2008: The Year eBay Lost Its Mojo 53 comments
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This year can best be summed up as a year of change. eBay’s (EBAY) top executives left one by one, followed by buyers and sellers who vowed never to return. Shareholders were stunned when the stock plummeted to 10.91. The debt rating was lowered to A minus. The site’s instability grew with each passing day and the number of lawsuits filed against eBay and PayPal increased spectacularly. It hasn’t been a good year.
eBay started the year with about 12M listings give or take a few and ultimately hit a high of approximately 18M towards the end of July. Then a handful of eBay power sellers flooded the site with nearly 10M additional listings (reported to be free) from September to December but I’m not counting these listings because these aren’t paid listings.
2008 was the worst year sellers have experienced since eBay’s conception. At the beginning of the year, eBay’s Customer Satisfaction campaign stripped sellers of their rights and then sellers were told that their customers were now eBay’s customers.
- Fees were raised and sales plummeted.
- Shipping rates were set below actual costs.
- Listings were hidden if they were indexed at all.
- PayPal was made mandatory and checks and money orders banned.
Detailed seller ratings (the dreaded DSRs) were introduced. Sellers were suspended and their listings deleted when their DSRs fell below 4.3 because eBay told buyers to rate sellers on a scale of 1 to 5 and that a score of 4 was good. DSRs were also mysteriously lowered immediately preceding billing resulting in no/reduced seller discounts.
Sellers were banned from leaving negative feedback. This opened the floodgates for non-paying buyers and competing sellers to leave negative feedback. Sellers were left with no recourse because the check and balance system that made eBay work was removed.
Seller tools. Shipping calculator and markdown manager were never fixed. The SYI (sell your item form) morphed into something that defies description because it’s so bad.
Site instability. This went from bad to worse. The site was riddled with bad links & bad script. Pages barely loaded if at all for dial up users due to too many bells & whistles (indicative of student programmers) that served no purpose and excessive advertising that sent buyers off site. Cookies also flooded the site.
It was a bad year for buyers too. They couldn’t find IT! Best Match was officially named the worst sort/search engine on the internet. Search results were linked to everything but the kitchen sink and it took divine intervention to find anything. Entire categories of search results are still missing and many sellers reported over a 70% drop in sales which explains the pitiful sell thru rates.
Many lawsuits were filed against both eBay and PayPal this year. Most are as a direct result of policy changes that thrust eBay well over the line of being just a venue.
I found the following pending lawsuits interesting:
- On April 2, 2008, Bruce Gordon filed suit against NCO Financial, I.C. Systems Inc, (both collection agencies) and eBay Inc. When eBay shared Mr. Gordon’s personal information with the Defendants Mr. Gordon took it a little personally because the Defendants pursued him endlessly despite his eBay account having a zero balance.
- On April 14, 2008, David Mehmet filed suit against PayPal because PayPal originally flagged his funds due to built in false positives, eventually refunded the monies back to the customer, and then told the customer that Mr. Mehmet had committed fraud. Mr. Mehmet took this a little personally too.
- On October 29, 2008 David Hendricks filed suit against Dan Spangler, Cathy Davis, Yahoo Inc., and eBay for copyright infringement. He gave all Defendants prior notice that his Works were copyrighted but the notice was apparently disregarded/ Mr. Hendricks was shocked but not surprised when he discovered his copyrighted images being sold on eBay and Yahoo.
eBay security has apparently not improved since I reported a problem last spring because a contest was recently held on eBay and hackers are reported to have won the prizes. eBay offered no explanation and PayPal accounts continue to be hacked.
No opt out! Members’ personal account information was shared with eBay’s entire corporate family and unnamed eBay service providers (fraud investigations, bill collection, affiliate and rewards programs, and co-branded credit cards). I’m not sure when this change in the user agreement occurred but it scares the hell out of me.
Summary. The other night I watched an old movie called Scrooge and it reminded me of eBay’s Donahoe. I wish that all three Christmas ghosts (past, present, and future) would visit John so he can be reminded of eBay’s past success as an auction site, its present failure as a wannabe retail site, and its future which lays in the internet graveyard, a victim of disruptive innovation.
