and they really like the exposure this eBay store powered by Frooition and designed here in the USA has brought them from within the commercial carpet cleaning industry.

Cornerstone's primary business is selling and servicing large truck mount carpet cleaning machines meant for commercial applications. In addition, they offer all of the cleaning agents, tools, fittings, hoses, mops and janitorial supplies needed for any independent or franchise carpet cleaning or janitorial service in Florida. Cornerstone services clients like Serv-Pro, Carpet Master and the like.

This is no mom & pop working out of a garage...

Cornerstone is exactly the kind of new seller eBay wants to attract. Cornerstone Supply sells branded merchandise from the finest suppliers in the industry and they have their own line of cleaning agents and supplies sold under the Cornerstone name.

The biggest drawback for them has been in trying to understand all of eBay's road blocks in relation to bringing a new business into eBay. One of the biggest pain points for Cornerstone has been the limitations placed on their account due to feedback. Not poor feedback, but as a new seller, no feedback.

Without feedback an eBay Stores owner like Cornerstone Commercial Supply is limited to only offering Stores listings or auction listings, even though they have a confirmed PayPal account, they have a verified business address and they have been doing business in the same location for over 20 years. This company has financial references and supplier accounts all over the country, the owner and founder of Cornerstone Commercial Supply, Richard Carpenter is one of the leading figures in the commercial carpet cleaning industry and has been known for his expertise in the field for over 35 years.

It is difficult for Richard and his daughter Connie Carpenter (who runs the eBay business side) to understand why they Connie of Cornerstone Commercial Supply must be limited by feedback, when Cornerstone Supply has given all buyers on and off eBay great service. They do not understand why they have not received many feedback to reflect that service even though they always leave positive feedback upon payment.

The system as it stands is a barrier to further sales for the company and when a company has invested in branding themselves with the eBay system by custom designing an eBay Store and filling it with good products that sell. Why should they be limited by feedback when the system for feedback is so controversial and when buyers simply just are hesitant to bother with the whole feedback concept?

In any case, lets get to the heart of the reason why Connie Carpenter first called me and then came to my office yesterday....

In addition to our eBay Store design, Connie and Richard decided to use our Auction-Logic.com branded web based eBay listing management software to manage the eBay listings, re-listings and all of the online inventory for Cornerstone Commercial Supply.

Connie was attempting to list a few items and the software was returning an error code:

eBay Error: The item cannot be listed or modified. The title and/or description may contain improper words, or the listing or seller may be in violation of eBay policy. Continue reading “Live Help – Communication at eBay – Cornerstone of the Buyer Experience” »

What do you Expect to Change at eBay Live 2008

Posted on June 17, 2008 by Scott Pooler

If you want to truly understand something, try to change it.

Kurt Lewin

Oh but the changes we have seen this year at eBay…

On the eve of this, possibly the last ever eBay live, what do you expect to hear from the organizers of the yearly eBay big shindig?

Will stores listings find their way back into core search?
Will third party checkout be eliminated much the same as Digital Delivery?
Will we be introduced to yet another competitor for the eBay buyer like Buy.com?
Will John Donahoe announce something no one has even pontificated about yet?
Will it be good news, bad news, or simply something different - a change in policy?

eBay Live has historically been a time for announcements and a launching pad for new directions for eBay. Are you looking forward to the inevitable or dreading the winds of change eBay Live could bring?

I can say honestly I have no idea what John Don will tell us in Chicago… But I am looking forward to being there to hear it!

“The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress.”

Charles F. Kettering

Consignment Listing – Diamond Ring – Will it Sell? eBay or OnlineAuction.com

Posted on April 19, 2008 by Scott Pooler

Consignment item of the day - in our eBay Store

And Listed on ONLINEAUCTION.COM

Obviously this is a very attractive, high quality diamond ring. We have the original appraisal and paperwork; it is owned by a long term and dear client - it was her wedding ring stone and has since been reset in this stunning dinner ring setting. Total weight is now 2.8 carats of fine diamonds and as you can see, this is no knock-off.

I had it appraised by a local gemologist in Clearwater, Florida, who I have known personally for 20 years and who has been a part of a family business in fine jewelery locally for over 40 years. His appraisal of this diamond and setting together is included in the description, but his official opinion places the value in the $35,000.00 range.

Our client is ready to sell for $22,500...

Will it Sell as an eBay Stores Item? Or Will it sell as an OnlineAuction.com Listing

Lets see..

Diamond Ring

This ring has been listed on eBay and on OnlineAuction.com Continue reading “Consignment Listing – Diamond Ring – Will it Sell? eBay or OnlineAuction.com” »

Digital Delivery on eBay – A Crime or Just Bad Wording?

Posted on April 11, 2008 by Scott Pooler

Thousands of honest eBay sellers and small business owners made additional income on eBay by utilizing the service eBay created called "Digital Delivery" - Until...

