Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

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AuctionBytes Blog
News and insight focusing on
ecommerce and the online auction industry
by Ina Steiner, Editor of AuctionBytes.com

December 01, 2007

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

By: Ina Steiner

Sat Dec 1 2007 12:48:38

Another high-volume seller has left the eBay marketplace. This time, it's liquidator Bargainland. AuctionBytes sat down with Paul St. James to find out why he decided to stop selling on eBay and what Bargainland is up to now. The article will appear in the December 2, 2007 issue of AuctionBytes-Update. (We'll provide a direct link to the story here on Sunday.)

Here's the link to the article (12/3/07).

What do you think this means for eBay? Is it a positive sign that eBay is cleaning up the site and getting rid of low-feedback sellers? Or is it a sign that high-volume sellers can't succeed on eBay? Share your thoughts here.

Comments (52) | Permalink

Readers Comments

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: Joe Doe

Sat Dec 1 14:35:45 2007

This is a sign that eBay is taking a stand against large voume sellers who choose to sell crap and not provide adequate customer service. Large sellers can succeed on eBay with is evident by the thousands of top sellers on the site.

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: Joan Doe

Sat Dec 1 15:35:32 2007

I think it is a sign that high and low sellers can not succeed on Ebay...High Listing Fees + Low Sales Volume = Ebay Recession...

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: Henry

Sat Dec 1 17:04:19 2007

What was Bargainland's feedback score like?

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: Henry

Sat Dec 1 17:08:22 2007

Wow, I just checked it and they are at 90.5%. That is truly pathetic. 1 out of every 10 customers is not pleased with the transaction. I'm surprised they lasted this long. If eBay want to improve the buyer experience, they need to actively kick these people off rather than wait until they go out of business.

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: getreal

Sat Dec 1 19:21:16 2007

I love reading posts like Henry's here, who has neither a clue what he is talking about or any idea whatsoever what it actually takes to sell over 1 million products in that category. Not to mention have the ability to comprehend the idea that eBay itself is the problem. For starters, eBay's feedback system is a joke. It was designed by a guy who himself had no experience selling products for a living. Any moron can leave a negative feedback for whatever reason he or she wants, including whether or not it is raining outside. Anyone who actually takes the time to anylize Bargainland's feedback will notice that an overwhelming majority of negative feedback were left either by new buyers who have either single or low double-digit feedback themselves, or buyers with no common sense. Anyone with 1/2 a brain should be able to understand the concept that sellers who sell "AS IS" products that are advertised as "May or may not function", and starts their minimum bid at .99 cents, is going to attract the dumbest idiots in the world. "As is" sellers attract the worst kind of bottom feeders there are, so why is it a surprise that they don't have stellar feedback? What is amazing is that eBay actually lets these idiots leave feedback in the first place.

Another thing that most people fail to notice is that the very idiots who leave negative feedback for stupid reasons, go on to purchase more items from the same seller. The problem is the feedback system itself, duh! 90% feedback for an "as is" seller is like anyone else having 97%, it's not bad at all. 90% of the buyers who leave negative fb are the ones who need to be removed.

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: Carl

Sat Dec 1 20:17:18 2007

Negative feedback system is just a joke.

You can't tell much by it.

Scenario...newer seller, low item volume. Gets hit with the growing ebay scam...GETTING something for NUTHING.

Scammer buyer looks for newer seller, low feedback count, orders item then complains...either not as described..or better yet, never received, demands full refund.

Newer sellers who sent the item and have USPS confirmation think they're covered, but WRONG....can still get fraudulent feedback and have NO recourse against the buyer unless it fits within the narrow ebay confines for feeback withdrawl. So the seller either loses $$ giving the buyer something for nothing OR they pay for it by getting a really LOW feedback percentage and then low to no future sales.

Basically all of this is another reason just to not look to ebay if one is a smaller sized seller and a newer one.

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: jim

Sat Dec 1 21:02:05 2007

Move over ebay ,its a fact large volume sellers are leaving ebay in droves and starting there own sites .In Australia deals direct have left ebay and started out on there own and have really taken a slice out of ebay aust. i have been an ebay powerseller up until resent , they are without a doubt the most frustrating ,difficult unhelpfull company out there .they will be decimated when a serious ,cometitior has a go .
they are no wear in China , no wear in New Zealand , losing ground in Australia the feedback system is a joke buyers who dont read sellers instructions regularly leave neg feedback and the seller wastes lots of time trying to resolve my message to meg...sell your stock ...or change your practice

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: Cindy

Sun Dec 2 04:31:25 2007

I guess you will all say I drink the eBay koolaid. I am a powerseller with 100% feedback (14765 last I looked). I am happy with it but I work for it. I consider my customer service excellent.

I was a victim of Barginland and never left a negative. I just didn't leave any form of feedback because I was worried about retaliation. I know what I bid on, I know it was 'As Is' and had no problem with it. I just want my item, never arrived, no emails. I would say horrible customer service. I am glad they are gone. It makes it hard for all of us to try to make up for the "bad" customer service sellers. I love eBay. It has allowed me to close a brick and mortar and to stay home.

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: tellyp

Sun Dec 2 04:36:06 2007

Getreal & Carl your so on the money ...ebays feedback system is really a joke & totally stupid as it can by manipulated by any true scammer...just buy 20 ebooks a day ....the stars are also a truly moronic idea.
eBay has lost the magic + a great deal of buyers & sellers as this season is showing

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: Ming the Merciless

Sun Dec 2 05:22:08 2007

Once again what ebay is attempting to do is to transfer as much liability and as many business costs that will enhance THEIR bottom line onto sellers.

What ebay wants are sellers who drink the ebay Koolaid and buy into the language ebay uses to frame their policies. Ebay recently sent Powersellers a brochure that suggested every seller should offer free or deeply discounted shipping and include free gifts with every order.

