Davey / September 11th, 2008 at 6:02 pm

Oh, and note that the affected seller in my previous post still was left on her own manually reposting her 200 innocent listings that T&S errantly shot down. What kind of customer treatment is that? Is this how we’re supposed to be “delighted?” Richard, can you understand why so many people are so livid at your employer? Mythinks Mr. King and his crew of disruptive innovationites would have their programming time better spent getting eBay’s internal tools fixed so that rectifying eBay’s mistakes is not again laid as another burden on sellers’ backs.

vzaar Adrian / September 12th, 2008 at 1:24 am

Sometimes I feel sorry for Richard. eBay is trying to improve it’s communications, and it sometimes seems these comments threads are just a place for everyone to air personal grievances.

Here we have a case of a bug occurring (these things happen) and a team working around the clock to get if fixed. Had eBay done nothing that should be rightfully taken to task. Instead eBay works around the clock, fixes it and apologises. And gets taken to task for not fixing something else.

eBay is a big organisation with lots of different areas, teams and departments. It amazes me how everyone thinks they could prioritise better. Where better means “my personal needs”. I’ve been part of the eBay prioritisation, and it’s complicated. Trying to draw in the needs of millions and millions of sellers. If eBay doesn’t work on it’s internal systems then buyers can’t find items or other bits of the system don’t work. eBay needs to work on hundreds if not thousands of parts of a big system simultaneously. I guess it’s always easier to do this and prioritise which bits when you don’t have to make those decisions or see all the data.

I’m not surprised that eBay is lousy communicator. When everything you do seems to illicit venom and vitriol and quite frankly often nasty comments, it must be hard to keep trying to be open. I see here and on the forums, less of an open debate and communications, than a lot of attacking and yelling. That is why I like the Tamebay bloggers so much. They try to be part of the solution. They are open and they communicate. And the call eBay out when they have made mistakes with constructive advice. They also praise eBay when they get things right. Part of the solution, not part of the problem.

I’m sure I’ll get torn to shreds for this comment, as everyone seems to more want a vehicle to rant, and doesn’t like to think of eBay as anything but evil (instead of just a bunch of hard working people trying to do a good job, like most other places).

Maybe if people communicated more in the way Steven Frank suggests when reporting bugs

Don’t make assumptions

Here are some assumptions that developers commonly see from users:

“This should be easy to fix.” Maybe. Maybe not. Applications may have many subtle interactions in their underlying code. Anyone who has been a developer for a long enough period of time can tell you a story of making a one line change to their code that lead to disastrous results application-wide. Good developers will make even very small changes carefully, and test every step of the way to make sure this doesn’t happen — but that process doesn’t always fall into the “easy” category. In a way it’s a compliment to the developer that their application is so simple to use that you didn’t suspect its underlying complexity.

“They must have seen this before.” Don’t count on it. Even bugs that seem trivial and obvious to you may honestly have never been seen by the developer because the way you use the program is different from the way they use the program. You should always report bugs, even small ones. Developers may even prioritize bug fixes by the number of reports they receive about a particular bug, so don’t be afraid that you’re reporting the same bug as someone else — this is actually a good thing. It provides data to the developer about how widespread the issue is

MsFish213 / September 12th, 2008 at 8:36 am

@vzaar Adrian

If it was an occasional glitch, bug, whatever, it wouldnt be so bad. But, time after time after time, there is always a “glitch, bug or whatever” that affects sales. To most sellers, Ebay is their income and how they feed their families and pay their bills. Fine, stuff happens, but most of the time Ebay wont even admit to something being wrong, so at least sellers can try to work around it. When this last Best Match fiasco happened, I finally went to live help. GUess what I was told? Not that their is a problem and its being worked on, but “Clear your cache, delete cookies and restart your computer”…Ebays stock “duct tape” answer.

Grammer Nartzi / September 12th, 2008 at 10:24 am

@ Vzaar Adrian

illicit = unlawful

elicit = to draw or bring out or forth

Better to use 5c word than try for 50c word and get it wrong.

Is this a case of do as I say not as I do?
Making assumptions while busily telling sellers not to make assumptions?