This author is giving new CEO John Donahoe an F on his 1st end of year report card. I’ve never seen an e-commerce site nearly destroyed in such a short period of time.
Happy Holidays!
Disclosure: Dinah Balk is a long time eBay seller.
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This article has 53 comments:
Neilson Oline just reported that in November, Amazon.com BEAT ebay in their numbers of unique visitors to their sites! This IS a SIGNIFICANT gain for Amazon. ebay's unique visitor count was DOWN by -6%, while Amazon's was UP by +7.5%.
Although Amazon's page views dropped by 8% year over year, eBay's page views dropped an alarming 30 percent!!!
ebay new upper management can continue to ATTEMPT to dispute the facts, BUT it will NOT change them.
ebay IS FAILING due to Whitman AND Donahoe's "Disruptive Innovation" scheme!
I stopped selling 2 months ago after 41 non paying bidders out of 86 transactions in one month. Couldn't threaten them with a negative because ebay had taken that option away. I started filing non paying bidder reports & got 3 negatives from non paying bidders. I didn't even file non paying bidder reports on the last 26, because I didn't want any more negatives.
The end result was this: Since I didn't file those last 26 NPB reports, I then got to pay ebay the full amount on final value fees on sales that were never paid for by the customer. I've never seen such a fiasco in my life. I get negatives from non paying bidders or pay ebay the final value fees for items that were never payed. I would definitely call that a very one sided disruptive innovation. Thanks Donahoe! You are a loser just like those 2 bonehaeds above!
The site has been completely destroyed because the check and balance LEVEL PLAYING FIELD IS GONE.
Great work, Dinah. Have a Merry Christmas!
How is everyone? Ready for Xmas?
I added a page to my website yesterday that has eBay's entire corporate structure (complete with address) so that you guys know who eBay is sharing YOUR PERSONAL INFO with.
This is scary & I wouldn't be a bit surprised if this is why so many paypal & eBay accounts are hacked - too much sharing of info.
Happy Holidays! Thanks for the links! Will check in later.
Dinah
yes get rid of bestmatch - it's abominable.
> jack
MSNBC reported on tv that it was LOWERED! I watched it myself.
A google search revealed that Standard & Poors assigned eBay a debt rating of A- on 12/1/08. There isn't much difference between assigning & lowering a debt rating because it has the same effect - the cost to borrow money is greater.
eBay Inc. Assigned 'A-' Corporate Credit Rating And Positive Outlook Founded in 1995, eBay generated over $8.6 billion in revenue for the 12 months ended September 2008. eBay is a leading worldwide provider of online marketplaces for the sale of goods and services, on-line payments services, and on-line communications offerings. Since June 2005, eBay has spent almost $5 billion to acquire 8 companies.
Dinah - every word again truthful and interestingly written. Trolls are necessary because Ebay's track record has been totally destructive all year and its all - as the legal eagles say - a matter of record. Their attempts to put any doubt into your article is pitiful to say the least.
As an ex-ebay seller I'm just sitting back watching the action...or lack of action on the ebay site. Looking with great interest to what they're going to do next quarter to hide the nosedive they'll be taking. I suppose Donahoe will get out the crying towel and start moaning about the economy...tain't his fault LOL I suggest he get his resume in order.
I find it hilarious that the ebay employees are ignoring ALL of the FACTS posted by Dinah and are attempting distract from them by arguing a mute point as to whether or not ebay was lowered.
ebay has been throwing the "transparency" word around lately. Looks like a few of their employees are actually being VERY transparent with their posts here, unlike ebay/Paypal/Donahoe's new policies and actions. I guess those employees think their paycheck is worth more than their integrity.
Thankfully, there's enough FABULOUS, self-respecting sellers NOT willing to be bullied around by the shrinking power of ebay. Working together, the truth about ebay's deceit and manipulations are being heard!
Hey Donahoe, the N.O.I.S.E. is getting louder and you CANNOT control it!!!
Keep up the GREAT WORK, Dinah!
From an investment perspective, I knew that Ebay.com was growing into maturity. In other words, they're not seeing much growth in terms of sales, traffic, etc.
