Online Marketplaces, Social Aspects - Help Or Hurt Your Business And Reputation?

When everything went to pieces at eBay last year, many online sellers set out to find new venues to supplement or replace their sales at eBay. It was not an easy endeavor and these sellers have found issues with some of the alternatives. These issues, could kill an online business. Some of these issues center around the new "social" aspects being added to these alternatives. The "social" aspects of these venues can be quite helpful in closing a sale but they can also irreparably mar a sellers reputation. In this article, we will share what we have learned in our search for an appropriate alternative venue.

We were among those sellers who were searching for a way to survive (hopefully without eBay). Several of us started out on this journey together but many have given up and gone back to eBay. While eBay hasn't a perfect reputation, our fellow sellers felt that less damage would be done to their own reputations at eBay than would be done at the alternatives.

Online reputations, especially for those who make a living selling online, are very important. We talked about this a bit in our article: Online Business Professionalism - Separating Your Personal Life . A merchants online reputation has become such a big issue that many companies have been created to help sellers with protecting it - click here for Google search results. It seems that not only online merchants are concerned about their reputations but the merchants of the brick and mortar world are also concerned.

Multi-seller marketplaces like eBay, OLA, eCrater, Bonanzle, eBid, AtomicMall, Blujay, WeBidz, Overstock and etc... are just like your local mall. They contain several stores operated by different sellers. Most of these venues, like your local mall, have rules as to how things are to be done for the best interest of all sellers and the buyers who visit them. Anything that may damage the reputation of the mall or the stores in the mall is not allowed. Any activity that may defraud or otherwise rip-off buyers is also not allowed. The merchants in your local mall also have to comply with any and all laws that affect them. So is the same, or should be, for multi-seller venues.

Some of these venues have enhanced (we question that) their marketplace with heavy "social" emphasis while some are more old school. The more old school venues have a feature where a buyer can ask the seller a question about an item they are interested in. The new "social" sites offer the old - ask the seller a question for buyers but now they are implementing Quick Texting / Instant Messaging, store chatboxes and other forms of "socializing". Some third party vendors have even created widgets that sellers can implement themselves and use on most marketplace. All of these tools can aid sellers with buyers but it can also backfire on them. Click here to see a thread that is on PSU about this subject.

All of us who embarked on this trip to find another viable venue agreed on one thing, the venue we choose needs to be in our best interests. That does not mean that they have to be so seller friendly that they don't protect buyers. What that does mean is that the venue must meet our moral and ethical standards. Of course, those standards helped us rule out many sites right off the bat but there were sites that we visited that were not as easy to decide on. Part of the problem making this decision was that we had to lurk these sites for a long period of time to see what was really going on. Another thing that made it difficult is that the sites may have seemed great to start with and did not show their true colors until we had listed items, promoted our store and in some cases, paid membership premiums. Some of these sites looked innocent enough until the dreadful day that we had the nerve to post something in their forums.

Our Joint Search - After our group of 23 sellers set out together (we started out with 26 sellers but 3 left our group due to what they witnessed while lurking the potential sites without listing a thing):

Of all of us in our group that signed on at the "old school" sites, most of us are still signed on. Two of our group went back to eBay because they didn't want to spend the time necessary to successfully promote their stores. The rest of us, are happy as can be and are thrilled with the way our sales are increasing over time. The forums attached to these sites are not as saucy as the "social" sites but they do offer a wealth of information on how to use the site and the tools offered to help maximize sales. Our sales results are a good sign that the "old school" venues were a great choice.

All of the "social" venues had issues, some worse and more frequent than others:

Our remaining group of 21 sellers signed on to a few of the other alternatives and all found that the "social" venues were taking precious time away from what they needed to be doing. Our group did not consist of hobby sellers. All members of our group sell online for a living and bring in from $250,000 - over $1,750,000 in gross sales per year and all sold several thousands to several hundred thousands of pieces of merchandise in varying price ranges. Some sold antiques or vintage items while others sold new products. Many of these sellers have had an online presence for 7 - 10 years. The youngest member in our group was 33 and the oldest was 62. Most sellers in our group found it difficult to balance the time it took to take pictures, create listings, post the listings, package and ship items, promoting, take care of inventory, etc... and to still find time to "socialize".

After a few weeks, one of the sellers in our group dropped out and went back to eBay. The remaining sellers continued to fill their stores with merchandise, promoted their stores all over the internet and they submitted their store URL's to search engines.
About 5 or 6 weeks into this "social" endeavor and trying to establish ourselves on the various venues we had chosen, our group witnessed some very nasty behavior on a forum attached to one of the venues. We could not believe our eyes! There was a thread where a seller was verbally attacked by a group of about 4 or 5 people and run right off the site. The sellers who did the attacking were as vicious as a rabid dog! They even took their fight to the seller's store and continued the abuse there. We were completely shocked and concerned. From what we could see, nothing was done to reprimand the offenders by the site administration. The thread was eventually removed but the attackers seemed to get away with their horrible behavior unscathed.

