Is The eBay Green Team Missing The Meaning of Green?!?

Written by John Comments
Last Updated November 16, 2009

Hey there! Click to follow me! I send FREE content that includes the latest hints, tips, and "edutainment" research with videos, MP3's, and industry content You might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.

This post is a reprint by permission from eBay Top Rated Seller Tips editor/author Gary Overton. Gary has been selling online since 2000 and is a top seller on eBay. Thanks for this quirky story and picture Mr. Overton!

If you have a story and would like to be featured, do not hesitate to shoot me an email, I would love to see it and share it.

I was a winner with the eBay Green Team but the Environment didn’t fare so well

4495 1165865944143 1152728413 471965 141114 n Is The eBay Green Team Missing The Meaning of Green?!? I was excited this week to find out out I was a sweepstakes winner with the eBay Green Team.
My prize was a SIGG eBay Green Team branded Water Bottle. These suckers start out at about $18.00 so I feel it is way too valuable to carry water in. I will put it up for sale on eBay later today. eBay may take the auction down. Somewhere in the fine print on the web site is probably a paragraph that says you are not able to sell this item except to another Green Team member. That has happened to me before. I couldn’t sell a eBay branded shirt because only "qualified" individuals were allowed to own one.

While I was excited to be a sweepstakes winner I wasn’t excited about how I received it. It arrived in a box about 3 times larger than necessary. As a matter of fact the box & packing materials weighed more than the item. BTW, the bottle was packed very loosely and would slide from one end of the package to another. If it had been fragile it would have never made it. Attached is a photo showing the bottle and the packing materials.

On the eBay Green Team web site one of the hints it gives to be "green" is "Use the smallest size box possible. The larger the box, the more room it takes up on a truck or plane, so fewer packages make the trip. A smaller box may also help you save on shipping costs."

Of course, I am not surprised. I love eBay. I spend thousands every year listing items for sale on eBay. I used to sell a good percentage of these items but lately that percentage has been in a free fall. In My Never Humble Opinion one of the reasons the sales have fell is that eBay is very good at saying one thing but doing something different just like they did with my water bottle.

Amy Skoczlas Cole

Hi John,

I just posted this on Gary's blog, but thought your readers might be interested too.

- Amy

----

Hi Gary,
Thanks so much for bringing this issue to our attention. You're right that we encourage everyone to use environmentally friendly materials when shipping, starting first with using as few of them as possible! We should absolutely be practicing what we preach, and I'm committed to make sure we do (specifically, we should have used a smaller Cradle to Cradle certified box from USPS).

Thanks for caring enough to spend the time to write about this and bring it to my attention.

My best,
Amy Skoczlas Cole
Director, eBay Green Team

ColderICE

Awesome Amy, you ROCK! Thanks so much for responding.

Thanks,

John

e: John@3rdPO.com
store: www.3rdPO.com
address: 3rd Power | 3550 Centerville Hwy | Suite 107-216 | Snellville, GA
30039
fax: 678-805-4900