And then suddenly, it was all over. The jugglers juggled chainsaws dressed in purple velvet tights, Chris Isaak was really quite ridiculously sexy, thank you, and goodnight. They played Freebird as we left: I’m leaving here tomorrow, but Lord knows, things have changed.
Earlier in the day I went to the Q&A session with eBay’s executives for PowerSellers, effectively an extension of the Town Hall. This open access to eBay’s top management has always been one of the best aspects of Live, but something about it has changed. Finally, I believe eBay when they say they’re listening. This isn’t just about “we give you forums to complain about us and wheel out Pierre once a year to press the flesh” anymore. What I saw yesterday were eight people who, I believe, really want to make eBay a better place for all of us.
One of the questions asked by a PowerSeller and cheered by the room was this: why, when sellers tell eBay that they have things wrong, is the response inevitably ‘we know better’? Griff began the response with the eBay line that buyers were leaving the site in droves, and something had to be done to stop the exodus. While this is undoubtedly true, it’s something all sellers have heard before, and when it’s your own living on the line, it’s hard to accept. Someone needs to find a new response. And then they did.
With a passion and frankness that’s a million miles from the slick polish we’ve seen from old-school execs, Lorrie Norrington talked about how it feels to read blog posts every day that rip your company to shreds, a company where, as she put it, “people are working their backsides off to make you successful”. Indicating her fellow panel members, she went on, “there are a lot of new faces up here. We’re sorry for the mistakes of the past, come join us for the future”.
Then Stephanie joined in: we’re a new team, allow us to prove to you that things have changed. “We will prove to you that it’s a new day at eBay.” And that’s what’s different: let us prove it. Things have changed at eBay Towers. This is a brand new management team, and I believe they will make good on their promises.
I know that there will be people reading this post who don’t want to hear this message. That’s fine, but ask yourself why you continue to do business with a company you say you don’t like, don’t trust, don’t believe in? Why, in fact, put so much effort into writing blog entries and forum posts and emails expressing your hatred of eBay? Wouldn’t it be better to put that energy into making things work, on- or off-eBay?
I’ve talked a lot this week about how the fanaticism has gone. It makes for less exciting photographs, but I don’t miss it at all. It wasn’t real; you can’t build real businesses on pins and silly hats (pin and silly hat sellers excepted). Lorrie Norrington and Stephanie Tilenius and the rest of eBay’s management are making something new, something that has a future, something that I for one am intensely proud to be associated with.
As the guy in yesterday’s Town Hall put it, “by the way, Lorrie rocks”.
45 Responses
Good thoughts Biddy – be very pleased to have you back here, and discussing your findings without jetlag fogging you up!
“Why, in fact, put so much effort into writing blog entries and forum posts and emails expressing your hatred of eBay? Wouldn’t it be better to put that energy into making things work, on- or off-eBay?”
You’re so very right. There are things about the “new” eBay I have to find ways around, but I do get the feeling that the eBay of 2009 will be more satisfying and buoyant than that of 2008. I would much prefer to work with what they are giving me, and make that work, than groan about the things I don’t like. Oh, and don’t get me wrong…they do exist.
But I can’t remember working anywhere in my entire (not so short) life where there wasn’t something that didn’t need a workaround. Why should eBay be any different?
We shall see 😯
Wouldn’t it be better to put that energy into making things work, on- or off-eBay?
The change now is that rather than focusing energy on building and growing my business with Ebay, the rollercoaster good sellers have been put through by this “new” management team in the last six months has resulted in me putting Ebay on “cruise control” and putting more and more energy into off Ebay projects.
why you continue to do business with a company you say you don’t like, don’t trust, don’t believe in?
As long as I continue to make money on Ebay I will continue to sell there, thats the only reason I continue to trade there
Nice post Biddy. Have a safe trip home and mind you don’t go doing a Niaomi Campbell at the airport because your Bollinger isn’t chilled properly.
I also think this new policy of drawing big sellers in to the detriment of the small sellers, the dolphin policies and attitudes does not get addressed by one impassioned speech Sue.
The hurt runs deep and it is the current management that are managing the current changes that are causing the hurt.
Buy.com is a punch in the nose for many sellers.
I am sorry, but I do not buy it.