Davey / September 12th, 2008 at 11:19 am

@vzaar

The items that I and others mention are not “personal needs,” they are structured, repetitive impediments in the eBay organization that are not addressed, either through culture, habit, or on purpose as they’d be embarrassing to admit in public and potentially costly to fix. From your admitted association with eBay and reaction to these criticisms, I would guess more “culture” than anything else. My guess is that your reaction is shared by many in the eBay organization, which is the core of the problem.

These many glitches and eBay’s response hurt eBay, my business, and many others’ as well.

Great that Jeff and crew worked “24 X 7″ to get this problem fixed. Why did other parts of the organization treat the customer base so poorly in the meantime? Why were we not treated to a system status board like so many other reputable companies use to advise users of problems? How long did it take for the Finding team to actually get alerted to the problem due to the thick hide of the frontline support organizations? Apparently a long time after it was reported, unless Jeff is not telling us the whole truth. Either way, the answers don’t add up to the actual timelines of known reports and blog entries.

I won’t even go into detail about the pathetic software QA that the organization must use. Major glitches, most all of which favor eBay in the short term, are the usual fare here.

There are plenty of us that are willing to be part of the solution, and in fact we’re frustrated that we’re not able to participate. As far as we see it from experience, eBay is completely deaf to anything other than the internally-hatched madness they’ve been rolling out since January, or low stock prices (or both).

vzaar Adrian / September 12th, 2008 at 2:05 pm

Ok firstly context when I posted my comment Davey only had their 6:02 post up not the 5:54 post, and Doctor Deals’s comment wasn’t visible. So reading both of those I might have posted a little differently.

However, I’ve been reading InkBlog on and off for a while now, and generally
Richard posts something and people yell and things go off topic fairly quickly. Maybe I’ve missed all those positive comment threads, or Richard has a hell of a thicker skin than me.

I will however reply to some of the comments,

@THEBREWSNEWS

I am a buyer and a seller. I am not a business running on eBay. I don’t hide that fact, and that doesn’t mean I can’t have an opinion on issues. If you are really interested my feedback is currently 191 (100%) of which 108 is from selling.

I call eBay current upheaval doing what needs to be done to preserve the long term viability of the platform. Buyers where leaving the system, bad sellers were putting people off, retaliatory feedback was giving buyers a uncomfortable experience. Yes it is disruptive to how thing have been, but so would have been the gradual decline of sales. Change was needed.

And changed happens as any business. Sell on your own site, Google adwords change all the time. Sell of line, foot traffic and competition changes. eBay needed to change, and these changes where important. And supported by the data.

My “don’t make assumptions” was trying to point out that I see a lot of
- eBay doesn’t care (they do, I worked with a lot of these people)
- eBay only cares about the stock market (they don’t, but to think that a listed company doesn’t need to address the stock market as well is unrealistic)
- It’s easy for eBay to change “blurgh” (it’s not always)
- eBay operating on whims (trust me, nothing at eBay happens without a shed load of data being analysed
- eBay is just in it for themselves (no customers, nothing to be in it for)

These are assumptions about eBay, which I found untrue and that’s all I was trying to highlight.

Your input is valued (another assumption, that it’s not), but remember input from a lot of people is taken into account (not just the vocal people on the boards) as well as behavioural input taken from site data.

However, input which often is aggressive (as the boards this site’s comments can be) is hard to be taken as constructive. I remember releasing change, that was a good change, that made a difference. And remember a lot of names I was called on the boards including stupid and incompetent. Hard to get yourself passionate about the next change, when no matter what you do, people have a go.

I do not believe I was ever condescending in my comment and I apologise if that’s how it came across. I however do think their are more constructive ways to phrase things than I generally see in this blogs comments.

@MSFISH213ON

eBay is a big system. A really big system. Bugs, glitches mistakes are going to continually happen. It’s not different for any company of scale. As for chache/cookies/restart. This probably does fix a lot of problems. Especially when you have 200m+ users. And before admitting something went one needs to know it’s a real bug. So investigation needs to occur. That said I think eBay could stand to communicate more openly and clearly. Although, my honest feeling is that the bad communication is a combination of a really poor DNA in this respect (although if you think eBay is bad Apple is far worse) combined with a poor response to whatever they announce.