BUT, the reason that I was interested in it is because they own Paypal and Skype, which I feel are two dominators in their respective, blossoming niches. Paypal is a bit more mature (and what I heard about the hacking thing unnerves me a bit since I have cash in there!) but still growing nicely. Skype is just getting started.
Here in the office that I work with, we have been adopting the use of Skype both internally and also recommending that our clients use it.
Thanks for writing this article. It's going to cause me to go back and evaluate my thesis to make sure it is still intact.
Go to ebay and do "Advanced Search" on their Discusson Boards for these titles (there's tons more to choose from, too), written from users own experiences. Please note that MANY HONEST sellers have been suspended and are no longer allowed to post and that ebay deletes and moves threads continually:
The Soapbox Board
forums.ebay.com/db1/fo...
"~~ List your ebay GLITCHES here ~~ "
forums.ebay.com/db1/th...
"Ebay NEWS, Current EVENTS & INFO"
forums.ebay.com/db1/th...
SELLER CENTRAL BOARD: Please watch for the disappearing threads & posts and view the last few pages here, too. Also, notice the overwhelming number of off-topic threads ebay is protecting & promoting on this sellers' board, while deleting threads of genuine interest to sellers...all in ebay's most recent attempt (started Dec 3rd) to "sanitize" & disguise sellers' true concerns.
"Anyone Up For A Little Investigating? This Could Be A Biggie!"
forums.ebay.com/db2/th...
PAYPAL Board:
forums.ebay.com/db2/fo...
"PAY PAL UNDER INVESTIGATION!!!!!!"
forums.ebay.com/db2/th...
"Just Another Abused Paypal User" forums.ebay.com/db2/th...
"I'll never use PayPal"
forums.ebay.com/db2/th...
"Forced PayPal"
forums.ebay.com/db2/th...
"Paypal has bullied me into submission-theres no hope"
forums.ebay.com/db2/th...
"Q: It's pretty clear that eBay has stumbled badly this past year with all the changes that were implemented and the way they were handled. Now sellers are leaving in droves and sales numbers are sinking. What's your outlook for eBay? Is it long for this world?
—Wondering in Wellington
Schlicht: I think the jury is still out on a lot of the changes. I ask myself if eBay is looking out for its own interests first, or those of its customers. The answer I always seem to come back to is eBay is looking out for No. 1. I have a hard time seeing how a company such as eBay—which owes its success to the sellers that helped build it—can continue to be successful when it doesn't put sellers first. Certainly many things needed fixing, but others are being changed simply for the sake of growing earnings, to the disregard (and detriment) of the overall seller base. I also think eBay management lacks vision and should do a lot better job of sharing the vision that it does have. Most people within eBay are clueless as to the corporate vision and its long term goals. What does eBay want to be, where is it going? Nobody knows and that makes it hard to answer your question. Based on what I've seen, I think things will get worse before they get better."
Pretty well sums it up, and echoes Dinah, and many others comments.
The link is:
www.auctiva.com/edu/en...
What does everyone think about eBay sharing members personal information, which includes financials, with every company they own & service provides whose identify remains a secret because it is not posted?
Having said that, I think that most of us appreciate that the people currently in control of eBay are a bunch of unprincipled, disingenuous, (and possibly stupid) corporate snakes; it’s very difficult to keep track of such snakes as they slither through the undergrowth; and that “spinning” forked tongue doesn’t help any either!
A lengthy detailed criticism of the eBay snake’s devious actions starts at
www.auctionbytes.com/f...
forums.ebay.com/db2/th...
Apparently, your bias is showing, not Dinah's. First of all, Ebay's sell thru rates and listings speak for themselves. Dinah is summarizing things that are correct.
Sadly, Ebay Suits thought Sellers were low class, trash. They underestimated us. You reap what you sow in this world. No one needs a corporate job to see that this was going to be the end result.
Which also reminds me of that moron that insulted Ina on auctionbytes. Turned out his IP address was tracked and he was EXPOSED as an Ebay Exec.
So, we get it, okay? We know who you are because only an idiot with a salary at stake would be rah rahing Ebay as senselessly as you and the other two did.