Does ebay offer to help underwrite these buyer experience enhancing ideas? Of course not, silly! Ebay expects you the seller to further decrease your profitability by bearing these burdens so thaty ebay can increase their profitability.

When competitors engage in the kind of practices that St. James alleges, they are in violation of laws in many states that prohibit interfering with a business transaction. And ebay is a co conspirator by permitting it on their site because they have the capacity to find out the IP numbers of those who illegally SABOTAGING another seller. But what you can expect from a company who in practice approves of threats of physical violence because a seller won't give a discount and refuses to suspend the member making the threat even when done through ebay's own mailing system.

Moreover, ebay's proposed new feedback concept in which they're threatening to automatically leave positive feedback for buyers who pay immediately with PayPal is a blatant and egregious example of interfering with a business transaction. Ebay has no legal right to leave ANY kind of feedback on behalf of a seller. NONE. And if they think building such a policy in to the user agreement shields them, they are 100% wrong.

And so much for believing ANYTHING ebay says about any topic. This secret detailed seller feedback is another example (just like the hidden user ID bidding that goes on that increases sales prices and ebay's cut but is an open invitation to shill bidding) of ebay's ongoing campaign of lies and deceptions to sellers. So much for ebay ''transparency.'' So much for ebay being ''just a venue.'' So much ebay's annual lies about not making major platform changes in the third quarter.

What sellers have become -- one new policy at a time -- are unpaid ebay employees so be sure to call your local IRS office and complain. You can do so anonymously.

Ebay management has succeeded in this decade only because the economy, though much weaker than it once was in 1990s, has allowed them to regularly unveil unnecessary and unconscionably high fee hikes to increase the value of their stock which is an important component of Meg and Bill's compensation packages. They think only in terms of quarterly increments. They don't have nor have they ever had a VIABLE long term business strategy except to soak sellers for as much as they can get BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY (legal or otherwise) for as long as they can. Their idea of thinking something through is like the ''ideating'' commercial currently running on TV. They are institutionally incapable of seeing beyond their outstretched hands.

When their tenuous house of cards falls as seller as after says sayonara to the dead corporation walking, Meg, Bill, and their lame brain minions will be out of there so fast your head will spin.

Yes, people can and should leave ebay. But, in addition to making URS complaints which we all can do NOW anonymously, exiting sellers should file massive consumer/civil/criminal complaints with their state Attorney General and the California Attorney General as they leave. And if you have complaint(s) about PayPal, the above three plus the Nebraska Attorney General.

What we all have to understand that ebay has no core business ethics whatsoever, and the only ''community'' value they subscribe to is the value of taking more and more money from sellers without providing any seller experience enhancements and providing as little of their laughable customer service as they can possibly get by with.

Ebay is an unregulated monopoly that violates the Sherman Anti Trust Act in so ways they're too numerous to mention here. And nothing would make this seller happier than to see Meg, Bill, and the other varicious, overpaid, arrogant, and underexperienced yuppy dot commer members of their management team join Enron executives in federal prison for engaging in monopolistic, anti competitive schemes designed to ruin or shut out their competition, make ssellers unpaid employees, design search pages that take buyers away our listings, by having conveniently technical problems that increase the likelihood you won't your item which is exactly what ebay want$, their defective scheduling platform in my ebay double list single items and relist already sold items without a seller's knowledge, stripping one or more photos from listings -- the list is endless AND THEY GET AWAY WITH IT!

And if a seller complains too long and too loudly about getting the fee refunds they're entitled to when ebay screws up a listing or several hundred in my case, then your communications suddenly become ''unprofessional'' and you lose your dedicated powerseller phone and email support.

There is NOTHING ebay won't do to mess over sellers large or small. NOTHING.

Sellers can fight back by leaving AND sellers can fight back by documenting and filing complaints with their state's Attorney General's Office or getting an attorney to take a class action suit on contingency.

As the film character Howard Beale once said, ''I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!''

Quit being a seller wuss and GET MAD, sellers! Ebay is r*ping us.

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: jsicolts

Sun Dec 2 06:36:04 2007

BargainLand was no bargain. Shoddy merchanisde, very slow delivery time & extra high shipping and handling, BUT that should not be eBay's concern - they are simply a listing platform. We would like to sell more sellers leave eBay as well.

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: Peter Leeflang - CEO Leeflang Archive Corp

Sun Dec 2 07:27:11 2007

It is always sad to see another major seller go. I say this out of pure selfishness, since the major sellers attract the bulk of the traffic. The small sellers are just bottom feeders, following the big ones in their path to catch their crumbs.
That does not mean small sellers are bad. Once there are many of them in the path of the big ones, they complete the submarkets, the nichjes, thus creating even more traffic as buyers then come for a 'one stop shopping experience', where both broad and deep product choice availability keep them hooked.

Even Bargainland had its role in this. In a real Capitalist market there will always be buyers for sellers with mediocre service in exchange for bottom prices. Whatever Bargainland was offering in positive value was apparently sufficient to attract tons of buyers, despite their bad rap with some.

Getting rid of those type of sellers is not a good idea of Ebay. It will dry up the marketplace (without sellers there are no buyers) and it also takes away a competitor for other sellers so they are less under pressure to perform best (so expect less service, higher prices from them).

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: Terry

Sun Dec 2 07:33:07 2007

Bargainland did itself in, and especially not from any feedback system on ebay.

Remember when ebay sold items on the site, they didn't start any auctions at 99 cents, but they tell the sellers
that is what the buyers like to see, 99 cent opening bids, or better yet starting at $0.01.

Ebay, is the venue platform for selling, that its main function. If you listen to ebay on how to sell, and what the
buyers like, you might become the next big Powerseller that is losing more than what you take in.