@GAIL

I’m not suggesting that eBay has this form (although they should, or could stand for a clearer way of reporting things), but just that people could stand to be more constructive when reacting to things. eBay reps are probably denying the problem because they are not aware of the problem. And they are not aware of the problem because in large systems (and some thing the scale of eBay is very different to running a small website) means that diagnosing accurately the problem is not a trivial process.

eBay’s communication is not their strong point. However do I believe for a minute they are intentionally hiding things? No. However it does take time to find the problem understand the problem and communicate the problem, both internally and externally. This is always simpler to do until you actually try do it in a system of scale.

@GRAMMER NARTZI

I’m wired for maths and science. I’m well renown on the internet for having pretty lousy written grammar at times and poor spelling. Having a go at me for a grammar issue is nothing new. I’m good with numbers. I can live with this.

@LISA

I’ve worked at financial organisations. I have plenty friends who still do, both front and back office. Normally I find screaming at people doesn’t solve anything any quicker.

And boy do banks have their fair share of problems.

“It’s clear no one in San Jose knows what they doing”

Is it? Is it really? Because they are actually running a profitable company which many many people are still running a profitable business on. If sellers where leaving in droves because of eBay staff’s didn’t know what they were doing, then that would be a fair call. But I’ve worked with these people, and their are a lot of smart people working damn hard and trying to do their best for eBay buyers and sellers.

Does this mean no one makes mistakes? Of course not.
Does this mean that the issue of scale are easy to solve? Of course not.
Does this mean that things are always going to be perfect? Of course not?

Does this mean everyone in San Jose is incompetent idiot? No, of course not.

It’s statement’s like these that I was trying to get people think about when I was saying don’t make assumptions.

@Davey (11:19)

eBay has a lot of things in the system the are working on. Some are 9 month fixes, and some are 3 month changes. Things are continually in flux and changing. This is the same for every web company. eBay doesn’t release public timelines of it’s internal prioritisation process. No company does.

I’m very sorry it hurts your business. So does the current banking crisis hurt mine. But that’s the business landscape. If eBay is not profitable for you, change. If you think eBay wont be profitable in the future, change now whilst you have time. Don’t stay on eBay unless you are making good money and you think it will be a viable platform for you down the line.

Should eBay have a status page of all the current areas of the site? Totally? Are their reasons not to have one? Yes. These are decisions different businesses make. There is not always a right answer.

And the QA people I have worked with in eBay are fantastic and dedicated and do a job that is tireless, thankless and like a soccer goalie, only noticed when you miss something.

However I seeing eBay as a company based on “internally hatched madness” is just not a reflection of reality. Do you honestly believe people wake up at eBay and say “What crazy thing can I do today to ruin a sellers life”? Really?

Anyway, I value debate, and honestly I do understand your frustrations. If anyone wanted I could write several blog articles on things I think eBay could improve, change, work on, etc. I know eBay ‘s not perfect, and I have weekly discussions in our office on things I think they are getting wrong. I just find it frustrating the perception of eBay as a bunch of incompetent seller hating morons. Because my experience of the company and the staff is quite the opposite.

I hope everyone has a good weekend.

vzaar Adrian / September 13th, 2008 at 12:54 am

@Davey

DSRs are a bit like the feedback system. It’s less about what’s absolute, than the aggregate. There is also a bit of social behaviour baked in as well.

So for example in circumstances most 95% is a great satisfaction score. On eBay it means “Bad Seller”. Why? Because the social behaviour on eBay has resulted in mainly +ve feedback which has screwed the results. Part of this behaviour was caused by the fear of retaliatory feedback, which means in many cases neutral or negative feedback wasn’t left, when it probably should have.

So in the end the vast majority of feedback really sits between probably 95/96% and 100%.. If this was normalised, i.e, Feedback of 95% become 0, and everything between 95 & 100 was then repositioned between 0-100 (so for example a feedback of 98.55 becomes 70.4% and 99.68 becomes 93.6%, you could really tell more accurately the greater range of sellers and seller performance. Instead we really have this rough measure of >98% = good and <98% = bad.