I think their core focus is on big sellers and there biggest mistake is this:
Small sellers are small buyers.
They are not two breeds.
When they realise that, they may stop chasing the small sellers away.
These changes could have been instituted gently, maybe the revealing of emotion is because the changes are having the negative effect Ebay Sellers are saying they are having.
Ebay by driving small sellers away are driving small buyers away.
And they cannot seem to understand this.
The stress they have also caused many sellers lately, due to their sledgehammer tactics, should not be forgotten on the basis of one impassioned speech.
I for one will believe it when I see it.
Mark
“why you continue to do business with a company you say you don’t like, don’t trust, don’t believe in?”
I don’t like, trust or believe in our current Prime Minister either, but if I want to live in the UK I have to live under his policies. I will trade on ebay until it is no longer profitable or they kick me off. It’s called “means to an end”
A few hurt feelings.
A business switched off overnight.
There is a balance here in favour of the sellers coming out of this the worst I think?
Lets keep Ebay in perspective.
We all welcome improvement to the site, but when good sellers become the enemy, you seriously have to question the current attitude towards their sellers and their grasp of their own business.
The feedback changes were unnecessary in the way they alienated ALL sellers.
Ebay touched the apple of many sellers eyes with this and countless other poorly managed changes.
Mark
Personally, I blog to tell the truth about eBay and why I am frustrated with them. By blogging I am able to release much of the 10+ years of anger I have because of the eBay abuse. At least I am directing my anger and frustration EXACTLY where it should be directed – at eBay – rather than at my family or my customers.
My family comes first and so I have put up with the abuses on eBay in order to feed my family and that is why I am still there. I cannot disappear from eBay overnight but I have lessened by dependence on eBay by 50% since January and by the end of the year I will have reduced it by another 50%. And I think there are a lot of sellers just like me. We aren’t leaving overnight but we sure are building our businesses away from eBay and that does take some time.
And speaking of MY customers, I treat them well and they buy FROM ME through eBay… yes THROUGH eBay. I view my sales on Amazon, in contrast, as me serving a role similiar to a dropshipper. Amazon has its own website, its own website sales, and its own customers. They allow me to participate with them to share in some of THEIR sales. And that is why the Amazon website is not broken like the eBay website is… because Amazon sells on their own website so it can’t be broken if Amazon wants to succeed. Now, on my own ecommerce websites my customers are my own and I make the rules. I use eBay as a customer farm to pull them to my website where I can service them so much better than I can on eBay.
eBay is just like any other job that one has if they want to pay the bills. Anyone who has a family to support would be irresponsible to walk out without having something else lined up. But it takes time to get trained to do something else or to find a better job so you stay and suffer the abuse while you plan your exit strategy.
Yes, Lorrie has already “proven” her desire to do what is right for the marketplace. I guess that is why, under her watch, all digitally delivered items were removed and violations were issued BEFORE any announcement was made. That type of disrespect and disregard for sellers sure does tell me what kind of stuff we have to look forward to going into the future.
And I do not believe for one minute that eBay executives work their backsides off to make US successful. EVERYTHING eBay does is for their own direct benefit and if it happens to benefit us that is well and fine but if it doesn’t then no matter. eBay has one “partner” and that is Buy.com . And the ONLY reason they publicly acknowledged it is because of some good investigative reporting where Randy Smythe figured it out. Otherwise, I guarantee you eBay would not have been forthcoming with the information.
I do agree that things have changed at eBay Towers. eBay is still pushing forward and making the same short-term impact decisions with the same carelessness as always but THE CHANGE is that now they are claiming to really care about the sellers. Actions do speak louder than words and eBay’s actions — the way in which they have miscommunicated the recent changes (I’m thinking the impact of rescoring neutral feedback) and the total lack of respect (I’m thinking of the digitally delivered download policy change fiasco) are representative of their actions. eBay makes decisions and changes “in secret chambers” and then only notifies people of the changes when they are whacking them over the head with a stick telling them they have done something wrong. How arrogant of eBay to punish people for rules they don’t even know exist.
I am glad you are proud to be associated with eBay. Frankly, I am embarrassed to tell people that our company even sells on eBay. We state that we are an ecommerce seller and we promote the fact that we sell on Amazon and our own websites. When asked about eBay, we justify our existence there by stating we are using eBay as a customer farm. There was a time I was proud to tell people I sold on eBay. That time is no more.
