Another reason why eBay wants to hide emails is to prevent sellers from finding out how bad their selling platform is.
I sell antiques, collectibles and similar items.
I’ve used the buyer’s information, including their eBay i.d., to find their business website via Google out of curiosity. I found multiple instances where the buyers were buying my items not to resell on eBay but on their own website.
eBay hasn’t been the market leader in such items for well over a decade. This has been entirely caused by eBay management who only seek short term profits at any cost in order to get their bonus pay before they leave the company. Their polices have harmed the company long term.
Remember when everyone was making fun of Amazon for not making any money and eBay was the 800 pound gorilla in the room? Now Amazon is 8,000 pound gorilla in the room and eBay keeps on declining because the company is run by people who only seek their own self interest.
Frankly eBay does not even want people like us on their site. They started dumping us during Meg in favor of big box stores. Those big box stores were dumped in favor of Chinese sellers who have the advantage of using slave labor, ignoring environmental laws and stolen IP. Those Chinese sellers (i.e., the Chinese government) don’t complain because the more they sell the more they destroy the industrial base of other countries.
eBay can’t even keep its own lies straight.
For instance, eBay told sellers they were converting 30 Day lisitngs to GTC with auto renewel so that items could obtain more exposure and thus sell.
Yet when you cancel GTC listing early eBay includes a note stating that you should consider an auction for the items to obtain more exposure.
So auctions of 7 or 10 days get more exposure than a GTC item that is cancelled on the 30th day before its set to renew. Yet they coverted 30 Day lisitngs to GTC. Cant have it both ways!
An eBay customer service actually tried to tell me that a counter on GTC items that are ended at 30 days would not motivate anyone to buy the item it unless it was a “rare” item. LOL, the term “rare” is meaningless. I have a lot of very rare items - the only copy that exists, but the real question is someone willing to buy it. If so, then you wouldn’t stick it in a GTC listing - its would be in an auction for bidders to drive up the price. Somehow I expected better lies form eBay for the fees I pay them.