[meteorite-list] Meteorite Auction Days Numbered?

[MexicoDoug]

Well: at risk for looking for a conspiracy where it doesn't exist, this 
phrase eBay told you caught my attention:

"However, we had to remove International Site Visibility from your 
listing. Of course, we won't be charging you the fee for it."

Specifically the "fee" comment, as if a fee had any logical place 
whatsover in that comment!  Considering that eBay policy of charging 
for extra pictures, second line titles and whatever else, it's a small 
wonder they haven't charged for additional country visibility.

That small wonder may be due to fear eBay will lose its established 
"unmatchable wide visibility worldwide network" which is the de facto 
monopoly it has if it touches who can and can't see your sales page.  
But, it isn't too different in concept from the additional cost for 
listing in more categories, so I am suspicious.

Suspicious that ... all these rules that eBay has never been concerned 
about before and with such difficulty when you need them, are just a 
huge smokescreen to somehow introduce the idea of paying for additional 
country visibility.  They probably got the idea from exorbitant 
international excess baggage each time they go from SFO to their 
European branches.  It wouldn't be without justification, though to 
charge for "additional countries" since eBay has additional overhead 
costs for each of those sites that are now in question for listings.

Kindest wishes
Doug



-----Original Message-----
From: Gary Fujihara <fujmon at mac.com>
To: Adam Hupe <raremeteorites at yahoo.com>
Cc: Adam <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Fri, Sep 30, 2011 11:30 am
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Meteorite Auction Days Numbered?


Ebay turned off international site visibility on most of my auctions 
too as I
posted a few days ago.  Nothing changed in my listings or in my 
descriptions
other than weights and prices, but ebay chose to change some kind of 
policy
without warning, which thereby resulted in the action they took.  I 
spent
several hours trying to deduce what was going on, and received 
suggestions from
several list members, to whom I am thankful.

By trial and error, I removed lines of text from my descriptions until 
I no
longer got ebay's message, which I have copied below.  Apparently they 
don't
like Big Kahuna Meteorites, scale cubes, my shipping information or 
country
names in my text descriptions, and when they found them would send me 
this
message and turn off international site visibility.  With the text 
deletions, I
now retain international site visibility, but have had to cull most of 
my text
descriptions, in some instances down to a single sentence!

I apologize to any of my friends who visit my auctions, for the sparse
descriptions you now see, but at least now you know the reason behind 
the
change.

gary

> You recently created or revised this eBay listing that included the
International Site Visibility feature:
>
> 330619432797 NEW! NWA 6927 Diogenite 2.76g Fresh Crusted Full Slice,
>
> However, we had to remove International Site Visibility from your 
listing. Of
course, we won't be charging you the fee for it.
>
> Because the laws and eBay policies vary by country, sometimes items 
that can
be listed in your country can't be listed internationally. It's also 
possible
that the listing itself violated an eBay policy in another country. In
situations like this, we automatically remove the International Site 
Visibility
feature from the listing.
>
> We're sorry for the inconvenience this causes.
>
> To find out about our global selling requirements, visit:
> 
http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/questions/sell_international_requirements.html
>
> For more information, contact customer support by clicking the "Help" 
link at
the top of any eBay page and then clicking the "Contact Us" button.
>
>

On Sep 30, 2011, at 4:58 AM, Adam Hupe wrote:

> You are not kidding.  EBay turned off the international site 
visibility option
on most of my auctions. I am going to have to go to fixed pricing, 
buy-it-now,
store type sales soon or suspend eBay sales altogether.  International 
bidders
can still find these auctions by going to ebay.com instead of ebay.uk 
if this
helps.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Adam
> ______________________________________________
> Visit the Archives at 
http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html
> Meteorite-list mailing list
> Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list

Gary Fujihara
Big Kahuna Meteorites (IMCA#1693)
105 Puhili Place, Hilo, Hawai'i 96720
http://bigkahuna-meteorites.com/
http://shop.ebay.com/fujmon/m.html
(808) 640-9161

______________________________________________
Visit the Archives at 
http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html
Meteorite-list mailing list
Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list