Have fun when the earnings calls come out in the next 2 quarters. I'll consider hiring you to change the kitty litter here.
PS. Can you hear us now?
www.reuters.com/articl...
Fitch Assigns eBay an IDR of 'A'; Outlook Stable
Tue Nov 4, 2008 9:12am EST
https://tradethenews.com/stock...
eBay Inc Fitch assigns A credit rating on a stable outlook
11/4/2008 09:12am
Or interested parties can buy copies of eBay's rating history.
www.fitchratings.com/
www.standardandpoors.c...
As for "trolls" or the good, bad, and ugly posters. The mystery of who's posting and who's shilling could be solved by providing the IP addresses of posters.
Unfortunately there are privacy issues involved.
Or not. Sharing is what eBay does.
> What does everyone think about eBay sharing members
> personal information, which includes financials, with every
> company they own & service provides whose identify
> remains a secret because it is not posted?
That User Agreement change, and others, had it's genesis in 2007.
"I'm writing to let you know that the eBay User Agreement and eBay Privacy Policy have been updated, effective immediately for users registering as of May 16, 2007, and on July 9, 2007, for current users."
Scott Shipman, eBay Counsel -- Global Privacy Practices
"If you work for a living, why do you kill yourself working?"
Tuco, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
I truly can't wait for the next 2 or 3 quarters when everything comes out in the wash. The sad thing is that even though Donahoe will be gone, many of the sellers (who were also buyers by the way) will never return to the site no matter what they do, & I'm one of them.
Hate to say it, but it's going to be very enjoyable watching them continue to fall. I sold my 2200 shares in October 2007 thank goodness. I look for the stock to settle to between $4-$8 per share over the next 18 months.
It's truly a blessing that people are speaking up about what they've experienced, & the way they've been treated. I also find it funny that there's always a few ebay sheep, I mean employee's defending them each time a truthful article is written about exactly what's been going on.
Thank you again for the excellent A+ article Dinah!
eBay began sharing information in February - if not before - but that is when they began using user info to apply the 21 day holds. They did not update the user agreement until August 13th. eBay not only shares our private information with its various subsidiaries it is also shared with any company that they might use/buy/or sell something to before any agreement has been made. Donahoe also intends to sell our personal data to third parties.
Here is the really scary part. Along with your identifying information eBay is sharing your user behavior attached to your identifying information. Why does this matter? It is used to spam your internet experience with ads that Donahoe believes will give you the best possible online experience. What else can eBay do? By sharing your transaction history between all of its subsidiaries eBay can track all the purchases you make online if you used PayPal- eBay Inc. shopped what you bought and how much your paid for it. If you buy tickets from stub hub than they know where you were on July 10th at 8pm 2008. If you use Bill Me Later eBay will acquire your credit history, part of your SSN, and if you make a purchase on Amazon they'll know, if you make a purchase from Toys R US they'll know - what you bought & how much you paid. If you use Rent.com eBay will know you need a home & how much you can afford to pay. If you use stumble-upon eBay will know every site you visit on its service.
An interesting discovery concerning Skype a few months ago
In April 2006, Skype publicly disclosed that TOM operated a text filter that blocked certain words in chat messages, and it also said that if the message is found unsuitable for displaying, it is simply discarded and not displayed or transmitted anywhere. It was our understanding that it was not TOM's protocol to upload and store chat messages with certain keywords, and we are now inquiring with TOM to find out why the protocol changed.
We also learned yesterday about the existence of a security breach that made it possible for people to gain access to those stored messages on TOM's servers. We were very concerned to learn about both issues and after we urgently addressed this situation with TOM, they fixed the security breach. In addition, we are currently addressing the wider issue of the uploading and storage of certain messages with TOM.
share.skype.com/sites/...
My question is - does Skype service in the US do the same thing, but they haven't yet to be caught? Look at what they are doing with the behavioral data they are collecting without our knowledge I'm not sure I trust this company enough to even give them the benefit of the doubt that they are not doing the same here.
www.youtube.com/watch?...
If I'm not mistaken back in past year when Ebay Live was sent to us to look at was this not all a part of Donahue's plan to begin with?? Dinah has it nailed! Well John wanted us gone, but ,Bill and Mark at Bonanzle.com welcomed us big time.
