To elaborate, there are some very eBay-sepcific issues that either directly or indirectly impact my ability to grow an eBay business.
One major issue I have at the moment is eBay's new way of narrowing search results to one specific category - this is even extremely annoying as a buyer. Case in point, I was searching for step ladders recently, and eBay only returned results in Building / DIY > Ladder category, despite there actually being more results in Home & Garden. I noticed this, but how many buyers won't? The criteria for picking which category's results are shown seems rather off to me, as another seller pointed out a search for "charm beads" provides results in the "charms" category. If sellers can't get their items in front of buyers who are looking for those specific items, what chance is there?
Another major issue is eBay's inappropriate options when return requests are opened. More often than not, I find myself having to explain why I am dissatisying my customer (because they want a replacement), as this option is not provided to me without serious risk to my account standing. I care about my customers, and getting them the items they ordered, sometimes something arrives faulty, or an error was made, and I'm sick of having to tell them "sorry, I can't send out a new package, only offer a refund...". I put that this affects growth because it can lose me customers.
Also, I would really like to take advantage of some of the promotions available, but have not been able to set them up on specific items (eg Buy X item, get 20% off Y item) - that promo apparently only works if you apply it to an entire shop.
Yet another issue is the cart, particularly on the mobile apps, but many of the issues apply on PCs etc as well. Combined postage discounts not applying like they should, changing from 'standard' to 'express' only applying to one item (thus separating payments into at least two and causing issues there). The retention of the "Buy It Now" button on fixed price listings is a mystery to me, and makes purchasing multiple items on eBay counter-intuitive. As is loading the cart onto the page when an item is added, it should remain on page and then buyers can mouse-over their cart to see a summary of what's in there. Cart issues are a major reason for loss of sales.
While I am on cart issues, while this doesn't seem to have affected me yet, forcing immediate payment required on sellers who did not opt to do so, as well as removing 'add to cart' on affected seller's listings is shockingly terrible, and an issue that has been recurring for years - of course this loses buyers, as they can not purchase multiple items all at once, taking advantage of combined postage discounts, and the seller is whacked with full FVF for each postage amount.
The constant promos for big box sellers is (to put it mildly) disconcerting, and frankly I think it should be for those sellers as well, at least the ones who think of being on eBay in the long term, but that's personal opinion and debate-able - in the same vein, I can't reconcile the excuse that sellers in other countries (most commonly China) are untouchable when it comes to breaching Australian listing policies while listing on the Australian site (it is commonly said that only eBay CN can saction the sellers due to internal policies - can't understand why those internal policies haven't been addressed and updated, because it definitely loses buyers from the site).
That'll do, for now.
But...at least they updated the 'send invoice' page and removed that infernal 'recalculate' button. So, that's something...
