Tomorrow Mark Lewis, eBay UK MD will step into the lion’s den, otherwise known as the , and spend an hour chatting to eBay users.
Inviting questions he said “I would like to hear what’s on your minds” and, from the posts on the thread so far, it’s pretty clear what the current hot topics are much the same as usual – feedback, third party adverts, recent policy changes (in particular everything to do with selling as a business) and complaints that eBay don’t take action on listing infringements.
Some interesting questions have been asked along with a fair sprinkling of misinformation which should make the session lively.
If you’ve got something on your mind and would like to vent in a place where eBay will listen then head off over to at 3pm. It’s not often you can be certain that Mark Lewis will be reading your thoughts.
22 Responses
these things are usually clunky, disjointed and frustrating,
it takes an hour to get the thing running, any answers are normally without substance, and most of the questions are pathetic.
if it were all day it might be useful but an hour is pointless
why dont ebay simply bung their speel on the announcement board it would be much less confusing
Ebay have to show they are willing to at least read and respond to our frustrations in a real time environment.
Whether it will do any good, or just be a tick on the host’s “things to do today” list will be revealed after 3pm.
louise
dont kid yourself
ebay need to do nothing other than keep the share holders and the stock market figures
happy,
its lip service
they are not asking their telling
its as simple as that
Oddly enough I was Googling for something entirely different yesterday, and happened across the classic Doug wrapping paper thread.
These things are really tough in my opinion and frankly the numbers involved are too uneven to make a success of them at the time.
I’ve ran a few over the years and find that taking questions in advance and then opening up a new thread where you directly answer those questions with pasted responses is the most effective, and direct way. That way eBay can say what they need to say in response to certain questions and readers can feel that their question has been acknowledged.
Sadly you get too many people shouting and clamoring for attention for it not to look like anything more than a series of rants and denials.
In response to Jamie’s post: I’ve read a few over the years, and largely sat and cringed at the rudeness of some people in the eBay community. I actually question the wisdom of running it as a “live” Q&A; that seems to encourage people to think that their yelling is being noticed. I think it might be better to run it *not* in a conversation style: e.g. you could have a forum thread for questions, and give Mark his “own” blog where questions could be answered. Or an Answer Centre-style format maybe.
jamie what is ebays logic in holding these,
its usually a very small minority of self appointed experts and anoraks that attend
who certainly dont speak for the majority or even the minority in most cases
sue!
Cringe is the right word,
the pinks invloved in these things need a medal ,or a straight jacket
cant make my mind up which
if I were ebay I would simply plant undercover pinks, to ask the questions ebay want to answer 😈
A medal *and* a straight jacket, I think. How Jamie, Henry et al have managed to refrain from telling some people to STFU is beyond me.
North – I think in the past there have been some fair accusations that eBay UK was not seen to engage in two way conversations with it’s community. You take a look at the US and with bigger teams and bigger budgets they are able to host more Universities, more round table discussions, more Voices sessions and more onboard workshops.
To that extent, Q&A’s given the tumultuous changes in the last month, are a means of chatting with the members and being seen to be approachable – which whatever you think of the actual sessions – which is commendable.
I’d add that you don’t also see a lot of the behind the scenes meetings, testings, conversations that go on in order to test the pulse of the common user. With 15m users in the UK it will always be the voice of the disassociated that cry loudest.
I wonder if he will answer the ‘escrow’ question 😛
For those that don’t know, the eBay UK recomended escrow provider – has NO UK office, and only handles transactions in USD!
jamie I am a common user .
I dont have a problem with ebay at all
, I dont expect it to be my mother,
In general I think ebay are just about as good as they come.
they have certainly improved customer support beyond all recognition,
its close to the best I have come across
LOST INTEREST ALREADY,
same old same old
I will pass this on,!
thanks for the suggestion,!
we will look into this!
North, that’s why I don’t think that the live format is the right one. *obviously* eBay members want to discuss specific individual cases; *obviously* Mark can’t do that. Nor can he go “yeah, you know what, that’s a great point and we’ll change policy based on what you said”.
😐 So, pretty pointless then.
must be a point init somewhere best known to ebay,
though it passes me by
cant think why the big cheese would waste an hour on the plebs, when there are pinks trained and employed for the job,
unless he was having a princess Di moment, and gets a buzz from mixing with the lower order
I think it is all part of New-Business touchyfeelydom…
actually we don’t care who we speak to , so long as things get done….
It would have been more useful for him (or anyone else for that matter) to have asked for everyone’s questions, giving no replies , just saying that they wanted to make sure the right problems were being considered…. then go away, and actually DO SOMETHING ABOUT THEM…… 🙄
Spot on, Lynne.
They all go to too many Leadership and Team Building seminars for their own good…..
(Oh the joy of no longer having to put up with that claptrap…)
I agree with northumbrian above, sorry to everyone else who doesnt. Ebay wont listen and wont do anything, thats been proven. We are just “noise” apparently 😥 …….. Ebay have very much lost the plot and unless you are a very high volume seller, the end is already in sight for many small sellers on ebay. Even the CEO wishes to “rid ebay of its flea market image”. Great. i thought it was supposed to be like that!? COnfused………… ❓