We've always known that ebay's stats aren't to be trusted but I think the writer is a bit too fixated on them.
I read the whole article and there's at least one issue that they didn't address. They say they offer guaranteed delivery but I didn't see anywhere that they're actually meeting expectations in that regard. If everything arrived a day late I'd imagine most buyers wouldn't bother saying anything, much less make a claim. They may, however, answer the question as to whether the item arrived by a certain date.
I don't know how long they've had guaranteed delivery in the US but I wouldn't imagine it's been too long, and failure to meet guarantees could be why their visibility has fallen. I'm not saying it is the reason, but it's something they didn't address. Offering all these things (guaranteed delivery, change of mind returns, etc) doesn't guarantee you'll get more visibility than everyone else either.
They talked about their opposition's feedback but their own isn't perfect. Their response to feedback reminded me of the worst of the Chinese sellers, who always say "you contact us, we fix problem". Most of their neutrals should have been negatives, in which case their feedback would be 99.5%. I saw some positives that should have been neutrals at the very least, so that makes it even worse.
Most of what they said was just sour grapes because they think they should be on top and get 99% of the sales. If the opposition is really bad I might agree with that but I get really sick of seeing sellers complaining because suddenly they aren't the one getting all the sales and someone else is being given a chance for a change. They don't care about anyone else not getting sales when they're at the top of the tree so why should anyone else care if they're not getting sales? Why do they think they should be the ONLY one getting sales?
I don't think it's fair to give priority to sellers who accept change of mind returns or give guaranteed delivery. People have the choice of searching only for listings with guaranteed delivery so if a buyer hasn't deliberately searched that way I think all listings should be equal in that regard.
In some categories there are very few returns for change of mind and in some categories they shouldn't be allowed at all because of copyright and other reasons, so I don't think sellers should be given special treatment if they offer it. In a lot of cases the item is worthless if it's returned, even if it hasn't been used.
This seller talks about being so much better than all their opposition but their terms for return of defective items are contradictory, and worse still, they're contrary to ebay policy as they say that the buyer has to pay return shipping on defective items. They also say returned items have to be in their original condition and in the original box. With some engine parts you can't know they're defective until they're installed so how can they be returned in their original condition, and how does their 5-year warranty apply? Do they also have to be returned in original condition a year or two later?
They're boasting about offering returns and everything else ebay wants them to offer but then they try and circumvent ebay's rules so why should they get priority over everyone else? In my main category the seller given the most favour by ebay is keyword spamming in every single listing, and that's not the only way they blatantly break the rules.
For some reason I must have got more visibility in Jan/Feb this year because some weeks I got triple my average weekly sales, which made up for July-Dec's lower than average sales. Because very few of my items are exactly the same as my competitors I see no need for ebay to favour one seller over another and I think the only reason for less visibility should be if a seller has bad feedback.
Basically, I think it's unwise to rely solely on ebay for sales if that's a person's only income. The seller who wrote the article should have been taking steps to develop their own website long ago instead of just relying on ebay. If they're as good as they say they are they should soon get known on their own site. Maybe their ebay sales are falling because they don't get return buyers, which they would do if their service and products are as good as they think they are. Car parts aren't just a one-off purchase - things constantly need fixing or replacing so they should have lots of return customers.
Maybe they don't get return buyers because of their deliberately misleading descriptions. They didn't address that in their diatribe either - everything was ebay's fault and they didn't want to consider that they could be doing anything wrong themselves. I'm afraid I don't have much sympathy for sellers who try and get sales by deliberately trying to deceive people.
