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
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:
This is the Grand Finale of John Lawson's 3 Part series of commentary derived from his notes from New Orleans - eCommerce Summit 2008