Go to his feedback page, and view the items that he sold for less than $20, and even if he made 1/2 off the S/H
costs, think again of what he paid for the item and what he sold it for. Even go to his new website and check what
he sells for less than its true value, starting at 99 cents.

Sellers on ebay have forgotten the first concept of what ebay is all about. You have items in your closets,
garages, homes, etc. that you don't use and you want to sell them. Or, You are a supplier of goods to other
retail outlets in your area, and you want to sell to the public nationwide or worldwide, ebays the solution.

But you wouldn't start a bid for 99 cents, for an item that you normally sell for, or that you know is worth $100.00.
And take the chance that it sells for more than 99 cents. Especially knowing upfront that 20% of any profits you
make are going to Advertising costs. Or, at least 4 warehouses with all those employees and utilities that you have
to pay.

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: Jay

Sun Dec 2 08:41:01 2007

eBay is simply a venue for buyers & seller. The should let the buyers decide for themselves whom to do business with and whom to not. I applaud Bargainland and wish them much success. eBay needs to keep their nose out of everyones business and run an auction house like real auctions are run.

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: Dan

Sun Dec 2 10:13:04 2007

eBay must remain a venue for buyers and sellers and lead by example and treat others the way they want to be treated. Their new DSR process is flawed. If eBay has changed its community values its time they update their values page http://pages.ebay.com/community/people/values.html

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: Casey

Sun Dec 2 11:03:13 2007

Much of Bargainlands negative feedback was due to non-delivery of products. Had they actually delivered the items they promised to these buyers, their feedback would have been much higher.

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: GlobalJ

Sun Dec 2 11:59:11 2007

Good Bye to Bargainland or better phrased HOWTOGETSCAMMEDONEBAYLAND;

I too was defrauded by them.Purchased 2 items,read the ''AS IS'' terms and even paid the highly inflated shipping because I had a use for the items.Never received in 2 weeks,never received in a month and never received at all,numerous emails and when some one did respond I was threatened by them that I was a scammer (100% positive feeback as a buyer in over 1,000 transactions),I was told they know where I live and I would be better not to mess with them.Course,I received the email after I left them negative feedback after 95 days and they wanted to know how I did that.Freakin idiots.

What did in Bargainland was one thing and one thing only,it's called the transaction is not done when they receive payment,it's called no customer service.Eventually this company will scam the wrong person and they'll be behind bars where they should be.That's what Ebay themselves should do is pursue legal action against scammers like bargainland.

It's better for all Ebay sellers and buyers when a company like Bargainland is gone.And to getreal up above.You sound very much like the email I did receive from them.Absolutely blame all their negatives on inexperienced buyers when it has to do with Bargainlands poor handling of followthru after a sale.

GOOD RIDDANCE TO BARGAINSCAM

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: Jewel

Sun Dec 2 12:49:56 2007

Hooray for Bargainland, now known as Bidtopia for leaving eBay. I'm sure their fees were astronomical. While they were on eBay I must've purchased 60 large furniture items, and I only had a problem with 4 of them and I received partial refunds for all of them. No problem. I think they've had a bad rap with customers who aren't being careful or reading what they are buying. Such as buying 1, 2 or 3 star items and expecting an excellent condition item. They have had problems, but they've been working to fix many of them and I think they've improved much. If I bid on an item and they can't find it, I'm refunded immediately. Out of the 50 items I've purchased off of Bargainland Premier (now Bidtopia) a few were damaged, perhaps in shipping, but I was refunded for them. Bargainland has improved and I give them thumbs up.

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: L

Sun Dec 2 12:53:51 2007

ebay keeps shooting itself in the foot, ''fixing'' things that aren't broken. I closed my ebay store over a year ago when they started gouging a 10% selling commission. My ebay store sold approx 250-300 items per month, but, when you resell competitive items that many others also sell, then 10% FVF is not worth it ... it dropped my profits to less than minimum wage.

The ''stars'' added to ebay's feedback
system sucks. (Note that I have over 5,000 positive feedbacks and a 100% positive rating, so this isn't a sour grapes opinion. The stars system is stupid, and creates more potential problems than it solves.

Having closed my store, my powerseller days on ebay are over and I only sell about 1 item per week there, via auction format. If they implement the ''automatic positive feedback'' idea that is being considered just because buyer pays, I will most likely leave ebay altogether, just on principle. Yet another dumb idea (automatic buyer feedback) by a company that just doesn't get it.

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: jantie

Sun Dec 2 13:28:50 2007

the price of getting bigger than the auction house where you host your activities...

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: Cheryl

Sun Dec 2 16:23:32 2007

I have a mini bookstore on eBay and stocked it mostly with books I purchased from Bargainland auctions. I got some fantastic deals and miss the good old days when their shipping was less expensive. So far their new site doesn't offer anywhere near the books that they sold on eBay, and the shipping charges have increased. My experience was that they dealt well with their mishaps with refunds. Most people who gave them negative fb didn't take the time to learn to use Bargainland's contact system -- maybe it was too complex for novice users and the concept of ''as is'' ''buyer beware'' hard to accept in reality. Sometimes there were blatant mistakes by BL, but not as often as the negative fb would suggest. One time I studied whether the users who gave BL negatives continued using eBay and I found that by far the majority did continue buying, even from BL. There were thousands and thousands of very happy customers, too. I certainly understand why BL left eBay, with the high fees and fb system, and their other problems. But I, for one, sure miss the fun of shopping at BL, and the $60 books for $7. . . .

