Why a separate Power Seller Forum?

[clubesquire]

Good afternoon everyone.  Hope your Sunday is as nice as mine has been. Pristine weather, but windy, in Brissy atmo, and it’s nice to get outside away from the puter for awhile. 🙂

Still learning....

Can someone please tell my why there is a separate forum for Power Sellers?

Is participation restricted in any way?

There was a third question, but it has ‘hopped off’ somewhere with a seniors moment 🙂

Thanks,

Melina.

[digital*ghost]

You do need to be a Power Seller to access the forum, but originally the threshold to qualify was much higher than it is now (currently $1000 p/a in sales, but I think it was $10,000 to start with).

So, when it first started it was there to provide a forum for business sellers that wasn't accessible to buyers and casual sellers, and to perhaps discuss things that might be a little sensitive for whatever reason, and /or with people that had a business focus - eg marketing and pricing strategies.

You can sometimes be surprised what people will take offense to - some years back, there was a seller who posted a reply to a thread about postage and listed some of the expenses included in their prices, one of which was sticky tape. Another poster had an almost hysterical reaction to learn that the cost of sticky tape was an included expense. I was still new to the boards so I didn't say anything - keepin' a low profile  - but sure, if you sell the odd thing here and there and use whatever you've got handy, maybe charging for it doesn't occur to that kind of seller, but a business seller might spend several hundred a year on sticky tape, so of course it's included as a business expense. If the same remark had been made in a forum that was only populated by business sellers, no one would have batted an eye. 

It used to be a very active forum, but while I do take a look every so often, maybe once a month, I tend to now see the same threads on the first page (a lot of sellers have migrated to Facebook groups instead). 

[brerrabbit585]

Some of the sellers who use it consider the general forums to be filled with riff-raff and are far too snobby to look here, but they miss out on a lot of good information by not doing so. I contribute there occasionally but it's generally pretty quiet and you won't actually miss much if you don't look.

You have to be signed in under your powerseller ID to use it and I suspect a lot of sellers don't want to do that, which also explains why it's relatively quiet.  I think the big business sellers don't have time to spend in the forums anyway.

[go-tazz]

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@digital*ghost wrote:

It used to be a very active forum, but while I do take a look every so often, maybe once a month, I tend to now see the same threads on the first page (a lot of sellers have migrated to Facebook groups instead). 

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Or just droped off in sales so no longer qualified as a PS,(I was a PS on my other ID but in the end just didn't

get enough sales to qualify and that's not likely to change in the future),

Sales have been just over $300 US in the last 12 months,(still a bit I can sell but no motivation due to lack of

current sales),

[clubesquire]

Thanks all 🙂

Melina.

[davewil1964]

I remember a couple of years ago somebody asked a question on the PS board.

A member provided the relevant link to the current thread in 'selling'. The PS stated they did not go to the general boards. Ever.

Somebody actually answered the question, which I found disappointing. It's not like there was a need to search for anything - it was served up on a hyperlink platter.

That was a prevalent attitude at the time. That us plebs wouldn't know simply because we didn't have the volume of sales that they did.

[chameleon54]

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@davewil1964 wrote:

I remember a couple of years ago somebody asked a question on the PS board.

A member provided the relevant link to the current thread in 'selling'. The PS stated they did not go to the general boards. Ever.

Somebody actually answered the question, which I found disappointing. It's not like there was a need to search for anything - it was served up on a hyperlink platter.

That was a prevalent attitude at the time. That us plebs wouldn't know simply because we didn't have the volume of sales that they did.

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I remember that one too........... Its burned into my memory banks for the sheer arrogance in the attitude expressed. Pity really as the poster is a nice enough bloke and has been quite succesful over the last few years in his ebay business. He would be an asset on the general boards if he took the time to post here.

Personally I much prefer it here on the open boards with the other commoners like myself. I used to post on the PS board occasionally but I,ve never really been into the  " special people " thing. 

[davewil1964]

It used to be worth the price of admission just to see what Jeanie had been up to.

[eol-products]

Back when I started in 2004 you needed something like 2000/month in sales to get power seller status. You had to get to silver power seller (10 000/month) to get a phone number so you could call ebay, otherwise it was email only if I remember correctly. 

The power seller board back then was quite friendly and very popular but also had plenty of doom and gloom whenever ebay announced new changes regarding seller fees or store costs.