Forum Moderators: buckworks
At eBay, subtle change is about to become a thing of the past. Under pressure from analysts and investors to jump-start growth in its core auctions business, eBay is making a series of upgrades intended to make the site more friendly to buyers. In so doing, it may have to endure a torrent of criticism from more than 700,000 sellers who rely on eBay for their livelihoods and who have firm ideas of their own about how best to serve buyers.“We have to make sure our old users stay with us, but we’re going to be more bold around product changes than we’ve been in the past,” Ms. Whitman said in an interview last week in Boston at eBay Live, an annual conference for the site’s sellers. “I think people expect more from eBay.”
eBay Takes Steps To Reinvigorate Its Auctions [nytimes.com]
Interesting to see it popup here the next day... What kind of fee raise took place? Must have been a big one...
The same item (Different Color, same price), we purchased adwords advertisements for, by the time we crunced all the PPC costs till we moved the inventory, Adwords cost us around 3% per transaction.
Any, boy was it hard work :)
Mind you , it was a good learning experience
There in lies their problem
All of the above are obstacles for eBay.
But I think the third-party automated bid sniping services don't get nearly the credit (blame) they deserve for dampening the user experience.
I started selling software on ebay 5 yrs ago - software that I created myself. I quickly became a Gold power seller, with a feedback of over 99.7%. My product started selling so fast, that paypal became suspicious, and froze my account - asking me to provide documentation on my product that I didn't have (because it's software - a virtual product). So my funds - approximately $5,000 at the time remained frozen for about 6 months.
Then in the mean time I had 2 separate competitors take software from me, and started selling it on ebay themselves. And on top of that, they both joined the VERO program, and started filing complaints against me saying that I was selling their stolen work. At the time I had no idea that you could file a counter-notice against these complaints. (Ebay does not mention counter-notices anywhere on their website) So I did not know what to do. My emails and calls went unanswered, and eventually their VERO complaints got me banned from ebay. Eventually through research I found out about filing a counter notice, but according to ebay was too late because I had too many complaints against me.
That long rant to say that there are many many sellers out there that have gone through a similar experience as mine - and many worse. And many of us sellers bring along thousands of customers.
Ebay has been digging their own grave for a long time now. They have been using many different kinds of shovels and picks. But now it sounds like they are breaking out the Backhoe.
2. Buyers/sellers who seem to be irrational
Ebay is more rational if you view it as a new type of casino: No one makes much money, but a few "users" return again and again seeking some big payoffs. Very appealing to a cerain niche.
note:
>> upgrades intended to make the site more friendly to buyers.
But you know, I don't think ebay cares about things like that. They have just seen sellers dropping them because they got too greedy with their fees, and now they are sorry and crying "We've changed!" Right.
As for the Vero program, ebayers are second only to myspace in taking my text without my permission and hotlinking to my pictures. I always give people a chance to respond to me personally before contacting ebay, but invariably they refuse to respond to emails and I have to send a Vero notice; then they get all upset and whiney when ebay yanks their item. I have found people selling my website as a book they wrote on ebay. Last week I found someone who had turned a very large page of mine into an ebay buying guide.
So yes, in my mind if eBay want to clean up their act, they need to do something for buyers - but running a modern, consumer-friendly business would probably go a much longer way than adding fancy tools that nobody has ever missed or asked for.
When I started using eBay--both as a seller and buyer--the auction site was a place to find treasures, difficult to find items at reasonable prices. With the introduction of their power seller programs, it is now the playgarden of wannabe on-line shop owners who don't have the knowledge or funding to start their own site and of clowns trying to sell illegal copies of all types of items for just their own profit.
I have abandonned eBay a few years ago just because of this. It is not fun any more to scroll through the long item listings finding 10 or more times the same item of the same seller with different ending times and most of the time only stuff you can buy in every shop or other e-shop. No treasures anymore :(
The only way eBay can stop this is by booting a large number of sellers from their system because of a non-fit business model--just as Google has done a few weeks ago with AdSense arbitrageurs--but I doubt they will do that as those sellers generate a large part of their income.
Matt
Here's what ticks me off:
Products Mis-Categorized --- I hate searching for a nokia n95 cell phone in the cell phones category and getting 50 pages for batteries and car chargers instead. If you can't figure out that a battery or a phone charger goes in the cell phone accessories sub-category instead after being warned a few times you need to be banned from ebay!
99% Fake Feedback --- some sellers out there sell pure crap, and then when they get a neg feedback they of course talk the buyer into removing it, artificially showing a very high feedback rating. So they can play the numbers game, sell say diamond rings with garbage quality diamonds, hope only 30% notice, and of that 30% only 10% complain and work to make sure that 10% never submits a negative feedback. This is wrong and pure deception.
Poor Picture Browsing --- when ebay introduced the gallery browse method it was a step in the right direction but not good enough. I want to see bigger clearer pictures when I browse.
