Lorrie Norrington Keynote at eCommerce Summit

implog / April 23rd, 2008 at 1:39 pm

Richard

Please

Ask her how a buyer can be dissatisfied with an item they never received. Sellers DO NOT send items to buyers who do not pay.

A buyer saying they are dissatisfied with an item never paid for and never sent is as nonsensical as a buyer replying “Red Beans and Rice are Awfully Nice.” to an Unpaid Item Dispute.

Please help her understand this.

~~~~
Below copied from her PESA presentation.

“The first is that we will remove negative and neutral
feedback left for you – retroactively – when a buyer is unresponsive to an unpaid item claim or if they respond to the claim without expressing dissatisfaction with the item or your performance.”

JJH / April 23rd, 2008 at 3:17 pm

“feedback left for sellers will be removed – retroactively – when a buyer is unresponsive to an unpaid item claim or if they respond to the claim without expressing dissatisfaction with the item or your performance”

What don’t they understand? This makes no sense. I would never ship the item if I wasn’t paid, so how can they claim dissatisfaction? D’oh!

implog / April 23rd, 2008 at 3:33 pm

Ms. Norrington said;

“For sellers, we believe, this is much less of an issue, because your primary concern is, and should be, whether you are paid for your merchandise. But because you don’t ship until you have been paid, …”

The above quote from her presentation makes it seem as if she DOES understand the seller/buyer process. Sellers do not ship until paid. Yet she also says in her presentation;

“The first is that we will remove negative and neutral
feedback left for you – retroactively – when a buyer is unresponsive to an unpaid item claim or if they respond to the claim without expressing dissatisfaction with the item or your performance.”

?????????????????

If the seller does not send the item due to non-payment as Ms.Norrington acknowledges in the first quote, how in the name of red beans and rice can eBay allow a non-paying buyer to leave a negative against a seller due to “dissatisfaction with the item” if the item is never sent as she allows in the second quote?

Richard — take Ms. Norrington to Felix’s. Buy her a dozen on the half shell. Get her a cup of decaf so she won’t get even more “excited” and ask her to explain this conundrum. Expense it.

Then,

laissez les bons temps rouler!

Patricia 1 / April 23rd, 2008 at 4:18 pm

Hmmm…..you may have a point there. I sure do wish that once and for all they would realize that sellers do NOT trust them. They haven’t had much trust in Ebay management in years. Ebay hasn’t earned trust from sellers. I’m not saying that to be mean…just speaking honestly. There is going to be one heck of a fight if they start trying to hold paypal payments for any reason. When I’m paid, the first thing I do is go to Paypal and check to see if it has been added to my account…then and only then do I ship the item out. I have done business with reputable companies that I trust and shipped first and waited 30 days for payment. I do that now with the distributor who buys my lace pattern books for resale….yet I wouldn’t dream of doing it with ebay. Sorry.

Mechelle / April 23rd, 2008 at 5:11 pm

Norrington

“We’ve already talked about this on Ink, but Lorrie confirmed that PowerSellers’ shipping cost DSRs for cross-border trades are only .02 points lower than domestic.”

Well gee, do you think .02 points can affect the DSR scores?? Yeah if you have enough of them

“First, sellers can block buyers who have had more than one Unpaid Item strike in the past 12 months”

I want to block anyone with even one unpaid item- I shouldn’t have to do business with someone who even on 1 occasion failed to follow through on their commitment. My item being shelved for 15 days, because someone lacks integrity is outrageous, and I prefer not to have that risk when the individual has already demonstrated their lack of integrity in the past 12 months.

“Second, beginning in May, sellers will be able to block buyers who have been reported by other sellers for policy violations like Feedback extortion or Feedback abuse.”

Well, just how am I supposed to know if a buyer has an out of the sellers view eBay profile reflecting their deviant behavior? Why are these people still allowed in the marketplace at all? Shouldn’t they be suspended? Isn’t that what an ethical company would do to protect their customers?

“The first is that negative and neutral feedback left for sellers will be removed – retroactively – when a buyer is unresponsive to an unpaid item claim or if they respond to the claim without expressing dissatisfaction with the item or your performance (this is aimed at resolving the situation where a buyer responds to the UPI claim but the response is nonsense).”

