Confusion

[patty_2464]

I've been on Ebay since it started in Australia in the late 1980's, and it never ceases to amaze me of how convoluted selling has become. One used to be able to sit down, write up sales quickly and efficiently without all the mumbo jumbo. Now it takes forever to list one item. I suggest that whoever writes these hurdles should sit down and try to list.

[e_purchasing]

eBay did not exist until 1997 and was not an Australian site until about 2000 - maybe that is the confusion.

What mumbo-jumbo? Photo, category, title, description, price, postage service and costs, The only extra since the beginning is item specifics, which helps buyers find your item easier (and you sell it quicker)

[kopenhagen5]

eBay don’t read here. 
Try using templates to list or sell similar and then only title, photos, price and description needs to be changed. 

[rvr566]

I just had to go through 123 listings, manually counting the number of items per listing, 12000 of them and relist, what a joke, and they tell us it's an improvement.

[*casey*]

Patty,

Everything's an absolute mess on this site , glitches everywhere , and others agree with you.

Feel free to join in this long discussion thread

https://community.ebay.com.au/t5/Selling/More-unwanted-enhancements-coming/m-p/2645558#M242186

or this  (Not really)  Free Selling thread

https://community.ebay.com.au/t5/Selling/Buyer-protection-fee/m-p/2650401#M243320

[*casey*]

@Patty

I'll also add that as you've  been   a  Member since: 26-Mar-99 in Australia, unless anyone else can post here with their selling ID registered at the same time,  then they have no idea  how easy it was back then compared to now.

[davewil1964]

I can list an item from scratch in about a minute.

Admittedly I have the relevant info available and wasn't a member before eBay existed.

[gutterpunkz05]

Yay!!  The good old days of dial-up, the joy of a coldie  or two while waiting to upload a single low res pic.   Lucky we only got 40 free listings each month

[springyzone]

The thing that jumped out at me in your post was 'late 1980's' as the internet as we know it did not exist back then, not outside of universities anyway. But I am assuming it was maybe a typo and you meant late 1990s.

I joined ebay back in about 2000-2001 and my sister and I sold for a few years and I agree with you it was easy. You just set up an account and started listing. Payments went straight into your bank account. Buyers could give you feedback but they could not open claims against anyone who did not post their items and there was no such thing as late postage, sellers posted when it suited them.

I was puzzled by gutterpunkz comment as there were no free listings back then, absolutely none. If you listed something at 99c, you still lost about 30c in fees. 

So I agree with you, selling was easier back then and on the whole, it worked well as just about all of us were amateur Australian sellers selling off bits and pieces.

But ebay has changed, the world has changed, the internet has changed and these days most stores have websites and their own sales. There is so much more competition.

There was always a risk to buyers on ebay that a seller would keep their money and the goods and take off. Ebay has tried to counteract that and provide more peace of mind to buyers and I think that is what is behind a lot of the changes you have seen on ebay-more seller accountability.

But things have certainly become more complicated, to the extent that unless you are a regular seller or small business, it is just easier to list on a place such as marketplace and I wouldn't be surprised if that is just the way ebay wants it.