Trip Down Memory Lane - Old eBay Records

[Indigo Knight]

I recently dug through my old eBay records from 2007 and 2008. Wow, things have changed over the years.

Back then it was really common for people to pay with personal checks and money orders. I have letters and correspondence from people who mailed me payments and handwritten instructions from other countries (UK, Canada, Austraila). This was before PayPal became mandatory, and there was huge controversy when that happened and it drove away a lot of buyers and sellers.

Because digital cameras were also still rather expensive, it was not uncommon for people to list items without pictures, or to have scans of film photographs for their listings.

The site navigation and layout was also very different then. The search feature was a simple boolean system that worked really well and was very different from the "magic box" Cassini system.

One thing I do miss about the old eBay is the sense of community. It used to be "fun" and almost magical in addition to being profitable. Now very few people engage with each other or even leave feedback. I've met several customers there that I'm still friends with or doing business with over a decade later.

The reason I bring this up is that it's important to remember that eBay is always changing. With the new changes to the payment system I'm seeing the same arguments being used that were made over a decade ago and the site is still here. It's poorly managed and it's at times extremely unfair, but it's still the best show in town for buying and selling small collectibles.

What changes have you noticed to eBay over the years?

 

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[CreakyDigger]

I started selling on eBay in 1998. I think it was much better then, because eBay allowed buyers and sellers to communicate directly and eBay was one of the tools a seller could use to grow a business. Also, it was easy to have an edge if you learned a little html, invested in a scanner or a digital camera, and opened a merchant account with your bank so you could take orders via credit card (this was long before PayPal). We would build our customer email list from eBay sales, then then send out emails to direct the customers to our website catalogues. Customers would call us on the phone to put their credit card numbers on file with us, and we would manually run them whenever they placed an order. Also, the category that we sold in was so small at the time we could review all new or ending auctions each day, use a sniping program, and buy inventory from eBay that we would then sell on our own website. Those were the days!

 

[3cylbill]

I used ebay all the time , I bought and sold and had over two hundred positives and not one neg . I went away for a week and forgot to pay for a ten dollar item and was booted off , my good name ruined over a simple mistake ,needless to say I won't sell with them again .

 

[islamoradamark]

Cant call on the phone any more

 

[tamrock]

I think I'm now around 4 or 5 years since I've sold anything on ebay and I started I believe back in the late 1990s. One thing I remember was just before the credit crisis of 2008 and credit was in the hands of every Tom, Dick and Harry just about any you listed got into a bidding war. There was stuff I'd buy for 50 cents at a yard sale and it would sell for 30/40 bucks. I remember way back a guy wanted to talk on the phone about packing and shipping details from the Netherlands. I wrote it all down with a pen and pad. I keep thinking I need to get back to selling some of the stuff I still keep accumulating, but what I read on this forum leads me to thinking with all these changes mentioned makes me think I'll need to learn a whole new set of rules which I've always had a problem adjusting to in this new world order of constant change of the new ways to do what we do. Heck every time Thanksgiving time come around it seems there always someone with a video on a new way to cook a turkey and saying it's better than the old way.

 

[CreakyDigger]

I think I'm now around 4 or 5 years since I've sold anything on ebay and I started I believe back in the late 1990s. One thing I remember was just before the credit crisis of 2008 and credit was in the hands of every Tom, Dick and Harry just about any you listed got into a bidding war. There was stuff I'd buy for 50 cents at a yard sale and it would sell for 30/40 bucks. I remember way back a guy wanted to talk on the phone about packing and shipping details from the Netherlands. I wrote it all down with a pen and pad. I keep thinking I need to get back to selling some of the stuff I still keep accumulating, but what I read on this forum leads me to thinking with all these changes mentioned makes me think I'll need to learn a whole new set of rules which I've always had a problem adjusting to in this new world order of constant change of the new ways to do what we do. Heck every time Thanksgiving time come around it seems there always someone with a video on a new way to cook a turkey and saying it's better than the old way.

We sell on eBay every day. One of the biggest differences now from years ago is that we sell items at a set price, rather than list them as an auction. And, they have to be of a certain value to be worth the time of doing it.

 

[GopherDaGold]

I dislike how the fee structures have changed. Used to be most of the fees were charged on the front end so we didn't see unscrupulous sellers listing a common item with a price tag many thousands of dollars over its true value. Only gotta sell one I guess.

 

[Mud Hut]

I dislike how the Ebay Insiders can no longer target fakes being sold as authentic pieces. Use to be able to have the auctions pulled, but no longer.