And what a ride it has been so far! Bonanzle has to be one of THE most outstanding sites built and it is actually a blast to work there. When was the last time you said that abt Ebay? Oh John, you blew it it big time! Blew it right into the open arms of Bonanzle. Thank You!
Culminating a long stretch in which the two companies’ traffic numbers have been heading in opposite directions, Amazon.com passed eBay.com in November as the most popular retail destination on the Internet, according to Nielsen Online.
Amazon.com, No. 1 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, attracted 57.7 million unique visitors last month, up 8% from last year, while eBay’s audience of 55.4 million was 6% lower than during November 2007.
Here are the top 15 retail web sites in November, with unique visitors in millions this year and last and the percentage change.
* Amazon, 57,682, 53,630, 8%
* eBay, 55,438, 59,041, -6%
* Wal-Mart, 39,420, 35,003, 13%
* Target, 35,902, 34,611, 4%
* Best Buy, 22,138, 22,736, -3%
* Sears, 19,541, 17,805, 10%
* Dell, 17,058, 18,918, -10%
* JCPenney, 16,933, 15,929, 6%
* Circuit City, 16,609, 19,135, -13%
* Netflix, 13,538, 11,954, 13%
* Kohl’s, 13,257, 10,516, 26%
* ToysRUs, 13,041, 13,726, -5%
* The Home Depot, 12,169, 10,608, 15%
* Overstock.com, 11,812, 18,419, -36%
* Kmart, 11,713, 8,693, 35%
Unique visitors count only once each shopper who came to a site, no matter how many times the shopper visited. This is a custom list compiled by Internet Retailer of the top e-commerce sites in this category based on Nielsen Online data.
www.internetretailer.c...
Two problems with your using the listing increase from medved to demonstrate eBay's growth
1) most of those listings were already on eBay just not counted in core they are store listings
2) do a rough calculation based on the conversion rate pre fixed 30 like August to November comparison of listing counts of the rate of conversion. You will see there has been an [absolute] decline in conversion. With nearly twice as many listings in November than August it is stunning that the actual, not relative percentage, but the actual rate of conversion was lower in Nov then in August
You can see eBay's fall to Amazon here
www.nielsen-online.com...
And you state "as well as others" referring to other auction count sites - care to share those other sites with us?
"The study asked 6,486 adult-aged U.S. consumers which companies they thought were most trustworthy and which did the best job safeguarding personal information. A total of 706 companies were named by consumers; 211 made the final list of most trusted companies.
(truste.org/about/press...)"
This credible source you are quoting is based on the users perception, and is not a testament of reality it is only how the users trusts the company. Does not mean the user has any idea what is happening to their information ? No, it means they are just another eBay sucker
Here are some real sources for you- straight from the ......
bits.blogs.nytimes.com.../
Read the bottom of this page
(labs.ebay.com/raghavgu...)
And the 1st spot you should have looked before trying to create a rally for eBay
eBay's very own privacy policy
pages.ebay.com/help/po...
enjoy the read:)
Its late and i am tired so I'll come back in the next couple days to help you understand what is happening
Charging one listing fee for tiered levels of exposure, varying from reduced to none in Best Match, is a Federal crime. The listing fee must be tiered, and billed in lockstep with a seller's overall rating at time of listing in order to be in compliance with FTC policy. Since the seller's overall rating at the moment of listing is kept a secret, compliance is impossible.
Paypal funds are not held in dollars, but in shares of PayPal which are artificially pegged at $1 apiece. Despite PayPal's ability to evade banking regulations using this scheme, I'm pleased nonetheless since it means that spinning off PayPal will be a byzantine maze of regulatory spaghetti and a financial accounting nightmare.
Good. I'm glad. They deserve it.
What's really sad is that JD is no better than those corporate CEO's who
give themselves massive bonuses while laying off half their employees.
In these hard times, he's hurt so many people financially with policies that are just total nonsense. Folks who lost their jobs, disabled people, seniors trying to supplement their SS checks, single parents, small businesses and for what? Raising the value of their stock and making himself look like he knows what he's doing?
