Does anybody remember one recent post of mine about eBay problems? Well, they did not get solved, they got worse. To sum things, I can no more list, relist or modify any items on eBay. ANY eBay. The official reason? I cant' exceed 50,000 (yes, fifty thousands) dollars of sales in a given month or 2,500 items on sale at any moment. Well, I can assure you I have never been able to list 50,000 dollars of items anytime and at the moment I have around 1500 items listed.   When I wrote to the customer service telling this, I simply got no replies so far (I wrote them on December, 13...). Calling the eBay Powerseller customer (dis)service got me this answer: sorry, it's a decision from Upper Management in Luxemburg, we see you are right, we can call/email/poke the management there and they will surely answer you, why don't you send another email (I sent them an email every day!). Alas, I got this answer on every day I called from December 13, to December 20 (today).    This morning I was told that because the limit was expressed in US dollars, it must have been something decided by Evil Americans because eBay Italy would use euros, not dollars...    but eBay US told me: it's an eBay Italy thing, we can't help you, call them... Again?    Any suggestions besides 'suck it up'    would be appreciated...

Sounds like you are lost in the big machine

Hopefully things work out for you

I have already a second eBay account I used to buy, but I decided to focus on my main account to reach more quickly the 'magic number' of 10,000 feedback that makes a very big impression on buyers.    eBay Italy told me to open a second store while things are being 'surely sorted out in a few days'   but my problem is: I'm very much within such limits of 50,000 dollars in sales and 2500 items listed...  

it's a decision from Upper Management in Luxemburg, we see you are right, we can call/email/poke the management there and they will surely answer you

I would contact them again and have them get involved. I know in the corporate environment I am in - If a dissatisfied individual goes far enough up the ladder then a resolution is handed down from the ivory tower.

Michael

These are great suggestions but sadly I have already tried them. They keep telling me that talking with Luxemburg is like talking to the gods of Olympus and sorry sorry sorry you can't talk with our supervisors... and believe me, I'm calling every day. No, I can't afford to close the ebay store, but I have opened another one and started selling there - alas, a 600 feedback has not the same pulling power of a 9000+ one...  

mbassoc2003 wrote:If they have made a mistake, and you can prove it, and they are having a quanifiable impact on your business, and you can prove that, sue them in the small claims court for breach of contract.

Unfortunately justice in Italy is not very reliable, especially for small businesses against big corporations. But I'll give this a try. Meanwhile, I ha found a way around the block drastically reducing my items for sale to enter the limit (it seems it was 1500 and not 2500...   ).

mbassoc2003 wrote:If you seriously do this as a business, especially if you are using it as a secondary outlet to supplement a physical stopfront, it seems most retailers use more than one eBay name, from small players like my local game store that has multiple eBay names, to big stores like Sony and the likes.

After pondering things out I decided to open a second store, Merlino Comics & Books & More selling all non game related merchandise. Problem is: the Lure of Feedback...    Having a 9100 feedback is far better than having a almost 700 feedback... But at the moment books and comics are not a primary source of income so I can wait.

Christmas was a VERY busy season, I shipped parcels every day in Italy and in foreign barbarian language speaking countries   and I saw many customers in my physical location.  

Ah, you will be interested in knowing that eBay customer service did not reply to my messages, the first one being sent on December 13...  

Beyondthebreach wrote:I would not sweat the feedback issue . . . I can't speak for everyone, but I like to see feedback in that 200-3000 range.  Once the feedback goes higher, I automatically start assuming that the customer service will go down . . .
.

Well, I answe quickly and personally anyway, my experience says people by far prefer high feedback to low feedback... I can't wait to reach the 10,000 feedback milestone  

TheHistorian wrote:
You should also consider how long the account has been open.  If that's 10000 feedback over 10 years, that's a lot smaller seller than if it's all in the last year or two.

Fair point. And you can always ask a question to the seller and notice 1) how long it takes to answer you 2) if seller uses a robo response    or is really talking to you  

Me, I can't wait to hot the 10,000 mark. I already noticed a big boost as soon as I was around 8,000...