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: Ed

Sun Dec 2 16:55:58 2007

Good to see they can do just a well on their own site as ebay is run by morons who have ruined the site, ebay has driven away many buyers and created lower sales volume due to their constant changes that are meant to only make ebay money like removing payment options to force people to use Paypal (which ebay takes a percentage), Any business with intelligent employees knows that 30% of on-line buyers will only pay with cash as they don't feel safe using credit cards or revealing personal information yet ebay has removed this option in hopes of forcing people to use paypal and has lost these buyers as a result. This is just one of the many stupid decisions ebay has made and yet i could spend the entire day listing a lot more if i had the time, When ebay was just an auction site were they didn't get involved with the transactions ebay sales were great and everyone i knew sold on ebay, Now that ebay has set all these ridiculous rules sales are terrible and most of my friends have stopped selling on ebay and no one is going to return until ebay is taken over by someone who knows how to run a business properly.

I also find it funny how people are commenting on this persons 90.5 positive rate when i'd rate ebay's positive rate at 5.0 it's ashame that ebay doesn't feel the need to meet the same standards they set for everyone else.

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: tellyp

Sun Dec 2 19:17:33 2007

I really don’t get this, but why is the seller responsible for lost items?...if the item has been sent then there is a receipt of some kind as proof of mailing, so why are the post office or couriers not getting the blunt end of this, millions & millions of lost items yearly must be going somewhere?

Now I mail everything with insurance to cover all these problems…prior to this I would get at least 3-4 people a month saying items not delivered, now with compulsory insurance I have not had 1 non delivery in 7 months?

The big picture of Bargainland moving away from eBay is in reality the tip of the iceberg, a long line of volume sellers are also on the edge waiting to go.

eBay would do well to wake up & realize that in 2008 the internet is so far advanced on sales channels & outlets that their 1998’ish platform is well out of date & fashion, not to mention all this stupid “Fun“ branding by ebay

Almost every medium seller on ebay now has their own website, how very different to only a couple of years ago

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: Patricia

Sun Dec 2 23:36:12 2007

I continue to be totally amazed. At first I felt maybe eBay has thought up a system and it will become clear to me eventually....nope. Its a stupid system contrived by a bunch of ''mental giants'' who can't find their own rear end if they put both hands behind their backs! With all their money you would think - if they cannot lower themselves to actually asking sellers ''what do you need us to do to make it easier for you to make sales?'' - then at least hire experienced people who know what they're doing! Someone said ebay is just tossing ideas against the wall to see what sticks. Looks that way - and in the process they go lower and lower in sales, in traffic, in sellers, in reputation!!

I might add - as though its not laughable enough...that in the midst of the holiday season - when they should be gliding along and not skipping a beat - they choose - as usual to change things and ''look into'' other things. Yes, when a truly competitive site does open - and eventually it will...the stiff breeze you'll all feel is the stampede by sellers getting the *ell out of ebay!

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: mat

Mon Dec 3 01:41:08 2007

every body seems to hate ebay ... but where else do we go ... what other venues come close to eBay??

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: Ron

Mon Dec 3 05:29:32 2007

I only wish BL all the luck in the world on their new site. I'm hopeing the programers he has hire are top notch and gets them to the point that he can come along and cherry pick the larger sellers on ebay to also list on their new site. I'll bring my 30,000 items a little over a 1/4 mil. in rolling inventory to his site I'm ready to move to another sandbox..

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: 4wder

Mon Dec 3 06:53:38 2007

Some sellers have moved to a smaller start-up called oztion. It's gonna take a while to build up but at least they are probably the one that can come close to ebay. Otherwise sellers have only 2 options. Setup their web site (cost, maintain web site, marketing, advertising, you name it) or stop selling.

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: Dennis

Mon Dec 3 09:27:48 2007

>>I'm surprised they lasted this long. If eBay want to improve the buyer experience, they need to actively kick these people off rather than wait until they go out of business. <<

But they apparently also had the highest repeat customer rate on eBay. So there's more to their ongoing success than a simple minded subjective sound-bite FB system.

They didn't go out of business, they took their biz elsewhere and claim to have sales back at their eBay levels.

They sell junk. That's what they say they do. They're definitely a low end supplier. Their customer service was on the par with eBay's so called customer service.

They also had a lot of trouble with eBay's half witted VeRO system

Interestingly, they investigated some of the anti-BL hate sites. The biggest one was run by their biggest customer! I'd expect to see a fat lawsuit, there.

Now we have big sellers and small sellers saying eBay doesn't work. If I owned eBay stock, that would make me nervous.

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: Empires

Mon Dec 3 09:49:29 2007

Can ebay really survive? Sure they can, just watch their stock go up every day. Amazing. Sellers complain (me too), and still end up there. I'm closing my store in Dec., That's $1,400 that ebay will lose monthly. Their find an answer thingy sucks, their restrictions are ridiculous and the prices they bring back to buyers are weak. Need I say more...

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: gcarr

Mon Dec 3 09:57:20 2007

Ya think anyone with some power at ebay cares enough to read and take heed of all of the ebay hate blogs?

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: Gold PowerSeller

Mon Dec 3 11:54:02 2007

I checked Bargainlands feedback and can't understand why he was given a platform on auctionbytes to offer his opinion. His feedback was not only bad, but many of the bad feedbacks were Item not Received. As a seller this is really easy to prove, so I will give the buyer a little more credit. I can see why this seller was warned. High volume does not mean your above all. Ebay's decision was fair.

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: Another Wronged Seller

Mon Dec 3 14:50:49 2007

Ebay fails to understand the most basic things about its own business. Every day I see sellers who have a better grasp of the business than ebays people do.

Different types of sellers generate different levels of satisfaction (feedback). Liquidation sellers like bargainland ineveitably will receive worse percentages than sellers selling new merchandise.

Is the problem with ebay or with the perception of buyers? Buyer can go anywhere and buy item for $20.00 new OR go to ebay and buy item from BL for $10.00 and it is stated that it is a store return and shows signs of use. Buyer receives item and is SURPRISED that the item is not new ( or at least in better shape than they thought) DESPITE WHAt IT SAYS IN THE AUCTION LISTING!

