Busy on the Boards today…

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FEATURED POSTRichard Brewer-Hay / Monday, July 28th, 2008

Busy on the Boards today…

Two more General Announcements went up today that caught my eye…

***A Message from John Canfield: Update on our Fraud Prevention Efforts***
John Canfield, Senior Director of eBay’s Trust & Safety team, made an AB post earlier today updating folks on eBay fraud prevention efforts. On the whole, the post makes for a one-stop repository of all things related to fraud prevention on eBay (I count over 12 links to various best-practices, FAQs and announcements) and think it would be worthwhile for folks to bookmark the post for future reference when faced with a question or concern related to fraud and/or T&S.

I had written about the anti-phishing partnership with Google at the beginning of this month and received a seemingly straightforward solution to email phishing right off the bat from Henrietta:

The simplest, safest and most secure way to put an end to PayPal phishing would be for PayPal to cease putting clickable links in emails. Any customer communication requiring input from customers should be on the secure site: “You have a message from PayPal which requires response, please log in to your account to access it.”

I think John’s team should be applauded for all their efforts in helping fight for trust and safety on the site. Having said that, Andy Geldman of The Auction Software Review had this to say on the subject of Phishing overall when responding to our earlier post on Ink, and it’s pretty right on:

Phishing detection, like Spam detection, is an inexact discipline. There is always the risk of false positives… as well some malicious emails failing to get caught. It’s been a long time since Bill Gates predicted the death of spam (he said in 2004 it would be eradicated by 2006!), but a proper technology-based solution is still nowhere in sight. So come on technology companies, give us a modern email system!

***Coming Soon — Category Changes***
August certainly promises to be a busy month for folks on eBay.com. The category structure will be updated in mid-August and will contain:

“some significant changes for Jewelry & Watches and Electronics, as well as many additions to Antiques, Entertainment Memorabilia, and Clothing, Shoes & Accessories. If you sell in these areas, please be sure to take a look at the new category structure on Seller Central here. In many cases, coordinating Item Specifics updates will also be made.”

This post comes just a few days after last week’s tease of changes to Jewelry and Media categories.

I’m scheduled to travel to UK and Germany next month to blog directly from the different regions… Something tells me I’ll have a lot to write about whether or not I meet with folks while I’m there!

Cheers,
RBH
More

Dakota / July 29th, 2008 at 4:33 am

>>I’m scheduled to travel to UK and Germany next month to blog directly from the different regions… Something tells me I’ll have a lot to write about whether or not I meet with folks while I’m there!<<

How does this work?

You get paid by eBay and they send you on trips.

I pay eBay and get lousy service.

Something doesn’t seem right here.

Square / July 29th, 2008 at 7:30 am

Henrietta’s suggestion sounds simple enough, but it was already done in the last year and then changed back. I don’t think there was any explanation when it happened or was reversed, I’m guessing that enough sellers, who get tons of these emails and end up click on the transaction link to get more info, complained about the inconvenience. It may be like a safer approach, but it’s also creating an extra step to check on your payments, which is a pain when it multiplies out many times.

Patricia1 / July 29th, 2008 at 8:43 am

@Dakota – its simple – the lousy service they give us pays for their employees’ trips ;-) I was just thinking the other day that all these specials they throw at us – with little traffic and almost no bids is starting to look more like one big con game then a service LOL

Justin Seibert / July 29th, 2008 at 9:37 am

@Dakota & @Patricia1 – I understand you’re being facetious and also do NOT want to get involved in any issues you clearly have with eBay. That’s between you and them. I just want to say – give Richard a break. First, it’s a requirement of his job and corporate travel is common and necessary, especially at a global company like eBay. Second, if anyone at eBay deserves a trip, it’s Richard. Look at how much he writes and all the responses he has to pour through for each post. Richard cares a lot about this blog and making a difference for all eBay community members, which just makes his job all the more stressful.

Dakota / July 29th, 2008 at 9:37 am

Oh boy Patricia, I think you hit the nail on the head!
I’d rather have no “promotions” and have good solid sales. As it is, sales are slow and many of the “buyers” don’t seem to think that they have to pay.

:-(

I have been reporting for a week, various items to T & S for policy violations that are so deceptive it isn’t even funny. T & S sends me canned emails and they are full of bologna. Like one said that the listing had ended – but the report had many listings in it and the listing that they said ended was relisted.

They do nothing and could care a less that buyers are being deceived.

It’s so bad that I contacted one manufacturer and asked them to consider allowing me to be a rep for them (throght VERO for free) so that they have someone policing listings that are not only deceptive but could cause all sellers of the same items and the manufacturer to look bad. They are considering it at this time.

