How Donahoe Broke eBay 20 comments
-
Font Size:
-
Print
- TweetThis
eBay (EBAY) used to be “just a venue” where sellers could list rare, unique, or unusual items for sale and buyers could find them. Now it appears that eBay is much more than “just a forum” and specializes in iPods that can be purchased anywhere. What happened to eBay's magic? John Donahoe gave it away.
His gross mismanagement of the site has resulted in an unprecedented erosion of listings as a direct result of Donahoe making one fatal mistake after another while trying to implement his “buyer experience” plan. Now he blames sellers for his failure and raised their fees. This did not go unnoticed and sellers are leaving.
How did Donahoe break eBay?
1) Off site advertising competes with sellers. When Donahoe took away the free advertising premium store owners got and replaced it with off site advertising, a number of seller listings started looking like a toboggan run. When was the last time you saw Microsoft (MSFT) put Apple (AAPL) advertising on their site or Wal-Mart(WMT) put ads on Target’s (TGT) site?
2) He opted millions of buyers into guinea pig tests without their consent. These buyers vowed never to visit eBay again because tracking cookies were downloaded into their computers making escape difficult if not impossible.
3) The site is technically unstable. What buyer is going to tolerate a site where they are stalked by tracking cookies, links that don’t work, abundant page loading errors, page loads as slow as molasses if at all, and site issues that are never announced much less fixed?
4) Best Match doesn’t work! What buyer is going to search through thousands of meaningless search results just to find one item? There are literally thousands of complaints on eBay Discussion Boards because buyers can no longer find it, causing listings and sales to plummet.
5) Seller tools are broken. The shipping calculator doesn’t work because is not designed to calculate dimensional weights (a well kept eBay secret). Markdown manager never has worked and the "sell your item" form works intermittently at best.
7) Rolling server blackouts. Sellers pay for their listings to be shown 24/7 yet eBay selectively shows listings to predetermined regions of the country and blacks out all other areas.
8) Sellers are canceling Paypal accounts. Donahoe’s new “plan” includes a provision by which all a buyer need say is “I’M NOT HAPPY – GIVE ME A REFUND” and a 21 day hold is automatically placed on the seller's Paypal account – even after the purchase has been shipped.
Hello Amazon (AMZN)!
Disclosure: Author is a long time eBay seller
Related Articles
|
-
The Seeking Alpha 100
See allThe top 100 stock
market authors
selected for publication
Seeking Alpha 100 » -
Fastest Climbers
Authors with the largestSee all
increase in followers
in the last 7 days
Fastest Climbers » -
Top Commenters
Top commenters,See all
as ranked by their peers
Top Commenters » -
Top Instabloggers
The 100 most active
Instabloggers.-
1
TraderMark
-
2
Don Dion
-
3
Cliff Wachtel
-
4
Mike Havrilla
-
5
James Quinn
Top Instabloggers » -
1
-
Top StockTalkers
TopSee all
StockTalkers.
Top StockTalkers »
This article has 20 comments:
They hire people to code that need to go back to High School and start all over. The script on the ebay site is kindergardenish and so badly done that they cant get half of it fixed.
The latest round of new findings (search) (SYI3) (feedback) (pay Pal 21 day holds on funds) And (WORST MATCH) are the straws that broke the sellers backs. Greed is what drives it all. And the Empire is going to fall from it.
Simple. The increased revenue from eBay.com is due to increased fees from previous fee hikes. There is Little to No actual growth in any of the key metrics concerning what WE are talking about here (those other revenue streams are not part of this discussion). Everyone knows that, including the traders that don't care, as long as they make a buck.
Well written article, Dinah - Thank you for that. Most of the traders that read it won't care about any of these points (just make that buck!), but some institutional investors might actually have a clearer vision. Most certainly, Jeetil Patel has 20/20 vision.
Scot Wingo has linked this article to his statement, "There is a HUGE amount of misinformation about the changes coming to eBay". That is to be expected and has been evident for quite some time. Comments sent to his blog that didn't "find the silver lining" in any ebay change, were not given clearance to appear on the blog. He practices censorship of any critical comments towards ebay. Those lips are now firmly attached.
experience should use them extensively.)
User 158175 is closer to the mark. I was able to watch Meg, JD and Bill attempt to balance the dynamic nature of the marketplace for over a year from a ring-side seat. It's a monumental challenge. Overall, I would give the team an "A" for many valiant attempts to balance the interests of buyers and sellers and investors. Not everything has worked, but many things have. They could be more innovative, but even that would freak out buyers or sellers or both. At the core, it's going to be difficult to maintain the specialness that eBay has been as people become more comfortable buying and selling outside of eBay's walled garden.
You'll see Donahoe's leadership focus on the core of the bidding and winning experience, the one thing that's unique at eBay. Buyers have not been a focus until JD helped the company remember that. Get the buyers and the sellers will come.
I think he's a good man, a thoughtful and caring leader, doing a very, very difficult job quite well.