President Norrington continues to allow deadbeat non-paying bidders to leave dishonest damaging negative/negtral feedback for honest sellers.
That ain’t rockin’ in my book.
What i see from all the changes that will impact ebay and every seller on the site is the fact that the fun has gone.
OK selling for some folk is serious business, but buying on ebay used to be fun, it no longer is or has been for a while, the feedback changes and all the other so called changes to improve buyer confidence were no more than closing the door after the horse was long gone.
If want to browse and buy i will go to amazon, when I wanted a possible bargain I went to ebay and bid on an auction,took my chances and sometimes won and sometimes lost, it used to be fun
The fun is gone and that is not a good thing for anyone.
Biddy you and Chris do a great job, and my day wouldn’t be complete without a visit to Tamebay.
I just want to check with you that you and all the other delegates didn’t go on any excursion visits to Stepford.
Just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you. 😀
“ask yourself why you continue to do business with a company you say you don’t like, don’t trust, don’t believe in? Why, in fact, put so much effort into writing blog entries and forum posts and emails expressing your hatred of eBay? Wouldn’t it be better to put that energy into making things work, on- or off-eBay?â€
Why? A good question; perhaps sellers are on to something here, perhaps they realise the true potential of what eBay could be, perhaps they’re far smarter and wiser then eBay’s top brass have in the past given them credit for. These are the people that use the site day in day out, week after month after year. These are the people that know the finest details of how eBay ticks and sometimes when it doesn’t tick. I truly hope eBay do really want to listen to it’s sellers from now on, I hope we’ve come to a turning point and that eBay will learn that it doesn’t always know best. Work together with your sellers and you have possibly one of the best market places on the net, work against them as seems to be the case more and more these days then I see no long term future for eBay in any shape or form.
I’ve been a Powerseller for nearly four years and an eBay member for twice that, Not so very long ago the forums use to be filled with people asking for advice on how to improve eBay sales, how to improve their shops/stores how to make eBay work for them. Sadly that’s been steadily replaced with how do I get a web site up and running and get off eBay. Right now for a lot of sellers being on eBay can only be compared to rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. I can’t help thinking of something my grandmother use to say, The almighty gave you two eyes, two ears and one mouth, use them in those proportions and you wont go far wrong in life.
I’m absolutely in agreement with making the site better and safer for buyers, but it works both ways, look after your sellers and they’ll look after eBay. The recent feedback fiasco that in itself was a smoke screen for a lot of other changes is most definitely not the way to carry on.
Another Richard (not the pink one) 🙂
If eBay started listening to the sellers on the UK powersellers board it really would be time to quit 😆
I won’t do business with a company who treat their customers this way unless I find it to my advantage, and as that means I sometimes buy items on ebay that are hard to find elsewhere, that’s my only use for ebay.
I took a break from selling for nine months, was all fired up to come back in February, read about the planned changes and thought “Sod this for a game of soldiers”, and nothing I’ve seen since has changed my mind.
Incompetent management at the top, filters through to incompetent service throughout and the people at the top of ebay are making mistake after mistake after mistake.
I feel sorry for the people who have worked their butts off to build up an ebay business who now find themselves having to contend with the bunch of clowns running ebay today, because they really are up against it.
Ergo as a buyer, the people ebay feel are leaving, it’s not scammers, cheats and charlatans that make me not want to use ebay, it’s ebay senior management and until ebay senior management change and come back to the real world and stop holding my hand every step of the way, I will continue to use ebay sparingly as they are doing nothing to give me confidence.
When ebay actually start dealing properly with the scammers, cheats and charlatans, then maybe I’ll consider them to be heading in the right direction, but all they’re doing at the moment is undermining all their sellers, with bad policy after bad policy and someone needs to take responsibility here because the atmosphere all over ebay stinks.
I am agnostic
I thought you were asthmatic.
I do business with this company
because its profitable to do so,
I dont give a tinkers curse who runs it, or if they love me,
I dont care what they say ,or how they say it, I dont care what rules or conditions are in place,
as long as there is profit in it for me
eBay was never a ‘fun’ place for me to sell. It was a relatively easy and relaxed way of generating an additional income for my business.
