Ebay Discrimination

[herbiecat]

I have been selling on Ebay for some time now. They have a group of sellers that they have given "Power Seller" status to and given them certain advantages to help them sell their products. I am not a power seller because I do not have the volume nor the income required to elevate me to that status. My question is this: when buyers are searching for certain items they usually do a search for it by entering key words that might help them find it. What happens then is that all of the power sellers items come up in the search column first and after the buyer browses through what could be hundreds of listings the non power seller items start to appear. This is a brand new perk (among others) that Ebay has given it's power sellers. I know it is having an impact on my sales because I was doing quite well before it was implimented. It doesn't seem legal that they can discriminate against non power sellers simply because they can't sell the volume of merchandise that the others can. As a result, my items are now viewed by so few buyers it is hardly worth my time and effort. Just wondering if a class action suit was in order here?

 

[Michael Wechsler]

E-bay is a privately held businesses. A suit for discrimination (constitutional) may only be brought if you are one of the "suspect classes" or groups of people who are protected. Being a "eBay non-power seller" would not be one of them... Suspect Class: A status that makes a law that categorizes on that basis suspect, and therefore deserving of greater judicial scrutiny, e.g. women, racial minorities, etc.

What's your remedy? To sell elsewhere and to get others to put eBay into a poor light for its new business policy which you feel is one that is providing unfair advantages to power sellers.