eBay's Darling for two years until August 22nd

[CanBrit]

Hello all. I joined and bought the book today. I'm hoping that the book will teach me how to manage eBay to my benefit rather than the other way around.

Last two years I made over two hundred grand. August was my best month ever, reaching 18 grand in one month. Darn fees of 16 hundred. I was a TRS and very happy. Great Customers for the most part. Always a few problems with international shipping and the occasional feedback extortion or general extortion. Two customers opened up cases trying to thank me for their purchases, but eBay had made is so difficult for the customers to reach their sellers, it was happening to a lot of us.

November: Lost TRS. Sales to date $55. In August I had 1 return, 2 cases of Feedback extortion and 1 case of pure and utter fraud. Put me into below standard. Limited to 50 items for $18000. Funny that. They gave my money limit at the highest month I sold but reduced my items. PayPal now holding my money for 21 days. eBay won't remove the defects from the extortions or my customers errors in opening cases, even though both customers went through the trouble of emailing them.

Thankfully I was proactive in September and started moving my higher end products to a more suitable (and cheaper) site. Starting to get some action there thank god.

So here I am. I need to sell items that cannot be sold on the other site, but I am darn terrified of doing it on eBay after all this. I will be switching to more collectibles.....much safer than jewelry but slower to sell. Also more of a pain for shipping.

Yikes.....what a terrible fall, literally!

[CanBrit]

Jeepers are people scared of me??? Yikes, I'm a 58 year old fibromyalgia, myofascial pain, crohn's disease, Degenerative Disease, thyroid mess of a disabled person. On top of all that fun stuff, Ice and snow fell off a three storey building in 2008 and landed on my head and ended my IT career. No one can make that stuff up trust me.

Nothing to be afraid of here. All auto immune...can't catch anything online. Honest.

[JamesNorth101]

It may take more than 2 hours to get a reply.

Just give it a bit of time.

[TGMT²]

Originally Posted by CanBrit

Jeepers are people scared of me???

YUP, you scared me.

The forum runs a little cold on the weekends, also I didn't see any questions in your thread?

[stanislav]

Thankfully I was proactive in September and started moving my higher end products to a more suitable (and cheaper) site. Starting to get some action there thank god.

What one is it? Etsy?

[MM78]

Welcome to the forum, Your best bet is to get down the basics of Stealth. Now, when it comes down to people who file chargebacks, feedback extortion, or just scammers.

Finding a more safer item is a good start, some items such as electronics, jewelry do seem to bring out more scammers.

If you have old inventory you might want to sell it across multiple accounts to lower the amount of scammers.

[CanBrit]

Originally Posted by stanislav

What one is it? Etsy?

I selected Ruby Lane for it's Antiques and Collectibles. The only hiccup is that you can't sell anything newer than 20 years old unless you are the artisan. But I'll keep eBay around for that unless I get the boot.

[CanBrit]

Originally Posted by MM78

Welcome to the forum, Your best bet is to get down the basics of Stealth. Now, when it comes down to people who file chargebacks, feedback extortion, or just scammers.

Finding a more safer item is a good start, some items such as electronics, jewelry do seem to bring out more scammers.

If you have old inventory you might want to sell it across multiple accounts to lower the amount of scammers.

Thank you for that suggestion. I have opened up an alternate account as well, but I am too leary to sell much gold jewelry anymore. I think I'll stick with silver.

[CanBrit]

Originally Posted by TGMT²

YUP, you scared me.

The forum runs a little cold on the weekends, also I didn't see any questions in your thread?

Good point, sorry I scared you. Hahaha.

[rsot]

Originally Posted by CanBrit

Thank you for that suggestion. I have opened up an alternate account as well, but I am too leary to sell much gold jewelry anymore. I think I'll stick with silver.

You can only do what you feel most comfortable with - more than one alternate account is a good idea

[jeffweico]

Welcome to the forums. My suggestion is multiple accounts. Like 10 or so. If you have $1,800 in sales on each account each month, then you MIGHT lose 10% of your business if eBay has a hissy fit on any particular account, not 100%.

Don't be afraid of eBay. Use them for expansion and to make money. Yes, there will always be problems and sometimes you will lose accounts. But, unless you are committing fraud, there is nothing to be afraid of.

I would take what happened as a wake-up call. I would be happy for my Ruby Lane sales and still do whatever I could on the existing eBay account, but I would move forward with the other accounts as well. Start selling small-time on them with low risk items, maybe lower-priced sliver jewelry or costume jewelry and slowly add the bigger stuff.

You CAN make money on eBay. There is no reason to be AFRAID of eBay. Nobody LIKES getting that MC999 or MC011 notice - most of us still get that sinking feeling when we see them - but we carry on because eBay is profitable for us.

As much as we all complain about eBay and how unfair it is, we put up with it because of the profits. The minute they are unprofitable for us, most of us will be gone from eBay. But I don't see that happening.

Good luck!

[CanBrit]

Thank you Jeff. All very good points. I guess the biggest problem I have is with my health. I am disabled with several chronic pain conditions and sometimes it plays havoc with my memory. My husband is great at keeping me on the straight and narrow, but we can only ship once a week as I cannot drive and we live off the grid in Northeastern NY State. Great for my health, but a bit of an issue when it comes to shipping.
We have a cottage also in Ontario and keep a bank account up there as well, which allows us to float between the two countries. A nice little perk.
I guess what I need to do is keep it manageable. As long as our auctions all end on a friday or saturday, my husband has Monday's off and can do the shipping so it is at least a 1 day turnaround.
I must say something though that I find shocking. eBays code behind their screens is not secured. You can actually get behind their program and change it if you wanted to.........not that I would. But being an ex programmer, I love find their bugs in the code. Not telling them either, thats their job or they can pay me for the answer.
Again thanks for your points and I will keep working towards my own success, not theirs.

Cheers!

[jeffweico]

I totally understand. I have health issues as well (a form of muscular dystrophy) and a pain doctor. I have patches and pills, the whole 9 yards. I was never big on drugs, but these days my medicine cabinet makes me feel like a drug lord.

It is great that you are staying productive, staying sane and hanging in there. Because I am with you, I REFUSE to give up!

[CanBrit]

I'll never give up until I'm 6 feet under and then I'm sure I'll be working on something else.

[Nottabill9]

Hello. I just wanted to pop in on this and say ebay gave me my life back as I am a chronic pain sufferer too. I got hit by an IED in combat. I was super depressed and trying to kill myself in certain ways (drugs and alcohol). I couldn't do anything but lay around all day. I knew about ebay and someone suggested selling some of my shirts on there for some extra money. I tried it and found I loved it! Not only was I making decent money but I had something to do, on my own time. I could also interact with people. Selling on ebay gave me my life back plus an income to add to my crappy VA and SSD checks. So, HI FELLOW CP PEEPS! So here I am today...if I lose my account on ebay I WILL LOSE MY LIFE AGAIN! I can not let this happen. It is more than just a profit for me. I have been sober for over 1 year, I have been happier, I have things to do, people rely and depend on me, I feel needed and important again. I am super excited to dig in and make sure my account stays good or I can re-open an account if anything ever goes bad. Sadly, I had a lot of fraudulent claims over the holiday selling season. I'm still TRS though....for now. Thanks all for reading this. I am a sponge for information, tips, and anything that can help me. Seems like I found the right place.