The guy should go down in history as the worst CEO ever!
Now if you look at the bonanzle records you will see where those small sellers are migrating to. New users to the Bonanzle.com site has grown to 1000 new users and more each week.
As a buyer, I find exactly what I am looking for at better prices than I could find on ebay. This is where the best sellers have gone.
And the customer support at Bonanzle.com is from the site owners themselves. You can not find better customer support than they are.
It's much, much, more entertaining to make fun of Donahoe & Co.!
The poor souls have no business acumen as it pertains to the now lost uniqueness of Ebay. No common sense. And, "IT" severely lacks a sense of humor! The current regime has disenfranchised a large portion of their sellers, who are also buyers, through Yahoo sponsored identical matching ads. A horrific Best Match default search. An intentionally defective DSR rating system. No paper payment from buyers. The list of bad decisions? It goes on and on. Ebay has become a black comedy.
My blog, posted above, is 100% satire, poking fun at the powers that be at Ebay. I recently opened the blog, as most of my stories were being deleted off the Ebay Seller Central board as soon as I posted them. I'm a very lazy soul, so for me to actually start a blog, demonstrates my intense disdain for petty censorship and management's inane corporate decisions.
A U.S. president once stated, "Don't get the impression that you arouse my anger. You see, one can only be angry with those he respects."
I have no respect for Ebay management.
I sell on Ioffer now and every single one of my customers have zero feedback there so they are new and they tell me they are ebay refugee buyers. I have "it". And the buyers still want it, they just can't get it on ebay.
One Lady who bought a $180.00 item from me wanted to know why it wasn't on ebay. I told her a long list of reasons why I don't sell there anymore and that if she wanted the quality stuff she had to go elsewhere.
My customers are telling me they are finding my "it" stuff through google searches which ioffer items automatically post to, so I don't need ebay's crap. I list for free and get only 4% FVFs. I use any payment system I want. Google checkout is gaining on paypal and I look forward to ebay's investigation by the Justice dept. and eventual break-up of their monopoly and eventual bankruptcy.
FatSeal is correct, name one other ecommerce former giant who has this level of animus directed at it by former supportive members? I trash ebay's name to everybody I meet. I tell them to stay away, it isn't safe and if they bid they will get shilled up by unscrupulous sellers etc. People are listening. Ebay was built by us and we are destroying it by the same word of mouth. This is the ignorance and greed of the top execs at work.
1. Buy.com was nothing on ebay, before March. Suddenly they are taking up over 40% of the listings in the Books Category. FORTY PERCENT!
2. Based solely on the absolute lowest listing fee, Buy should have paid about $25 MILLION in listing fees. A heck of a lot more when we count all the higher listing fees that would have cost us $4! (Based on the numbers I obtained from Terapeak.com, March 2nd thru May 31st 2008)
3. Their Final Value fees would have generated merely $165,000, based on the average sale price of $44.43; their 90 day sales totaled less than $4 million.
4. Their sell through rate was merely 2.39% far below that of the average ebay seller.
5. Imagine other Buy's on eBay, each listing 40% in their respective categories.
Last investigation, Buy had closed hundreds on auctions early at 1:00am. Altho this was discovered by an accident, it brought attention to an interesting fact:
Buy had closed hundreds and hundreds of auctions (including Dutch auctions-- multiple quanities of an item) because the items were no longer available.
6. EBay states the traffic has not gone down much.
What they are failing to state is how many sales are being made. They're also failing to state how much lower sales are and have been since the first boycott in Feb. and the current boycott which started May 1st, and will continue until further notice.
7. Ebay is claiming their decline in stock is due to a bad economy. No, that is part, I will conceed, but, a large part is the boycott that IS working.
Ebay counts ANY sale as successful. Sellers count any sale that brings a profit successful. You decide for yourself which is successful:
A. A $100 item listed on ebay with free shipping for 99 cents and sells for $10, and costs $15 to ship.
B. A $100 item listed on ebay for $100 and sells for $150, with $15 s/h fees.
Of course, after greed is taken into account and all the ebay and paypal fees are paid, probably neither is successful.
