I joined the Ebay strike right after the new policies were announced and have not had any listings up for a month now. As I had posted here earlier, I have some very strong concerns which resulted in my joining the February 18th – 25th boycott (I started early and continued for two more weeks than the “official” boycott timeframe) and I have used that time to reassess Ebay and the overall business plan for The Purple Moon. We have made some adjustments – we now have some items listed through another site and, next week, we will unveil our new website which will enable us to better market our vintage mid-century items directly to our customers. We’ll be making some other exciting changes in the near future.
But what to do about Ebay?
Since the beginning of our business Ebay has played an important part. It opens up our overall market and serves an important part in our overall marketing strategy. The new policies will mean some adjustments – some items just aren’t worth listing there anymore and we will not be listing at our previous level of 100+ items at any given time. We will be testing the waters.
My thinking about returning to Ebay was helped greatly through a post from my friend over at Vintage + Goodness = Happiness who discussed her conflicting feelings and how she was going to respond while still staying active as an Ebay seller. I found her ideas sound and very well thought out.
It also appears as though Ebay may be re-thinking a few of the policies regarding the utilization of the DSR ratings – at least that is what the buzz is on a number of the Ebay discussion boards – and I’m going to see how it plays out. I hope they do decide to keep Ebay a good marketplace for sellers and buyers of vintage collectibles by making some adjustments to the original policy changes.
So tonight I have listed again on Ebay. I’ll see how it goes. If, after a period of limited selling on Ebay, I see things are going well (or badly) I can always respond accordingly.
The boycott was important and I believe will ultimately result in some changes to protect the marketplace for small to medium size sellers of vintage items. Time will tell and I will certainly be keeping a close eye on the situation. For now though I’m giving it a try, as are many other sellers who joined the boycott, and I hope it will work to allow us to continue to match the items we love with the people who will love and preserve them.
Because for us that is what it is all about.
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