I’ve made a decision that I’m not going to sell my books on eBay anymore. I will if they lower this recent fee percentage, but I see that as a long term question for eBay to answer than something that is going to happen anytime soon. I suspect that eBay will never lower that fee, but my thought is that they could have increased their middle tier fee by a full percent and reaped as much if not more dollars to their bottom line than they could have with the increase to the initial FVF. But I digress this post isn’t about eBay and my analysis of what I think they could have done better, I could write a whole blog every day of every week for the next 20 years and never run out of material on that topic.

This is about my choice to not sell on eBay and only on Etsy. I have already removed my link on the left of this page for eBay and replace it with a link to my Etsy page. As a part time artist, I have made the decision that all of my art endeavors need to be self supporting. I don’t strive to make a lot of money on my art but as a former manager and buyer for a larger corporation it irks me when a company attempts to take advantage of what little I make on my work. I put a lot of time and energy into my work. I do it because I love it. I love to make books and art. I sell it to buy more materials and occasionally do something that I enjoy outside of the studio. It’s part of my rules- arts and crafts must self sustain. When eBay raised it’s prices it cuts into that small fraction of what I make, that little portion of money that my books bring home to me. I found it frustrating and irritating that a giant corporation chose it’s bottom line over me.

Granted I know that the bottom line is always what it’s all about but I work for a company in the Fortune 500 whose ethos state that the employee and customer come first and that the bottom line will follow. I have to say that as I’ve  seen it, it works when you place value on people, the people who work hard for you, they  make the company what it is. There is a reason that people stay working for the company I work for, it’s not glamorous work, but the fact remains that in all but a few circumstances they value the human element of their company and that value allows people to excel. When you allow people to excel your company grows and expands with those people.

That’s what eBay forgot- that its nothing with out its sellers. The current CEO might see his company as a "flee market" but those of us who were selling way back in 2000 and have been around, tried things out, grew with the company  are the people who are the backbone of the company. Buyers/customers will always be around but sellers, we’re the spine of eBay and without those of us who are tried eBay is a boring place to buy knock off designer bags and cheap electronics.

A scam is a scam no matter what you dress it in, gucci or not.