Looking for people who want to work from home with an automotive background. ASE a +

[Nickerz]

eBay\ecommerce selling experience also a huge plus. This is mainly a customer service job, not a technical writer. Hours can vary and right now I have a couple hours a day available but in short order it could be a full time position. If you don't mind parts being returned to your house cluttering the place up (we will do occasional pickups, or you can drop off if you live near the 3rd ward), I can add even more hours to the position. If you have a dedicated phone you don't mind using to call from I can also through some administration hours into the position as well (calling eBay about cases etc). If you're okay with all these things you'll probably have a good 20-30 hours a week right off the bat here.

Requirements

• Daily availability M-F to complete tasks, weekends a plus
• Reliable internet connection (cable\DSL,fibre etc)
• Experience in one of the following job roles (telephone sales or support, parts counter)
• High typing proficiency

Things that would be great

• Sales background (helps in knowing how to talk to people\eBay reps for cases)
• ASE certification (Helps reduce returns in customer install errors)
• Parts counter experience (cross reference experience)
• A landline phone with unlimited local\long distance
• eBay\eCommerce experience

The position pays $11 an hour and pays out through odesk, which is a remote work management solution. The job is not difficult and is ideal for people that are currently injured or someone that just wants to work from home. I will caution anyone interested however that the position is not suited to anyone who thinks they can also take care of their kids, watch TV etc. It's legitimate work from home work, I've paid out over $20K on the platform so far so this is not a scam. But on the flip side, this isn't going to be something you can coast through. Dealing with auto part sales is time intensive and requires detail orientation.

I understand this position is not interesting to 90% of the people who open this up. This position has been filled by injured vets, disabled persons, people in rural areas without access to jobs, people who are underemployed etc. So try not to turn this into a flame fest. For the people who want\need this kind of work its a good fit.

Bumps are appreciated, PM if you're interested!

[LIL EVO]

I feel your pain on the eBay cases. I'm sure you have many more than we get, but 9/10 they are absolute BS.

[Nickerz]

I feel your pain on the eBay cases. I'm sure you have many more than we get, but 9/10 they are absolute BS.

We kept TRS just by a hair, we're going to lose it and regain it next month. Just crested over 100,000 sales on eBay and the site is absolutely just hostile right now. FYI we may cross paths on eBay because I've been in the auto electric market for a while. Either way, new August 13th policies are slightly relaxed and reps are more helpful, but its a huge pain in the ass. What I can't understand is why you still can't get cases where a buyer purchased the wrong part credited to you. I'm not sure how eBay plans on handling auto parts sellers come holiday 15'. If we enabled "hassle free returns" we'd probably go from Top Rated to kicked off eBay.

75 minute wait on the CS line right now, niiiice. Merchant support is still instant though.

[LIL EVO]

The cases are the only thing screwing you over for gold/top rated? I thought they weren't supposed to affect you if you manage and close them out without escalation. People are really stupid. They need to learn how to pick up the phone or send a message first.

[Nickerz]

The cases are the only thing screwing you over for gold/top rated? I thought they weren't supposed to affect you if you manage and close them out without escalation. People are really stupid. They need to learn how to pick up the phone or send a message first.

Well we just barely made it this month. You should read up on the spring 14' seller revisions if you haven't and you are planning on selling on eBay. eBay is more or less mirroring Amazon's model, but in typical eBay fashion... poorly. What you're talking about is called "cases without seller resolution." That method ended August 20th and the August 20th evaluation was based on May-July with the new metrics. That is still a metric (only .3% of cases can end that way) but its not the only one anymore for cases.

Neutral feedback, item ratings of 3 or less, shipping time ratings of 1 (pandering to large dropshippers and big box retailers that can't ship timely), cases opened for item not received, or item not as described are all counted as "defects." If any one of those are received for a transaction, then you get one mark for that transaction. To be Top Rated, less than 2% of all your transactions can have these marks.

This of course sounds FAIRLY reasonable, until you realize that people buying the wrong part are held against you. On auto parts, this constitutes nearly 70% of my returns. Cases where an item is delivered and a buyer opens a case anyways, if you don't call eBay to close it, held against you. "Neutral" feedback? How fair is it that its counted against you when the customer believes they are not leaving a poor review?

The biggest by far bullshit in all of this though, is the fact that when buyers message you now, there is a conversation flow. You go to message your seller and it asks you "is there a problem with your purchase?" If the buyer clicks that, it flows them to "item not received" or "item not as described." Once they click that a case is opened automatically. It is super shady the way they're handling this.

It's part of a seller purge and the best way I've heard it put was something to the effect of "eBay wants absolute transparency so that they can claim its all fair, while having the largest managed accounts dealt with internally removing cases and feedback." It's buy.com all over again. Buy.com never qualified for the initial DSR program, but eBay just faked their numbers. People caught them on it and they added language in their TOS to "make exceptions."

eBay is moving very fast towards trying to become DHgate. The only saving grace IMO for me is that auto parts are a "need it now" commodity. Usually someone is buying something because of a fix it ticket, to sell a car or emissions. Anything else that can "wait" will start coming directly from China. eBay is already investing heavily in Chinese warehouses and partnerships with top Chinese sellers. That's their angle. If you need it now, buy it from Autozone locally. If you need it later, buy it from China. I think its a strong model for many or most purchases, but eBay just doesn't understand the disparity in pricing between big box retailers and someone as lean as we are.