Well, I haven’t looked for the info lately, but the last time I read eBay recommends that UPI buyers respond to the dispute even if it just to say they are not paying- anything say anything- so they are still able to leave feedback. There is just no way to view this as anything other than villainous behavior on eBay’s part. To actually encourage members who are deviant to say whatever so they still have the opportunity to leave feedback- what is wrong with you people? If someone violates eBay’s TOS they should have nothing but a strike leading to indefinite suspension- not the right to negatively affect my feedback on top of their causing my item not to be listed for 15 days. I swear you people are demented.

“Secondly, negative or neutral feedback left by buyers who have been suspended from our marketplace for Feedback Extortion or other policy violations, will also be removed.”

What other violations?- do you people know how to use concrete examples for anything? Words are simply that – the reality is we have no information regarding any member’s deviant profile because eBay hides it behind “privacy rights”. What a joke!

Wake up people- we are not as stupid as you like to imagine- or maybe it’s you who are stupid and we just give you to much credit.

Karen / April 23rd, 2008 at 5:42 pm

In reference to Norrington’s comment in 4. Two new buyer requirements were introduced today to further promote seller protection. First, sellers can block buyers who have had more than one Unpaid Item strike in the past 12 months (previously it was restricted to more than one UPI strike in the last 30 days).

I’ve been on the site and and wanted to active this in my buyer requirements but this is not the case. It is still showing the 30 day restriction only.

Anyone know anything more about this? The one thing I’ve learned is that I can’t trust what eBay says which is sad.

Davey / April 23rd, 2008 at 6:22 pm

@Richard

“We’ve already talked about this on Ink, but Lorrie confirmed that PowerSellers’ shipping cost DSRs for cross-border trades are only .02 points lower than domestic.”

Being that you used the word “confirmed” above, could you obtain and tell us the characteristics of the data set used to make Ms. Norrington’s statement? Specifically:

1. What countries were the cross-border sales used made to (country is VERY important)?

2. What was the average price per item sold?

3. What was the breakdown of the shipping method(s) used in the trades that were tracked?

All of these factors can grossly distort both shipping DSRs. It is troubling that rather than making an effort to make these DSRs fair, eBay is using what could be grossly defective data to justify yet another decision.

implog / April 23rd, 2008 at 6:43 pm

Ms. Norrington:

We’d like to help you learn to help yourself. Look around you. All you see are sympathetic eyes.

Here’s to you Ms. Norrington!

Sandi / April 23rd, 2008 at 7:54 pm

@TheBrewsNews said:

“However, I awoke one morning to find that my few digitally delivered items had all been removed. I was in violation of a FUTURE policy that had not yet been announced. ”

Oh come on, that’s ebay at its finest. They have always had the one hand does this while the other hand does that. Someone needs to bring in some communication & teamwork consultants.

Like last year when they rolled out the restriction for non performance sellers while they were running specials to “bring us a new seller, we’ll pay you 5 bucks for intorducing yours friend to the fun of selling on ebay”

Or my personal favorite, cancelling and restricting designer purse listings randomly, but plastering designer purses on the front page telling people what great buys were inside on designer purses.

And to convince me the practice of non-communication, I got my invitation to the Annual Developer’s Conference being held in June in my email April 10th (you know 10 days after digital files and services were no longer allowed on ebay core) and one of the awards we all are suppose to be vying for is:

DSR Rockstar (improving customer service)

I guess Lorrie and team forgot to tell the developer team, or the developer team never explained what developers created to sell?

TheBrewsNews / April 23rd, 2008 at 9:42 pm

Patricia, I don’t know about everyone else’s experience but when I called Powerseller Support as soon as I read the email notifying me of my policy violation, I spoke with a representative who was stunned because he knew nothing about the future unannounced policy. He then put me on hold for 32 minutes while he spoke with Trust and Safety. Evidently, no one had told Powerseller Customer Support about the new policy. What the representative finally told me was that other sellers items were being removed in advance of the new policy announcement but at the time I called, I was the first seller who called who sold primarily physical goods. Most sellers whose digitally delivered items were removed were sellers who sold ONLY digitally delivered items. My biggest complaint about the entire experience… as an eBay seller, it is difficult enough to keep pace with eBay’s constantly changing environment but to be asked to follow rules that have

************
Lorrie stated that one of eBay’s goals is to see that there is more of a selection of goods offered on eBay. She didn’t give specifics so I’ll have to make an assumption. I am assuming eBay intends on trying to achieve that goal by increasing the number of new sellers on the site. When I started selling on eBay 10 years ago, the eBay system was simple. Today, however, learning to sell on eBay for the first time can be overwhelming and it would be very difficult for a new seller to compete with existing Powersellers.

