Dear sellers,
Just had a quick read of some of selling experience story's as part of the recent e-bay 20 year publicity.
I haven't been selling on e-bay for quit 20 years, but I can share my story of the last 15 years.
Ebay in the early days was fun and exciting, it opened up selling opportunity's within Australia but also other parts of the globe (mainly the US in the early days).
Sure technology challenges seemed to be prevalent back then, especially with dial-up Internet, slow upload speeds, expensive digital cameras and frequent virus attacks.
One of the stand out features in the early years was that most people you dealt with were polite, friendly and even patient (and often exchanged e-mails from other buyer/sellers from other countries). Buyers seemed to be understanding that you had to patient with the postal system.
The main forms of payment received from buyers were cash....yes cash (posted disguised in a brochure or similar), Aust post money order or bank deposit transfer. Payment from overseas buyers (remember most international business was with the US) was in US cash sent through the post..
Before paymate and paypal came into play this form of payment was actually endorsed by e-bay and worked very well with 100% of all my US payments being received successfully. It was only when e-bay and paypal joined together that that it was decided that this method of payment was no longer considered appropriate and also swaying us awy from bank transfers!!!
We had the freedom to choose in the early days of paypal to use it or not (many sellers preferring bank deposit in order to avoid the high paypal fees. Unlike today were it is a requirement.
The first year of e-bay in Australia it was 100% free to list and the fvf was very modest. No seller restrictions applied including limits or holding payments unlike today.
Ebay back then was very much a "community" with majority of sellers being individuals clearing unwanted goods or dealing in treasures sourced from local secondhand markets or garage sales. Unlike today where the small time seller are being pushed aside in favour of the big retail corporations $ or flooded with Chinese made items
If a buyer refused to pay for an item that they bid/won or changed mind etc, then this could be shared with the rest of the ebay community through leaving a negative or neutral feedback comment. Unlike today where only buyers have the freedom of leaving a negative or neutral feedback.
For me, the early days of ebay were enjoyable due to the freedom that sellers had and particularly the lack of restrictions placed on us by ebay.
Although I occasionally sell items on ebay, I am not selling no where as much as I was 8-15 years previously. In short ebay has become way to restrictive and expensive for the small time seller (aka mum and dad, hobby / casual sellers).
Somehow I don't expect ebay will be contacting me to do a "fluff" piece on My Story.....
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