It’s no longer a relaxed way of selling, it’s a constant worry that the next sale could see me restricted because of one awkward buyer.
eBay want me to give them the chance but will they give me a chance. On the current system they aren’t doing that.
I don’t think I’ll be around to see the new improved eBay.
One thing I must thank them for though, is giving me the impetus to set up my own websites. That’s something I would never have dreamt of a few months ago.
Ebay is still the 8th wonder of the world
for us we have no intention of setting up a website, we dont even consider it
To us setting up a web space would be like having a market stall on the moon after we have been used to a prime spot in Harrods
Ebay is now something I just do, my zest for it waned with the constant shifting of goalposts and glitches in the system such as checkout problems, in ability to mass edit for the 14 day policy etc etc (and there are too many to list!).
When the powers that be first took the decision to flood H&B with .com products my sales took a massive dive, I have battled hard to build it back only each time to have another “thing” come along.. yes I know this is business fair enough… but my love for ebay has gone and with it, eventually, will my selling (and buying) on it.
I like your optimism… but, I just can’t believe things are “new and improved” when they continue to do business the old way. Rules are still rolled out at seemingly random times with little or no communication. New features are full of glitches. And they continue to tighten the control they have over sellers with no reciprocation in benefits. It’s the same stuff… so I don’t believe Lorrie and Stephanie when they ask us to believe that it is a new day at eBay.
Why do I put effort into eBay? I do continue to make some money… and I continue to motivate those customers to use my web site for future purchases. I truly hope to ditch eBay soon.
Exactly Whirly
this is business, not a hobby or a religion
its all about buying and selling
if I want to be preached to, and loved, the local druid does it for nowt
“ask yourself why you continue to do business with a company you say you don’t like, don’t trust, don’t believe in?” Money.
I am in business to make money, eBay provides us as a company with outstanding traffic, the level of which easily out performs all the other platforms available to us that we use, however I do not have to like eBay or it’s policy’s or the way in which it treats me in order for me to keep giving them money because I get more back than I give, so I am glad to be back on eBay purely for financial reasons and nothing else.
If I want to fall in love I’ll switch on GMTV and drool over Penny Smith, if I want to make money I’ll fire up the Quattro and log into eBay, nowt will change until the traffic stops.
though I have to say
the policy compliance thing seems to have been concocted by a lunatic
Hello from the States. Yes, I agree with your point we should support eBay and all row in the same direction. I have been a full time seller on eBay for over 10 years and on several occasions have officially lobbied for eBay both in my home state and in Washington D.C. before members of Congress. eBay has given me the opportunity I always dreamed of to be self-employed and in charge of my own life. However, two things about eBay that still haven’t changed are their penchant for distilling the truth when it suits them, and their cavalier attitude towards how their continual changes affect sellers. I’ll submit just two recent examples. This week Yahoo News and the New York Times carried stories about how PayPal is now protecting U.S. sellers who ship internationally. Well, it turns out we’re only being protected if we ship Express Mail with tracking which costs the buyer three times as much as regular USPS First Class International. My guess is that less than 5% of all shipments will therefore be protected. But did the “new management†at eBay point out that 95% of international shipments will therefore not be protected? Of course not. And how about this new policy that you can’t have your email address on the item page? I have over 13,000 listings that will have to be shut down and re-launched with an altered template. I’ll spend at least 3 days doing that, and eBay gets a windfall on relisting fees. The last time I had to do this was when eBay decided you could no longer say you accepted “cash†in your listings. Plus I recently spent several days creating a new About Me page that directs customers to my web site, only to find it’s now a policy violation. These are just a few reasons why I continue to be torn towards my appreciation and disappointment with eBay.
“we should support eBay and all row in the same direction”
Which would be a darn sight easier if we had any kind of clue as to which way ebay was rowing!
Very funny that Lorrie Norrington believes eBay “people are working their backsides off to make you [sellers] successfulâ€.
NO… eBay is giving sellers their backsides, too.
eBay stock is down to $27.73 so investors are giving eBay their backsides!
