Please eBid something needs to be done ...

[adruml]

No, it doesn't.

If you want to shop in a mall and follow their policies, feel free. This is an independent site with it's own policies, members and "feel".

As you well know many of the sellers who have joined here are truly sick and tired of the Draconian approach taken by Feebay, so to copy the heavy handed "follow the rules OR ELSE" approach would see many people fleeing from here.

Sorry but I can't understand "Draconian approach" when we are referring to asking sellers to be responsive and to make the site more and more appealing to would be buyers.

A 48 hour limit for sellers to login is too short. It ignores the fact that in the real world people can and do have other issues to deal with. There are many potential reasons for why a seller cannot administer their account for a couple of days - power loss, computer failure, sickness, family (or other) emergency, internet access failure and so on.

Maybe 48 hours is extreme however 60 days is too long in any emergency.

If eBid were to shut down a seller's listings because that seller had just had to face more "real world" trouble than they wanted to, imagine how that seller would feel on seeing what eBid did. Stressed out, angry sellers would be flooding the forums, both here and elsewhere, complaining about it; eBid's member numbers and reputation would take a considerable hit.

I would switch the term "shut down" with "suspend"

So I agree with those who suggest that 30 days is about right before a seller's listings are closed. Perhaps after 14 and 21 days an email warning (reminding the seller of their obligation to sign in and the consequence of not doing so) could be sent.

Would a "pop up" possibly work? For example when a buyer clicks on bid or buy now maybe a pop up warning the buyer the seller hasn't logged on for xxx # of weeks and eBid recommends contacting seller for product availability.

I think we are talking about two different things here Al. You are talking about the actual buying situation where buyers are left hanging around and I can see what you mean. I'm talking about a way to remove dead listings so the buyers are not put into that position in the first place. I like the warning idea where a seller that hasn't logged in for a set time gets an email and if they don't respond then the listings get closed. This however must be fully monitored unlike the five bump question scenario which seems to have gone out the window these days.


In my opinion I think the 24-48 hour is too harsh. If your partner had a heart attack for example you would be in the back of the ambulance with them to be at their bedside not thinking about closing their eBid shop first, maybe a few days later it would cross your mind that it needs to be done.

As I responded to Damian, maybe the 48 hours is too harsh as is a full shut down. Suspensions, warnings or even a pop up would help.
I haven't been here for a real long time but I have seen members with health issues post in the forums they were shutting down for a while or putting up a holiday notice.
True emergencies do happen I realize that but in comparison to the amount of dump and run sellers we experience, emergencies are a drop in the bucket. Suspensions with the ability to relist our items quickly and easily may just be the answer. Also might be a blessing for those concerned with true emergencies. If one is in fact in the hospital for an extended length of time it would be nice to know eBid has put your listings on hold (suspended) until your well enough to log back on.

[cornishmaid1961]

Would it be possible to have listings go on a suspended status after a certain period of time with a notification of "Seller's last log in date was ..... "? That way a buyer could ask questions, but not bid or BIN.

Then, after another period of time, the suspended listings would move to the closed folder and from there be deleted after 75 days (or whatever it is now). But, in the case of an emergency, the seller would still have over 3 months to get their listings relisted and back in order.

Not exactly certain what time frames would be most reasonable. Personally, I think that it's reasonable to allow for a seller to be away from their computer for weekend or for a long weekend without putting on holiday mode, but longer than that means the seller isn't a serious one and their actions hurt us all.

What about a week until the suspended status and then listings in the unsold folder after 30 days?

If the seller had set up an email address for eBid that they don't use anymore, email notifications don't do any good.

:-)

I don't think that would fully solve the problem as new buyers coming to the site would be wading through a mass of suspended listings and it wouldn't give a very good impression. Much better that the listings were removed into the seller's unsold folder to wait and see if they come back to attend to them.

If the seller hasn't bothered to change their email address here then the listings are no good anyway as they wouldn't know if they have a buyer !

[adruml]

I don't think that would fully solve the problem as new buyers coming to the site would be wading through a mass of suspended listings and it wouldn't give a very good impression. Much better that the listings were removed into the seller's unsold folder to wait and see if they come back to attend to them.