I use the example of feedback because it’s well understood and normalisation is easy to illustrate.

So onto DSRs.

Social behaviour on a 1-5 rating varies a bit. But basically 1&2 = bad job. 3 = Average and 4&5 = good job. This is what is communicated to buyers, as this is what really people perceive in normal society that kind of rating to mean.

Now aggregated over the whole of eBay this starts to form a statistical breakdown of what sellers are being rated as, and most seller scored (as an aggregate) are falling between 4 – 5.

So what this means is a seller who is getting a 4, is probably not get 100 buyers rating them as a 4 but a few 5′s and 4′s but quite a few lower scores. Where as a seller getting a 4.9′s is really getting mainly 5′s with a few odd fours.

It’s the same as my feedback example above. You really need to think of the space between 4 and 5 and 100 points from 0 to 100 and your rating being address on that. So a rating for 4 = 0 and a rating of 5 = 100 so 4.9 = 90% (rather good) but 4.3 = 30% pretty bad.

Now the average DSR scores vary wildly by country as social norms are different, and eBay takes that into account in different countries. Italians are not the same as Brits as Americans as Germans. We rate and view things differently.

It gets even more complicated, since as a seller you are not competing against an absolute, but against other sellers. So on the bell curve that results, it’s not sellers with 4.9′s and up that are good but sellers who are in the top 10%. So this could be any number, it just depends on the average across the board as to what this means.

Changes I would personally make to DSRs (and feedback) would be to highlight this. I would show the normalised scores. So that you know your DSR of 4.823 means you are being rated by customers as being 82.3% satisfactory and you know that your feedback score of 98.72% means your feedback is really 74.4%

The question is, would this confuse people even more? I love knowing the real numbers behind things, but if I look at my general circle of friends and colleagues most people don’t. Or maybe eBay should just explain this modelling more clearly. I don’t know. There probably is an answer between the two.

The other thing I would do is have only 4 stars for DSR instead of 5. 4 stars causes better social behaviour and answers as you really have to think, was this better than average or worse than average. No fence sitting, and you get a better spread of feedback. IMHO.

Hope that’s explains things.

TheBrewsNews / September 13th, 2008 at 9:55 am

@Vzaar Adrian

You proved my point exactly with your original post and the follow-up: eBay does NOT consider all the information before making an assessment of the situation and their decisions and actions reflect that as well.

There was already a great deal of information on the eBayInkblog about the Best Match Problem . On 9/10, two full days before your post, even Richard posted that he was reading what posters were saying and he was trying to get information.

You overlooked the information about the Best Match problem that was on the eBayInkBlog and all over the internet. But, the biggest issue I have is not that you failed to read the information that was readily available which you admitted might have caused you to reach a different conclusion….. instead, you ASSUMED that sellers were complaining unfairly. You ASSUMED that sellers had no valid complaint and that was based on the assumptions that I stated – sellers are ignorant, sellers are disgruntled, and sellers complain too much. You didn’t bother to read the information available or ask any questions about why sellers were so upset but instead you went straight to blaming sellers for being irrational.

The fact that eBay is making changes, in and of itself, is not the problem. The fact that eBay is now making 13 years worth of changes in a few months is problematic. Add to that eBay’s history of being deceptive, lacking in communication, and being totally out of touch with reality and you have a recipe for disaster for most eBay sellers. Sellers I know have a problem with the sheer number of changes in such a short time and the lack of communication about those changes. eBay does not sell on its own system, like it’s largest competitor does, and so eBay does not have the same immediate concerns about a broken system that eBay sellers do. In eBay’s case, it doesn’t matter if the site is slightly broken or terribly broken in the short term because they are not directly impacted. Best Match results coming back in reverse…. no problem for eBay because somebody will get the sales on eBay and eBay will not suffer. It doesn’t matter to eBay that the sellers who have lowered status were getting the sales instead of the sellers with raised status. eBay looks at things in the aggregate so they don’t see two weeks worth of Best Match reversal as having had any impact on eBay’s revenue. Never mind that good sellers lost two weeks worth of revenue.