Filtered Browsing - I'd also like to see better types of browsing methods and filters, to permanently be able to "ban" certain sellers you know that list 50,000 items of all pure junk. And ebay should automatically do some quality control to see which sellers are getting banned the most from it's users and why.... mis-categorized products? obvious fraud? poor picture quality? deceptive descriptions? There are so many users browsing ebay looking for honest sellers of legit products that we could easily "productrank" the items ourselves to eliminate the junk being listed.
Correct me if I'm wrong but ebay increased it's fees in order to balance supply/demand... there were too many listings, mostly of junk. If they eliminate the junk they can reduce listing fees while increasing quality and thus have the same supply/demand but a better searching experience for users and more profitable for the honest and legit sellers.
high sell-through percentage rate
High sell-through rate is a strong indicator that the seller is offering in-demand items and s/he should be rewarded for that. Many eBay users complained about duplicate overpriced items from data feeds. Favoring high sell-through rate means sellers that use data feeds are pushed down in the rankings.
high positive feedback ratio
All things being equal, I rather deal with a seller with 100% positive feedback ratio rather 97% ratio. This would kick in after the seller has reach 100 feedback.
distance relative to buyer
I rather buy from someone one state away rather than 10 states away.
Paypal
Favor sellers that accept Paypal.
This all goes against a "level playing field", but that mantra is keeping poor sellers and stuff no one wants online. The factors I mentioned above would work better than continuing to raise fees. I hope the summer relief of eBay fees is a indicator that fees will be permanently reduced.
Sure, if you're a power seller you could set up an ecommerce site but most members aren't, and besides an ecommerce site isn't the same thing as an auction.
If you want to buy or sell something very specialised without wanting to make a living from it, there simply isn't anywhere else to go except ebay. There was a "strike" by ebay members a few months ago to protest against fees, but what difference could that have possibly made? The only way to hurt ebay is to use a rival, but no one on the ebay forums could come up with any real rivals.
Ebay's global strategy is to simply buy up any rivals they find, and this has to be stopped if there's to be any real competition in the online auction world.
Imagine if all online retail had to go through amazon.com: that's exactly what the online auction world is like with ebay.
Is this ever true. I still root around ebay looking for vintage stuff for a good price in categories no one has "discovered" yet, and I do find junk that I want. But with ebay, I have to use more negative terms to find anything worth looking at than with any other search I use.
It is too bad. I really liked it when it was more of a flea market.
Looks like eBay is beta testing their new search algorithm:
[pages.ebay.com...]
This happens because the system automatically interprets the buyer’s query and excludes items that aren’t relevant. For example, when a buyer is looking for an “iPod Nano” they probably don’t want to see iPod cases right away!
The site for beta testing is: [playground.ebay.com...]
sun818 wrote: Favor sellers that accept Paypal.
As a buyer, I would like the option to more easily omit sellers that don't accept PayPal. You can do it through the advanced search, but I would like something easier, maybe something like tabs where they have "All Items," "Auctions," and "Buy It Now." Maybe they could add "Listed with PayPal" or something.
If you're a keen buyer, you could probably make some money buying things that aren't PayPal listed, and reselling them, offering PayPal as a payment option.
A money order is too costly and too much an inconvenience to go and get. And, mailing a check takes too long. So, in auctions I have been interested in anyway, if they don't offer PayPal, they don't sell for as much as a similar item that does offer PayPal, if they sell at all.
Another nice option would be the ability to filter out sellers that don't offer shipping. I recently saw something I would have liked, but the seller did not offer shipping options. You had to pick it up or make your own shipping arrangements. It was listed and relisted and relisted, with the seller lowering his price each time. I bet if he had taken the time to make shipping arrangements and list a shipping/handling fee, he might have sold it.
lammert wrote: ...it is now the playgarden of wannabe on-line shop owners who don't have the knowledge or funding to start their own site...
Good point. A real shop owner would have a variety of payment options and make things relatively easy for the customer to make a purchase. If I have to get a money order or make my own shipping arrangements, I am far less likely to buy than from someone who will take PayPal and tell me how much it's going to cost to get the item at my door and in my hands.
HRoth wrote: Is this ever true. I still root around ebay looking for vintage stuff for a good price in categories no one has "discovered" yet, and I do find junk that I want. But with ebay, I have to use more negative terms to find anything worth looking at than with any other search I use.
I frequently browse rather than search (or use a broad search) because you can still sometimes find good deals if you can find a seller that doesn't know what they have or the right category to have listed it.
yosmc writes: Interesting. In my mind, eBay has been favoring the sellers over the buyers way too long. Just an example: You buy an item for $1, and then it turns out that they charge $10 for shipping and handling (or $9 just for handling if you pick up the item personally). Sure, eBay says you have to check all the conditions in advance, but under European consumer rights this would never fly (not sure about other countries). Basically means that everyone who is used to a decent consumer legislation unsuspectedly enters a Wild West scenario at eBay, with the company looking the other way as long as they can cash in on the seller fees.
