Mechelle / August 11th, 2008 at 12:31 pm

Richard when are you going to bring up the issues with the identical and 10 max per seller listing issues and this recent DSR debacle? I think these are relevant and worthy topics to discuss- what about you?

Mechelle / August 14th, 2008 at 5:22 am

Here is another from the interview

“We don’t want it to get in the way of running the business,” Schmidt said. “If we started giving quarterly guidance, all of a sudden the whole company would start focusing on the quarter rather than trying to change the world.

What utter brilliance!!!

and he is right about the ads and crap – I can’t stand the yahoo page- I feel as though I am in a freaking casino there is so much going on

It is people like Schmidt and Craig that change the world, because they are long term thinkers. That is what eBay lacks- long term vision

Patricia1 / August 14th, 2008 at 9:41 am

Google is right – they’re planning long term and their number one priority is their customers. Somehow I do not see Ebay’s plans as long term anything and they’ve completely lost sight of their customers (the sellers)…in fact they are keeping their plans basically to themselves. All we get is they feel buyers want “a more retail experience.” Maybe so…so get rid of the fee associated with buy it now and let it run in an auction until it is met!!! My gut feeling is they have NO long term plan and they’re simply throwing things at the wall to see what sticks. That’s what I get out of all the information I’ve read about Ebay this year…sorry, but that’s the face Ebay is showing to the public whether they mean to or not. Another face that is particularly ugly one that has been their total disregard and respect for their sellers. They’ve lost the faith and trust of a LOT of sellers and it won’t be easy to get it back…if they’re at all interested in long term customer satisfaction. They refuse to understand that sellers ARE buyers too. From my experience – I list very little on Ebay these days – in fact have only one small listing at present…BUT I’ve been buying on Amazon where I feel more comfortable and where I feel there is customer service if I need it!

Mechelle / August 16th, 2008 at 11:00 pm

To Bad you didn’t pay attention Donahoe!

My job was to uncover what was going well. I think sometimes when a new senior executive comes into a company, the instinctive thing to do is to find out what’s wrong and fix it. That doesn’t actually work very well. People are very proud of what they’ve created, and it just feels like you are second-guessing them all the time. You are much more successful coming in and finding out what’s going right and nurturing that. Along the way, you’ll find out what’s going wrong and fix that.

How does the slowdown in the U.S. economy affect eBay?

Our hypothesis is that in a slowdown, eBay actually benefits. And that’s because buyers still want the things that they want. Consumer electronics, computers, whatever. Yet people will become more value-oriented. At the same time, I think that we will actually see an increase in sellers. You may get gifts that you don’t necessarily want, things you don’t use anymore — things that you can sell on eBay and raise some cash.

Face Time With Meg Whitman
By: Charles Fishman April 2001

Jay / August 17th, 2008 at 3:16 pm

The last financial announcement about eBay showed growth of 20%, which falls in par with the other companies mentioned.

http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2008/07/16/ebay-s-q2-2008-earnings-transcript/

I think eBay has realized that their original business plan created in 1996 no longer meets the criteria of 2008, which any buyer can go to any web site and buy anything they wish.

With a lot of the hooplah, I don’t think eBay sellers realize we’re now not only competing with ourselves, but we’re competing with Walmart.com, target.com, and everyoneelseintheretailworld.com.

Most people don’t realize that if a company never changes their business plan – that business is bound to fail.

Expect change. Expect a lot of change. It’s how you deal with change that determines if you survive.

Patricia1 / August 17th, 2008 at 7:01 pm

I have to agree with you. After 10 years and with a pristine reputation, I can no longer list on that site. …and almost everyone I know is complaining about the same thing. Now, they’ll probably come out with free listing and a raised FVF…more problems. Its such a shame what they’re doing to the site. I wish they would call in some people with good solid business experience before its too late :-(

Jay / August 18th, 2008 at 7:02 am

“What would Google make by adding sponsorship to its home page? “Some number of billions of dollars.” Why not do it? “People wouldn’t like it. We prioritize the end-user over the advertiser… We’re not going to sell it.”

Sure the main page is empty, but if you actually USE the search at all on Google, you have to sift through the bought links on the top, to the right, and at the bottom. It’s a nifty picture frame of endless advertising.

It’s funny how everyone attacks eBay for doing the same thing every other site on the web does.

Mechelle / August 18th, 2008 at 11:09 am

An email from a customer

I just went to look at your listings, and I can’t get any of your listings to come up! This is what I see “this listing has been removed, blah blah blah” I clicked a whole bunch of them too, just an FYI

Yeah none of your listings are available
what the h***?

What the H*** is right eBay??? How dare you people even charge fees at all for your service. Everything you offer is unreliable and costs me money as a result- I have auctions ending today and an unknown number of people cannot see my listings- in my store also, which is the only reason I even do the auctions and fixed price. Also, what impression of me do you think this type of stuff creates for people who click on my listings. You are making me look as though eBay has had to take action against me.

The difference between eBay and Google:
eBay is not a search engine in the same way Google is. eBay is where people list their products to sell them – the ppc ads cause numerous problems- 1) they undermine my ads (auctions/fixed price) 2) they make the site run slow (68% of web sites are faster than eBay- that is pretty freaking bad) 3) they clutter the site making it unattractive 4) their placement forcing searches to scroll past them before being able to click to the next page is leading buyers off the site 5) their directly competing ads (I have screen shots if you doubt this) steal from those who pay for an auction especially considering the ads get more view time than any one auction does 6)they blame sellers for the decrease in use activity yet give them a portal to leave 7) many ads lead buyers off site to counterfeit websites some of which are dangerously similar in appearance (I have screen shots if you doubt this)

I would like to see ads for other venues such as Amazon, Overstock, Google Checkout….. on eBay’s pages- if it is good for the buyers to give them options because eBay knows they are only on eBay to find a good ppc ad to click and eBay believes that is good for sellers, than I don’t see why the same can’t be said for the businesses that compete with eBay even on a small level.

Also, I don’t appreciate being used as content for eBay to capitalize on ppc ads at my expense. I find it interesting that you don’t feel you deserve the same considerations- just really odd!

Jay / August 18th, 2008 at 12:04 pm

If the logo is a UPC code, its a fixed price listing.

Jay / August 18th, 2008 at 1:42 pm

No worries. I just discovered that when I listed some fixed price items during that 25 cent listing special.

Patricia1 / August 18th, 2008 at 7:41 pm

I may be a small seller but I was a buyer too – now I don’t list on Ebay anymore. Even with a pristine record I can’t get seen in my category – what’s the use. Any other site would be happy to have me. Even free listing on Ebay wouldn’t tempt me now – why waste listing time when you don’t make sales? This is utterly and completely crazy!

Gail / August 19th, 2008 at 4:46 pm

“Sure the main page is empty, but if you actually USE the search at all on Google, you have to sift through the bought links on the top, to the right, and at the bottom. It’s a nifty picture frame of endless advertising.”

I don’t see any of those ads. My adblocker suppresses all of Google’s sponsored links. I get a nice clean page with 100 search results.

It filters out the ads on eBay, too. But, the pages are verrrry slow to load anyway. I can imagine the junk eBay is serving up, but at least I don’t have to see it.