Ebay did a GREAT JOB promoting sellers during the holiday blitz. Congratulations, job well done.

I am not a big fan of promotions. In this case a strong multimedia pre-holiday blitz showed that it worked. A doorbuster promo?? Show me the numbers.

People wanted free shipping, ebay made that possible.

People used those 10% online coupons – ebay made those readily available.

Stick to what works. No need to give Trust & Safety any more headaches, they’re busy enough as it is.

http://tinyurl.com/6s2wcn [link edited for formatting reasons]

This makes national news any more, and ebay may not get the effect out of this promotion that they intended. I must say, though, that it is in line with what I experience as a user relative to ebay “thinking things through” before implementing them.

Even better, the sellers who are using the keywords “HOLIDAY DOORBUSTER” to entice the script runners to purchase their worthless items like pictures of a Wii or Corvette?

Redtape on MSNBC seems to be looking at the problem, and as usual, ebay’s response to the problem sounds like the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. One minute the spokesperson says there is nothing against automated bidding in promotion rules, while the next says there may be a problem? The end result–a bad buying experience by those who are trying legitimately to play the contest.

I will say that the Microsoft Live Search cashback thing has been a great promotion. Hopefully those that use it will never have to use ebay’s customer service, or they will be gone as buyers afterwards even with the costly investment in gaining the buyer.

I’m glad you’re hearing and seeing advertisements for eBay. That makes at least one person.