mongoose wrote (View Post): › 2Boys - PRG wrote it with quotes in order to post it on the WP boards in an attempt to have it last more than a few seconds. By adding the qualifications it was hoped that the post would be viewed as pro-pooper while subtly getting a message across.

I think that if you read other posts by PRG on this topic she is in agreement with you. She was trying to pull a fast one on the pooper boards and essentially was excommunicated for it.

thekatyworkshop wrote (View Post): › Not sure how much of a "cult" it is, but I can tell you that management apparently has a deep-rooted fear of success.

They are becoming distinctly more like eBay, all the while claiming they are not. Posts that are not glowing and rosy, or in agreement with all they are doing are now removed. So much for free speech.

Sellers have been openly treated very rudely in the last couple months, with sharp tones, warning emails (their version of a pink slap - does that mean if you get one, you've been "popped"?), general hostility if you dare to question them.

WP expects their sellers to just know what to do, esp on paying their invoices. They don't take into consideration that the eBay refugees are used to money being sucked out of their accounts, so wait for the invoice to be auto-paid. Of course, WP doesn't do the autopay deal (yet). It has been one of their main excuses to boot sellers out of the place. They have closed SO many stores in the last few months, mostly claiming non-payment. So, does that mean WP attracts deadbeats, or that WP is doing a poor job of educating their new sellers? I vote for the latter. Few sellers want to spend time loading a store with merchandise only to walk away from it.

If you ask about it, WP has the same old tired song - "we are tired of the 30-60-90 day sellers", meaning the ones who only give it 1, 2 or 3 months before leaving. Well, that really isn't the real problem there. There are many sellers leaving this year, BEFORE the fee increases, simply because there isn't the traffic or sales to support staying there.

Every time I read the posts from admins, I can't help but think of the Wizard of Oz, and the little man saying "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain".

I've had an extra store there since 2006 (and yes, I was one who tried the failed 2005 outing too). The new pricing structure is pretty steep for stores with few sales - when I asked if I could keep my account to use for buying should I choose to close my store (I wanted to keep my 100% feedback there) , I was told that my feedback was a "privilege for loyal sellers", and that I'd have to start with a new account if I wanted to buy. Mind you, I've bought AND sold on my current account, but that doesn't matter to WP!

Also, they are having SEVERE search engine problems. When there was a thread with info about it, and people posting their experience with a certain key word search, it was removed by admin as being "anti-community". Um, not really, when search results are the bread-n-butter of the selling community!

Every question is taken as hostile, so it would seem. Don't question anything, don't suggest an improvement or easier way to do something either!

Sellers have been waiting well over a YEAR for additional needed categories. ALWAYS, the excuse is that they haven't had the funds to pay for the category additions on the programming part. Okaaaaayyyy - since you have the entire structure in place, it really can't be that hard to set up another category and assign a different identifier to it. I am not a programming dummy, but admin hopes that everyone is.

I for one, am sick to pieces of being told that there will be no advertising again, being told it is my problem if WP doesn't have any traffic, and that the sellers should be bringing over more people, and listing more things so the site will attract more business.

I've been struggling along at their old rate, most months not even making the rent, but it was still exposure. I had no idea that the real reason so few people buy there is that they cannot FIND anything that is already for sale there. On the above-mentioned store search, I tried my own store, and used the sampling we were doing of "size 9". Now, I have NOTHING in my store in a size 9. However, it returned 448 items in the results, none of which was a size nine anything at all. When I looked for things from the home page for things I knew I had listed in my store, it came back on every item but one as "no results".

When the never-ending drone over the lack of revenue was priming the WP sellers for changes, I really thought they'd be scaling back service and aiming more at the hobby sellers, rather than the business sellers (the ones who sell online for a living, not for fun). I also expected a small price increase of some sort. What we actually got, however, is WP rolling out a 300% price increase for the lowest level store (they claim it is a better deal since there are no FVF's now with the new package) and no promises to fix anything that was broken or to spend a dime on advertising the site. The "free" FVF means nothing to me, since I still won't have sales if someone can't find what we have. My FVF's were not a huge expense in the first place.

That is why sellers are leaving - poor search engines, missing or duplicated categories, and little listening to their concerns. And now, with the additional privilege of paying a 300% price increase mid-year (instead of changes coming in Oct as previously announced), makes WP a very risky venture for most sellers.

Sure, the community there is very nice. I love it myself. The folks are much friendlier as a whole than eBay, and there is less cut-throat stuff going on. Sure, I've been burned there (including someone turning me in falsely as hijacking their account! Good grief), but overall, very nice people.

But when it comes down to my business, nice only goes so far. And if a buyer cannot even find what is listed in the store because of broken or poorly-structured software, then it doesn't matter if it was free - the cost is still too high.

Cult? Not really. It is just a site that has failed to live up to its enormous potential by digging its cyber-heels into the sand and refusing to listen to its customers, the sellers.