I am stunned that they would look at a room full of sellers and plead for their patience and ask them to take a leap of faith, and then follow up with we really don’t know what we are doing! Hello- we can’t all be taking blind faith leaps and expect anyone of us to land unscathed on the other side.
eBay I can sympathize with the difficulty of reading the blogs with people tearing your company apart knowing you are working your tail off. I’ve experienced similar, but to a much greater degree of degradation. See your customers are upset, because of actions you have taken that hurt them- eBay has earned the emotions that so many of us feel- the abuse, betrayal, disregard, and disrespect of your treatment of your customers is what has caused the extreme negativity,
I do know what it is like to work my A** off averaging 4 hrs of sleep a night for over a year, completely abandoning my family while I spend every waking hour working on my store- designing it, answering emails, listing, packaging, purchasing over and over day after day working to meet my goals- do what I need to do to be successful. eBay was my tool- I follow the rules and work my a** off.
One day I get this email from the service provider that I purchase services from and am shocked and appalled and hurt to see their accusing me – their own customer- of being a thief, a con, and a bad seller who if given a negative gives one to my customer in revenge. Due to their opinion of me they were instituting policies to protect my customers from their customers- punishments involving money holds, reduced visibility, account limitations, and possibly suspension. Shortly after reading this insult I see that this isn’t a notice – accusations from eBay to me their customer- oh no they told the world that I am trash and not to be trusted.
What did I do to deserve this treatment, this new reputation? I paid my fees, followed the rulers, earned powerseller status in 4 months – silver in 5, and I made eBay look good because I sell on their site. This was the thanks I got- this is their idea of customer appreciation – and they want me to sympathize with them because of how hard they work- yeah!
You know years back now when long distance wasn’t free I racked up 3 to 400 dollar bills every month talking to my family. That is pretty hefty bill for a residential account. One day I woke up to find my phone had been shut off. After learning from the phone company that I was short on my payment in the sum of $1.57 – no freaking joke-and they wanted me to pay 350 deposit to restore service. I told them their services were no longer useful and I would no longer be purchasing from them. It has been 9 or 10 years since and I have never used them again- they still call – just 2 weeks ago I had to tell the solicitor that I would never ever use their service again and why.
I’m known to occasionally forget to pay a bill or two and sometimes this leads to service interruption, and often the provider wants to insist on a deposit and you know what I just tell them no, and if they don’t like it I’ll use someone else.
This is the difference between a competitive market and a monopoly. The obvious reason a lot of us are still being used by eBay is the unfortunately reality that though there are other venues and yes a lot of us are spreading our wings, it is impossible for us to walk away as I can the phone company or the cable company. I have a massive amount of inventory and bills to pay and a family to help support I don’t have the luxury (most people who sell on eBay don’t) of just telling them to kiss of and leave- well I can tell them to kiss of but I can’t just leave. Does that mean I don’t want to? no! Does that mean I trust or should trust eBay? No! What it means is I am forced to maintain a relationship with a company that not only thinks I am trash and a danger to the marketplace but also spreads the rumor globally.
That is why I stay at eBay at the present time
So Lorrie and her staff are being upset at reading blogs that tear ebay to shreds?
Come on girls and boys of ebay “management”, you know it’s not unfounded and baseless!
When these changes were being put forward for suggestion, ebay MUST have known there would be some kind of backlash?! To think not means the powers that be have no respect or idea about their customer base (the sellers, not the buyers) and thus have no business in being allowed to make such poor decisions.
The anger on boards around the world is almost edible and only getting thicker and more lumpy the more ebay avoid seller needs for fairness and clarity.
Looking at the posts on here and other sites I can see that ebay WILL be around for a long time yet but not becuase it’s the venue of choice but because sellers are either trapped there or are willing to swallow the ebay potion, it’s bitterness diluted with other venue sales.
Is this really the way ahead for ebay? Miserable sellers with axes to grind and a massive feeling that we would ALL rather be elsewhere? Well, as long as the money keeps coming in and those nastly blogs remain unseen by Lorrie and her team, it looks like it is.
I am not miserable and I don’t want to be elsewhere.
I still like eBay.
I don’t have any axe to grind.
I haven’t had any problems yet.
My customers still seem happy.
I understand the logic behind the decisions, even if the way they have put them into place is perhaps a bit rough round the edges.
I still make money (due as much to buying as it is to selling don’t forget, so not always eBay’s responsibility)
I do not feel that I have been singled out for any sort of unfair actions.