Other buyers buy from sellers that list an item as new and pay the $20.00

The problem is with the buyer who expects to get a $20.00 value for $10.00 and somehow feels ''cheated'' if the don't. Here comes the negative feedback!

Buyers need to be realistic. If you buy from a seller with ''as-is'' merchandise (at a lower price) you can't expect the same levels of new, quality merchandise.

As a long time buyer at BL, I understood that the items weren't new and didn't expect them to be.

Don't buy a chevy and get mad that you didn't get a Mercedes!

I have listed items as used and buyers have negged me for sending them used merchandise even though it said used in the listing. I have gotten negs for the same and been forced to take merchandise back by paypal for selling used items. Make sense????

If ebay can't or won't understand that there will be different feedback levels for sellers of new vs used merchandise and adjust the feedback criteria to reflect it, there will always be a disparity in how liquidation sellers are treated.

Good luck to bargainland! I will miss them on ebay but I will continue to shop on their new site. More lost revenue for ebay.

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: Michelle

Mon Dec 3 16:04:09 2007

The striking thing about Bargainland is that they sold $300K per month through eBay yet only paid $20K in eBay fees. It's quite an achievement to only pay 6.66% of sales.

http://esellerstreet.wordpress.com/2007/12/03/bargainlan
d-leaves-ebay-junk-seller-or-matchmaker/

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: Jerry

Mon Dec 3 16:57:14 2007

Michelle, I’m not sure where you are getting your sales data, but I know for a fact that Bargainlands historical sales ran between 1 – 2 million dollars a month, with fees in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. You may have been just looking at the last few months of transactions on eBay where they were winding down their operations.

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: Ming the Merciless

Tue Dec 4 04:05:29 2007

When individuals engage in the kinds of behaviors that ebay does, they are often diagnosed as suffering from one or more forms of mental illness.

For example, ebay's frenetic (and frantic) but usually short term, hyperactive, and inconsistent shotgun focus on issues such as VERO, knockoffs, postage, the content of ads, etc. suggests their management suffers from chronic attention deficit disorder and impulse disorder. In other words, they're institutionally incapable of rational analysis and creating reasonable solutions to ongoing problems. They simply make wquic, superficial, arbitrary, simplistic, and utterly thoughtless judgments and move on to their next 30 day assault campaign against sellers.

When an individual chronically engages in anti social if not criminal behaviors that harm others without feeling any remorse whatsoever, these people are called sociopaths. When they're convicted of crimes, they go to jail or prison. When a corporation engages in unethical, immoral, or criminal behavior that damages others, however, Wall Street calls them darlings -- just like they did with Enron until the extent of Enron's criminality could no longer be concealed.

Ebay also seems incapable of learning from their mistakes and taking what they've learned from them (if they spent any time at all trying to learn anything useful which is questionable) and then avoiding these mistakes in their present and future strategic planning such as their pathetic, myopic strategic planning is.

How many sellers left ebay over Bill Cobb's genius store listing turnaround last year that was patently unfair to those paying for auction style and Buy It Now listings?

How many European buyers left American sellers when ebay's incompetent techs developed a platform that ''accidentally'' changed sellers' listings from Ships Worldwide to essentially Ship to US only?

How many English buyers quit buying from American sellers in retaliation when ebay removed British listings from the ebay US site?

How many sales are ebay sellers losing when ebay sells links on search pages to YOUR competitors selling on the Yahoo platform? Or, for that, matter, to the refinancing opportunities or weight loss or whatever? And how many of you remember the infamous Hallmark Cards pop-ups in seller listings at Christmas time several years ago?

So what we have here is a corporation whose dominant strategy is to take as much as they possibly can from sellers, create crises through its own ineptitude and greed, and then 'manage' these crises in the most irrational and heavy handed way they can think of.

Ironically, ebay fails to recognize the genuine crises it does face and has adopted an ostrich like and inflexible attitude that's already ignited the fuse towards its own self-destruction.

One of the pop definitions of mental illness is to the same thing over and over again expecting a different result which, I think, applies not only to ebay but to many sellers as well who erroneously believe that tweaking their ebay selling strategies will overcome the exorbitantly high fees that that the unregulated monopoly called ebay charges.

Ebay, you're going up in smoke from your own gross incompetence and mismanagement, and unfortunately you're going to take a lot of good people with you.

Buyer are NOT ebay's customers; they're OUR customers, and both sellers and buyers will migrate to where they're treated fairly, equitably, and HONESTLY -- concepts that ebay left in the dust when Meg Whitman took over.

And I suspect the ebay apologists and plants among us will be the only ones left when ebay as we've known it implodes from its own stupidity and greed.

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: debnroo

Tue Dec 4 05:00:20 2007

Let's see, if I had 1 million past buyers, of which 90% were thrilled to do business with me (and came back again and again), and I could save myself 10-15% of my margin by taking those 900,000 or so buyers OFF eBay after eBay creates arbitrary standards, what would I do?

Leave, obviously.

Look folks, I get your point. But, look on Amazon. LOTS of "featured" sellers with 88% feedback selling tens of thousands of items.

Back in the real world, 98% positive feedback is not realistic. It only occurs because of feedback retaliation on eBay.

On Amazon, people leave negatives without ever attempting to resolve an issue. Sometimes just to vent frustrations that have nothing to do with the transaction or product. And, as a result, it is not the big deal it is on eBay. You are not identified by your feedback - it is just a metric.

In May of 2005, 99% of our business was on eBay. We had presence elsewhere, but the volume was on ebay. In May 2007, 90% of our business was on eBay.

By September, it was down to 60%.