Now, to your comment that you are a seller – you have 108 feedback (lifetime) from selling. How many of that 108 feedback is in the last 30 days or 90 days or even 12 months? I earn about 108 feedback from selling IN TWO DAYS on eBay. A seller who earns 108 feedback every two days would have a different perspective about the recent changes and glitches than someone who has 108 lifetime selling feedback. So you and I are looking at the same event from completely different viewpoints.

The one thing you and I definitely agree on is that eBay sellers should be moving off-site. My sales yesterday on the River were $700+ for the day and I am excited about the upcoming holiday sales that I expect as a 3rd party on that site. I already have my own websites and as busy as I already am I would likely have never made the leap over to the River had it not been for eBay’s upheaval this year. So, for that, I am incredibly thankful. I praise eBay every day for their actions which have pushed me over the hump and gave me the needed kick in the pants to go out and find an alternative. In my particular case, eBay is going to achieve their objective with the new pricing structure next week — I am in the process of moving my inventory out of the eBay store (as eBay is hoping all sellers will do) …. and putting it on a competitor’s site. The breadth of inventory I am offering on eBay is decreasing as I am increasing my offerings elsewhere. One of the product lines I sell is limited in nature so if I only have 1 of a particular item left in inventory it will not appear on eBay since I have a much better opportunity to sell the item elsewhere for full price and with fewer problems.

Regarding your mathematical explanation of feedback and DSRs — outstanding. What you wrote was exceptional and you did an outstanding job explaining the statistical and mathematical aspects. However, you left out the most important part — you can have the perfect measuring and reporting system but you will still be in error if you are measuring the wrong thing. eBay is measuring buyer’s “feelings” about the shipping and handling cost after the fact and that is, without a doubt, the wrong measure. Not only is it the wrong thing to measure but eBay is making it the most important measure. I am sure eBay’s competitors are scratching their head over eBay’s decision on this one.

You’ll notice that eBay’s competitor, the one eBay is patterning themselves after, does not ask the buyer to rate S&H costs after the fact. It just amazes me that eBay could be so self-destructive, on many levels, to do so. And eBay asks buyers to rate sellers on communication and suggests to sellers that they should “over-communicate” to buyers. Interesting. I don’t get rated on Communication on the River because communication is not necessary. As a seller, I only get the order once the buyer has submitted valid payment information and when I ship I input the tracking information which The River then sends to the buyer. What other communication is necessary? In contrast, on eBay the sellers are expected to beg and plead with buyers to pay for their purchase. Is that the communication measure that sellers are being rated on… how “nicely” they ask for the money they are due? Sellers must also answer buyers’ questions that are already answered in the listing and sellers are supposed to entertain buyers’ questions about all sorts of outrageous things (and I could write a book here about the communications between eBay buyers and sellers). If a buyer has a question prior to purchasing and a seller doesn’t respond, then how about advising the buyer not to purchase? A buyer who has a question AFTER THE FACT is generally a buyer who is asking the seller to change their stated terms of service.

There is a reason why eBay’s largest competitor does not ask their buyers to rate third party sellers on communication or S&H costs — they are the wrong measures. According to you Adrian, eBay has developed a wonderful mathematical measuring and reporting tool… but I am pointing out that eBay is measuring the wrong things. eBay is grading sellers on the wrong attributes which causes extreme frustration for sellers and the measures do not accurately reflect who the truly “bad” sellers are on eBay.

