We've been encountering dozens of issues with eBay over the past two years.
(Yes, our eBay store is retro_console_accessories.)
It isn't related to returns, we don't get many and we'll honor them on this store too (using PayPal gives you even better return protection than eBay - 6 months vs. 2 months, if you are worried.)
It isn't related to being worried about getting bad reviews - we don't get many poor feedbacks, and the Amazon style customer reviews on eBay product pages are optional - we left ours opted in. We could opt out at any point, so it isn't that.
It's related to the store being too popular for its own good, to the point it isn't compatible with eBay.
Out of stock items are not displayed to customers in ebay stores. This results in hundreds of emails asking for links from people who want to watch a listing til it is in stock. Most buyers are aware that the stock is added every day at 7am est - it's in our FAQ. One thing we can't do is add links to every single item in the FAQ so we spend at least an hour a day mailing links to people. This issue was the main reason why we had our eBay products at a very high price a few months ago, with a "best offer" option so people could reserve an ostensibly out of stock item and we could accept it when it was restocked next day. We did it so people could see the listings, reserve a cable and so we could cut out the considerable email workload and spend more time working on cables.
Which worked to an extent. The problem with that is it caused controversy with some people thinking we were trying to sell cables at $1000.
This was the point when I began working on this website.
We are still fighting the email overload from eBay. It is intense and the lack of cables confuses some people, others "get it" but still need a link, others want to reserve a cable we sell in a normal listing via "customer request" and this results in more email going back and forth.
It's not a good situation for customers. It's not a good situation for us, and it results in less cables being made to supply a growing community because we have to reserve a lot of our time every day for eBay messages. We keep falling behind on eBay messages because we get so many.
This site is great because it lets people see, and watch an out of stock listing. It lets us constantly update the handling time via the big banner at the top if we get too much workload. We even left this store on during hurricane Irma because of how easy it was to put the big alert up there and inform our customers. eBay don't even show product descriptions to mobile customers now so the information is hard to get out - hence during any situation that results in delays shipping out, we'll turn eBay off and leave this store on.
We *hate* eBay because of how non flexible they are (we'd love to display out of stock listings but the option isn't there) and we are trying to move away from it.
We would be extremely grateful to those who can spread the word. Please, if you link to my products anywhere, *don't use the eBay link* - use the link from this store.
We have a secret affiliate program if you are interested. It's secret to try to avoid issues, we don't want to have a hundred affiliates actually competing against each other for link revenue and for people to get upset when they do extra work for no pay because another affiliate's link was chosen. If you understand this, please email me.