And since Lorrie relies heavily on reporting the numbers to make her points, I have reviewed one of Richard’s recent auctions (since he is a new eBay seller) to make my point:

Auction 320237308384 – SOLD for $1.50

eBay insertion fee – 35 cents
eBay final value fee – 13 cents
Paypal fee – 35 cents
Loss on shipping – 60 cents (charged $4.00 when the postage alone cost $4.60)
TOTAL costs $1.43

Net amount after fees 7 cents

Assuming Richard was given these items for free, he earned 7 cents for taking a picture, listing, and shipping the item as well as answering any emails related to the sale. Assuming Richard was able to quickly list and ship the item in a total of 30 minutes, he “earned” 14 cents an hour (again assuming the product was given to him for free).

Richard has not received DSR ratings for 10 items so we cannot see the kind of stars his buyers are leaving for him. Without good DSR ratings, Richard’s listings (if he had any up) would not earn “points” in the Best Match scoring system.

Given the effort it took for Richard to make a total of 7 cents (and 7 cents profit assumed the product was free to you), I wonder if Lorrie would really think it is worth it for a new seller to learn how to sell on eBay? If not, how does eBay intend on getting a greater selection of goods on the eBay site in the future? The devil is in the details.

CrunchyPostingGoodness / April 23rd, 2008 at 10:27 pm

… and not to pick on Richard, but mainly to help illustrate a point.

The trucker’s hat which did not sell recently cost him $0.55 in listing fees. So technically in the past 15 days, Richard actually lost $0.48 to eBay.

Of course that is just the numbers, it doesn’t take into consideration the time he spent taking pictures and creating listings for both items.

This is what I meant before when I said that users are actually paying eBay more in fees than they are getting for the items sold.

Patricia 1 / April 23rd, 2008 at 11:18 pm

crunchy – you gotta feel sorry for them. They just don’t realize the fees. I won’t list anything less then 7.95 – I can’t make a profit for less what with all the fees and the shipping rates and the time I put into making the item. Most of my small baseball card sized paintings used to cost me 73 cents to ship and now cost 1.48! If you don’t figure all the fees in you can well end up paying ebay and the post office all your profit. New sellers don’t realize this until they get a good taste of it.

Permacrisis / April 24th, 2008 at 3:58 am

A few comments about this new, improved ‘eBain’.

You’ve got sellers hopping mad with Norrington’s “our buyers” verbiage. Remember, knicknacks and rare items brought the buyers here in the first place, and here ebay is now prying those buyers away with the DSR crowbar.

One of a kind items cannot be funneled into a product flow like dropshipped or cataloged items, as they must be carefully packed (and oftentimes economically shipped, due to weight constraints). So naturally those items will achieve lower DSR’s, in diametric opposition to ebay’s original purpose. A large chunk of the population still believes you go to ebay for those items. That is becoming less and less the case… all you hear during downturns is niche, niche niche but these folks are fervently dismantling the biggest niche in Western civilization. Sad… :-(

The fact is, ebay couldn’t source unique / rare / unusual items on its own if it tried… not even if it threw several hundred thousand dollars at the problem. Ebay execs harp on the ‘long tail’ items in press releases, but in reality can’t even properly categorize let alone source them. That puts those items squarely in the province of the small seller, who’s presently being stomped like a grape.

In Donahoe’s 2002 paper entitled “The Last Legacy of the Dotcom Era” he describes the corporate venturing strategy he is currently employing on ebay for what it is: a huge gamble, requiring an exit strategy should it fail. This paper is very prescient– it even names Ebay as one especially low-hanging fruit.

So far, JD has followed his map chapter and verse. It would appear wrecking ebay’s auction functionality is his lifetime ambition.

Unfortunately Donahoe has yet to outline the exit strategy he himself was a proponent of. He had better hope Dimitar Slavov doesn’t write it for him, in the form of Auction Functionality added to eCrater. If that happens, ebay needn’t bother spinning auctions off. “Their buyers” will instantly vaporize.