If the seller hasn't bothered to change their email address here then the listings are no good anyway as they wouldn't know if they have a buyer !

Should be suspended as in not viewable or available and once suspension has been lifted the seller would need to relist. This would take some doing on eBid's part to allow truly legitimate absentee's the ability to relist their items rather then needing to recreate all their listings, but having buyers look through suspended listings wouldn't be good.

[Pink_Panther]

I think we are talking about two different things here Al. You are talking about the actual buying situation where buyers are left hanging around and I can see what you mean. I'm talking about a way to remove dead listings so the buyers are not put into that position in the first place. I like the warning idea where a seller that hasn't logged in for a set time gets an email and if they don't respond then the listings get closed. This however must be fully monitored unlike the five bump question scenario which seems to have gone out the window these days.


In my opinion I think the 24-48 hour is too harsh. If your partner had a heart attack for example you would be in the back of the ambulance with them to be at their bedside not thinking about closing their eBid shop first, maybe a few days later it would cross your mind that it needs to be done.

Sellers who have not logged in for certain periods should have their listings 'Flagged ' to that effect advising the potential buyer to wait for an invoice before paying.

The flag should be so in your face it cannot be missed,

So instead of removing listings straight away 'Flag' them.


Should a seller then not respond to say three sales inquiries their listings should be removed.

[james1968]

I only log in when I have an item to list, or when I get an email stating an item has sold. This can be several weeks in between logins.

As I check my email (almost) daily, it is easy to pick-up on when a question has been asked or an item has sold.

As a resident from the outskirts of Colchester, I can confirm that we have not relocated the town to Ireland (much as we'ed love to).

[cornishmaid1961]

Sellers who have not logged in for certain periods should have their listings 'Flagged ' to that effect advising the potential buyer to wait for an invoice before paying.

The flag should be so in your face it cannot be missed,

So instead of removing listings straight away 'Flag' them.


Should a seller then not respond to say three sales inquiries their listings should be removed.

A good idea Pink but it still doesn't solve the problem that a buyer might be left hanging around if it is a dump and run listing which is not good for the rest of the genuine sellers here.

[cornishmaid1961]

I only log in when I have an item to list, or when I get an email stating an item has sold. This can be several weeks in between logins.

As I check my email (almost) daily, it is easy to pick-up on when a question has been asked or an item has sold.

As a resident from the outskirts of Colchester, I can confirm that we have not relocated the town to Ireland (much as we'ed love to).

Lol - No I can see your listings are not in euros James !

You have some up to date feedback so I can see you are active and no shop so there is no log in date. If you are responding to emails then fine but a lot of sellers don't and have not logged in for months. This harms all our sales with buyers having a bad experience and something needs to be done about it. Would you object to having a reminder email from ebid to come and sign in every couple of months so that eBid knows you are an active seller ?

[PetBazaar]

Without getting into the time period side of things, whatever happens there, the end result has to be that the listings get closed. Pop-ups and inactive seller flags can only be a bad thing for eBid as a whole.

Imagine you're a buyer and you quite like the look of a widget on eBid. Except that the buyer hasn't been seen for 6 months. So you search again and maybe that buyer hasn't been seen for three months.

What goes through your head?

Is it... Maybe I'll search again, 3rd time lucky (or 4th, or 5th).
Or is it... Sod this, I'm off to [insert other site here].

The listings have to go, so that when the buyer searches, they find the widget available to them from a seller who is definitely ready (emergencies excluded) to sell it to them.

[madelaine]

This is a real problem. A log in every 30 days can't be too unreasonable, surely? I have an item on my Bought tab which is producing no replies from the seller. I'm fed up with it and don't blame buyers if they find it puts them off eBid entirely.

[FirstGreenIsGold]

James is an example of the eBid seller who might not log in to the site regularly but who checks email often and conducts eBid business that way. There is nothing wrong with that.

I suppose that eBid could close listings if a seller hasn't logged in for thirty days, and send them an email when they do it. They could abolish run until sold and make 30 days the maximum listing period (with no automatic relists). Change listings to maximum 10 days with 3 automatic relists?