I do not feel that eBay are the devil’s spawn.
I do not think I am alone….
Enough reasons?
30# 😉 I hope there are a lot more like-minded folk out there. 😎
They want to prove it. Okay. Let them prove it. I remain unconvinced. If they can prove it, let them. I’m happy to sit over here with some popcorn and watch it all go down. If they can really turn it around, I’ll be mightily impressed, I’ll say that much…
#31
There sure are!
But most of them have just got their heads down and are listing and selling and not
wastingspending their time on eBay forums and noticeboard… or so says my old man… 😀@30
Do you think that someone that has lost their account by being a dolphin would have the same opinion as yourself?
Mark 🙂
“Lorrie Norrington talked about how it feels to read blog posts every day that rip your company to shreds”
Oh diddums, do people have something to say that you don’t like hearing?
The solution is in your own hands, fix it.
You can start by doing something about the scammers first, who even have the cheek to get feedback removed. You can clear the buyers who are dishonest and abusing the system next. Then put it back to a level playing field where there is a respect for both buyers and sellers and finally get some CS staff with direct dial and who have the authority to rectify problems.
Queen Norrington laments that eBay “people are working their backsides off to make you [sellers] successfulâ€. 😛
If their actions I over the past 6 months are any indication of what they are capable of who needs their damn help.
Good eBay sellers work their backsides off as well and don’t need the additional burden of a sales venue that is constantly making them jump through more and more hoops.
Unless eBay comes to its senses very soon (unlikely) the damage they have created since the start of this year will be permanent, with good sellers leaving the site over issues of buyer fraud, best match, paypal, lopsided feedback ….etc. etc. etc.
eBay managment appears to exist in a different world than that of its paying customer base. Who wants to deal with company that makes very damaging policy changes on the fly and then gives vague promises about remedying the negative consequences of these changes? Only a company run by cretins and dunderheads operates like this.
eBay live 2008 must have been somewhat of an eye opener for the intellectually challenged lackeys that currently compose upper eBay managment. Being of a cynical nature I truly doubt whether any of them can actually fully appreciate or care about the distrust and anger they have caused sellers to feel. To hell with all of them – my last listings ended well in advance of May 19 and I doubt if I will ever sell on eBay again. 😡
@34
No, I expect not Mark.
But I can only comment on how I feel, rather than other people’s feelings.
Words are cheap. Emotion even cheaper.
By your actions by ye judged.
Ebay’s actions over the past six months indicate a company desiring change,but not having a Real clue as to the results of those changes,
Amatuerish,Unprofessional,and to some extent slightly barmy.
A Single Proof?
I give thee ‘New Search’. The latest staggeringly lame brained idiocy,that is literally alienating Buyers in their tens of thousands.
I’m sorry….
“literally alienating Buyers in their tens of thousands.”
how do you know that?
eBay are clearly going through some growing pains, and that’s never easy to manage. However, making emotional pleas asking sellers not to be emotional, just isn’t going to cut the mustard. Sellers get emotional when changes are made without consultation or transparency of where the changes are leading. The financial markets don’t like nasty surprises – sellers are no different.
If eBay want to get disgruntled sellers back on board, they need to articulate their vision of where the site / venue is going and what that will mean for different types of sellers. Some sellers will like it, others won’t – but you can then make rational decisions, either way.
eBay secured it’s market domination with a powerful vision of accessibility to market for small sellers combined with a sense of community. Now that vision needs to develop to incorporate new circumstances and business goals. If it doesn’t, then eBay will, (however slowly), go into decline.
Several posters have said that they will continue to trade with eBay ‘just because it’s profitable’. That’s fair enough as a personal choice – but there’s a big difference between trading ‘because I have to’ and because it’s ‘a great place to be’. Like it or not, emotional attachment with buyers and users (in this case, sellers) is a key objective for any business, because it keeps them coming back to you as their first choice.
Many small sellers are now putting much greater effort into developing their own websites. If the ‘services to small sellers / niche markets’ business is still an area that eBay want to be a big player in, they have to act more coherently to retain and grow existing sellers.
Currently, there are several areas of eBay that I really like, and a roughly equal amount of things that I dislike – putting all my eggs in the eBay basket would be a very risky (and less profitable) strategy. A few years ago I might have felt differently.