After careful thought and conversations back and forth between our group of sellers, most of us decided that there may have been some behind the scenes problems we didn't know about (which still did not make the attack right or proper) so we would stay. Two of our group decided to go back to eBay.

We had witnessed many other attacks on the these "social" sites but nothing as ruthless as the above attack. Each incident had caused all sellers in our group to rethink what we were getting into and how this behavior may hurt our businesses. After all, when this behavior is discussed by others, they will note the site it happened on and it will appear that all members of the site behave the same way.

You can read about another attack (more recent) that we witnessed and wrote about:
Adult Cyber-Bullying, Cyber-Stalking, Cyber-Harassment, A Serious Issue Behind Internet Anonymity That Must Be Stopped

We were now down to 18 sellers on this endeavor...

It wasn't too long and all of the sudden on one of the forums, the forum members created several virtual bars and / or drinking parties. It wasn't bad enough that they were carrying on like they were really in a drinking establishment and about 3 sheets to the wind, they were posting pictures. One of the pictures was a lady, passed out outside. She was laying on her stomach and the only thing she was wearing was thong underwear. What appeared to be beer bottles littered the area around the nearly naked lady. Some of the female participants of these threads sounded like barroom tramps. There was sexual innuendos flying all over the place (some were more forward than others). At this point, all of the sellers in our group were so freaked out we decided someone needed to say something to the site's administration. I posted to a thread or two stating how I felt that behavior was wrong and then contacted the administrators. I received a message from one of the virtual bar's party goers which told me in part - to kiss their a$$. The site did remove these threads after they ran for at least 2 days or more. It was a very embarrassing scene for any and all serious sellers. All we could think of was: please do not let any of our customers come in here now. We had only witnessed this kind of behavior on one of the venues we were participating in.

At this point, we lost 4 members of our group. They could not bring themselves to risk their businesses and their reputations any further so they returned to eBay.

We were now down to 14 sellers and the results of this endeavor are looking pretty bleak...

Oh, and let us not forget about the members of various sites that we have watched attack other members with a foul potty mouth. Some could use four letter words as well or better than a drunken sailor. These attacks were worse than the usual verbal attacks but most of the time, they were less effective. The cursing made the author look very ridiculous. (Thank goodness that this behavior is only used by a handful of sellers.) Sometimes, we have seen this kind of thing ignored and then there were times it seems that the site administration reacts to it. We have yet to figure out why they decide to react but we do feel it has something to do with the favoritism of some members.

When the first such incident occurred, one of the most upset members of our group decided that they would stay but never post on the forums again. They figured that if they were never seen posting on the forums, they could claim ignorance to the behavior of others, thus, saving themselves - or so they hoped.

We were now down to 14 sellers, with one refusing to ever post on the offending forums again...

We watched rant after rant on the various marketplace forums. Everyday there was at least one heavy duty rant thread in the forums of each venue. They consisted of various things from no sales to people complaining that someone turned them in for selling counterfeits. Some of the responses were degrading or accusatory to the ranting individual and fueled the rant further. These rants could go on and on for many pages. Most of the time, these rants made both the original poster and the responders look very childish. Once in awhile, the rants did have merit.

Everyday, sometimes many times a day, there were members who gossiped about other selling venues. Usually, what was said was very disrespectful and sometimes downright mean. Many times the participants of the thread would write the name of the site they were talking about but sometimes they would use synonyms for the site. None of these comments were very becoming to the forums they were posted in or to the site that the forums were attached to. (One site did this far more than all of the other sites combined that our group of sellers were involved in.) This behavior was not on most venues but a few seem to carry it further and tolerate it more than others.

There were visits to the various alternatives from shill posters. Shill posters come from other sites and rock the house as much as they can in one post. Every now and then, they would get lucky and get several posts in but that was not the norm. They knew that once the site and / or the members realized what was going on, they wouldn't last long. Shill posters insult or degrade the site or some aspect of it, knowing that it will bring out faithful site members with their virtual fists flying. This was a frequent abuse found on most any site but the response from some sites and the site members could be quite shocking and uncalled for.

