Introducing eBay Ink News

joOn 10.06.2008 at 1:16 pm Said:

hi,
ive heared that future plans forebay envolve no private sellers but only retail outlets. is this correct?

BobbyOn 10.08.2008 at 9:09 am Said:

Usher Lieberman - With the present course eBay is taking it sure seems that’s what is being aimed for. Private sellers are being crushed and driven away in droves. Look at the reasons:

Nontransparent, subjective flakey DSR’s from a minority of flakey buyers being used to punish and suspend good sellers.

The new ridiculous final value fees which are costing sellers much more in operating costs. Sure I may pay $0.35 for an insertion fee versus the $2 I used to pay with what amounted to a $8 final value fee, but now it is jacked up to a $15 final value fee. Do the math.

The default (or should I say faulted?) Best Match search is driving down sales. No one can find anything they are looking for. My 30 day DSR’s have never dropped below 4.8 and consistently my average 30 day sell through rate with the Buy It Now format had been 68% (for a year). But in THE LAST TWO MONTHS it has dropped down to a 37% sell through rate. This means my sell through rate has been cut to almost HALF of what it was. And I am a lucky one- the sell through rates of many other sellers has dropped even more.

The changes are killing the smaller sellers.

And here you say “there is no truth to this rumor.” Actions speak louder than words, Usher.

I am not crying wolf. These are the reasons (and there are many more) that stock prices for eBay have plummeted (the market has taken a dive for sure, but eBay shares have fallen far more and had began its price fall before the market crash. And these are the reasons analysts are downgrading eBay’s position.

SROn 10.08.2008 at 9:32 am Said:

Yes but the way your fees have increased and increased it totally drives the hobby seller OUT

DaveyOn 10.08.2008 at 6:33 pm Said:

Not only that, small sellers don’t have the executive hotline to deal with all the garbage that ebay throws our way on a daily basis: Listings pulled for bogus reasons, meaningless unrelated bot responses to CS inquiries, the usual parade of glitches which this week included many sellers erroneously marked as policy violators in their dashboard, but they’d gotten no mails nor did DeadHelp have any clue why, and, of course, absolutely non-existent Customer Service (help meaning someone empowered to do something). The way eBay treats any customer is shameful nowadays, but the small seller gets the worst of it.

The winner of the week in small seller stories is a seller who sells garden seed hybrids. She was selling sage (yeah, the stuff you buy in the grocery store for seasoning). Her listings got pulled because some numpty in T&S programmed a bot to look for anything labeled “Salvia,” which sage is a family member of. Apparently, you have to now name the exact scientific genus of the seed in order for your sage listings not to be pulled, as there now is a member of the salvia family that people are smoking to catch a buzz. So, those selling salvia (sage) and salvia (garden flowers that hummingbirds like) are getting listings pulled and policy violations in their dashboards and records for drug sales. And, as you know, this means their search is lowered for 90 days, for poor policy compliance. How is that in how you treat your customers? How is that working for you, Mr. Lieberman? I know how it is working for small sellers like myself. I can tell you that it violates every tenet of good business I’ve ever learned. It even violates Griff’s Rule #1. And, it happens over and over again every day–to small sellers.

The DSR and seller performance system is a sham. Good small sellers are finding themselves suspended for an unearned negtral or negative (no matter if they’ve had not one issue in over 10 years), while the Chinese carp sellers are still pushing 99 cent items with 50 dollars shipping and handling.

Every move made since January of 08 has been sticking out a very obvious finger showing small sellers the exit. Ms. Norrington may drop by INK to tell everyone how much eBay loves small sellers, but we’ve got nothing but her empty words to show for it.

Usher, if this makes no sense to you, you need to ask why us ebay devotees have been screaming for so long. The results and truth about the underbelly of your organization, where most of us get to live, is starting to come out honestly in various analyst writings. The emperor’s new suit is, well, rather transparent.

As a PR person, I’d be concerned as eBay is now getting huge amounts of NEGATIVE viral marketing instead of the positive buzz they used to get from users. Most companies would care about this and do something about it. It is all about how you treat your customers, and need I remind you, sellers are your customers first and foremost. What goes around, will come around.

DaveyOn 10.10.2008 at 9:45 pm Said:

Phew, I never thought I’d get published, above. I must say that this blog is about the only thing I see that emits light, associated with ebay.