It’s the ITEMS, stupid.

CrunchyPostingGoodness / April 24th, 2008 at 7:41 am

Patricia, your right. Some people sell on eBay as a virtual garage sale, some sell things to help pay for daycare costs, or to save up for the family vacation. How can they accomplish any of those goals when they are actually paying more money to eBay and PayPal than they take home in profit? Not to mention all the effort in taking pictures, writing descriptions, answering potential buyer questions quickly, and charging shipping costs equal to professional sellers, who have access to discount shipping supplies

eBay is definitely changing into average joe unfriendly.

The funny thing is that I occasionally go to garage sales – not to resell findings on eBay, but just personal pleasure. I see countless garage sales pricing their items according to completed listings on eBay.

It takes a lot of effort to not go up to the owner and say, “do you have any idea what is involved with selling on eBay to justify the price those sellers charge there?” Of course, I never do this. I simply smile, shake my head, and walk away.

Misty / April 24th, 2008 at 8:32 am

@ Crunchy
Not to get off topic but I can not help but chuckle to myself at your garage sale analogy, I remember before eBay existed going to such garage sales where you would hear them discussing antique shop prices and on a few occasions when I inquired about an item their reply was ohhhh no as a dealer will be along any time and snap it up for a good price. I like you would smile and walk away shaking my head… on a few occasions I would hand them my business card to my antique shop before walking away just in case that dealer never showed up.

TheBrewsNews / April 24th, 2008 at 8:59 am

I am feeling really safe right now…….

Date of eBay sale – January 12th
Item was shipped immediately with delivery confirmation. The address provided was a confirmed shipping address and was eligible for seller protection.

Buyer claimed item itself was just fine (an electronic item) but the packaging (plastic) the item arrived in was not perfect and because the buyer wanted to store the item in the original packaging they were unhappy. No problems, we said, we’ll send you a prepaid postage label and have you return the item for a full refund. Buyer grudgingly agreed although what he really wanted was for us to provide a partial refund and for him to keep the item. We sent a prepaid label and informed the seller that they must ship within 7 days and to let us know when the item was back in route to us. No response. We email at the end of 7 days and notify the buyer that on day 10 we MUST have notification of return shipment or we have to cancel the prepaid label or we lose the postage. No response.

February 29th – paypal notifies us that a chargeback was filed.
We respond with all relevant information including proof of delivery.

March 14th – paypal notes that they lose the dispute.

March 24th – we are sent an email from paypal notifying us that they lost the chargeback dispute and thus we are out both the money ( $ 65.95 ) and the product.

We call Paypal to find out how the customer can keep the product AND have his money returned when we followed all the paypal seller protection rules and even went above and beyond in our offer to pay for return shipping. Paypal’s response is that the buyer told the credit card company that they were not given return instructions and thus couldn’t return the product. Excuse me? Our return address was on the original shipping label, we provided a prepaid return label AND Paypal has our address. So why did Paypal not respond to the credit card company and say “Hey, here is the seller’s address you can return the item to” since Paypal has my address.

Yes, I am sure the Australians are looking forward to an “All-Paypal” marketplace which will be much safer.

Patricia 1 / April 24th, 2008 at 9:32 am

Well…..so much for Paypal protection. Do you have no right at all to contact the credit card company directly? Under the circumstances I think I would email the customer and tell them since they have their money back you consider the item stolen and will report them to their local police dept.

CrunchyPostingGoodness / April 24th, 2008 at 10:31 am

@ Richard,

Just to clarify, when I wrote “That is how a service and site earns the respect of its users.” I was referring to PayPal and eBay – not you.

I can clearly see that you are doing everything within your power to make sure these issues are being brought to the powers that be. I just wanted to make sure you knew that was not a comment against you or this blog site. :)

TW / April 24th, 2008 at 11:22 am

THEBREWSNEWS said…

“The really sad thing is that many eBay sellers have some amazingly spot-on ideas about how to “fix” the eBay marketplace but nobody at eBay is listening.”

This has been the number one complaint I have about eBay, especially of late. Supposedly eBay wants to listen but so far I have seen very little evidence of that.