User 159405 . What department do you work with in feebay? you seem to have a vested interest somewhere and sound like you are parroting for the very crew that is causing the downfall of feebay .
Are you actually saying that Donawho? actually cares about the sellers that are being systematically forced off greedbay, the very folks who made his undeserved 6 or 7 figure package possible ?
Stockholders have a lot to ask this "caring" (not) out of control steamroller sound like some more of "Mr Doublespeak's" propaganda.
Pennystocks 2008 , you may just be able to pick some bargain feebay stock at the princely sum of a penny shortly , wont happen ? , read below, never have so many (sellers and buyers) been so united.
When so many have been treated so badly for so long they eventually will revolt , dictatorships and monopolies are not invincible .
Don't forget the MAYDAY , start of the WORLDWIDE May 1st BOYCOTT.
BOYCOTT VICTORIOUSLY
They set the seller up to fail with a sytem that rates on a star system...
Say they're lowering fees but it turns out in the fine print that the fees are actually being raised 67% for the majority of sellers.
Take away the ability to let other sellers know when there's a buyer who will rip them off...
Gives the buyer 20 times to steal from sellers on ebay before getting removed from the buyer experience!!
Take away the ability to screen for shill bidding on the buyers behalf, setting them up for bad competition.
Make a search engine that only shows a percentage of auctions on your dishonest star system.
Force the use of paypal which is co owned by ebay and then hold payments from sellers for 21 days ; expecting them to ship merchandise that they may never be paid for!!
And now you offer to pay people to their friends to shop on your overpriced monopoly website????
OMGoodness!!
I'm running from that site as quickly as I can!!
BOYCOTT VICTORIOUSLY!!
They set the seller up to fail with a sytem that rates on a star system...
Say they're lowering fees but it turns out in the fine print that the fees are actually being raised 67% for the majority of sellers.
Take away the ability to let other sellers know when there's a buyer who will rip them off...
Gives the buyer 20 times to steal from sellers on ebay before getting removed from the buyer experience!!
Take away the ability to screen for shill bidding on the buyers behalf, setting them up for bad competition.
Make a search engine that only shows a percentage of auctions on your dishonest star system.
Force the use of paypal which is co owned by ebay and then hold payments from sellers for 21 days ; expecting them to ship merchandise that they may never be paid for!!
And now you offer to pay people to their friends to shop on your overpriced monopoly website????
OMGoodness!!
I'm running from that site as quickly as I can!!
BOYCOTT VICTORIOUSLY!!
Thank you for ringing the alarm bells lets hope that those with influence are listening.
In the uk a part of the new measures '' to improve the buyer expierience '' heavy emphasis and promo' is getting behind 'free postage' and 'least expensive postage' listings......
There's currently a 'free postage banner' on the home page driving sellers to listings offering this nonsense.
Nonsense?
Yes, how on earth can it possibly be free, it has to be built into the purchase price instead.
Isn't this all a tad deceptive and disingenuous?
In any event, cheapest isn't always best, especially re' service industries.
Sellers only enjoy paypal coverage if they ship recorded delivery, Whilst ebay encourages buyers towards less expensive options, with no effort to highlight the cheap choice risks...
Towards the same ends, the new search facility offers cheapest postage search...
Well how about a 'safe secure/insured postage' search too?
Meanwhile....
As competitive sellers introduce free p n p, building it into their purchase prices, there is one short term beneficiary - ebay, with a higher purchase price from which to take a fvf %
Hmmmmnnnnnnnnn..... Conflict of interest ?
In Australia and the UK (at the least) eBay has now obscured auction bidding to the point that genuine bidders have got absolutely no chance of detecting and thereby protecting themselves from “shill” bidding (a criminal offence in most civilised countries) by unethical vendors. Notwithstanding eBay’s statements to the contrary, this application of absolute anonymity by eBay serves no purpose other than to deceive consumers; and the same criticism has always applied to eBay’s other facility, “User ID kept private” (aka “the shill bidders’ stairway to paradise”). Again, notwithstanding eBay’s various pronouncements about shill bidding being banned on eBay, eBay is now knowingly “aiding and abetting” such shill bidders, at the expense of consumers ...
The full detailed version of the above comment (on AuctionBytes.com) at:
www.auctionbytes.com/f...
From: Philip Cohen
Date: Wednesday, 23 July 2008 16:08
To: pierre@ebay.com
Subject: A message from a simple eBay user
I don’t wish to appear impertinent but could I offer some advice:
Stop treating your users (buyers and sellers) as though they are a pack of disposable idiots. In particular, stop making absurdly disingenuous statements that only serve to indicate that your management team is even more stupid than you apparently think your users are.
