I have been a member of eBay since July of 2004, a very long time. I have 100% positive feedback on there from purchasing and selling. However, over the years eBay has changed, and I personally feel for the worst. Their fees are insane, and I just discovered something new. I am not positive if this is because I don’t have a credit card attached to paypal or what.
However, now I must wait 21 days to receive funds… it states funds can be released before then if… “you ship faster, ship with tracking, or your postal costs can be released if you purchase postage online…”
#1. I have no ink in my printer and had the slightest idea what shipping was going to cost…
#2. I was told by the Post Office tracking can only be placed on packages going priority… (I have just found out this is NOT true), so I shipped all package priority, with confirmation so I had tracking numbers to update the site with and with eBay not releasing my funds it cost me $20.60 out of pocket for shipping, which I only charged $6 for shipping because I had no intentions on sending priority…
#3. Packages have all been received by the buyers, however, I still don’t have the money for the items I sold… (Should I leave bad feedback to those buyers, since they have product and I don’t have my payment?)
So now my next guessing game is, will I receive payment when these buyers leave me feedback?!? Well several buyers never leave feedback, so I am assuming if I don’t get feedback I have to wait the full 21 days… which defeats the whole damn purpose of sending faster and receiving tracking on these packages… If I new eBay was not going to release funds sooner, I wouldn’t have took money from the bills, in order to make sure these buyers received their products within two days…
ON TOP OF ALL THIS… on the $80 I made on eBay for these items, after eBay fees, paypal fees, and shipping. I only made $49 dollars… eBay seems to be a waste of my time now, I at one time used eBay when I was short cash for a few bills, now in order for that to work you must sell the items a month in advance, and purchase your postage online, so the postage isn’t coming out of your pocket…
So much for trying to make a little money to pay the electric bill… it’s clear I won’t have the money released to me by the time the bill is due…
So that my friend is why I am done with eBay. Not only do they hold the money for 21 days, they screw you other ways. Had I of known I was still going to have to wait for the funds to be released I could have saved myself $15 in shipping fees. Wonder what sort of agreement they have in place with the Post Office.
About Jammie Morey
I stopped selling on eBay several years ago. Seems they’ve gotten even worse! I had an eBay store and was pleased with my sales. But the fees were so high, I decided to sell through other channels and found I could make more money while selling my products at lower prices. Obviously, it works for many but I’m with you – it’s not for me. One of the channels that I’ve used successfully is consignment stores.