We just reviewed the past two weeks, now 75% of our volume is on Amazon. Same products, HIGHER prices, and they are flying off the shelves on Amazon. eBay business is down 30% YOY, and everyone wants a discount. A gazillion emails to deal with, the site is constantly broken, and nothing but lip service from the staff.

We are not making this happen, buyers are. People are sick of eBay lip service, and the tipping point has been reached.

Those of you still defending eBay are doing so on an academic level. Whatever your feelings are, the fact remains that eBay is losing buyers and sellers in droves.

eBay gave away the dream business model of a lifetime. It is sad.

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: brian

Tue Dec 4 12:34:54 2007

I'm a small scale ebay buyer/seller for 8yrs. I agree with the knowledgeable posts like debnroo. Here is a personal example how 'wrong' their 'system' is. I order and pay immediately via paypal for expensive item from a seller with mostly all good feedback. Half the item never arrives. Go through their 'ebay/paypal resolution'. They close it out without even contacting me when seller posts a tracking number for half the shipment?!! Then seller proceeds to call me lots of names, and leave me neg retaliatory feedback. With ebay 'system' I have no recourse. Turns me away from them, and looking for a better site! Or how about "no reserve" folks who 'end the sale early' when the bids aren't meeting their reserve they wanted?! again no recourse. I've written them to suggest things, yes, only lip service and automated emails. They suck. I order from amazon.com now, and in fact yesterday I put my IRA savings into their stock amzn exclusively. Tells you where I think the future is, and others above see it even clearer than me.

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: Ming the Merciless

Wed Dec 5 05:12:31 2007

I think an excellent case could be made that a substantial part of ebay's growing unattractiveness as a sales platform is a growing group of very troublesome buyers. And while these irrational types are still a minority of ebay buyers, their numbers have grown to the point where they've become a problem that ebay refuses to address so as not to break the magic spell of the mystical "buyer experience."

These are people who must ask ten questions in ten separate emails before buying IF they buy which more often as not they don't. Emailing is a form of recreation for many lonely, unhappy window shoppers.

How about the chronic whiners who constantly complain about everything. When it becomes a problem, the constant complainers go to my blocked bidders file.

Many ebay members have a very strong sense of entitlement -- if they ask for discounts, sellers are supposed to give them to them. And it's nearly always people you've never done been business with who want discounts. And, of course, there's always some newbie seller who'll be out of business in six months willing to give these jerks discounts.

They make demands they would NEVER make in brick and mortar stores and who make extremely rude, hostile, and sometimes threatening comments they wouldn't have the courage to make to you face.

And how about the alcoholics, other substance abusers, and the mentally ill who make completely irrational demands, are verbally abusive, engage in a wide variety of ebay dirty tricks, and who make false and often bizarre accusations? These people take a lot seller time -- time that could be spent making money. And still ebay does nothing even when these types of communications go through their own email system.

After all, ebay doesn't want to lose the paranoid schizophrenic, bipolar, or alcoholic demographic. Now I am NOT anti mentally ill; I just don't think that ebay should look the other way at certain behaviors, and I don't think if a member has a history of leaving inaccurate and unfair feedback that ebay should continue to allow them to even leave feedback.

Efforts in the past to have 'no listing days' have largely failed because ebay would simply schedule a promotion. But if every seller on Ina's distribution list switched to Amazon for a month and ignored any ebay promotion, it would get ebay's attention.

Listings -- or lack thereof -- is the only thing ebay understands because ebay is joined at the hip with the corrupt Wall Street folks who thought so highly of Enron.

These are the greedy sharks who hate customer service because true service detracts from profitability, who lick their collective lips when ebay expropriates someone else's software so they don't have to expend re$ource$ developing their own (Buy It Now lawsuit comes to mind that ebay has lost), who love unjustified fee increases, hidden fee increases, and platform 'malfunction' fee increases because they increase profitability, and who love the fact that ebay is an unregulated monopoly that, among other violations of the Sherman Anti Trust Act, seldom follows its own policies when those policies involve refunds owed to sellers. They behave in this manner because they can get away with it because they know the largely compliant, almost anesthetized sellers will put up with it or leave ebay.

Ebay operated under the delusion that when one seller left, more would take their place. Not so anymore. Partly because of the slowing economy but mostly because most ebay users are fed up with ebay's corporate arrogance and their erratic heavy handed tactics against sellers.

As long as ebay is a cash cow for stock holders at the expense of sellers, nothing will change unless YOU start complaining to state regulatory agencies such as the your state's Attorney General because what goes on on ebay far, far transcends a simple consumer complaint.

Boys and girls, can you spell R-I-C-O?

Read a little about the Robber Barons and Teddy Roosevelt and the Trustbusters! Ebay is a modern day robber baron and YOU the seller -- sorry to mix historical metaphors here -- are little more than an unpaid indentured serf.

If ebay needs better class of sellers, then ebay needs a better group of buyers even more. But most of all, ebay needs a better class of executive!

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: indyattic

Sat Dec 8 12:10:07 2007

Terry is wrong. THe beauty of eBay used to be in starting auctions at .99, and seeing how high the final price would go. I sold lots of things for more than I thought they were worth early on.

Then eBay "helped" by adding the "watch" feature and killed early bidding. (I know, everybody loves "watch" but it killed the true auction. Period.)

It's only when everybody started demanding that eBay "protect" them that things started to truly fall apart. PayPal brought in the fraudsters, not feedback.

The mentality of buying something from a place that specifically indicates "as is! No Refunds/No Returns" then calling yourself a victim just shows that the inmates are running the asylum that is eBay.

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: david

Thu Dec 13 15:24:59 2007

I recently became a victim of eBay's SPNC warning. The issue was that I got too many Neutral feedbacks. I previously would never attempt to have a withdrawal of a Neutral, however, i would attempt to address the issue identified. Ebay let me know that they count Neutrals as Negatives. How utterly ridiculous!