Even if you can rectify THEBREWSNEWS problems, why should the problem have to be brought up on a blog before it gets the proper attention? It’s the typical customer service problem we see day in and day out.

Hello … sellers are leaving and we have to believe that is what eBay wants, for the small seller to leave. Does eBay care? It appears not!

TheBrewsNews / April 24th, 2008 at 11:50 am

TW, I am certainly not asking Richard to try and solve my Paypal problem. I just offered to provide the specific details so that he could verify the FACTS. Anyone can say anything on a blog but I can back up what I am saying with real facts.

Frankly, I wrote off the $65.95 two months ago when the chargeback dispute was filed because I had no faith that Paypal would fight on my behalf.

MI2HIGH / April 24th, 2008 at 2:03 pm

OT-Question.
New to blogs am I
I am wondering why some of the user names are in black and some in red?
Does it mean something?

CrunchyPostingGoodness / April 24th, 2008 at 3:28 pm

@ Richard

Can you please give us some examples of “… I’ve already encountered my fair share of issues I’d like to get answers on.”?

I would really like to know. I think I would find it comforting (as weird as that sounds) that someone who is employed by eBay is dealing with the same frustrations other users are, and validation that are experiences are real.

@ Brews

I think verifiable situations like yours are exactly the type that Richard needs to know about. That way their can be no confusion about what really happened. eBay department representatives will have to answer to the facts, rather than pawn it off as a fluke, or “that never happens, or “the person was misinformed”.

Davey / April 24th, 2008 at 3:39 pm

@Crunchy

“eBay department representatives will have to answer to the facts, rather than pawn it off as a fluke, or “that never happens, or “the person was misinformed”.”

You forgot the official terminology for these events that always go against the buyer’s favor–”a glitch.”

I know many of us could supply factual cases of what we talk about. My listing takedown would be primo, but I trust this blog will take some time to accomplish its purpose and could get overwhelmed with facts.

We need a marketplace that is level, fair, stable, and healthy. I think we all agree on that. Unfortunately I think we are all pawns in an experiment that will some time down the road be, like New Coke–a freshman study in how data is misinterpreted/how not to run a business/how to treat your customers.

Davey / April 24th, 2008 at 3:47 pm

One last thought for now…

Wouldn’t it be great if you went to one of these keynote things and the presenter didn’t talk about grandiose plans or how they bought their shoes on eBay before jetting off somewhere else, but rather sat down and laid out goals for the site, asked questions of the audience, then listened and took notes?

Seems to me that looking back in history, this is how some kings kept their thrones (and heads) from restless serfs–having audience days to address general injustices.

That happened to me once when at an Intel Developer’s Forum. It greatly changed my opinion of the top management at that time.

JJH / April 24th, 2008 at 5:44 pm

@Richard: “I don’t know how many attendees actually read this blog (it’s early days after all) but if they are reading, it would be nice for them to chime in on what they saw.”

Yes, that WOULD be nice. At least it would be some sort of a clue that all this passionate posting is being read. But I’m sorry if I’m sounding cynical, but all this posting isn’t going to do one iota to change anything. These plans are cast in stone, and really we are all just “pissing in the wind” so to speak (I hope that’s acceptable). I don’t for a minute believe that anything discussed in this blog will change any of ebaY’s direction. Sorry, it’s just how I feel.

To my knowledge two eBay employees with “clout” have posted here. The first was that communications guy (forget his name). What happened? He got shouted down, and he left. The second was Griff, he got shouted down and he left.

The fact that they left, and don’t stay to counter the argument is because nothing we say will change them. They must also feel that “why should I even bother, they don’t believe me anyway”.

But wouldn’t it be interesting if Donohue had the guts to post here and take on some of the really hard questions in a honest and non-corporate speak way and had the courage to stay and take the heat. Won’t happen though, he’s a busy man, and Lorrie is too busy buying shoes. At my place of business ebaY is blocked, I guess at yours it’s OK to waste time browsing ebaY.

ebaY must be a hard company to work at, especially in the communications area. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, I couldn’t work at a company that was so widely hated and constantly had bile spewed at it in every conceivable forum. My skin’s not that thick. I’m sure by now you ought to be feeling the extreme frustration yourself that’s coming from the outside. I imagine it’s the same at Microsoft, but I think your company is more widely despised. Sorry.