I see the local purchases thing failing from an economic standpoint but providing a strong marketing and image tool eBay does need. But if they're not careful they're going to kill the golden goose. eBay's growth depends on sellers that sell cheap. Otherwise why would you bother purchasing online? Amazon has carved out the niche of super high service, but I don't understand why eBay would even want to try and duplicate Amazon. eBay's profit margins are orders of magnitude higher than Amazons. It's just a weird and awkward transition.

I'm not sure what eBay will look like in 5-10 years, but they're gambling pretty hard here on making eBay into something it's really not.

[-stew-]

I'm done buying parts off ebay, unless it's used OEM. It's all just Chinese shit. Bought some $150 Boston Acoustic speakers, junk. Antena for my truck, junk broke installing it, seller won't take it back. Bought a new brembo master cylinder for my Ducati from a big bike parts vendor. $200 and it comes in no packaging, it says brembo but I think it's a Chinese rip off. It kinda scares me. (Six phone calls to Milwaukee Ducati and they couldn't be bothered to get me a price.) Having to wade through all the Chinese junk has made ebay kind of a joke. Try and find motorcycle bar ends; 15 sellers, selling the same 10 different products, with 30 ads for each one because each ad has a different 6 motorcycles listed in the title.


I wish you could narrow searches to vendors with less 500 sales.

[Nickerz]

I'm done buying parts off ebay, unless it's used OEM. It's all just Chinese shit. Bought some $150 Boston Acoustic speakers, junk. Antena for my truck, junk broke installing it, seller won't take it back. Bought a new brembo master cylinder for my Ducati from a big bike parts vendor. $200 and it comes in no packaging, it says brembo but I think it's a Chinese rip off. It kinda scares me. (Six phone calls to Milwaukee Ducati and they couldn't be bothered to get me a price.) Having to wade through all the Chinese junk has made ebay kind of a joke. Try and find motorcycle bar ends; 15 sellers, selling the same 10 different products, with 30 ads for each one because each ad has a different 6 motorcycles listed in the title.


I wish you could narrow searches to vendors with less 500 sales.

That's because eBay either wants or does not care if counterfeit stuff is on the site. I sent their head of marketplaces president a 14 page report about the problem and even included a verified case of counterfeiting. I had the customs shipment information and confirmed with the company (TRW) that they were not cross docking or allowing this seller to sell their goods from the factory. The customs information said "label as TRW." They were of course the lowest cost seller on eBay. Listings are still up to this day. A lot of it had to do with the fact that eBay didn't have the tools in place for sellers to create fitment data, so people just lied. I concluded that roughly 40-70% of the top sellers in every category were misrepresenting the parts they were selling. eBay does...not... care.

Same thing with "OEM" and even with Amazon. It's just online sales. Oh you want to do RockAuto? Well they're supplied by the same vendors that can swap out an AC Delco part with Airtex etc. It is just rampant in the industry. The only 100% foolproof way to buy stuff now is the dealer.

A lot of it has to do with pricing models as well. If companies actually got serious about MAP pricing and enforced it and spent the money in tracking down counterfeit goods which I can do in my sleep by now, the problem would solve itself. But the companies don't care either because eBay as a marketplace, or Amazon makes up a fraction of their volume. Everything is pushed through MWDs to shops or retailers like Autozone.

Long story short, no one cares because its more cost effective to ignore it. Which leaves you with dealers as your only 100% shot at it the first time. MWDs for the most part are reliable, and eBay like you said is a crapshoot.

[wrath]

eBay is like craigslist, the only difference is that people on eBay have a bank account. I started using eBay in 1998 and paypal (when it was x.com) in 1999. They're both worse today than they were back then. I used to buy what I would consider a "lot of stuff" back then ranging from appliances/electronics to lawn furniture to tools to car parts. I used to sell once in a while but at the end of the day I usually just gave stuff to Goodwill. Today, eBay is the desperation vendor. I recently bought a refurbished electric dryer part from fleabay because the vendor wouldn't guarantee shipping unless I went through fleabay (so they had to pay fees for something they should do anyway). Before that, it was some automotive body panels that were grotesquely misrepresented with fake pictures and I told the guy if he didn't ship me what he said he would I'd file a dispute, issue a chargeback if Paypal didn't play nice, and then visit him at his home. He sent me the parts again, slightly better than the last, but didn't send me a shipping label to send the originals back so I still have them sitting in the boxes over a year later.

I don't know that I'd base my existence off eBay. They have ADHD. Maybe I'd list all of my stuff there but have them cheaper on my own website. Maybe.

[LIL EVO]

We just lost top rated due to this new bs system. 100% of our negative feedback is from non English speaking people. We called eBay and they literally deleted a few bogus negative feedbacks and also several resolution center cases that affected the top rated status. So after a phone call we are top rated again. EBay never used to budge on that stuff

[PB86MCSS]

I've thought for awhile if someone could start a niche site going to compete with eBay but just focusing on one area, car parts being the first thing that comes to mind naturally, maybe even used parts only. Cheaper fee system and some tweaks, you'd only need a fraction of the market to make some serious money. The only sites I've seen come along to compete cover everything and seem gimicky.

I've been on eBay since 98' and Paypal since 01' I believe. Not my livlihood by any means but I've managed a 100% feedback somehow with over 500 (and who knows how many more without feedback) transactions. What I've personally noticed which annoys me is a generally dumber consumer expecting too much, at times (typically low feedback people who never have sold a thing before) and not being able to leave negative feedback for deadbeat buyers...and the fees going up. But for some parts eBay is an evil neccessity if you want to get the most for it and sell it quicker. My experience is used stuff, not the new stuff that seems to clutter the site now .

[GTSLOW]

I buy about 1-3 items a month off eBay and sell maybe 1 every six months. I've had issues only twice over a 10+ year span.

Dunno.