I just edited the petition to include the quote, a link to it, and a link to the Letter to the Editor that an eBay seller sent to Ina Steiner about her recent problems. I also just added President Obama to the list of recipients.
Here's a copy of the latest version, which I'd like to shorten, but feel that it's necessary to keep everything there. Any suggestions?
TO PETITIONERS: Anyone concerned with the problems small businesses face online is invited to sign this petition. There is also a short survey for sellers to complete anonymously, Small Businesses Speak Up About Using eCommerce Service Providers (clickable link), the results of which will be publicly posted November 15, 2014, on the eSellers Café site under 2014 Seller Survey Results (clickable link).
Before I begin, let me share a quote from President Barack Obama's letter to Small Businesses and Entrepreneurs posted October 9, 2014, on Medium.com: "Why I'm Betting on You to Help Shape the New American Economy...we know that when we invest in your potential, rather than stack the deck in favor of the folks who are already at the top, our entire economy does better." Source:
medium.com/@presidentobama/why-im-betting-on-you-to-help-shape-the-new-american-economy-e80a775b44eeIn light of PayPal’s announcement that they will be changing their return policy effective November 2014 to extend the time allowed for customers to return items purchased to 180 days (six months), I feel compelled to bring the following to the attention of authorities who regulate companies offering their services to American eCommerce businesses. There are several ways in which these companies are working against small businesses using their services and, in some cases, violating their rights.
For a while now, companies like eBay, PayPal, and credit card companies have been enacting and unfairly enforcing policies that propagate fraud and provide these companies excuses for not protecting the businesses using their services. This negatively impacts eCommerce, particularly small business. Since it is most obviously the case with eBay and the money transmitter they acquired in 2002, PayPal, they will be the examples used in this petition.
Firstly, it is a concern that there may be a conflict of interest for a company like eBay to own and operate a money transmitter like PayPal that is used on more than its own site -- and the same would apply to anyone serving on both Boards of Directors. While it was just recently announced that eBay will be spinning off PayPal into a separate company in 2015 and that John Donahoe will be resigning his position as eBay's CEO once the split is complete, he intends to be a board member of both.
As of June 2014, the President of PayPal, David Marcus, resigned and Donahoe has been filling in and will continue to do so until the split is complete. The problem is that he has a financial interest in eBay, owning a significant number of shares, and will have an interest in PayPal once a member of its Board of Directors. Now Donahoe is enacting policies on both eBay and PayPal, positioning both prior to the split to benefit at the undue expense of businesses using their services, whether or not they sell on eBay or even online.
With Donahoe at the helm of both eBay and PayPal, small business owners are understandably worried about what other ways in which he intends to work against them, just as he has been doing during the whole of his tenure as CEO of eBay. This latest change to PayPal’s return policy serves only to protect both eBay and PayPal from absorbing the cost of taking responsibility for their own unrealistic promises made to consumers as well as the fraud they propagate with their policies and poor security measures.
To summarize, the following list includes just some of the ways in which companies like eBay, PayPal and even credit card companies are violating the rights of businesses using their services:
1. Creating and enforcing policies with a one-size fits all frame of mind when every business is different (ie, handmade sellers, resellers, retail sellers, dropshippers) and has its own terms and third-party supplier agreements to consider.
2. Creating and enforcing policies that give large retailers the upper hand since small businesses cannot afford to absorb the cost of those policies. Larger retailers do not need help competing with their small business rivals.
3. Creating and enforcing policies that propagate fraud and provide excuses for not protecting the businesses using their services. This not only costs small businesses money they cannot afford to lose, but, in the case of eBay and PayPal, it hurts sellers' ratings and even threatens their ability to use PayPal. For an example, refer to this Letter to the Editor on the eCommerceBytes site from an eBay seller:
www.ecommercebytes.com/C/letters/blog.pl?/comments/2014/10/1412966538.html/1/0#14129761334. Using a seller's inactive, deleted, and/or sold listings to direct search engine traffic away from those sellers who have chosen to sell their products elsewhere, whether or not they continue to sell their products on that site. This tactic unfairly competes against a seller using the seller's own copyrighted material. Once a product has been deleted, set to inactive status, or has sold, the link to that product should no longer be sent to search engines because it is essentially a dead link.
5. Giving more exposure to favored businesses in what is supposed to be a free and/or equal market (eBay and other marketplace venues, Google, etc.). It's one thing to provide more attention to those who pay for prime advertising spots outside of the area meant for all users, but an entirely different thing to do so in the area claimed to be for all users to fairly compete with one another.
6. Dictating a store's return policies, whether or not they do business online, to the point of making it easier for them and consumers to refuse responsibility that is solely their own. For example:
~ the cost of promising refunds the consumer isn't entitled to;
~ misusing, breaking or abusing a product and then returning it damaged and getting a full refund;
~ using a product they never intended to keep, as if it were a free rental they can use for a time and then return for a full refund, whether or not it's in the same condition it was received;
~ not reading an item's description and returning it claiming it wasn't as described;
~ returning software, DVDs, music, books, video games and other media after using, copying or reading it;
~ forcing sellers to refund customers who have not returned the product; etc.
7. Charging excessive and unfair fees for the service(s) provided to the point that they're taking bigger and bigger chunks of the user's profit. This does not constitute a mutually beneficial arrangement. Rather, it's a matter of the big guy taking advantage of the little guy.
8. Pushing things like "free shipping" that we all know is not free and gets factored into the item price. Not only is this false advertising, but it makes it more difficult for small businesses to be competitive in an "equal" market, particularly when prices are displayed in search results that do not include the total cost with shipping.
Forcing small sellers to think that they must offer free shipping to be "competitive" means they have to raise the item price to cover the cost, whereas large retailers sell a much larger volume of products and can afford to absorb the cost without having to raise their prices much, if at all, especially since they're typically priced higher to begin with and can afford to be due to brand recognition and trust. Also, considering large retailers usually get much steeper commercial shipping discounts since they ship a larger volume of packages, this makes it all that much more unfair.
9. Holding or withdrawing funds that are not rightfully theirs from sellers without sufficient cause and even after a seller has provided sufficient proof that they're entitled to those funds.
10. Holding funds for excessive lengths of time for unjustifiable reasons, if one is given at all, and even beyond the legally allowed period of time as dictated by state laws.
...and the list goes on.
Small businesses are at the heart of the American economy and the aggressive and unfair business practices of these companies whose services they use only serve to hurt small business. With the current state of our economy, high unemployment rates, the lack of decent-paying jobs, and the significant rise in the cost of living, many have been forced to turn to the likes of eBay just to make ends meet.
With that in mind, their business practices are not only hurting small businesses, but tax-paying citizens who are also consumers. We are all for free enterprise, but ONLY when an enterprise is conducting business in a fair and mutually beneficial manner. So, when it comes to companies like eBay and PayPal, simply chalking it up to free enterprise is unacceptable.
So, one way our government can invest in the potential of entrepreneurs and their small businesses is to start enforcing tighter regulations against these companies to limit the amount of damage they do to small businesses as well as consumers. It is for the good of the whole as it is good for our economy and not just for the elite few who are already at the top.
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