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Longfellow

Longfellow

Member
Joined
Apr 6, 2005
Messages
1,568
Location
St. Cloud, Fla.34769
Having sold pen blanks for twenty years on eBay, they and Paypal decided to withhold funds from four recent sales, until I establish a history of good service. I am considering setting up a website offering my products directly. My question is, How many of you search for and purchase blanks from such sites?
 
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If it were linked to this site I would peruse it and maybe buy. Quite honestly I do not shop for pen stuff anywhere unless I see it linked here first. I no longer even look at CSUSA or Pen State. Maybe I am weird.
 
Longfellow said:
Having sold pen blanks for twenty years on eBay, they and Paypal decided to withhold funds from four recent sales, until I establish a history of good service. I am considering setting up a website offering my products directly. My question is, How many of you search for and purchase blanks from such sites?
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Basically your account gets reset to a "newbie" account if you dont have enough feedback in a year. And you have to reestablish yourself. So stuff you did 5 years ago wont matter. For example if you have 100% feedback a year ago, then none this year. Your feedback will say 0% positive. Because you have not done anything. And Ebay was founded in 1995. So how could you be selling them for 20 years?
 
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I do but usually only if I get to your site via a link at IAP (deals, classifieds, or signature block) and I recognize you from posting in the forums. That way I feel I am supporting fellow IAP members who are willing to help other members in the forums. And rightly or wrongly, from your posts I usually get at least a gut feel as to whether a person is trustworthy.
 
crokett said:
Longfellow said:
Having sold pen blanks for twenty years on eBay, they and Paypal decided to withhold funds from four recent sales, until I establish a history of good service./QUOTE]


I am confused, you have been selling for 20 years but Ebay wants you to establish a history of good service?
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It apparently a very common practice of eBay. The reason is beyond me. And trying to get an answer from them it like trying to get an honest answer from a politician
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crabcreekind said:
Longfellow said:
Having sold pen blanks for twenty years on eBay, they and Paypal decided to withhold funds from four recent sales, until I establish a history of good service. I am considering setting up a website offering my products directly. My question is, How many of you search for and purchase blanks from such sites?
Click to expand...

Basically your account gets reset to a "newbie" account if you dont have enough feedback in a year. And you have to reestablish yourself. So stuff you did 5 years ago wont matter. For example if you have 100% feedback a year ago, then none this year. Your feedback will say 0% positive. Because you have not done anything. And Ebay was founded in 1995. So how could you be selling them for 20 years?
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I just estimated the length of time. I list and sell over 600 items per year.
 
I have some ebay stores I buy from, the prices can not be touched, most times it's not even close. I don't sell and have no interest in selling. I have never had anything but a positive experience from those I chose to spend my money. I get updates from them and messages when they get something new I might be interested in or special clearance pricing or whatever. eBay also sends the daily interests from sellers I like. Many times I will go to their page and get a closer look at items, ask questions and place bids for things.

There are also some vendors here I will buy from and send people to them.

I don't understand why they would with hold funds from you. I can understand a short delay for some items and payments if the amounts were large.
 
Longfellow said:
Having sold pen blanks for twenty years on eBay, they and Paypal decided to withhold funds from four recent sales, until I establish a history of good service. I am considering setting up a website offering my products directly. My question is, How many of you search for and purchase blanks from such sites?
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The same thing has happened to me in the past. Even with 100% feedback. It brings a lot of emotions to the surface when you have income and they won't let you touch it for 30 days.

To answer your question, I do a lot of searching for individual sites to buy from. You would want to advertise in order to build a customer base. I believe that in the end you will have better and more loyal customers with your own website. Websites are more personal than Ebay and certainly less restrictive.

Good luck.:smile:
 
EricJS said:
Longfellow said:
Having sold pen blanks for twenty years on eBay, they and Paypal decided to withhold funds from four recent sales, until I establish a history of good service. I am considering setting up a website offering my products directly. My question is, How many of you search for and purchase blanks from such sites?
Click to expand...

The same thing has happened to me in the past. Even with 100% feedback. It brings a lot of emotions to the surface when you have income and they won't let you touch it for 30 days.

To answer your question, I do a lot of searching for individual sites to buy from. You would want to advertise in order to build a customer base. I believe that in the end you will have better and more loyal customers with your own website. Websites are more personal than Ebay and certainly less restrictive.

Good luck.:smile:
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Thanks Eric- First encouraging response I have received
 
I DO go to various websites where blanks are offered for sale. On the other hand, I have never purchased a single blank off of Ebay. This is just my personal opinion, but Ebay is really not for me. It seems like I spend hours trying to sort through junk in order to find what I want. Websites devoted to what I want to buy are time well spent. If you decide to go that route, I would make sure that you let people on this site know, such as posting an ad, and also that you take the time to make changes and additions frequently. I do not like to wade through numerous photos of things that were purchased three months ago, but haven't been removed from a site. I also want to see new things each time I come back.

I hope this helps.
 
Longfellow said:
Having sold pen blanks for twenty years on eBay, they and Paypal decided to withhold funds from four recent sales,
...
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Just a point of clarification...

Uh, eBay isn't quite 20 yet. I've only been registered since 1999 and I remember when it was ebay's "AuctionWeb" - back then the auction site was under the url ebay.com/aw/. Wasn't till later that the auctions were the business itself and moved up a directory. Ebay.com was "Echo Bay" a consulting company It was founded in 1995... I used to talk a good bit with Pierre Omidyar fairly often back then.

BTW, eBay owns PayPal. They're one in the same. They just bought Braintree too - a cc processing company.

Edit: And did you talk to them? Call them. A lot of times a little personal contact is all it takes. They're usually pretty responsive. Sometimes it's as simple as some algorithm flagged the account for most anything such as a login from ip from another country (that one happened to me personally - I was in Ireland and logged in to check something out. They saw it and it didn't fit my habits. ) Seriously, call them and ask what's going on.
 
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