I have no faith in T & S at this point.
No happy little stars for them!

Dakota / July 29th, 2008 at 9:47 am

Chill pill for Justin.

No one is disrespecting Richard.

It would just be nice if eBay would do more for their sellers instead of worrying about flying around the world. They give us scraps and of course, those scraps are broken.

I am still being charged for revising listings due to a glitch that was supposed to have lasted only a day or a “few” days, depending who you talk to. So now, I am revising from the back forward. I am unsure if that is going to work once getting to the listings inovolved.

You got T & S who do not pay attention to reports and allowing crooked sellers to rip off the very buyers that the site says they are trying to keep.

And so on…

This has nothing to do with personal issues with eBay but the overall effectiveness of the site for all sellers. Of course, when it is not good for sellers, it trickles down to the buyers. Once again, you must remember that the site states they are doing everything possible to keep the buyers.

It also appears that they are not bring in any new buyers. Most sellers will tell you that sales are lagging far behind previous years.

So what are we getting for our money?

I’ll take one of those eBay checks and few trips, please.

Patricia1 / July 29th, 2008 at 10:39 am

Why do you folks keep bringing Richard into the picture? Nothing I said pertained to him in the least. Ebay rakes in the money and sends their employees wherever. Richard is simply doing his job. I fail to see where what I said pertained to him personally.

Mechelle / July 29th, 2008 at 10:58 am

It will be interesting to hear what the emotional atmosphere is in other parts of the world. I think the other sites have more hostile members than ours.

Do you read the boards on those sites? Do you read ours? I can’t recall if you ever said so or not. I have not read much on the other sites usually only if they pop in over here.

I know the new search is an issue for members on the sites it has already launched and from what I have been reading it is an issue here as well for those in the beta testing. It seems that the new search is going to severely compound the search issues relative to the “best Match” sort. I don’t see how can be good for eBay there is already an enormous shift in traffic source coming from outside of eBay, which can only cost eBay much more over time with the increase in store referral credit. I know my store referral credits have dramatically increased, which is good for me.

So far this month 44% of my traffic has arrived from various sources outside eBay search. I would imagine this will negatively impact eBay’s plan of monetizing the ads with the traffic that we produced. If the new search coupled with best match is to cumbersome for users they’ll be essentially forced to search using Google….. of course when this occurs the likelihood of their shopping else where increases profoundly.

I have noticed when searching there seems to be more Amazon returns than eBay lately which is new. How much does eBay want to lose to Amazon? Amazon reported an 18% increase in seller accounts that is a lot of sellers from eBay that have been driven out by the various changes over the past 6 months. How does eBay intend to continue to profit and what appears to be more significant have any growth when they are driving members off the site with all of these changes in policy and the lousy search platform?

As I have already pointed out the new search is negatively impacting the traffic thus devaluing the benefit of the sponsored ads. Of course the loss of potential sales for us by extension eBay will lose money from our listing and FVFs. My invoice this month looks like it will be the lowest ever by a few hundred dollars. Of course the decrease in sales also means a decrease in PayPal revenue another source eBay is relying on to make up the loss in the marketplace. Add in the 18% loss of sellers (I’m certain these are all ex or on the way out of eBay sellers) again this is another loss of fees in the marketplace, paypal, and ad revenue.

When sellers leave they take their customers with them, which often means those people will cease shopping on eBay from any other sellers. Clearly, this is another loss in all aspects of eBay’s revenue sources. Of course the sellers who have moved on to other venues or have set up their own webstore also contribute to the decline in traffic – sales- paypal usage- and ad revenue.

Many of these sellers are offering Google checkout, using merchant service, and of course amazons payment system. Every selling member eBay loses as a result of the new policies is potentially a loss to PayPal which over time will decrease paypal’s demand outside of eBay. It won’t take long for PayPal to lose value if the decrease in active members continues (when I say active members I mean active now not at sometime in the last 18 months). The growth of PayPal has solely resulted from the forced use of the payment service by sellers on eBay lending to the “sticky effect” outside of eBay. The current managements focus on member retention in the marketplace, which of course this is a good idea, will only lead to a decrease in marketplace growth. A decrease in marketplace usage will cause a decline in PayPal’s proliferation of use outside of eBay, because the spread of PayPal usage will stagnate overtime as it loses its sticky effect.

My point is eBay cannot afford to play around with search the way they have, are, and intend to manipulate the marketplace search returns. Ina wrote a blog topic on eBay releasing a manual to use the new search- yeah. Maybe I am out of the ordinary, but if I need a manual to do a search I am not likely to search. A search demands intuitiveness! No one is going to waste their time learning how to do a search. Why would they when they can use Google without the use of a manual? Really the concept of a manual for a search is hilarious and arrogant. eBay has a very high opinion of its flea market to think it will create in effect a search revolution. It is simply to easy to find products through Google, Yahoo, MSN… for anyone to waste their time within the eBay search.

