eBay sellers strike! (Video+)

February 17th, 2008 by Annkur

eBay sellers worldwide are about to go on strike, in protest of the new eBay policies and fee hike! The movement has been gaining momentum since the past week. The official strike thread on the eBay.com community runs over 11000 posts. Starting from eBay US the strike is spreading across eBay Australia, eBay UK and even eBay India!

"Ebay Has elected to change their policies that will affect thousands of sellers all over the world. It is time to fight back…Join our Crusade Feb. 18 – 25 and ban to NOT Sell or Buy on Ebay. We have a voice!!!"

Youtube Videos, Yahoo groups, eBay forums, and emailers are being used to promote the strike. eBay’s proposed changes are ready to take effect from 20th Feb, this will now overlap the strike during the week 18-25th Feb. So why exactly the strike?

Final Value Fees (FVF) are increasing about 66% for the first $25. (FVF is what eBay charges the seller for a successful sale)
Changes to the Feedback System, Sellers cant rate a buyer negative
eBay-PayPal to hold seller payments for 21 days!

eBay’s new fee policy reduces the listing fees but increases the FVF significantly (there is a listing fee charged for any product to be listed on eBay for sale, this fee is charges regardless of a sale).

In case you were wondering why sellers are opposing the new feedback system: The backbone of the eBay system is the Feedback process. Every buyer and seller rate each other after a transaction on eBay. This feedback is the measuring scale for an eBay members reputation! With the new system that has been proposed by eBay, sellers will no longer be able to leave a -ve feedback for a buyer. Any negative feedback against a seller is counted as a dispute, here many buyers take advantage of this situation and hold the seller at ransom. This is know as Feedback Extortion. Sellers complain that the new system will take away the only tool they have to deal with such buyers! Read more

According to eBay sellers leave a retaliatory feedback to genuine buyers who leave a negative feedback for them. This significantly affects the buyer experience. "We realize that feedback has been a two-way street, but our data shows a disturbing trend, which is that, globally sellers leave retaliatory feedback eight times more frequently than buyers do and this figure is up dramatically in the last few years. This prevented buyers from leaving a genuine feedback in more cases than one. Even more disturbing data trend we have is Buyers who were subject to an unfair / retaliatory feedback stopped transacting on the site and not come back for more." – eBay India Country Manager Rajan Mehra

When we last checked there were some 16million+ listings on eBay.com (eBay US). In a weeks time we will have the aftereffect of the strike! Till then Halla Bol!