Ebay in their infinite moronicness (is that a word..... IT SHOULD BE!) have changed there cd catagories again.

Lowlights include removing the most popular category, "classic rock" & replacing it with "mainstream rock".

other interesting useless additions include "post rock" (wtf is that?), & 2 categories for punk..........

Why do I care? As a seller, it will now take even longer to list items (they've also added several description check boxes; one is quite interesting "promo"; promos are technically against ebay rules!), AND based on past experience there system will likely not let me bulk relist the thousand of cd's i have on ebay until I manually edit each one to add these changes........

+.......... Their new cd page does not render correctly on Firefox AND They now put there infernally inaccurate "prefilled listings" before the seller's description, which means that most buyers won't even read anything i write...... Let the negative feedback fest begin.

Hate this for you, Geff. And I hate those prefilled listings, too.
As for "post rock," all that comes to mind are those artists whom I'd rather be tied to a post and abandoned than have to listen to...

In my experience, no one cares about those categories.

They come in handy when brick-and-mortar CD shopping, but when I shop online, I search pretty much exclusively by artist and title. I never give the actual music "category" a thought.

I agree with both of you, & was much happier when ebay had few categories & certainly much happier when they didn't make all the useless changes that cost me acres of time.

Ebay's been 99% down for at least the last 3 hours. Search & browse is almost completely broken & only "stores format" is showing up in ebay stores. This is one of the busiest retail days of the year.........

I would guess as internet shopping becomes bigger and bigger each year, we will see more of these glitches.

Which is the day everyone sits at their terminals at work and shops instead of working?

How did things end up going for you, Geff?

Mediocre over the weekend. Ebay was down for most of Saturday, but they were up Sunday & it was a dud also.

I'm currently very concerned about this xmas season. Part of the problem is I'm down to 2 cut out wholesalers, the others have gone out of business. Even one fo the local stores I regularly scavenge for stuff to sell is going under!

I know this is a late addition ( 3+weeks!) but I had a bunch of lps and the 2 Beatles Japan box sets go off during the search outage, and even though everything sold at good prices, I was floored when Ebay sent me an email to tell me that because the outage MIGHT have affected my auction outcomes, they were going to credit my account with all the listing and final fees for everything I had sold that night to the tune of $71 and change. Needless to say, I didn't argue the point.

Good for you!

I didn't get a penny............. though i just had buy it now's ending in that time frame.

For me it wasn't undervalue, it was lost sales on what should have been a very busy shopping day........

eBay Changes Pricing Schemes for Auctions, Struggling to Regain Edge

by Terrence O'Brien — Jan 27th 2010 at 12:14PM
http://www.switched.com/2010/01/27/ebay ... to-regain/

eBay has revealed a new pricing scheme for U.S. auctioneers that claims different listing fees from frequent and occasional sellers.

"eBay Every Day" does away with upfront listing fees (for auctions only, not Buy It Now), and instead charges 9-percent of the final sale price, up to $50. The plan is limited to those sellers who post 100 or fewer listings per month. However, power sellers will instead want to opt for the new 'eBay Stores' subscription plan, which, according to eBay, can save sellers who list 250 items a month as much as $80 on listing fees.

The reaction from users has been mixed. Those who only rarely sell items are particularly miffed, since the removal of listing fees is more than canceled out by the increase of sales fees from 8.75-percent to 9-percent. The new plans will go into effect on March 30th as eBay struggles to regain some of the thunder stolen by Craigslist and Amazon stores.

Grooming its image, eBay lowers listing fees

by Caroline McCarthy
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10441503-36.html

eBay announced Tuesday that it's lowered listing fees for U.S. residents using the auction site to sell products, with new plans geared toward both frequent and infrequent sellers.

A new rate called "eBay Every Day" offers no up-front fee for the sellers of auction-style (rather than flat-rate sale) listings with a starting price of 99 cents or less. Once they've been sold, a fee of 9 percent is appended, with a maximum fee of $50; if the item doesn't sell, no fee is charged to the seller. An individual can do this for up to 100 items per month, which rules out many of the auction sites' "power sellers."

A new plan for those power sellers was also announced Tuesday, called "eBay Stores." The subscription plan entails listings for as low as 3 cents over the course of 30 days, a significant reduction that eBay says can save $80 per month for a seller who lists 250 items for sale in that month.

These new pricing packages will go live on March 30, a few weeks after the first of several "eBay On Location" conferences that the company is hosting around the country. The initial On Location takes place March 19-20 in Atlanta.

In conjunction with the announcement, eBay launched an information hub that proclaims the auction site "The Best Place To Sell Online," with promotional materials ranging from seller testimonies to interviews with executives.

But as active eBay sellers point out in the company forums, there's a flip side to the new listing fees. "They are acting like it's exciting news because they are lowering insertion fees (by 25 cents!), but then the final value fee is 9 percent flat rate, as opposed to the 8.75 percent for the first $25, and then 3.75 percent after that," one seller protested. "I have just started selling, and this is making it really unappealing to sell on here." Another seller in the same thread, meanwhile, expressed a positive reaction.

That's something that eBay continues to grapple with: a community that doesn't always like its policies, plus formidable competition from the likes of Amazon and Craigslist. While eBay beat Wall Street's expectations last quarter, much of that growth was fueled by transaction system PayPal and ticket reselling outlet StubHub rather than eBay's main auction site.

That is one serious understatement! Re: Craigs list: I believe ebay owns around 50%.........

I gave up on selling on eBay long ago. This certainly isn't going to change my mind any.

"Pricing your items competitively will be key to getting visibility."

The above is excerpted from an email. They are already starting this, their intention is to get sellers to give away stuff for a dollar or 2. I like a bargain as well as the next guy, but what ebay seems to want is a ton of Jay & Marie 1 cent cd clones. Great for ebay, great for buyers, puts most sellers out of business.

And as expected, after they banned sellers offering insurance to buyers, they're now offering in house insurance (you also have to use ebay postage printing to buy ebay approved postal insurance). More $'s for ebay. & they're slowly eliminating the Pay Pal "Sellers protection" by having ebay handle not delivered complaints rather then Pay Pal.

Any attorneys on this board feel up to a class action?

I HATE EBAY.

"We're ebay, we don't care, we don't have to".

I've been procrastinating since forever on selling my extra shit on eBay... and every time I turn around, it just seems to get worse.

I just saw an example of what they're actually doing. Once again they're imitating Amazon to the tee. Ebay has stolen so much from Amazon, I find it surprising Amazon has never sued ebay.

Here's 1 example

"Dracula Has Risen From the Grave (DVD, 2004)

New from:
$5.65
Used from:
$3.45"

I so don't miss working there. Hard to believe how much it has continued to decline after 4 years.

I'll bet you've got some stories to tell (& I'd love to hear them!).

I do a little Amazon selling and I have a few items that I thought might do better on Ebay. Now I'm not so sure...

Books seem to do better on Amazon but everything else I can find cheaper on eBay (and by "everything", I mean action figures).