I am so happy to see this post! It seems that there are not enough voices raised here on Ebay India about the injustices being done to the 'average' Indian who is simply enterprising on a small, but very useful scale by selling on Ebay.
I had read about corruption within Ebay India, but didn't experience firsthand until I became an Ebay seller myself. For months my number of listings were restricted, even though my Seller performance was rated 'above average'. I would plead with the Appeals department to increase my listing limits, only to receive a robotic reply about regulations, limitations, blah blah blah. The other day I happened across an Ebay Seller listing, and behold...that seller was a 'New' seller, about one month into it, and had more than 38,000 listings! What?!? I am a legitimate seller for several months and cannot get past 50 listings per month allotted to me! Something is terribly wrong within Ebay India. An internal investigation should be done to see why the unfairness is going on.
There are other issues that should be addressed as well, i.e. the epidemic of bidders who 'buy it now' with no intention of paying. 9.98 times out of 10 if a buyer uses the 'buy it now' option and doesn't pay for it immediately, they are not going to pay for it. There should be a time allowance for the item in the cart to be paid for, say within 24 hours, and if not paid the item should be returned to stock, so that time is not wasted by the seller trying to contact the buyer, then having to file an item not paid claim (wasting Ebay's time), when if a buyer does not pay within 24 hours, return the item back to the seller's inventory to be purchased by someone who intends to pay.
Another issue, one that is truly annoying and damaging to a Seller - I have gotten negative feedback due to being unable to ship an item on time. The problem is that Ebay's system is not recognizing National Holidays or Sundays and making allowances for those days on the timeframe of a Seller's shipping out an item. 02 - 06 October were Holidays and a weekend, yet NO ALLOWANCE was made for the fact that I absolutely could not ship anything out, but was penalized for it. I requested for an extension of 1 day from the buyer too, No, the buyer said (Unfortunately for me), and when I made an appeal to Ebay...no help at all, just another robotic reply about rules and regulations.
It would seem that the Indian consumers are conditioned for being cheated, since their attitudes reflect that in how they do business here on Ebay. I have yet to figure out how to get Positive Feedback from them. They will leave Negative comments in a heartbeat.
One final issue: to be a Seller on Ebay there are steps in proving identity with bank accounts, pan card, etc. ...yet, it would seem that Sellers are penalized from the very beginning with all the limitations put on them. Why can't there be a 30 - 60 day trial for Sellers to prove themselves with their performance BEFORE placing all the restrictions? If a Seller does not meet their deadlines for items shipped, or doesn't have the item in stock at the time of purchases made...etc...then limit or restrict their selling to see if they bring their performance up to par. If not, then by all means, restrict them! But don't start off a Seller with so many restrictions, allow Sellers more listings in the beginning, don't take away privileges unless Seller's performance is bad.
I hope that Ebay India is revamped in many areas, otherwise, good Sellers will be lost and the Ebay experience will be so bad that buyers will turn to the untold number of other online sellers and platforms.
Best regards,
