14 years of selling on e-bay

[ezy-mobiles]

This day 14 years ago I started selling on e-bay Aus.

How things have changed!!! Back then it was totally free to list to sell (no restrictions), payment was only via bank deposit from Aus buyers and "cash" from overseas customers. Back then most of my sales were to the US!!. Many items listed didn't have photos (digital cameras were very expensive), e-bay had a really community spirit and people used words like "please and thank-you" in e-mails, items mainly listed back them were unique and collectible and not a single China seller to be found. Most importantly back then you would almost guarantee your listing would sell!

How things have changed!!

[tstore]

Nice post. 13 years not 14 though.

[ezy-mobiles]

oops 13 (feels like 14 !)

[phorum_junkie*]

Many years ago people walked around in animal skins grunting at each other, rubbed bits of stone together to light a fire and hunted their prey with clubs, entertainment was chalking on cave walls. Just because lfe was different back then it doesn't mean it was better, just different.

The internet was different 12 years ago, do you honestly think with the number of on line retailers available now and the competition ebay face from other auction sites in the US & the UK that they could remain commercially viable using a strategy as prehistoric as our dear caveman? I too was selling 12 years ago and I had pictures in my listings and I offered Paypal, it was only in Australia thst I had to unfortunately accept bank deposit which was a pain in the behind having to wait for and trace payments before anything could be posted. 

As a buyer I had virtually no buyer protection unless I was prepared to accept a refund of item price only less twenty five bucks and just as high a proportion of sellers were scammers as there are now, there were just fewer of them because there were fewer ebay members.

No way do I, as a seller or buyer, want to go back to those times.

[ezy-mobiles]

Oh I failed to mention, back in the prehistoric days ebay allowed sellers to leave neutral and/or negative feedback against buyers who decided they didn't want to pay. Also sellers were allowed to accept payments via western union money transfers! Heaven forbid we were so primitive back then!

[phorum_junkie*]

Absolutely, as a seller I never want to go back to the days when I had to compete against unscrupulous sellers who blackmailed people intio removing justified negs, back to the days when you couldn't block people who had more than one unpaid item strike and most of all to the days when buyers could be so easily ripped off if they were ill advised enough to use a WU wire transfer or send cash in the post.

[traydsecret]

I only have 10 under my belt, and as a buyer at that, but agree it was totally different. How things have changed, some for the better some not.

Nowadays, if I want anything ebay is the first plave I go to look, back then I made purchases very skiddishly as it was all so

new and scary, and I only purchased items that were hard to find off line.

Good on you, and here's to another 13 years.

[aussieclassics]

I have been going  8 years,       mind you,  I only had  100 listings for the first  4 years,   and sales are nearly the same now  on  1,200 listings.     So  things today aren't any thing special

[iamanark]

I am about 12 years ebay old … the one thing that has changed is the people, the lurkers, who stalk these boards and are so quick to belittle others, especially newbies when they make an error and come here for advice

Once these boards were about community involvement, now it is full of bullies who seem to have an answer for every topic, (even when they are wrong), and when you would challenge these bullies, they would report you, and rightly or wrongly, your post would be deleted

But now with the new Mods this does not happen, so on these new boards we might see a return to the old days of community spirit

(Just look at some of the answers to this post)

[2106greencat]

I am very eBay (selling) young and while I do remember from years ago it was only from a buying point of view and it did seem a lot less complicated.

In having said that, the technology today has really dictated that eBay and other online selling venues tighten the security and introduce safer forms of payment/sending etc, which is a good think I think.

As to the boards themselves, I agree the moderation seems a lot fairer, but still do not like the format (or the emoticons LOL)