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: Wholesalemotorcyclegear

Sat Dec 22 23:53:12 2007

eBay has driven more than a few sellers away with their autocratic take it or leave it attitude. My experience as a seller has been very similar to Bargainland's. I originally had three profitable stores on eBay two of them were shut down at one time or another without warning. Due to no fault of mine. I have moved my wholesale store to Yahoo and set up a mirror retail store on Yahoo also. I not longer spend any advertising dollars on the eBay stores and I am concentrating my efforts on building the non eBay business. I hope to bid ebay Adieu in the next year.

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: jagswim

Wed Dec 26 23:44:01 2007

I have bought from Bargainland on ebay and on their own site. I am about to bid adieu to Bargainland. They've sent me empty boxes filled with school papers, not the item listed on the box. Sheet sets that have a sheet missing. VCRs that don't work. I've bought beautiful statues that have arrived smashed because of horrible packaging. I picked up a bike carrier that turned out to be a snowboard/ski carrier. The items are not rated properly. They are not checked before they are shipped. They are poorly packaged. And the servers are so jammed at certain times that it is impossible to place a bid for sometimes an hour. Add that to the time invested filing out a service ticket and taking photographs, and then repackaging and going to UPS and having to re-seal packages once you have put all the UPS info INSIDE the box that Bargainland requires, well as the UPS lady pointed out, they should be paying me by the hour.

While it's true they have neat returns from overstock and other companies, the lack of respect of bargainland for their customers is so profound that from now on if I find something interesting on Bargainland I'll just search overstock or ebay or do a general google and pay the extra money. I've been sniping all my auctions on ebay for years and I am no longer willing to plan my day so that I am back at the computer in time to bid on an item only to find that I can't get through to bid. Or after putting out so much effort to bid on an item only to have bargainland post it in such a shabby fashion that I am now amazed when anything arrives not broken and as described. This company truly deserves a 90% rating. In fact I kinda wonder why it as so high!

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: hello

Wed Jan 2 17:36:40 2008

Bargainland gets no sympathy from me; in fact, I'm pleased to learn they have been thwacked by eBay. I believe that a large percentage of the items they sold were damaged beyond use (containing no salvageable parts) and typically were cleverly misrepresented within the text of Bargainland's item descriptions -- often with the copout ''unable to test'' or ''untested'' disclaimer and FREQUENTLY using the innocuous-seeming ''open box'' descriptor. Well, ''open box'' does not equate with ''visibly smashed'' ~~ which acccurately describes the condition of several items I concurrently purchased from them. REPEAT buyers? No, I suspect many other people placed bids on multiple concurrent Bargainland auctions... wound up burned and feeling like a chump... and utilized their only (and seemingly futile) recourse, across several years, by placing their cumulative scathing (and accurate) feedback.

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: Roy Smith

Sun Jan 6 21:02:45 2008

I saluate ebay from kicking them out.
At first, I thought ebay owns Bargainland. Since they are kick out, now they change my mind. It is about time!
Bargainland not own rip off buyers, but they also do harm to other ebay sellers. They had the courage to stole
my pictures from my web site and used the pictures for their ebay auction. It take alot of time to finally made them stop.

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: Lisa

Fri Jan 11 21:03:13 2008

After doing a bit of research to find out what happened to Bargainland, I was surprised at all the horrific comments and website postings about them. I bought a few items from them. Granted, customer service was non-existent and shipping was high, but I guess I was luckier than most. I bought a brand new HP color laser printer for a fraction of retail, and it's worked perfectly for a year now. I saved hundreds. What confuses me most about the negativity though is the recurring theme that unhappy customers CONTINUED TO PURCHASE from them. Because of that, I have to wonder about the validity of their claims. I have to applaud the man for leaving Ebay to start his own site, which apparently has been successful. I wish I had the following to do the same.

Somewhat off topic: I agree with many of the comments made here about Ebay in general. I am a platinum powerseller with over 14,000 feedbacks and a 99.8% rating. I am frustrated over Ebay's constant position to favor buyers over sellers. While I realize buyers are absolutely necessary to the process, it is the sellers who pay the Ebay fees.

Non-subtle systems put in place by Ebay that snub the seller in favor of the buyer are astounding. For example, the ability of a buyer to leave anonymous ratings for sellers, while sellers cannot do the same for buyers, seems absurd. This may come as a shock to Ebay: THERE IS MORE TO BEING A GOOD BUYER THAN PAYING IN A TIMELY MANNER. I can't tell you the absurd and unfounded complaints I've received. I once even had a buyer threaten to send her burly husband to my house to beat up me and my family because she didn't like the smell of the rug she had purchased. She paid promptly. Do buyers like her deserve positive feedback? Of course not. And if Ebay is seriously considering making automated positive feedback for all buyers who pay immediately through Paypal, that will be the end of my Ebay association. It's absurd.

Thanks for letting me rant, even though most of it was off topic.

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: bobfixitall

Wed Jan 30 20:32:04 2008

I Think what it comes down to is people are getting tired of ebay, i know i am, there fees are rediculous, i can only imagine how much money was being sent to ebay every month from ebay, everyone knows what kind of merchendise they were selling ebays new feedback is ridiculous and is going to hurt them in sales more then they know.

you take away big sellers on ebay and your left with punk kids and petty thieves.

as a seller on ebay I am glad to see this its going to take some hard financial hits for ebay to start reconizing us, and giving us the respect we deserve.

we started the company we can shut it dow just as fast as it was created.

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: Angge

Tue Apr 15 20:15:21 2008

Barginland auctioned off an MMO as "This
Subscription Card... provides a 60-day subscription". I am familiar with MMOs, so I read and reread the description and asked if it came with 60 days of play time, but what I got was a CD for a game already activated and with no subscription time. They refused to refund my money under the old "it said open box in the description" line.

