I believe eBay is working on the more seamless checkout that will deliver the shopping experience you’re describing and that Amazon has perfected. It of course started without a payment system and, in order to grow the marketplace, have given sellers a lot of flexibility on payment options. The restriction of no-paper-money in October is the first step towards streamlining this.

This is one of eBay’s biggest failings. They’re too busy flogging the sellers to take the time to find out what the problems are in the marketplace. Trust is a major reason why buyers won’t shop on eBay. Buyers need to be certain they won’t be taken for a ride by sellers and so far, eBay hasn’t done enough to fix that. They’re depending on the buyers’ ratings to weed out bad sellers instead of being more proactive in getting rid of them first. eBay needs to add some kind of seller qualification up front, before allowing anyone to list. Then they need to take ownership of the whole checkout process, just like Amazon has done. Integrate Paypal completely and make it seamless (and fast). Take ownership and responsibility for all of that, to protect buyers *and* sellers from the bad apples. Buyers and sellers both, are wary or Paypal and the blogs abound with tales of people losing their money because of them. Paypal makes you do back flips in order to qualify for either buyer or seller protection, so that really needs to change if they expect to beat out competing services like Amazon Checkout.

eBay made a little progress, but are focusing on the wrong things and aren’t tossing enough carrots to the smaller sellers who bring diversity to the marketplace. Give all of the sellers, not just the big powersellers, financial incentives to ship products quickly and provide great pricing and customer service, and then protect the transaction on both ends via Paypal. They might find that people might be more encouraged to do more buying and selling if they take all of that into account.

Bring back ClickRiver!

..How absurd! OF COURSE customers aren’t always going to do what you want. If businesses could expect perfect communication and behavior from their customers, there would be little or no negative feedback ever.

But if they don’t know who to contact, or how to contact them, or if they are confused about whether to contact FBA or the seller, then we get frustrated!

I find that a huge insult, Mr. Smythe, to blame the breakdown on me as a customer and not the FBA system (seems like this is coming from an apologist for the FBA). Just think about this logically - a certain percent of all customers are airheads or hotheads. If the business in question was able to maintain 99% before FBA and 90% after, it’s highly unlikely it’s because they have more airheads or hotheads now. Its because the chain of communication I mentioned earlier (who/how to contact with problems) is breaking down. That’s clearly FBA’s fault - no excuses, no denying responsibility!

From my perspective (as a buyer): I ordered 6 books from an FBA seller. The books were thrown into a large box with one of those plastic bubble things. No additional packing, no peanuts - the books jut rattled around loose in this big box, and got dinged up and bent.

I logged on to see who/how to contact, and I couldn’t tell. The link to contact the seller was gone, and besides, what has he got to do with it? It wasn’t his mistake. So I tried to compare the condition of the books (as ordered vs. as they arrived) but on the order page I couldn’t find the original product descriptions. So I tried to email Amazon, but I got confused about whether to contact Amazon itself, or the FBA warehouse. So I figured it wasn’t MY responsibility to invest more than 20 minutes into helping THEM fix THEIR problems. I just left the seller a *2* feedback, and explained the problem. I know it probably wasn’t his fault, but I figured he would be motivated to pass along the message/feedback to whoever is in charge.

1. Very poor customer service provided by Amazon to our FBA customers (they get the run around and are told to contact us, then we have to tell them to contact Amazon).

2. Inventory damaged, or returned damaged by customers is not paid for and we have to eat it.

3. Other sellers and Amazon retail change the ASIN, making lots of inventory just sit at the FC center racking up storage charges, and with no ASIN the product does not show up at Amazon.com

4. Amazon retail watches what is selling, then they stock the same items and undercut you. Then you are stuck with sitting inventory racking up storage fees.

I think what they are doing should be illegal. They are taking advantage of small business owners and ripping them off big time.

hope this helps.

Warehouses in US, Canada and Europe. Store inventory internationally (closer to international buyers) once the transaction closes; Shipwire will ship it from warehouses in Canada or the UK (depending on buyer location). Saves on shipping costs. Delivery is faster.

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