On most sites, sellers are not allowed to promote their products or stores. The sites that do allow promotions in the forums, are totally overrun with them. Not only do some venues provide forums specifically for promotions but some desperate sellers went out of their way to promote in as many of the forums as they could get away with before they were caught and stopped. In some cases, this activity may have looked innocent enough by being disguised as a game of sorts but it really was nothing more than a promotion. Many times, these promotions made the sellers appear to be begging for sales. We watched with curiosity at this behavior. All we could think is that these sellers should have more self respect than to act this way but that didn't appear to be the case. At the minimum, these sellers most certainly looked very selfish by constantly cramming their promotions at site visitors. Perhaps they needed a lesson in the proper way to promote their business. If so, there is plenty of information on the internet about promoting products and businesses and there are many books on the subject.

Venues with high sales volumes do not normally allow "selling games" on their sites but the smaller, slower sites do. It seems each venue we were a part of had a certain level of tolerance for the number of games on their site. At first it was not a big deal because there only seemed to be a few games but it didn't take long for the games to multiply and fill the forums with their nonsense on a few of the venues. It seemed that there was a new game created everyday. We watched these games, how they were played, followed their outcomes and even participated in one on each site. We didn't need to play more than once to see what was going on. It was like a swap meet where sellers were bartering with each other. We looked at the feedback of the sellers participating in some of the games to check for patterns. It was like one giant circle! What we found that the sellers were basically swapping even up or pretty close to it. Seller one sold a $10 item to seller 2 and seller 2 sold a $9.99 item to seller 1. It was the same thing on all of the sites that allowed games. The transactions went through the venue so the only real winner was the site that the game was held on, if the site charged final value fees (and all but one did). The game participants only gain was to receive another feedback on their profile and to promote their store and products, yet again. The venue was the only one to receive true financial benefit from these games. What is really weird about this, the game participants did not see the truth of the matter and continued to hold these games. Us, we never participated again. We were smart enough to see that the games would not generate a profit.

Then came that horribly dreadful day. It wasn't April Fool's Day but I sure got kicked really hard! None of the members in our group ever introduced themselves on any of the "social" sites. We were busy with creating our stores and handling the sales we were getting on eBay. One day, I decided to post on some of the forums on the various sites. Some of the posts were just chatter and sharing links of things that members were involved in but then I found threads that were about things I had knowledge of. So, I posted... What a HUGE mistake! I was kicked so hard it wasn't even funny on one of the sites. A gang of sellers came on me like a pack of wolves, chewed me up and spit me out half eaten. I couldn't believe it! What was wrong with these crazy people? Some of the sites I responded to just picked and poked at my posts and made light humor about them but the one in particular was like a terrible nightmare. On none of the "social "sites and some of the "old school" sites, were we able to actually have a meaningful conversation about any topic without someone making fun of the info or being attacked... It seemed that only certain people were allowed to offer up information, even if the poster had proof to back up whatever it was they were talking about.

This was a real turning point in our group endeavor. We lost 7 from the group. What a sad day. I had thought about quitting also but I had tons of time invested and on some sites I had paid memberships... I couldn't just quit now. Instead, I just decided to stay away from the forums, at least for awhile.

We were now down to 7 sellers, will all of us end up abandoning the alternative sites?

Not too much time had lapsed before some attention was given to one of the alternative venues we were operating on. Positive articles written by a couple of reputable online newsletters / blogs. Oh man, how fast good press can turn into a terrific disaster. The articles that were written had a comments section. Boy, did this venue get comments! It was like someone launched a full scale war against this alternative site. Several of us were so appalled about some of what was written that we even tried to defend the venue. It quickly became apparent, we were gaining no ground on the negative reports so we gave up and let the chips fall where they may.

During the same time as this bad press campaign was going on, there was talk of a black list. This list was supposedly made by sellers on the site that was receiving the negative comments on the above noted articles. The story was that if the "popular" sellers of the site did not like someone, they would add that unliked person to the black list. Then this black list was rumored to be sent to new members to advise them not to buy from the members on the black list. We never saw any proof of such a list but we have always believed - where there is smoke, there usually is fire (or at least a spark).

These incidents cost our little endeavor group, yet another person. Our excited group of travelers on this expedition had dwindled down to a level that we never expected. We thought that our group of seasoned sellers could handle most anything that came our way. The one thing we never counted on was that our businesses would be subjected to such high risk behavior. Up to this point, none of us had ever suffered through anything like this before. (Well, eBay gets blasted pretty hard but they can afford some rough hits since they are a household name and they hold the majority of online sales. Smaller or newer sites could be murdered by this kind of press because they are not established. At the same time, the bad press the site had gotten could take down every seller on their site with them.)

We were now down to 6 sellers, things can't get any worse than this, we hope...

Most of the alternative marketplaces are set up to enable sellers to offer coupons and discounts. When we first started on these venues, sellers were offering 5 - 20% off of their products from time to time. It was a good way to clearance inventory to make way for new stock and to draw buyers into their stores.
Just when we were praying that things could not get any worse, the unthinkable happened! We could not believe our eyes!

