Warning!  Long blathering blog post... go get your coffee first !!!  

Like a lot of people, I was excited at first by the eBay changes announcement:  lower listing fees, free Gallery, discounts and refunds for Powersellers -- it sounded great.  Then I looked closer and saw higher FVF fees, some weird feedback rules... It's a mixed bag.  A lot depends on what you are selling as to how you feel about the changes. 

So, here goes my reactions.  (GREEN stuff is what I like, RED is what I do not like.)

For me, there might actually be some advantages.  I sell a lot of low-priced things like ebooks, digital photos, and seeds.   Right now I sell most of my low-priced stuff in Store Inventory,  where they take 10% in FVFs.   Gallery there is (or was) only 1 cent, a big savings that offset the extra FVFs.  For digital photos, you MUST have Gallery or nobody looks -- and sales volume did not justify 35 cents on Fixed Price.  So, for ebooks, photos & such, the free Gallery will help me. 

Since I'm use to paying 10% on Inventory mode, the 8.5% in Fixed Price is not a shock to me on those items, and will actually save me $$$ with free Gallery.  However,  since eBay is raising Store Inventory mode FVFs to 12%, I'll be paying more there now, too.   That's a two percent hike!  It will not offset the penny savings on free Gallery there.

I'll probably be listing more seeds in Fixed Price this year because of the free Gallery pic.  However, for people who sell bigger items, the rate hike will be more than what they save on free Gallery.  If you sell an item for $100, the FVF hike will be much more than 35 cents.  Not good.

Since I am a Powerseller with good customer service feedback, I should qualify for the FVF refunds, which will help.  But non-Powersellers with good records don't get any breaks.  That's UNFAIR!!!!  Powerseller status is partly based on volume of sales.  Not everybody can sell big, but we can all sell fairly and well and that should be rewarded across the board.  I do like the idea that Powerseller status is now tied to something more responsible than just sales volume.  Maybe that will get rid of some of the power-scammers who sell a lot but give lousy service and crappy products. 

I do NOT like the idea of sellers being able to leave only positive Feedback.  This means that those zero FB people who buy and never pay will either have no FB or all positives.  We'll never see a minus score again.  The only solution I can see to that is to leave a positive but write a nasty comment.  So, we all need to read comments on zero FB folks more carefully, I guess.  (Hey, that could be a new ebook:  "101 creative negative-positive feedback lines for sellers."  Watch for it soon in my store.)

On the other hand, I do like the idea that buyers must wait 3 days to post a neg -- slows down jerks who buy and neg within minutes out of spite.  And I like that positive FB from repeat customers will count (not exactly sure what that means -- as FB points? Sounds like it with that "1 point per week" line.)   And I like that FB more that a year old will not count  in the total percentage (yippee!!  -- I finally get my 100% back!)

I like it that sellers with good FB and repeat customers will be given some preference in searches.   But this should be a voluntary search decision up to the customer, NOT eBay!  (Maybe add a new option in the "search by" menu?)  The "Best Match" thing sounds like crap.  Who are they to tell me what best matches my desires????   

This repeat customer stuff will help us here on the blogs, since we buy from each other a lot.  That is one more reason we should continue to have our Double Dares, Penny Antes and such, to buy and sell with each other here.  It does help us all as a community. 

But I DO NOT like that eBay will hold up PayPal payments for up to three weeks for sellers with less that 100 feedback points.  A lot of small sellers are on very tight budgets, and they rely on immediate availability of their funds to pay the shipping charges.  Many go straight to PayPal to print out the postage.   How can we ship things on time if the money is not available to do so?  Is this even LEGAL for eBay to do this??

Well, that's my 5 cents worth (for inflation -- the American 2 cents ain't what it used to be...)

Comments?

Seriously! I'm really in this documentary -- come read all about it, then go to YouTube and see it.  (If nothing else, you get to see what I look like!)

Here's the YouTube link if you just can't wait to get there:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9RxmTGHZgE

Otherwise, read on....

A SACRED DUTY:
Applying Jewish Values To Help Heal The World

A Major Documentary on Current Environmental Threats and How Jewish Teachings Can Be Applied in Responding to These Threats

Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA) has produced a major documentary about how Jewish teachings can help address current environmental crises.

It's a one-hour documentary that explores environmental issues from a Jewish perspective, citing quotes from the Torah and Talmud (read by acclaimed Broadway and screen actor, Theodore Bikel) about our respnosibility toward God's Creation.   In tghis respect, it picks up where Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth leaves off, by addressing the religious and spiritual issues as well as science.   

Much of A Sacred Duty was filmed in Israel, where, in a land area about the size of New Jersey, one can find examples of all the various problems that threaten the planet on a global scale.   Israel is the microcosm.  Earth is the big picture.