Get rid of all forms of absolute anonymity of bidding (ie, “Bidder N”; “User ID kept private”) so that genuine bidders can again have the opportunity to watch for and thereby protect themselves from blatant shill bidding; do that before you do any more damage to yourself in Australia, the UK, Ireland and the Philippines. (Then you won’t have to waste your money on self-promoting TV advertising.) And, please, don’t let me hear any more of that nonsense about SMI being introduced to stop fraudulent SCOs: that problem was solved with the blocking of access to users’ direct email addresses.
If you have any more thoughts about “exclusive dealing” for PayPal, erase them, and don’t waste any more of your money on such abysmal legal advice as that which you must have received prior to your naïve attempt to apply “exclusive dealing” for PayPal in Australia. And, don’t try it on anywhere else; you don’t need any more egg on your face: this is the year 2008 not the 1870s.
I doubt that any seller has a problem offering PayPal for international sales, but you should also cease the deceptive “back door” enforcing of PayPal on sellers for all sales. (I hope that government regulators will have more to say about that abuse of market power in the near future.)
By all means “fix” the feedback system to stop unscrupulous sellers from retaliating against justifiably dissatisfied buyers, but bring back a sensible balance between buyer and seller; get rid of the nonsensical and incomprehensible mathematical formula: have you never heard of the KISS principle?
Now that you are sensing users’ IP addresses, get your programmers of their backsides and have them develop a program that will actively filter all auctions for suspicious patterns of (shill) bidding. (But, I still want to be able to see for myself that blatant shill bidding is being controlled, because frankly, I would not trust your current management team as far as I could kick it.)
Finally, get rid of the team of disingenuous cowboys that has created this current mess.
GREEDbay and GAYpal will regret the way there business drops off!
I Shipped a $100.00 product to France last week, spent $66.00 to ship the item to the guy and after he received the item he had GAYpal put a hold on the funds then and claimed he had not received the item.
GAYpal sent me one of there famous automated emails saying that they don't except foreign proof of deliveries.
Then the guy liked the product so much he requested that I ship the product again and pay the same shipping and that once he received it he would let GAYpal know they could release the funds.
I am pretty stupid but told the guy to go F-himself.
Sellers join the revolution and BAG GREEDbay.
I paid $500.00 to have a website put together that has an automated checkout system and have been spending my money in Google pay per click advertising to send buyers directly to the site and have been doing twice as well as GREEDbay and sleep better knowing that they are not doing me in the ___.
The most simple and blatant form of shill bidding is carried out by some simple-minded sellers who have an associated bidder bid on all their current auctions. Rather naïve, because it used to be so simple to detect such activity when the bidder aliases were bidder-specific.
Now, if eBay actually had any form of “pro-active” system in place to detect shill bidding, you would think that they would at least be able to detect such blatant examples of shill bidding promptly. But this is not the case, and there is still anecdotal evidence of this on the eBay forums, but now only applying to items listed on the U.S. site (where the bidding alias is still effectively bidder specific) as such shill bidding activity, that was previously so blatantly obvious, can no longer be detected by users on the Australian site.
I always used to check a “professional” seller’s other auctions for such activity and on one occasion I detected a common bidder bidding on many of the seller’s other auctions. I reported it to eBay and all the seller’s listings subsequently disappeared. Then everything was again relisted; same shill bidding, and I reported it again; listings again disappeared. Then everything was again relisted; same shill bidding, and I reported it again; listings again disappeared, and finally the seller was flagged “Not a registered user” (NARU). Further, it was not simply a matter of a common bidder bidding on most of the seller’s other auctions, this common bidder twice “won” the auction of the particular item that I was following, but the item was then each time relisted with the excuse “buyer did not pay”…
I had to report this unscrupulous seller for blatant shill bidding three times before he finally went “NARU”. Of course, he is probably now up to the same tricks using other ID.
This experience clearly indicates to me, I believe “beyond any reasonable doubt”, that eBay does not have any “sophisticated tools”, certainly no “pro-active” tools, for the detection of even such blatantly obvious shill bidding as that which could have been spotted by any experienced buyer. And eBay has now removed the genuine bidder’s ability to detect same. So, how then do they expect us to “report” it? Well, of course, that is undoubtedly the whole idea, they don’t want it to be reported!
Noone on the "Outside" in their right mind would bet money on Ebay at this time.
I've seen the amount of stock some of the people control (internet research) so, I'm sure it's all superficial.
For anyone that is interested, a detailed case study of a blatant shill bidder on eBay, and a comment on eBay’s apparent attitude thereto, at www.auctionbytes.com/f...
Here it is only a few months later,
And Ebay is Ready to be SOLD !
It didn't take long for John Donahoe to figure out he's NOT a CEO after all :o)
A) One who is there to learn how to Better, Bolster, and Build a Business.
B) One who wants to learn the Ins and Outs in order to Thoroughly BLEED ALL THE PROCEEDS from the business into his own bank account 'til it shrivels and dies an UNnatural death.
John Donahoe IS the PREMIER Corporate-Raiding Vampire of ALL TIME.
It is now time to retrieve the Wooden Stake.