eBay promised to take a vertical approach to its website, so instead of one-size-fits-all policies and features, it would offer flexibility in order to account for different types of items.
But what we’re seeing is customization in only a few categories, and this week saw another example of that playing out.
eBay announced on Wednesday it will soon launch a feature to make it faster for sellers to list certain types of trading cards.
It’s easy to see why eBay is working hard to appeal to buyers and sellers in the sneakers category – sneaker platform StockX presumably took some share away from eBay as it grew in popularity.
It’s harder to see why eBay is making such a move in trading cards, unless it sees it as a guinea pig for collectibles as a whole.
Here’s an excerpt of Wednesday’s announcement that will make it possible to scan-and-list certain trading cards quickly:
“Beginning in late April, sellers will be able to scan their trading cards using eBay’s mobile apps for iOS and Android to create a listing in half the time. The new selling tool will support Magic the Gathering cards at launch and expand to Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh! in May, followed by sports trading cards and other collective card games later this year.”
Let us know what you think; you can find the full announcement on the eBay corporate blog.
Ebay is running scared as they are losing more and more collectible business to almost any and all sites due to their pathetic way of dealing with the Buyer Scams. The most recent that I have been reading about is International purchases using the GSP system with Ebay as usual giving the buyers an unreasonable delivery date and when that passes the buyers are filing claims that Ebay is settling in the Buyers favor in a matter of hours and immediately taking the money from the Sellers account. A recent one that I read about was for a $1700 sale of a card and the buyer filed the first chance they could with the tracking showing it as still in transit and they got their money from the Sellers account within a matter of hours even though according to the policies i last read on GSP, the Seller is not responsible for things once it reaches GSP which this item had. Now that seller is out $1700 and the card and Ebay is responding with their normal crickets.
I recently closed my stores on Ebay because i saw the writing on the wall with the way they are handling Mangled Payments and have taken down ALL of my listings on both Selling Accounts. More and more trading card sellers are seeing how useless the PWE tracking is as all it does is set you up for defects for late shipping due to not being scanned until it happens to reach a sorting facility where the scan actually happens and now they are looking at potential 5% FVF penalties being put on their accounts which was their plan all along, just another money grab. Somehow this one will become just another one of those money grabs if the Sellers are stupid enough to fall for it and trust Ebay once again. They are also starting to complain about the lack of usable reports to see what Ebay is actually taking out for themselves before sending them their money and many have been noticing the amounts being withheld are not matching up at all with the current FVF rates or other costs. Pure desperation is continuing to settle in at Ebay and they have to find some other way to make up all the fees they are losing on their 0% FVF for sneakers as even the authentication services are not coming close to making up the lost revenue.
These clowns they continue to hire as executives are nothing but bottom of the barrel recruits which is all Ebay can attract with their reputation and requirement that the executives have no moral ethics before getting hired. All those with any moral ethics left during Wenigs regime when they saw what a crook he was and did not want their names or careers stained by being associated with him. Now Iannone has shown he has no more scruples than Wenig did, which is the reason they finally hired him evidently. While every other online selling platform has seen their stock prices skyrocket since the pandemic started Ebays stock has been basically flat despite Ebay buying back billions of dollars worth of their own stock. They have no idea that the only way they are going to continue to keep sellers or grow is to fix the problem with the Buyers constantly scamming them and actually doing something about it. But we all know that Ebay needs that money from the scammers to stay afloat as many of them turn around and resell their items on Ebay. Another site has recently popped up for selling Trading Cards and I am already trying it out and have been giving other sellers the link as well as the buyers since it is much cheaper than Ebay and gives the Seller a much better chance of not getting scammed!!
Good Luck Ebay – you are going to once again need it as all the Sellers are starting to see through your games and are now looking for better sites to list on as also buy on.
I have invested a substantial amount of time to build stamp and color slide listings from item specifics imported from Excel into a SQL database with software to convert item specifics data to listings. Would anything eBay tries would be compatible or as efficient? What has eBay done to help sellers rapidly create accurate and effective listings? I hope that third-party applications like SixBit are not impacted.
What’s eBay coming to? First they focus on sports shoes and now on sports cards. And of course refurbished crapola. Is this their new direction and everything else is just dog food???
sierra 🙂
those 3 are the low hanging fruit that eBay thinks it can fix/change.
eBay got into sneakers because other sites were kicking their behinds. eBay hates to be embarrassed – even when they themselves cause it all (the HEAVY amount of fake items in MANY categories) that they refuse to deal with. Some of the ones Ive seen say REPRODUCTION in the title/description … “oh come on man” – can they at least take THOSE down?
The refurbished items game is of course MONEY. You pay to get into the category (front page advertising, priority in listings) and eBay makes out like a bandit! Try to get into it OR list your item as manufacturer refurbished and eBay stops you. Its the same way a few years back when eBay decided to play policeman and kick sellers of Marshal, G-Shock, Skullcandy and Sony items … anyone that didnt pay eBay (the VIG)(aka mafia) – their items were “of course” fakes – even if you had invoices saying otherwise ….
As for cards – eBay again taking it on the chin. They though they had a winner with the new finagled shipping – but it was a bust! OOPS. The 2 Walmart dopes couldnt peel an egg together … never mind run eBay. eBay though has no shame – keep on keeping on and pretend all is well ….
When its not.
SIK is right about eBays stock. What keeps eBay afloat is people like the idiots on Seeking alpha. There like on other places – they all swear (up n down) on eBays SEC statement – and the stellar growth the company (is obviously NOT) doing. Saying otherwise makes you enemy#1 and a grumpy seller ……. for them – the only truth is what they say it is … so they buy the stock and keep the company going.
As soon as most in the US go back to work and/or Covid “goes away” … eBay will again drop like a stone … cant be helped – the people running it have rocks in heads.