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: bill

Tue Jul 8 11:08:34 2008

I ordered something which never came and when I called the customer service rep she acturally laughed at me and hung up and gave me bad rating.
I am so glad they are gone

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: jennifer

Fri Aug 22 01:10:06 2008

I never had any problem's with Barginland! I believe EBAY'S FEEDBACK POLICY is very screwed up and totally unfair! I just got suspended and have to STRONGLY AGREE with what was said earlier:

''Scammer buyer looks for newer seller, low feedback count, orders item then complains...either not as described..or better yet, never received, demands full refund.

Newer sellers who sent the item and have USPS confirmation think they're covered, but WRONG....can still get fraudulent feedback and have NO recourse against the buyer unless it fits within the narrow ebay confines for feeback withdrawl. So the seller either loses $$ giving the buyer something for nothing OR they pay for it by getting a really LOW feedback percentage and then low to no future sales.''
Does anyone know of any sites like Ebay? I am a mother of 4 and this WAS my income.. If anyone knows of any sites plz email me at carmoletta@att.net

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: DeMars

Wed Oct 22 14:45:53 2008

When Bargainland first started on Ebay I like everyone else was intrigued by this new seller. They had lots of stuff for cheap. Their ads were deceptive because they stated that the items were AS-IS but that they worked... so of course you bought into it thinking maybe they are just a little scratched up or something. Out of 8 purchases with them, 7 were defective and DOA (dead on arrival). Trying to get resolution with them is impossible because they just go back to the ''AS-IS'' clause.
The other big complaint people have is that they either loose the merchandise or send the wrong item. Since I'm in AZ, I just drove down to their warehouse to pick up my items and even there was told ''We can't find it'' or ''Sorry, it's been shipped/sold to another customer.'' They wouldn't do any dispute resolution through the mail and just asked me to come back to speak to the warehouse manager. Needless to say they gave me the run-around. SO LESSON LEARNED... if it seems too good to be true in the case of Bargainland, it's crap and that's all your are going to get.

For all of you haters out there that say ''Well, what did you expect from an AS-IS?'' Look, I'm legally competent.. I know what AS-IS means however in those original auctions (and maybe later on as well) they described ALL the items I bid on to be in WORKING order and TESTED yet fell back on the AS-IS to cover themselves. That would be like me Selling you a Fendi bag as AUTHENTIC and later when you came back to me saying ''OH, but it SAID AS-IS.'' That's just deceptive adverstising plain and simple.

As far as the feedback system... it royally sucks for both Sellers AND Buyers. It really comes down to who knows eBay's stupid rules and how to play them. Early on I bought a kitchen aid mixer ($200) from a Seller and when it didn't arrive after 3 weeks and no response to my emails I gave her negative feedback. She came back was able to get my neg fdbk removed and my account suspended b/c my PHONE # was incorrect...look when I joined eBay (when it originally started) filling out your personal info was voluntary so I never gave them my #. Needless to say this B**ch used that to her advantage and gave ME negative feedback saying that my office refused the shipment. When I finally got ahold of the tracking number I saw that SHE mailed it to a completely different address than what was on Paypal or Ebay. When I sent this to eBay.. they didn't care. They are BY FAR one of the WORST customer service oriented companies EVER! I had proof that she completely lied and they didn't care. I watched her feedback for months and saw how other ppl left neg feedback and it was later removed. Eventually her account was suspended for too many neg feedbacks and they were complaining for the same reasons I did.. not receiving the merchandise and no return of emails. She later changed her store name and continued selling and getting neg fdbck... that store was closed down but I'm sure she is probably still out there doing the same thing under a different name. So you see it's not just Sellers that get screwed.

Internet User Beware & good luck!

D.

p.s. If you are wondering about the mixer.. yes I did receive it FINALLY 2 months after I ordered it. Originally I wanted a refund because I didn't want her to make any $$ from me but I'm guessing eBay forced her to ship it since I proved through UPS tracking that I never received it. I ordered it in late Nov for a Xmas present...got it in time for Valentine's.

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: Pat

Wed Dec 31 10:33:17 2008

Even tho it's been a while since any comments made, i feel the need to tell my story. I had bid on a ''new- in the box'' serger, and won the bid. The price was around $125.00. Sent my payment with Pay Pal and a week later recieved a blindhemmer that was in need of repair. Called and was told to mail it back, which cost me approx. $30 thru UPS. They told me i would be refunded the shipping. They lied. I actually lost money on the deal. The serger that I supposedly won was not available anymore. What? Part of my shipping was not refunded. In hindsight, I should have kept the blindhemmer and had it repaired. Then sold it.......would have been more profitable for me. Guess we sometimes have to learn the hard way.

Bargainland Bids Adieu to eBay

by: David

Wed Mar 18 16:05:49 2009

I bought 4 pieces of furniture. 1 arrived with no problems. In short, the other 3 did not. 1 of the remaining 3 was not even close to the item I won. They insisted I was lying and I had to take photographs of the shipping labels and contents as proof.
The two remaining items never came. It took 2 months of phone calls to very rude folks before I got a refund. You won't believe how long it took and to what extent it took to get a working number to the business. They were not happy about me calling.
Email correspondence was a joke. Once a problem was addressed, a different ''customer service rep'' on every returned email would give their take on it and indicate that I was obviously lying.
One last thing is that they demanded immediate payment but took 2 months to refund the selling price and I still had to argue after that to get the shipping charges.
All the fancy ''feedback'' verbage you want to use will not explain why they treated me with such contempt.
To the folks that bought items and had good luck....I'm proud for you.
I was not as lucky as you.
I paid immediately and spoke politely and professionally in all my conversations and emails. I did not receive the same treatment.
Eventually, they will get what they deserve.
dc

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