I'm sorry, but if the seller lists their conditions and the buyer neglects to read them, it's hardly the Wild, Wild West. Maybe the buyer will pay closer attention in the future. Perhaps that's the best way for them to learn the lesson. There is too much dumbing-down of stuff these days. I have found that people will generally meet the bar you set for them, so if you keep them low, you will attract the lowest common denominator.
lammert writes: The only way eBay can stop this is by booting a large number of sellers from their system because of a non-fit business model--just as Google has done a few weeks ago with AdSense arbitrageurs--but I doubt they will do that as those sellers generate a large part of their income.
Maybe do away with Buy It Now? Ebay is an auction site, no?
Irregardless, I think one of the problems with sellers these days is that they have their financial expectations far too high. Minimum (or hidden reserve) bids are frequently too high. I've seen the same items listed over and over and over again, at the same price, and not selling. Sometimes they will cut the price and announce it's a sale. Still it does not sell.
If you have an item that you keep listing at the same price over and over again, and there are no takers, perhaps it's because it's not worth your minimum bid. Perhaps sellers think that they are going to be able to clean their attics out and buy themselves a McMansion with the proceeds? More than likely, the stuff is only worth a new paint job on their home's exterior, but they're still going to try for that McMansion!
Ebay's own success has probably been a contributing factor to its apparent decline. People read stories of people making a living, or getting rich, off of Ebay and figure they can do the same with the junk in their attic.
Too bad their junk isn't worth all that much. It's like that roadshow you see on TV. They only show the people who wind up with big ticket items; what you don't see are the dozens (hundreds even?) of people who find out their junk is junk. People watch the show and think they must have something valuable in their attic too.
Not everyone is lucky enough to find an original copy of the Declaration of Independence behind an old painting they've had stored in their attic for years!
I'm sorry, but if the seller lists their conditions and the buyer neglects to read them, it's hardly the Wild, Wild West.
Sorry, I believe that you are wrong.
You would not get away with this deceptive practise anywhere else. Excessive postal charges are used by some sellers who claim no reserve when in fact the postal charge is the reserve. This practise should be stamped out because it is confusing to many people. I make my own protest by looking at an item's postal charge first. If this is excessive I don't bid, it's as simple as that.
You would not get away with this deceptive practise anywhere else. Excessive postal charges are used by some sellers who claim no reserve when in fact the postal charge is the reserve. This practise should be stamped out because it is confusing to many people. I make my own protest by looking at an item's postal charge first. If this is excessive I don't bid, it's as simple as that.
How is it deceptive if you are able to look up the shipping cost before you buy?
I avoid overpriced shipping too. But, that doesn't make it the "Wild West" if they are clearly posting their charges before you buy.
Now, if they say they charge $10, and then they add additional fees on top of that after the auction ends, then you have reason to cry foul. But, if they list the full charges beforehand, people shouldn't go hiding and whining behind some "deceptive practices" claim because they couldn't be bothered to check into things beforehand.
Ebay does have a rule against excessive shipping, and you can report a seller who is doing that with ebay's pulldown menu of various offenses. I recently reported someone who was listing a cheap item and asking $28 shipping when it would cost about a dollar to mail.
If you find that excessive, don't buy from that seller. Easy as that.
Something may cost $1 to mail, but what about the packaging materials? And, I'm not aware of any product that will package itself for shipping.
It takes time and materials to prepare and package an item for shipping.
Whether the seller "hides" those charges in the price of the item or in the shipping, you are going to be paying for them either way.
So, read the terms beforehand, and if the final price of the item would be too high for you, don't bid. As BeeDeeDubbleU said, it's as simple as that!
A cancelled winning bid should leave the second-highest bidder just above the bid of the third-higest bidder - as if that winning bidder had never been there.
That might be seller-friendly, but not necessarily buyer-friendly.
For example, you bid on a computer. Someone else outbids you and wins the auction.
So, you bid on another computer and win.
Some time later, you find out the winning bid of the first auction was cancelled, so now you're the winner.
Right now, if you lose an auction, you're off the hook. You can go and bid on a similar or same item from another seller.
If that situation changes, you'll pretty much have to wait until the other auction is finalized before you can feel secure in bidding on another auction for the same item.
The end result is that there is that you pretty much end up in limbo on every auction you lose, which would pretty much discourage people from bidding.
That's something that could drive buyers away from Ebay, as well as invite more abuse by unscrupulous sellers.
As a seller to compete you had to start using unscrupulous tactics or not be able to compete and Selling fees increased to much
As a buyer if I am looking for a Toyota Camry I expect to be able to find a car quickly not wade through tons of crap stuff like mats, cup holders, wheel trims etc. etc.
My own view is Ebay should have been brave enough to have cleaned up their act 2 years ago and seperated out the buy now / online shopping and online auctions , I suspect many would have been happy to have used both sections for different needs , but they thought they could make more money with quicker impact by using their core product Online Auctions to push people to buy now shopping
If you have ever read any of the get rich ebooks for Ebay it is easy to spot how the user experience has been downgraded and they will need to clean house of unscrupulous sellers at the same time as making major changes to better the user experience
steve