We began seeing sellers offering 30 - 80% off of their products. They didn't do this once every quarter, they did it continually, each and every week - all of the time! What was worse than that was they were posting in the forums that they over-inflate the price of their items so that they can offer these ridiculous discounts. What? All we could think is - haven't these people ever heard of truth in advertising or what? We were totally blown away. Some even commented that buyers like coupons and discounts because they feel they are getting a great deal. This was absolutely unbelievable! If it wasn't bad enough that these sellers were pulling this caper, they actually had the nerve to write about it on the forums of the venue that they were pulling the caper on...
Then came a real heartbreaker for us. We noticed that there were charity sales on the various venues. Some were wonderful honest charities and the sellers had all of the proper verification in order. There was absolutely no doubt that the charities were legit and that the money would be forwarded on as indicated.
Then there were those charity sales that were set up for legitimate charities or to help sellers during a hardship that went sour. The sales went on with a lot of promotions (they panned out to be pity posts once we realized what happened). Large amounts of cash was spent to help the beneficiaries only for most of the money to be pocketed by greedy middlemen. Those involved could provide no proof as to what happened to all of the money. The sellers and their accomplices got away with money but they also stole the trust of everyone who thought they were helping someone.

We lost two more members on our endeavor due to this activity. They felt that eBay was the lesser of all of the evils they had experienced thus far. This behavior is killing the reputation of the sites it is happening on. Even worse, it appears that the venues suffering from this are allowing it to happen. None of them seem to be doing anything about it!

We were now down to 4 sellers, who are getting really nervous about the whole situation...

The four of us continued on with the sites we had chosen and posted welcome messages to new members that announced themselves, shared little funnies every now and then and offered up a little help to those who asked for it but we were ever so cautious because on a few occasions, we were foolish enough to offer up very thorough information about topics we knew about. The 4 of us were knowledgeable in different areas but all of us soon found out that we shouldn't act like we knew anything unless we wanted to be attacked, degraded and left to feel like we were idiots. That's right, the basher gangs and / or the silly crews would come in and mess with us and make readers think we were giving out misinformation or they would make fun of the information we posted.
On one venue in particular, we have watched these gangs turn extremely vicious on many occasions They have run numerous people off of the site. They rip and tear at their victim and scare the daylights out of them with their nastiness. These people will not stop until their victim leaves the site completely.
All of the venues seem to have this gang problem but some are more infested than others. Some sites allow the attacks to go on while others will remove the threads to stop the bad behavior. Some sites discipline the attacking members, some don't. Some sites allow certain members to go unpunished.

Only eBay does not have the item and member count cheerleaders. All of the alternative marketplaces seem to have them, some are more prevalent than others. These cheerleaders rah-rah their brains out every 1000 or so members and / or they jump around like they have ants in their pants whenever their site comes near or overtakes another site on the PSU auction listing count chart. It is plain silly since the real numbers that matter are sales counts and of course, they don't celebrate those because most alt sites do not provide that information. While it does take members and listings to create a viable site, auto-generated buyers or additional ID's created by other members falsely inflates the count. The same holds true for the listing counts. Members will list things that are truly not for sale but those FAKE / NOT REALLY for sale listings are counted as if they are real.
These happy, happy, joy, joy cheerleaders have another side. You will find it by posting a question about the lack of sales on the site or writing something that can be even remotely thought of as negative in any way by the cheerleaders. You will be attacked and ganged up on by these wonderful site happy characters. They froth at the mouth and snarl like they are going to tear you from limb to limb. They do everything they can to discredit the poster and they act as if they will not be happy until you see things from their perspective or leave the site. We have watched this behavior in horror and to our dismay, these lovely cheerleaders have continued this behavior with little or no correction by the respective site's administration.