Here's a perfect example. A seller sells a lot of figures for $200. In that lot are figures that cost $15 plus tax retail. At $200 the seller breaks even, loses the tax paid, and loses the fees paid to ebay and paypal. In the meantime, that lot included rare figures that were sold on Amazon for $200 a piece! Not all; but, 2 did, and the least expensive used to sell on ebay for $30. Now the seller sold the items for $15 each!
You can buy into ebay spin if you like, but those are the hard cold facts. Sellers are not selling items for more, they are selling for less. Of course, there are always exceptions. But, when the majority of items are selling far below what they were, I do not consider this a success.
On Dec 19 07:11 AM DDUCK025 wrote:
> This is now the second bogus article I've read from seeking alpha
> on eBay. You guys seem to think that EBAY IS always going down? But
> Traffic Stats as well as Sales say otherwise. You supply opinionated
> and not factual responses.
Please provide the facts with the proof so we all know the truth
Nice way to treat a small seller during Christmas, Ebay. And, I've got over 30 nonpaying "buyers" since June when I used to figure 3-4/year.
Leftfield don't feel bad, you're in good company. A lot of really good sellers who have been around for years have been given the heave ho due to non-paying deadbeat buyers. Consider it a blessing because Paypal is testing Bill Me Later.
I've personally added at least 50 Bill Me Later accounts to client's bankruptcy filings in the last month or so. The Bill Me Later accounts were also unsecured debts (as opposed to secured) because the clients no longer possessed what they had purchased.
What does this mean in plain English? That Bill Me Later is extending credit to anyone because these were all new accounts. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Paypal or Bill Me Later tries to charge back the accounts too. This will be real interesting because you can't collect a debt that has been discharged in bankruptcy.
Have a great evening!
"eBay changes backfire as rivals play catch-up"
"John Donahoe, chief executive of eBay, is facing questions over his leadership of the online auctions pioneer which has been trying to turn itself into a more traditional e-commerce website."
Read the article here:
www.nzherald.co.nz/tec...
I am just about finished selling on ebay after 4 years.
It has gotton SO PATHETIC in the past 6 months!
NOTHING SELLING and EBAY AND PAYPAL having their hands out for more and more fees...it has gotten SO RIDICULOUS!
JD will have to answer to the stockholders in January...wonder what kind of excuse he will pull out of his hat?
BEST MATCH TOTALLY SUCKS!
This kills the small ma & pa seller and only favors the power and diamond sellers who are paying little or no listing fees.
HOW FAIR IS THAT???
My listings are hid where nobody finds them!
If they do, they are at the bottom of the very last page.
Ebay pushes BUY IT NOW listings...and that is where they stick them...
where nobody ever sees them!
JD said he wanted to chase away the small time ma & pa seller, the flea market seller, the part-time seller...THE FOLKS WHO MADE EBAY GROW AND GROW AND GROW when it first started. Now the CEO justs want to kick them to the curb.
Supposedly 1.5 million people were making a living on ebay...NOT ANYMORE thanks to this corporate NONSENSE and GREED...now it's time to go back to the 9-5 to put food on the table and pay the mortgage!
THANKS FOR NOTHING, DONAHUE!!!
Time for you to take a hike!
As for investing purposes, the cheerleaders are freaking out because some of them were stupid enough to invest in ebay when it was in the 20's and 30's.They've lost their shirts, and are trying to discredit the truth-tellers to get some new uninformed investors interested in buying more ebay stock.
Sorry guys, it's not going to work.Us old timers who have been around ebay for over 10 years know the company and it's history of market value, as well as it's online business practices, INTIMATELY.
I have investments through Schwab, and none of them have ebay included in them!LOL! I wouldn't think of touching this stock until you hear tyhe news that the present CEO team is either fired or "leaving" with their golden parachutes intact. If they get fired, so much the better.They are failures as businesspeople, and do not know what they are doing.
This might be explainable as the result of a bad economy, but in this area most sellers are ordinary people, not dealers, and in dark times become as desperate to sell as much as they limit their buying, which would result in a net wash. No. It's Donohoe's staggering incompetence and habit of taking eBay's sellers for granted which has caused this.
