As an eBay seller I have my eBay messages censored and run the risk of having my eBay Store suspended, should I try and give my customers my phone number, a non-eBay web address or any other form of non-eBay point of contact as eBay is paranoid about and determined to prevent any sales happening outside of eBay. And yet..... they happily use my Store to generate advertising revenue from direct competitors. Every single page in my Store (close to 2000 items) is littered with ads for competitors selling the same products as I am - thus taking my potential customers and directing them to a non-eBay sellers.
WHERE IS THE EQUITY IN THAT?????
Even putting Ad Blocker on, only eliminates some of those ads - they still appear throughout. I am paying the Store fees, the commission, the Paypal fees, operating within eBay's constraints and yet they have abandonned any effort to maximise my sales (and thus their revenue from me) in preference to sending my sales to a non-eBay competitor. Compounding this appalling situation, is the obvious reduction in eBay's advertising on behalf of their site and their sellers. A few years ago, simply doing a Google or Yahoo search for 'knitting yarn' (my product) would have eBay at or around the top of page one of the search results. Now we are at least 2 pages in on such a search.
So we have eBay spending less on their sellers and collecting more from our competitors. Shame on you eBay and you will eventually get the demise you deserve.