We have watched many sellers use the pity card to generate sales on some of the various alternative sites. They come to the forums and post that they are leaving for various reasons but the most common reason is the lack of sales. Some members will post messages, begging the poster not to leave and some members will be suckered into the pity game and purchase something from the poster's store. What is amusing is that those members who use this technique will use it many times, over and over again. They never leave the site nor did they intend to when they posted their bogus message to the forums. For some members on these sites, there seems to be little self respect or shame.
There is even a relatively new term created for this behavior. The term is a flounce or the member is flouncing.
From the Fandom Wank Wiki (Edited to remove inappropriate comments for our blog):
Flouncing is the ancient art of leaving a board, community, blog or Internet forum in the most dramatic way possible.
Whereas normal people who are fed up with a discussion or debate simply leave, flouncers need eternal validation. Instead of simply logging off, they must announce that they are leaving. Flouncing usually occurs when a wanker realizes that other people on the planet hold differing views.
In childhood, flouncing is called "tantrums."
* A Convoluted Flounce is a wordy diatribe in which the wanker must make it clear how everyone else is forcing them to leave, and that the wanker simply has no other choice.
* The Double Flounce is when a flouncer vows never to post again and never to return. They then return to announce again that they will never again return.
* The Triple (or more) Flounce is exceedingly rare, but definitely the most amusing.
Effects
The goal of a flounce is always to elicit an outpouring of handwringing and sympathy from other fans ("Please don't go, we love you, you're brilliant!") If there's a corresponding threat of deletion, they will expect an added outcry for the sake of their fic ("It would be like Michelangelo erasing the Sistine Chapel if we live without chapter 217 of your Harmonian opus!"). If there is an insufficient outcry the first time, the wanker will institute the double flounce.
98.7% of flouncers return within a week, usually in the form of a sockpuppet. A percentage of these flouncers will actually return as themselves or not leave at all, most with the explanation that the sympathy garnered have changed their minds.

We have learned to always be careful and NEVER trust anyone in the alternative marketplace forums. Many of the people in the forums on each venue we have been involved with are very cut-throat and will stop at nothing to further their agendas. About the time we thought we had a few friends on the different forums, we found out that we were being poorly talked about behind our backs. Some of these lovely friends would sucker us into believing they were on our side when we suffered yet another gang attack but in reality, they were only gathering information to run back to the attackers - to keep the mean and rotten pot stirred. We will NEVER, for any reason, trust another forum poster again! These people turned on us so fast that it wasn't even funny and their behavior makes us believe that they have written the book on backstabbing and being two-faced. It seems that they will stop at nothing... especially if it means they may run a competitor off the site - to increase their own sales. Some of the backstabbers do it as a sport though... we have learned to be wary of everyone because some two-faced people carry on like this for their own entertainment. We have found that these people also travel in packs most of the time. They have little power by themselves.
Just about the time we thought we had seen it all, we found a new situation had risen. Some alternative venues offer ways of communicating in a sellers store and there is now a new tool that allows sellers to communicate in a chat connected to their stores - this is added by the seller. Because of these two things, alternative marketplace sellers have created ways to hold online auctions where they actually call the auction with text in these chat areas. The auctions are not the issue but who is calling them is the issue. In most states, anyone calling an auction must be a licensed auctioneer and of course, when they do this on the net, the location of the site's home and the location of person who is selling the items up for auction (if the caller and the seller are not the same person) come into play. I had posted the following (below these comments) information when I discovered the legalities of this on some of the forums at the sites that our little group of sellers were involved in. What is sad about this, rather than following the law and becoming licensed, those that are illegally calling these auctions just changed the name of what they are doing. It is now - "auction prep". haha That would be funny but in some cases, the person offering this service wants the seller to give up their store log in information to do this so-called prepping. Furthermore, these wonderfully, helpful people charge a fee and / or want an item from your store to provide this "service".
First off, no one needs help calling an auction. Anyone can do it. There is plenty of information on the net about how to do it.
Secondly, never - ever give your log in information to ANYONE!
We have watched some of these auctions called by people who are paid to call them and they are not impressive. In some cases, they are quite disgusting. We have watched the callers do virtual bootie dances and swing their pasties.... What?! All we can think is it looks more like a strip club peep show than an auction.
Here is what we posted on the venues in question:
I had been asked at one time if I would help someone by calling an auction for them. At first I said yes but now I am glad that we did not follow through. I have learned, after doing my research, that I can not call auctions for someone other than myself without an auctioneers license which is fairly expensive.
Below is information for those of you calling auctions for others to save yourself the headache of legal issues if your state requires you to be licensed.
Legal Issues of Selling for Others
Considering a consignment business? Know your local laws.
by Auctiva.com staff writer
http://www.auctiva.com/edu/entry.aspx?id=Legal-Issues-of-Selling-for-Others
- Oct 13, 2008
In part and edited Bay references:
At least 20 states and commonwealths in the U.S. have specific licensing or registration requirements for individuals or companies who sell merchandise on behalf of others through Internet auction venues such as e*ay. In some cases, the laws are particularly stringent pertaining to auction drop-off locations, the retail storefronts maintained by many consignment sellers. Some states, including Nevada and New Hampshire, consider such businesses to be pawnbrokers, and require operators to jump through a whole different set of legal hoops.
Failing to comply with local regulations—even vague ones—can land you in the proverbial soup, as two recent cases in Pennsylvania demonstrate.
In 2005, Ohio enacted a law that extended auctioneer's licensing requirements to online sellers. Tennessee is believed to be considering similar legislation. Illinois, meanwhile, classifies online sellers as Internet Auction Listing Services and requires special registration.
Lacking specific terms for online auctioneers or sellers, most other states require some sort of business permit be obtained at the municipal level for regulatory and tax collection purposes.
You can view a comprehensive digest of state laws relating to auctioneers, pawnbrokers and online sellers at the link below. It's also a good idea to check with your local county and city officials to find out what regulations and license or permit requirements apply to your business—and what type of legislation may be pending.
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/pages/state_regs - This is a state by state list.
TAs are now prohibited from using any form of the word "auction" in their business name unless they are licensed as an auctioneer in the state in which they operate. e*ay also requires TAs operating as retail drop-off locations to carry a $25,000 bond and at least $1 million in general liability insurance.
As with any business venture, it's wise to do your homework before you jump in with both feet. Check in with every local and state government office that might have an interest. If there's any doubt, err on the side of caution.
It may cost more in licensing fees, but you can write the expense off on your taxes. Speaking of which, don't forget to report your online income to the tax man.
This article does not constitute legal advice. Though every effort was made to ensure its accuracy at time of publishing, you should seek the aid of a qualified, licensed legal professional in your area.
==
More info about Ohio, Illinois, and Tennessee auctions:
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y05/m02/i25/s02
More Illinois auction info:
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y205/m03/abu0138/s02
***
Well needless to say - on all venues affected by this, those members that argued the loudest and had the most negative to say about our post were those who were breaking the law. Of course, the gang of hecklers showed up on each of the forums also. Seems like it is unwise to post anything informative on these sites since facing the music from those that only want to do things their own way without regard to the legalities of it is not worth the headaches. They continue to break or skirt the law and the sites are doing absolutely nothing about it. One thing about it though, they can no longer claim ignorance of the law as they did when this activity and the laws regarding it was first brought to each sites' attention.