I think eBay management needs to go back to the drawing board, so to speak, before they cause its demise. They have already caused a decline in its user base (as mentioned recent users have left it may not be recorded in eBay’s stats yet, but that is only because they look at the previous 18 months or so)the upcoming changes to search, listing appearance, and store appearance and function will further decrease member usage and likely more rapid than is believed to be possible.

Anyway, I am interested in the outlook so far in other eBay sites and think it would be an interesting topic for you to cover. You should see if you can arrange a session with members of the search and stores team to discuss the upcoming changes and their reasoning behind them. Maybe you can address the appearance of the new eBay too. I would like to know whose creative mind is responsible for the atrocious new appearance- it is really really unattractive.

Henrietta / July 29th, 2008 at 12:11 pm

@Justin
As a very regular poster here I can say without any qualms that Richard is respected and liked. He is one of the few good things left at eBay. Richard has broadened transparancy and brought answers to questions that would never have been acknowledged pre Inkblog.

When eBay set up this blog the declared intention was to do precisely what is being accomplished. I believe I speak for the majority when I state that we are well aware of the constraints imposed upon Richard by his employer and his employment contract; despite both of which he does a good job.

As a ‘pro’ blogger yourself surely you are aware that traffic is the key? Without comments Richard’s blog would be pointless, after all, he is paid to pore through “all those posts”! (Pour is what you do with a liquid)

Henrietta / July 29th, 2008 at 12:14 pm

@RBH

I will look forward to many interesting posts during your visit to Europe. Hopefully you will be back before October.
best regards

Justin Seibert / July 29th, 2008 at 2:19 pm

@Patricia1 – Sorry if I’m wearing my sensitive shoes today. It seemed like a direct quote from Dakota’s first comment which you echoed, which again was probably facetious. Neither here nor there and I didn’t mean to offend. I just felt compelled to say something after seeing some of the heat Richard’s taken since launch.

@Henrietta – Thank you for sharing your thoughts and correcting my grammatical error. My mother would be ashamed (I used to get a sharp correction if I ever answered the phone “This is him.”)

I agree with you wholeheartedly about comments being the key to getting a true dialogue, which is why eBay wants this blog and what Richard truly cares about. It’s awesome that people care so much about eBay (one way or another), which is what one would expect from a place where so many people make their livings. It’s a great thing.

Realistically, though, going through all the comments can be very taxing. A typical post gets around 10-30 comments, with a couple getting in the hundreds. I’d guess about 1/4 of those comments have questions and most of those have multiple comments. I assume that most of those require Richard to go into eBayLand to find answers, which may or may not be easy to get, but all of which will be fairly time consuming.

Again, this is a very, very good thing for all involved – just not easy. A garbage man gets paid to sling cans into the back of the hopper, but doing so still causes aches.

Thanks also for sharing the kind thoughts about Richard – I’m sure he appreciates hearing it.

Here’s to continued dialogue and everyone – sellers, buyers, eBay management – working to improve the organization.

Patricia1 / July 29th, 2008 at 8:21 pm

Justin no need to apologize. Just please keep in mind when I rant on this blog its in the hopes that the “powers-that-be” will read it…I know full well that Richard is doing his best and my posts really have nothing to do with him. They are aimed into the dark void of Ebay in the hopes that they might be seen. I think most of us do that – trying to get the Ebay users’ situation across to them. So far, it hasn’t worked…but there’s always hope ;-)

Mechelle / July 30th, 2008 at 4:07 pm

I posted this on the playground is back thread in the search discussion board. I just resubmitted it because there was either a system error (not far fetched possibility) or they didn’t let it post permanently

“I believe I have found a work around.
Would you please try changing your setting in formating to view gallery rather than list, saving it and then going back & resetting it for list view?

If that doesn’t work, please let me know.”

(MarniSue- from the playground is back thread in the search discussion board)

I’m sorry, but there are far to many “work around” suggestions on eBay. How do you expect anyone not reading this board (probably 99% of users) to know to do a “work around”. eBay really needs to stop with their half A**ed developments. We cannot afford searches having to first know and second use the “work around”. Don’t you realize that eBay is real life that effects my income and every other sellers’ on eBay? I wish eBay would stop thinking that I am on eBay playing games- entertaining myself…. and it is very inconsiderate and offensive the way eBay experiments and neglects the problems on the site at my expense. Either fix it or get rid of it.