“people are working their backsides off to make you successfulâ€.
WTF ???
How patronising is that ??
Lilac Tree, in context, it wasn’t: it was heart-felt. I wish I’d thought to film it.
Ebay is causing sellers to leave in droves, with the new policy changes and tens of thousands of sellers and buyers are irate. The recent changes are just plain idiotic. Sellers can no longer leave negative or neutral feedback, even if a buyer bids, wins your item, ignores your emails and doesn’t pay. What right do they have to leave any feedback, if no transaction has even taken place? We have sellers, bidding on competitors items and ruining their feedback, just to get a boost, on their own items.
Ebay also went in and retroactively turned all neutrals, into negatives, based on a assumption. Neutral, means just that. How can ebay change the meaning of a word, to mean something else? They started giving new discounts to people with good ratings, but they knock them down first, with the neutral change, so that many can’t even meet the requirements, for the discount.
This is not the worst of it. We have thousands and thousands of sellers, who have closed their stores and we KNOW that the listing count should be going down. But, we have uncovered the source of the raised listing counts and this is how ebay is throwing off the boycott, so investors don’t hear the “Noise” as John Donahoe call it. I can’t see it being anything, but fraud.
The seller BUY or Buy.com was taken on by ebay, right at the time ebay KNEW they were going to lose sellers. They are using buy.com, to pad the listings, to make it look like the count is up, when it really isn’t. We have found thousands upon thousands of fake listings, that have no description and you can’t even bid on them. I personally found them ending tens of thousands of listings early, saying they are no longer available for sale and then immediately relisting them. Most likely to keep the sell through rate up, which was dwindling and then relisting them again, to up the listing count 2 fold. Buy.com, doesn’t pay listing fees, so these millions of listings, are not bringing in revenue. Their sell through rate is around 5%, when I last heard, so the listings themselves aren’t bringing in much either.
If Buy.com’s millions of listings were removed from the count, it would be millions less and shareholders would be wondering what is going on. They wouldn’t have to do much searching because the word is finally getting out. Isn’t this making the stockholders think that listings are up, when they really aren’t? We have all the proof documented. I even have it documented of when I was talking to Ebay Live Help and asking them about all the ads, being ended early and it immediately stopped, when they found out that we knew about it.
We just feel that you should know what’s going on and ebay is doing their best, to hide it. We can see what the funds are losing, by going to the following link and just think it is awful, the amounts of money people are losing. We understand a lot of funds are holding on, hoping it will go back up with the new changes, but we don’t see it getting better and just feel that you have a right, to know.
You can go here and check out the article, from the Wall Street Journal and you will see that the page takes forever to load, because there are so many complaints about ebay and their new policies.
https://blogs.wsj.com/biztech/2008/06/24/ebay-angers-sellers-pleases-buyers/
You can also go to ebays own feedback message board to find thousands upon thousands of boycotters and sellers who are now getting ripped off from the changes. There are even loads and loads of sellers, who have been put out of business, overnight: https://forums.ebay.com/db2/forum.jspa?forumID=113
Have you seen any of the videos, taken from Ebay Live 2008? Well, have a look:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHY0r3Sn9rc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBX4vRjPHXM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cro1Gp5dTVA
Then you have this, the interview on talk radio, where the screaming guy in the first video, calls in: https://www.blogtalkradio.com/fruity
And you can’t forget the NEW buyers that are coming on to ebay, taking advantage of the new policies. They are all over the place. Before we had a way, when it was a fair playing field, to neg non paying bidders or bidders who do a chargeback and don’t send the item back or they send a box of rocks, instead of the item or they just plain say “I didn’t get it”. It’s really gotten out of hand. I apologize for the content in these videos, but it is the only way to show what is happening:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQ9D4qwiXcE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub1xhxQU19w
Thank you for reading and we hope you at least try to contact ebay, on the padding of FREE listings.
Tracy Fair and thousands of other ebay members
Lorrie Norrington: deadbeat bidder, policy breaking ebay exec seller exposed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_ARc6rWToE
cheers!
#44 i really can’t be bothered watching a 3 minute+ youtube video, can you say in less than 100 words what your point is please.