Note: We believe that many of the auctions on these sites are also shilled. You can look at the feedback and compare the purchases with all of the names involved and what is "relisted" or watch how the bidding moves to see this.

We have encountered those members on each of the venues who know it all. They seem to know everything on all topics no matter what it is. They are so stuck on themselves that they would argue facts with a TRUE professional of the topic. These people are not only annoying but they do not reflect the site or the members of the site in a good light. We have watched these types of members with their dog and pony shows carry on with their smart aleck remarks on all of the sites we are involved in. The worst offender of this behavior comes from members who try to come off as some kind of legal expert.
Whenever we have posted anything that contained information about legalities that we have discovered, these legal beagle types seem to always show up to discredit the information. Sometimes, we can make a simple post which has nothing to do with laws, rules or regulations but the "legal" type still turns up to mess with our posts. We have even seen some that post as if they are a legal secretary, paralegals and / or attorneys. Now I don't know about these people but we have a lawyer on retainer and that poor man is always so swamped that he would never have time to be playing around on any online marketplace. Furthermore, he would not need or want to supplement his income by selling online because he makes more than he can possibly spend at his law practice. He seems to struggle to just have a few minutes outside of his practice to spend with his family (which is very important to him). Any legal secretary, paralegal or attorney worth their weight in salt would not bother with these marketplace forums, let alone constantly post to them. Our lawyer is a young guy and hasn't been out of law school that long but he is probably the busiest lawyer we know because he is very good at what he does. We did ask him to take a moment to peek at some of the activities and what some of these "legal" types have said in their posts. He did and he about split a gut... He told us that real paralegals or lawyers would never announce that they are a paralegal or lawyer and they most certainly would never offer legal advice on the forums (even general comments about the law can get a real paralegal or lawyer into trouble). He said if he found his office staff doing such things, they would be fired on the spot without question. He also said that a real lawyer, paralegal or office staff of a lawyer would never advise anyone to break the law as he saw one doing in response to some legal information posted. Well, this person didn't directly advise breaking the law but they discredited the information in their own way and basically said that the law did not apply to the sellers of the site - which was incorrect. Some of the activities these "legal" types are involved in is also a conflict of interest and their behavior goes completely against the code of conduct they are supposed to subscribe to according to our lawyer.
We have found these "legal" minded characters to be uncomfortable to deal with because so many members believe what they say. These innocent victims of this type of member have no idea that they are being misinformed so they heckle and berate anyone who posts contrary to their "legal" BSing buddy. It is really quite sad to watch these poor souls being led by the nose and in the wrong direction - which does not benefit their business whatsoever. In fact, the incorrect information provided can also damage the sellers who believe it.
These so-called "legal" types are the most apt to attack anyone who may share information with others. They are usually the most nasty mouthed (they us nice words but they still mean the same as many 4 letter words). They have attacked us on numerous occasions.

