Before you go any further get familiar with how the auctions work, different types and what you can sell. Take action by starting to buy and sell. Don’t be worried if you make any small losses its all part of learning the ropes. Really there is no substitute for actually getting hands on experience of what sells and how and what does not. No guide could really give you that vital knowledge other you trying it for yourself.

However there are a few guides out there that can help you get a head start on some crucial strategies such as the excellent http://www.freeebaytips.com but again you must realise that without trying and making mistakes any guide will not give you that magic formula.

Hear, hear!

I do not think this is what they are doing – from my perspective, eBay themselves are deciding who buyers purchase from.

If eBay were just giving sellers a DSR score & not penalising sellers, then buyers would be able to make up their own minds with the information available. By dishing out 30-day suspensions & restricting visibility, eBay are directly affecting who buyers can choose from.

Also, most of Dan’s points above centre around sellers’ inability to leave negs. I do not think this is what is causing the most anxiety – many sellers (myself included) don’t indeed care about this, but low DSR’s & 30-day suspensions while eBay dismiss us as ‘dolphins in the net’ & do nothing to cut us out, are quite another matter.

I feel the rationale behind DSR’s & suggestions that ‘excellent sellers have nothing to worry about’ are perhaps a little naive. For instance, we went through a period of sending most of our products via Royal Snail. The net result was a) lower postage costs to buyers (which would be beneficial to our DSR’s), b) slow delivery times (which would not), & c) a ridiculous number of parcels going missing, with literally entire sackloads mobile phones regularly going missing at once. While the people we spoke to at our local depot admitted they suspected staff members of theft, parcels & sacks did not stop disappearing, or even resurface once they had.

So in order to ensure fast, reliable delivery & thus serve our customers better, we have pretty much been forced to use a reliable courier. The net result is higher postage prices & therefore a borderline DSR rating for postage costs. Our margins prevent us from reducing the postage price & factoring these costs into the auction price.

From eBays’ POV, I should give my buyers cheap & reliable delivery. In reality, I (and everyone else who works here) have yet to find a way to achieve both. We have tried everything we can think of but the net result is finger-wagging from eBay employees saying ‘aha, you would find a way if you were an excellent seller’.

Then there’s the whole negative feedback schebang. All of my negs are from non-payers. Without the dispute hub eBay have promised us, I have to seriously ask whether I can initiate UPI disputes or if these could result in my account being suspended – purely for following eBays’ rules. Such is the prevalent fear of being ‘witch-hunted’ at present. But then again, if I was an ‘excellent seller’, my buyers would magically pay for everything, not fail to respond to all friendly contact & not threaten to stab me when I refuse to supply expensive items for free. And not email me saying ‘I’m not buying this but send me £10 or I’ll neg you’ – yes, we really have had that before.

Conclusion – if eBay are going to enforce these measures with a Macarthyesque gleam in their eyes, I want more input from them as to how I can improve my buyers’ experience. And why not – they’re clearly no longer ‘merely a venue’?