Last month when Brian Burke, Director Global Feedback Policy, made an abrupt statement. On March 24th, 2008, Brian Burke announced digital delivery and information products would forever be banned on eBay core listings by March 31st, 2008. This was explained as a "Feedback Manipulation" issue by Brian Burke. Later Stephanie Tilenius, GM of eBay North America, made a statement indicating the problem was an issue of fraud.

No matter the issue (and we all think neither fraud or feedback are the real reasons), ending Digital Delivery on eBay has effected many honest eBay members in a very negative way. These eBay members have not manipulated feedback or perpetrated fraud, they simply developed information or intellectual products and delivered them in a fast and convenient way. The sellers did this with eBay's express encouragement for many years.

One such seller is a Disney fanatic and expert. His name is Tim and he has a website and eBay store:

magicalmousebooks

( 674

)

You can see Tim's eBay Store Here: Magical Mouse Books & More

Tim and his wife started selling Disney merchandise on eBay several years ago. But as I said, they are both Disney fanatics and go to the Disney World theme parks as often as possible.

Tim learned about digital delivery from eBay. He researched how it worked and he thought it was a great idea. He just needed something to sell that could be delivered digitally. Tim studied and thought and then one day it came to him...Disney! Disney

Tim and his wife produce, write and edit guides to the Disney Theme parks. This information is not available from Disney and covers topics such as where to stay, what to see and how to avoid the crowds.

These guides sold well and people found the guides to be a good deal. Tim and his wife became big fans of eBay Digital Delivery and are loyal and honest sellers on eBay. Magical Mouse Books & More sells Disney merchandise as well as the downloadable guides, and Tim & his wife also have a Disney World Travel Business. They did not think of themselves as people who were manipulating anything...nor did their customers. Tim was simply offering his customers something they wanted - information they needed - and he delivered it in a modern and efficient manner. In fact, it is the same manner in which airline tickets are delivered across the world in today's travel industry.

Then it all came crashing down.

Brian Burke made his announcement and eBay ended Tim's and his customers' mutually beneficial relationship. Tim had invested a great deal of time and effort into these guides. He and his wife had checked the details, updated the location information and written the guides all on their own. They had an investment in all of these materials. No matter if they were printed on paper or delivered in bits and bytes, the information still took time and a real concentrated effort to assemble and organize.

Tim was not just going to forget all of that work and leave the guides on his hard drive. He found a way to get the information transferred to DVDs or CDs, printed the labels, found the Jewel cases and the special media shipping packaging...

Magical Mouse relaunched the Disney Travel guides on eBay.

To make life more convenient for his customers, Tim decided that in addition to delivering a real hard copy of his Disney Guides, he would also offer the a downloadable guide at no extra charge to anyone who bought the hard copy.

Tim had heard from many experts that this would not be a problem. In fact, Griff had said on his radio show that this would be an acceptable solution as long as the hard copy of the product was offered and delivered.

Below you can read what happened to Tim on eBay.

Do you think he broke the rules? Are the words "Digital Delivery" banned on eBay even if the hard copy is sold and delivered as well?

Hey Scott,

I thought you'd want to hear about my latest experience with eBay and the digital delivery policy.

We finally got a physical product provider and listed three on Sunday.

Sunday night, eBay canceled all three, saying it violated the DD policy. They cited a specific line of our listing where we stated that in addition to the physical data CD, we would provide a digital copy immediately upon payment.

When we contacted eBay support, they responded that they canceled the listings due to a link violation in one of the three listings and did not address the DD issue at all. It seemed like a canned response. We have since relisted the items and removed as many references as possible to "digital" anything and they've stayed up.

Here's a link to the current listing: eBay Listing

Just thought this might be an experience you might be interested in. Take care.

Tim

I think Tim has done everything he can to continue his business on eBay and satisfy his customers. There is no fraud here, there is no manipulation and no link violations.

What is the REAL story, eBay?

BuyitSellit a Free Option for off eBay eCommerce Webstores – Buy it Sell it Review

Posted on February 17, 2008 by Scott Pooler

buyitsellit logo As Trading Assistants we are always looking for ways to sell. We have all heard about the "advantages of an eBay store" and really there are some great reasons to take advantage of that low cost opportunity to bring new traffic to your listings from outside of eBay. A correctly set up eBay store is worth every bit of the $15.95 monthly fee.

Use of a "stand alone" eCommerce website has always been recommended, even by the experts at eBay. Setting up an eCommerce or OSCommerce store has not always been a simple task. But now there are other new and exciting options to expand your market. A new review series has been started to explain the advantages of these off eBay webstore options.

You can read the first installment about the free webstore Buy it Sell it (by inkfrog) here: Buy it Sell it

http://allbusinessauctions.com/blog/2008/02/14/google-buy-it-sell-it-ebay-competitor-review-buyitsellit-vs-ebay/