There seems to be no limit to how low the attackers of these various sites will go. For whatever reason, they feel the need to hurt, embarrass and/or run members off of the site. The seem to stop at nothing!
After a few weeks of mini attacks on a member, we watched these unscrupulous attackers take very personal information about a member's child and use it against them. It worked! The member left because of the humiliation and pain of it all.
We tried to help this member and then the leeches turned on us and tried to rock our world.
What iced the cake was an email sent to us suggesting the attack victim has mental illness. What?! These people will stop at nothing! The sender of the note did not bother to think that what they were doing was interfering with the victims business. You see, we purchase from this victim once in awhile and then resell their products. If that note had been sent to someone who did not know the victim as well as we do, the victim may have lost a customer.
It is our opinion that the lowest of low life's do use someone's children against them to inflict pain. It is a shameful lot that would do such a thing.
We have only found this behavior one site and it appears that the attackers walked away unscathed, once again.
Google Base has help forums to aid people who are having issues. They help with everything from setting up your feed, why a feed is having issues and many other things to do with Google Base. All of this information is 100% free!
SEO and Search Optimization information can be found all over the internet. The information is offered for FREE!
On one site and only one site, we found that this information is being sold to members who do not understand these types of things. What is sad is that the people paying for this information do not realize that they can get it for free. What is even worse is that any seller would charge for free information.
The people selling this info are just other members, pretending to know more than others when most of the information they have was taken from the information that another member was offering up for free.
While none of these people are a Google Base or SEO certified trainer, there is only one of these members that really does know what they are talking about. BluePennyLady sells on several sites, owns a brick and mortar store AND she is a dedicated poster on the Google Base forums. We have seen her in those forums helping others and turning around to go to the different marketplace forums and helping members there with their questions, 100% free of charge.
I would go to BluePennyLady before I wasted my money on those other guys. She is more than willing to help anyone who asks.
We sort of wonder if there isn't something in the Terms of Service over at Google that would make the selling of this FREE Google Base information to be against Google policies but we haven't taken the time to snoop.
Now that Google has changed their policy to each site performing their own feeds, rather than each merchant doing it - much of the information that the imposters are selling is no longer necessary.
We hope once the site has all of the Google information changed on their site, that new members will no longer need help - thus starving those that have been taking advantage of them.

On one site, and only one site - we have found that after someone has run a member off of the site, other members beg the victim to come back. Thread after sickening thread is created... Yet on this same site, they don't beg everyone that has been run off to come back. They pick and choose who it is they want back, as if one member has more value than another.
The simple fact that anyone has left the site due to poor treatment from others is a sad commentary for this site.
If ALL members were treated properly and with dignity and respect, no members would be leaving the site which also means that begging people to come back would not feel like a necessity to some.

On one site more than others, there is the heavy sharing of personal information. The information being shared - like where you live, who lives with you, what pets you have and etc... all seem innocent enough but it could be a burglar's, a rapist's, a murderer's or a home invasion criminal's gold mine. Pretty much everything that they would want to know to carry out their crimes is right there for the taking. They won't even have to scout these potential victims out before committing their crimes. It seems no one is considering that they are giving up enough information to strangers that they could be set up to be a crime victim. It is freaky to see these questions being asked but it is horrifying to see people giving up the information without any thought about their own safety or the motives of the person asking the questions.

On one site, members are all freaked out about the fact that the boards are sanitized and they are not allowed to speak their mind. They are blaming this on the sites' administration.
It is not the sites fault that the forums have to be absent of any meaningful discussion. The fault goes back on the membership.
Each and every time that an informative thread is started, the goons, hecklers, gangs and etc... show up. They turn the thread into a three ring circus with clowns, stupidity and fights.
The administration has learned that they have to babysit these kinds of threads because they rarely stay informative or positive. They have no choice but to get rid of polluted threads or visitors will think everyone on the site is a troublemaker.
If members want the duct tape removed, all they have to do is act their age. Respond appropriately to informative posts. If you have nothing informative to contribute, skip the thread!

My fellow travelers have left me, they could not continue on the rocky journey any longer...

Everyone has left our group but myself. None of them wanted to continue to subject their business to more risky behavior of the various sites we were on. We started on this journey a year ago but only really finding out all of the murky details over the last 9 months. The worst of it is, what we have written here, is only a portion of what really goes on and all that we have seen. My friends decided that the risk to their reputations using these more "social" sites was not worth taking any longer. While several of my fellow travelers remain on at least one "old school" site, they have dumped ALL of the "social" sites.