There's quite a roster of prominent rabbis, environmentalists and activists interviewed in this film.  But it is far more that a bunch of Jewish talking heads.  Award-winning cinnematographer Lionel Friedberg, who has done documentaries for CBS, PBS, Discovery Channel, the History Channel and National Geographic, brings his creative style to the screen once more.  He intersperses phenominal visual footage with the interviews, which helps to bring home the messages of the speakers in a way that mere words never could.  And although some of the footage is very disturbing (there is actually a warning at the beginning), there are also many beautiful scenes of Israel's deserts and sunsets, and the film ends on a positive note. 

We CAN change things, we CAN make a difference!!! 

As I said in the teaser title to this blog, I'm in this film -- several times.  I was amazed and honored to find out that I got to make the opening statement to introduce the film -- after a quote from Deuteronomy.   I'm not telling you this to brag, just to say how honored I am to have been a part of this project.   I also suspect it was the content of what I said, not "me" per se -- but you will have to see the film for yourself. 

There are also a few brief shots of my chickens and geese, taken here on my hobby farm last spring when my interview was done -- shots that contrast my free happy birds with the horrors of factory farms.   (The footage of geese being force-fed to fatten them up for fois gras was especially disturbing to me.  I cannot imagine doing that to one of my birds.) 

Yes, this movie has a vegetarian message, but it is more than that.  Even if you do eat meat, you need to understand the impact that the industry has on the land, the rainforests, the animals -- and our health.   One segment shows graphs that contrast how many people we could feed with and acre of soybeans versus what we get if we feeedc those same soybeans to cows for meat production.  With all the hunger in the world today, this is literally food for thought. 

The film is getting very good reviews in Israel, Europe, and the USA.  (It is in English, by the way, although a lot of signage in street scenes is in Hebrew.)  And it is getting good reviews on YouTube now, too.

If you have a fast connection and want to see it RIGHT NOW, you can go to this site on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9RxmTGHZgE

If you are an individual, group, or organization that would like to sponsor a showing of this film, you can get a FREE DVD of it -- with unlimited rights to show it anywhere, no need to pay royalties.  

For more info and links to media reviews, visit the film's website at:  

http://www.jewishveg.com/asacredduty/index.html

If you want to download a copy to your computer and/or burn it to disk, you can do it at http://blip.tv/file/602351/ (legally -- the JVNA folks have released the rights to anybody to copy & distribute it, they just want to get it out to as many people as possible.  It says that right on the DVD cover.)

And, if, after viewing this film,  you decide to try vegetarianism (or even just cut down on your meat intake),  here is a great resource you can buy in my eBay store:

Do animals have eternal souls?  

Can spirits of animals haunt places ?

Do animal spirits return to avenge their deaths?

Will we be re-united with our pets in the Afterlife?

These questions and more are explored in Animal Ghosts.   Dozens of actual case histories of animal hauntings and apparitions, collected by Elliot O'Donnell, psychic investigator,  in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  Stories of abused animals whose ghosts came back for revenge, beloved pets whose spirits periodically visit their earthly humans, prehistoric horse spirits guarding their bones, a spirit dog who solved the mystery of his own death -- and many, many more.  Plus folklore, superstitions, and other material on animals and the afterlife.  

This ebook is a NEWLY RE-FORMATTED electronic version of the complete 1913 classic by Elliott O'Donnell, with a new Introduction and Afterword by me.  This is NOT the generic plain-text version some other people are selling.  I bought one of those and frankly, I found out that reading hundreds of pages in solid ASCII text on a computer screen can be very tiring for the eyes.   But the content was PHENOMENAL -- so, since the book is in the public domain, I decidied to produce my own version. 

And here it is!   Complete with illustrations -- not actual ghosts, but pix of the areas where the phenomena ccurred, or the speces involved, etc. to make the stories come alive.  (The dog on the cover is my pal Gypsy and is very much alive!)  I also include some notes to explain obscure 19th-century terms & expressions, etc.

A very good read for only $2.50  (sorry, no resell -- I worked hard on this and deserve to profit from the fruits of my labor.)

Winter vacation (or summer down under!) can get pretty long and boring, especially in bad weather and the letdown after Christmas is over....

Help your kids beat the winter blues with these printable coloring ebooks to keep kids busy -- just print out the page they want on your computer. 

No more arguing over the book!  no more whining about who got the "best" picture!  Now everybody can have all of them!   Just print multiple copies! 

I've got cats, dogs, birds, fish, zoo & farm animals, bugs, butterflies, horses, and flowers --  Immediate download, too -- you'll have them in minutes!