Ebay may have more items listen than ever...is that a good thing? The longer 30 day listing has a lot to do with that. The fact items aren't selling would also increase the number of listings.
This can only go on so long. Eventually sellers (that haven't already left) will leave as there is no money to be made on ebay. You must have both the seller and the buyer happy in order to stay in business. If the buyers are buying dirt cheap and the sellers are losing their shirts -- the system will break down. Does that really need to be explained?
The traffic on ebay is up...big deal! How many people are buying and for what price? Why don't we hear those statistics? Because they are something ebay doesn't want you to know. They are hurting and it's only going to get worse.
I know I use ebay many times a day...just to see what a given item on ebay is listed/selling for, so I can sell it for less elsewhere. So, I guess I'm part of ebay traffic, but I dont' buy or sell there, period! So what does traffic mean? You can stand in the middle of a busy intersection selling your wares, but it's not the greatest location when everyone is just passing you by.
In the past, I brought numerous people to ebay. I am now one of their biggest detractors. I, like many, can't wait for the day that ebay has to declare the truth about their financial situation. You can't keep buying your own stock and expect people to believe all is good.
Ebay has created their own worst enemy...competition. Ebay can't compete, they're only able to compete in a monopolistic enviroment. The monopoly is ending and so too will ebay.
I'm wondering when multimillion dollar lawsuit will be launched with regards to Biased/Fraudulent listing exposure. The last time I looked, taking people's money and not giving them proper exposure for their item is fraud and theft. It cannot go unchallenged for much longer. We need to start litigation immediately and all sellers who's listing were hidden should receive monetary compensation.
Ebay may have more items listen than ever...is that a good thing? The longer 30 day listing has a lot to do with that. The fact items aren't selling would also increase the number of listings.
This can only go on so long. Eventually sellers (that haven't already left) will leave as there is no money to be made on ebay. You must have both the seller and the buyer happy in order to stay in business. If the buyers are buying dirt cheap and the sellers are losing their shirts -- the system will break down. Does that really need to be explained?
The traffic on ebay is up...big deal! How many people are buying and for what price? Why don't we hear those statistics? Because they are something ebay doesn't want you to know. They are hurting and it's only going to get worse.
I know I use ebay many times a day...just to see what a given item on ebay is listed/selling for, so I can sell it for less elsewhere. So, I guess I'm part of ebay traffic, but I dont' buy or sell there, period! So what does traffic mean? You can stand in the middle of a busy intersection selling your wares, but it's not the greatest location when everyone is just passing you by.
In the past, I brought numerous people to ebay. I am now one of their biggest detractors. I, like many, can't wait for the day that ebay has to declare the truth about their financial situation. You can't keep buying your own stock and expect people to believe all is good.
Ebay has created their own worst enemy...competition. Ebay can't compete, they're only able to compete in a monopolistic enviroment. The monopoly is ending and so too will ebay.
I'm wondering when multimillion dollar lawsuit will be launched with regards to Biased/Fraudulent listing exposure. The last time I looked, taking people's money and not giving them proper exposure for their item is fraud and theft. It cannot go unchallenged for much longer. We need to start litigation immediately and all sellers who's listing were hidden should receive monetary compensation.
Site Growth:
Sorry, but I don't think eBay is growing at all. True their listings are up, but almost 40% of that belongs to buy.com. Also, a lot of the listings are Fixed Price, 30 Day listings and that has to make up at least 60% of the eBay Listings.
Privacy:
Read the current eBay user agreement. There you will find that eBay is letting all its companies use information that belongs to the seller to undermine them while using the buyer's information to market their good name.
Competition:
Another reader pointed out that eBay fell to #2 in Nielsen Net Ratings compared to November 2007. What was the name of that competitor? Amazon.com.
Technology:
Yes you pointed out that eBay had won an award, but they do give awards to high school students as well. The site works about as well as a cattle trying to escape a slaugterhouse on its own. I try to keep everything as default as possible because it works. As of the end of April 2009, nothing will work including default search which is currently "Worst" Match. Also as of the end of April 2009, eBay will end up with the Jim Rome award for fixing things that were just fine.
Dinah, Great site and I will link to you whenever an idiot at blogging stocks makes a post about eBay.