Some of my friends keep writing and asking me how to get their names removed from the one particular site they were involved in because they can't seem to get it done. They have closed their stores but their name remains there. They don't want their store name connected to this site. I have told them to contact the site administration. They have told me that they have written requests to be removed over and over again for MONTHS and still, their name remains on the site as a member. Maybe if they send a certified letter demanding their name to be removed from the membership would work... who knows?
The one thing that I do know, this does explain some of the membership numbers. By keeping members on the rolls rather than removing them completely, the site appears to have more members than they actually do. After all, it's about member counts so that the lovely site cheerleaders can jump for joy more frequently.

On this site you can't get completely off of, I asked one time about a refund of unused portions of pre-paid membership fees because my spouse and I were really upset about something that had happened on the site and wanted to leave. We were surprised at the response because we paid for a 1 year membership and we were only a couple of months into that year. We were told that they don't normally refund unused membership fees. What?! How can they do that? Even as money grubbing as eBay seems to be, they still refund unused fees! What's up with this site?

The way issues and problems are handled on the alternative sites is usually not fair. All of these venues have their favorite members who can do no wrong. No matter how pushy, mean or rotten these favorites are, they suffer little or no ramifications for bad behavior. Favorites are also handled as if they were fine china by the sites' administration.
Until the sites treat all members equally and issue discipline 100% evenly, they will suffer a loss of members. No one wants to be a part of a site where they feel as if they are valued less than other members. They also don't want to feel that they have to fear the favorites attacking them whenever they try to contribute to the site forums.

We have been attacked, berated, belittled and treated like scum many times on the "social" sites. We are treated as if we are second-rate members of the so-called community. For the most part, our complaints of mistreatment are not handled properly and sometimes, they are even made light of.

Abraham Lincoln once said - "If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what's said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference."

Mark Twain once said - "Keep away from small people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."

It's pretty obvious to us that old Abe and Mark had also known these mean spirited people, according to their writings. Like Twain advised, we will forever do what we can to stay away from these small people.

On one of the sites, I posted the following:
Portion of 1st post - A wise person would never allow the avatar of another member to deceive them. It’s hard to know the background of those behind the silly pictures.
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I posted that because I think that our silly avatars play a role in how others see us. Trust Turst me when I say, a flower avatar may have a big, burly man behind it. It was also stated because some believe they are so much more intelligent than others, just because the others are not standing in a library or some other so-called "intelligent" setting.

Portion of 2nd post - I have logged 11 or 12,000 responses over in the Bay AC (in the couple of years that I used them) helping others with the policies over there (mostly on the AC feedback board) and I have never been treated as poorly as I have here nor have I ever been as disrespected to the extent in which I have here. I never visited the regular forum boards at Bay because I am not the gossipy kind nor was I there to do anything but offer up helpful information to other members who asked for it. That is why I chose the AC instead – it was for sharing information or showing someone how to find the info. While there was a few stinkers over there, for the most part, it was helpful and sometimes fun. It’s a shame that it seems to be some kind of pi$$ing contest here instead of everyone working together to make (sites' name goes here) the best it can be.
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I guess the portion of the 2nd post above is pretty self explanatory.

These "social" sites need to get a grip on this misbehavior and disrespect if they really want to be considered viable sites. No serious sellers want to deal with a site filled with hateful cut-throats. Serious sellers don't want to risk their reputations by being associated with this romper room activity.
Some people have said that bad press is ok because the site may now be considered a threat. WRONG! Bad press really is bad press and it will turn potential buyers and sellers away.
Some people say that buyers do not go into the forums. WRONG! If that's the case, then the administrators of the site would not be deleting threads that show signs of trouble (well, those threads that were not written by the site favorites). Potential buyers and sellers DO visit forums! They really DO lurk to see what the site is about.

Sites with illegal activity, bullying and harassment, attacks and threats need to be cleaned up. If they don't clean themselves up, they may get caught with their pants down if / when authorities come knocking. Agencies like the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) do not tolerate improper activity. We would love to see these sites cleaned up so that everyone may enjoy them, not just the site favorites. We hope the site administrators will do what they can to correct these bad situations on their respective sites.

It is our opinion that the more social a site is, the greater the chance of people being mistreated, disrespected and turned off by the site. While social sites may appeal to high school kids and may be a fun fad for some, the way we have seen them abused is not inviting to serious online sellers. We also believe that these sites can destroy a sellers reputation unless they are administered appropriately. The "old school" sites are much better suited to provide a seller with a professional business image.

We may feel differently if the abuse of the tools offered by social sites is stopped and the forum misbehavior is corrected.

As for where we go from here - we will hold out for awhile longer and pray things get better on the sites we are involved in. We will also never post in the forums again until they are cleaned up. We are very tired of the rotten treatment from other members.

Some may ask if we are angry about this chain of events - No, we are not angry but we could not be more sadly disappointed by all of it.