Usher, if you really want to get an honest assessment of what it feels like to be a small seller here, sit down in front on a T&S computer, have Richard give you my contact details, and I’ll talk you through some of the ways ebay has “delighted” me with outstanding customer service in the last year in exchange for my total fees going up more than 60 percent within a year’s time. I’m just a run-of-the-mill 1/2 Powerseller (before the recent sales tanking experienced systemwide) who cares about my customers and relationships, and my reputation, which is stellar except for the fact I ship internationally, so you can guess which DSR star is below 4.9. Imagine what happens to the hundreds of thousands of small sellers just like me, then. Small sellers who used to be ebay’s best advocates and walking advertisements. Kicked to the curb. Guess what we’re advertising about ebay now?

Ann1On 10.11.2008 at 9:45 am Said:

Davey - you are so so right. Why can’t Ebay see it? One can only come to the conclusion that they are making it overly tough for the small seller - in effect driving him away from the site. I’ve been forced to throw in the towel since I now can make the same amount of sales on free sites (using 4 or 5 of them and my own website) that I can make on Ebay these days while paying Ebay’s exhorbitant fees. Ebay has yet to see this problem. They have over priced themselves and Best Match is doing the rest of the work to rid the site of small sellers. I can’t come back and list again on Ebay until they begin to EARN their fees. They need to dump Best Match and half of the iron-fisted rules they’ve laid on sellers or they will continue to lose them. Its no longer a matter of enticing sellers with special fees - Ebay needs to work HARD to get some buyers on that site and to bring the site back to a “fun” state - now its more like a prison!

BobbyOn 10.11.2008 at 5:21 pm Said:

Well everyone, isn’t is extremely telling that my post addressed to Usher is left unanswered by him or other eBay managment members watching the blog for Richard. (I must say that Richard seems to the only decent fellow out of the bunch. Conrats on the new baby, Richard!)

The suits just keep their heads under the covers hoping those pesky sellers addressing uncomfortable issues go away.

Or. perhaps I should consider myself lucky Usher didn’t reply and subject me (and my other fellow sellers) to the disingenuous dodges and corporate doublespeak we all, unfortunately, have become accustomed to?

MattOn 10.12.2008 at 6:02 am Said:

@Bobby

Consider yourself lucky. I posted about the credit card statement in their post and they deleted it

Matt

MattOn 10.12.2008 at 6:03 am Said:

Ooops no they didn’t.

Matt

DaveyOn 10.12.2008 at 12:01 pm Said:

We have to assume that most eBay employees understand what is going on relative to sellers, and Mr. Lieberman may well know the situation too, but has to play verbal limbo in order to keep his job. I can’t think of any harder job than the one he’s got, save maybe political candidates’ spokespeople, for verbal agility and internally having to stifle one’s conscience.

I had a job like that once, and I have empathy. That empathy ends at Mr. Donohoe and Ms. Norrington, though, because unlike Mr. Lieberman, they are directly affecting my livelihood.

Chris SmythOn 10.12.2008 at 3:26 pm Said:

Over the last 12 months the ebay website has become increasingly user unfriendly. This creates a great business opportunity for anybody who wants to break into the online auction field. Think what ebay was like 2 years ago, do that, and you’ll be flooded with clients.

listeasyOn 10.13.2008 at 10:28 am Said:

Today’s retail inventory management system is a sophisticated animal. It straddles the entire logistics and supply chain, enabling inventory planning across all stocking locations from vendor sites and warehouses to redistribution centers and points of sale.
Not only that, a retail inventory management system also provides critical inputs

JayOn 10.14.2008 at 12:24 pm Said:

Curious, why no new articles in 8 days?

eBay just acquired two major companies and laid off 10% of it’s workforce, but there’s no sign of it here.

*crickets*

JayOn 10.14.2008 at 12:26 pm Said:

Nevermind. eBay Ink News just covered those up. Found em.

bill in nhOn 10.15.2008 at 6:53 am Said:

ebay is trying to tell you there doing so much for you when in reality there finding more ways of taking more of your money,they think were all stupid people.like hey look we lowered the listing fee,but now were going to charge you 4times the final value fee and now you can pay us 15% of the sale ,wow what a great deal huh,and by the way you can only charge 3.00 to ship a dvd. but you can charge more to ship a video game that weighs the exact same weight and is in the exact same case ,wow another great deal.and by the way where going to make it almost imposible for buyers to find your product so your sales are going to plumit which everyones has .another great deal,and the best of all where not going to listen to anything the sellers have to say , yes we know your the ones that pay our salary and a good one at that .but that dosen’t mean we have to listen to you .besides what do you know about selling your items.so if you where making a good living on ebay we have decided to stop that and make you look for another place to sell your items ,well ebay thats the only thing you have successfully done.people are leaving the sinking ship before it bottoms out,and trust me it will .we the sellers made you all millonairs and your thanks is we need more money from you.all i can say is good luck your going to need it .