Patricia1 / September 13th, 2008 at 1:54 pm

I do not understand DSR’s or the mentality behind them. Down here, where I live on Earth, I look at a seller’s record – not what DSR’s he got in the last 30 days. If I see a negative on his record and it happened 6 months or a year ago…then I could care less what it was for. Same should go for a negative recently obtained – we should be able to see it in the big picture – not a 30 day peephole. There is no way we can weigh whether or not the seller deserved it…or its from an unreasonable buyer. So, to me these DSR’s are simply a game to try to make sellers walk on water and make buyers feel they have power over us. It doesn’t work – know why? Because ebay has NOT kept up with its part of this charade. they are losing their biggest bargaining chip – BUYERS. Where are the BUYERS promised if sellers jump thru all these hoops? What is the difference between me listing on Ebay or on some other site that has low traffic? I tell you the BIG difference….I’m PAYING ebay, mostly for nothing and being stressed out by crazy policies to boot. I can just as well list on sites that cost me NOTHING to list, have no hoops to jump thru and if I make a sale….its mostly MINE! Ebay is seems oblivious of this aspect and therefore thousands of sellers are leaving…sellers who are also BUYERS! So much for DSR’s. I believe its one of the dumbest ideas Ebay has ever come out with…among many dumb ideas they’ve come out with this year!

Ebay….it is no longer any GREAT privilege to list on your site. Sellers are telling you that by LEAVING….wake up!

Davey / September 15th, 2008 at 11:13 am

@Tommy,

I don’t know how we’re trying to eviscerate communication channels here. I do agree that Richard has taken some hits due to the extreme frustration his employer has levied upon us, but I assume he’s got a job he’s paid to do and has a thick skin. I also know that there are some subjects that he will not be allowed to touch (an honest look at Customer Service for example). I actually have pity somewhat on Richard’s position, doing things like being the promotional venue to see Pierre espouse values like the level playing field, while Mr. Donohoe was busy undercutting that principle in secret with the BUY deal at the same time he was interviewing Pierre.

I don’t see any ad hominem swipes at Vzaar either, but rather the goofy policies he’s defending. I know he must be a believer in what’s being used to make decisions internally, but the methods are fallatious when applied to the eBay community.

I honestly don’t see any area of the company leading towards truly open communication (open being defined as two-way), either, since about 1999 or so. I would like to see that! I think until that desire comes from the top, either due to desperation, change of heart, or disruptive revelation, we won’t see any meaningful result. There are plenty of vehicles for open communication including the blog, but the last real open coomunication here IMO was with Colin Rule, who did not reappear after awhile. But, I think he carried away several takeaways, namely the failing policy of not considering a seller or buyer’s reputation in Paypal disputes. Whether he could change anything is something else.

Patricia1 / September 15th, 2008 at 10:25 pm

Richard – why am I not allowed to post here?

Tony / September 16th, 2008 at 3:19 pm

@Vzaar Adrian, I agree with you on some points, a blog isn’t a good means of communication, you will get angry comments because people want to let off steam. However where else can they go?

Ebay town hall? I’ve only ever listened to one, it was in the wake of the feedback changes and it was not at all balanced in the views it discussed. That really isn’t healthy for anyone.

Richard must have a thick skin and it’s admirable that this blog not only still exists, but that it’s also so positive.

Yes ebay do have to change with the times but when it’s as clear as day that something is wrong, then it’s wrong and no amount of spin can solve that.

DSR’s do not work. A five star system that considers 4.3 as a low score is not working. I won’t give a seller who gives me fair service any less than a 5 because of ebay’s ridiculous sanctions. They don’t give me the scope to mark fairly.

Then we have the absolitely unethical position of ebay taking money from these so called bad sellers in listing fees and deliberately giving them an inferior service. Could you imagine the complaints if ebay sellers did that? It’s just plain and simply wrong to do that to people, if you don’t want people using your service then don’t let them use the service, but don’t take their money and hope they’ll leave because you deliberately give them an inferior service. It’s something ebay should be ashamed of.

However you’re right to point out that it’s easy for people on the outside to believe a problem can be rectified easily, or that it’s a simple fault to fix. Fixes can often not only take time, but there can be many variables involved before a problem is identified.

Ernie / September 28th, 2008 at 6:38 pm

This is a note for Jeff King, and I realize it’s off the main topic.

I have used most of the listing tools out there, however I find that if I want to list 10 items with five different listing durations, it can take as much as a half hour – even with a broad band connection.

I know of a way that ebay can make it easier and faster for all of sellers posting multiple listings on ebay! If Mr. King or his surrogates would like more info on this, I’d be happy to share.

Withoud a doubt, if there were an easier way to do it, I’d list many more items on ebay every week! Thanks