eBay: Where's Oprah When You Need Her?

If anyone can sort out the eBay (EBAY) mess and bring the people together it's Oprah! Oprah has a business acumen that could put all of eBay management to shame. While eBay is a four-letter word and easy to find on the net, Oprah could develop out a rival auction site and call it Harpo's Place.

Would sellers and buyer' flock to Harpo's Place or stick with eBay? I think people would take a liking to a site, which deals in a fair handed manner with ALL people - buyer's and seller's alike.

The business of the Internet is no longer just based upon technology and how much of it you have at your disposal, it's now about the people. What's missing on eBay is the "people connection" and I don't care how many professional bloggers eBay hires to smooth out the rough edges, once the damage is done, it's done - you're toast. There was a time when large corporations truly cared about losing even one customer. If you lost just one customer, others will follow.

On eBay, sellers are also customers and are at all times "buying". What do they buy? They buy time for their listings, they buy store space in which to sell their items and they buy enhanced listing services. In the scheme of things, a site such as eBay may be able to afford to lose ten thousand sellers or maybe even a hundred thousand sellers, however, what if they lost a quarter million sellers (or more) in any one fiscal quarter? Where would the flow of product come from to appeal to the buyers?

I don't think eBay has enough horses in the stable to get into the business of opening warehouses and morphing itself into an Amazon (AMZN). What was nice about eBay's business model is its simplicity in being able to make money.

Yes, it's good to be able to have a war chest of cash to settle lawsuits at every turn (and even have money leftover to pick up little companies along the way like Skype), however, the ability to simply collect billions in seller fees (over the years) has its appeal.

There is something known as the "chaos theory" and eBay seems to have created a state of chaos between itself and its own sellers. People don't take kindly to being part of a "chaotic" situation and will eventually look elsewhere for "peace". It's no longer about how much eBay charges in fees or, how they match up results or even how they DSR sellers into an unknown zone, it's about people skills and eBay is lacking in this department. With 14,000+ employees worldwide, one would think that some of them have basic people skills.

Could Oprah close the gap between the people? She seems to be fair handed with her talk show guests and gets them talking. She has built a multi-media empire (single handedly) and is a stickler for details. She's diplomatic in how she handles people (in general) and is one of the few celebrities who puts her money where her mouth is.

The question is whether Oprah is up to the task of building eBay sellers/buyers a new home on the net. Oprah's website is beautifully designed and offers everything but an auction component. Oprah's "Big Give" series is cool way of showing what people can do for each other and she makes no bones about wanting to help people.

Again, this is about people; while those selling on eBay are not celebrities nor have the finances to launch an eBay type auction site, they are the backbone of what made a small company into a multi-billion dollar enterprise (hint, hint Oprah).

The biggest give of all (no pun intended) would be to bring the people together into one place where there's peace of mind (chaos free). As Oprah's own web site tagline reads: "Live Your Best Life".

Disclosure: none

Comments

[whoiskiddin...:]

Congratulations Mr. LaRouche !!

This article is one of the more truthful and FACT based articles I have read on SeekingAlpha.com. Readers do grow weary of all the articles written by the eBay kool-aid drinkers here and it was well past time that someone authored an article which actually reflects the true situation with eBay and it's seemingly self inflicted path of destruction from within.

I would urge you to keep following this chaos which is now eBay, then perhaps the institutional investors will "get a clue" instead of swallowing all the kool-aid pumped out by eBay and it's sheep like analyst followers.

2008 Apr 07 08:10 AM

[Watching th...:]

Loved the article! You hit the nail on the head.

Oprah can't fix this ... Ebay needs Dr. Phil.

I had registared with Ebay in Nov. '07 with the goal of becoming a seller. With the policy change announcement my plans were put on hold. This was a good thing; it would give me time to teach myself how to be a good seller.

But, it quckly became apparant that Ebay is psycholgically dysfunctual. Neither side is willing to entertain any ideas that differ from what is in their head now.

I have posted in the Answer Center. This is the only viable customer service to be found within Ebay. It is strictly volunteer. You can ask a question and members will try to supply an answer. Ebay has phone support for the Power Sellers and what are termed the best buyers. Eveybody else is left to fend for themselves.

When I first started posting I tried to look at the changes with an open mind. I still don't see anything horrible with what is being done. How Ebay went about the changes WAS WRONG!!!! I don't think that they purposely meant to insult and alienate everybody. This was the end result.

I have gone over the web site to the best of my ability and alot of the problems that the policy changes were meant to address could have been better served by the following:

1. Instill standards of professional behavior within feedback. The only restrictions are no cursing, no ethnic slurs, no naming names.

Ebay!! GET REAL!! I have researched the top brass. How did you manage to completely drop the ball here?

2. Customer Service!? Where is it? There is an email version. It is very apparant that it is an automated feature. The posters in the AC say the same about live help.

3. Stop with the G.D. groups already. The constant groups, workshops, and now the blogs are in reality only serving to air Ebay's dirty laundry.

If a workshop (training opportunites) are going to be sponsered by the company,they would have alot more credibility if the sponsering Ebay employee had more than single digit feedback showing next to their name. The computer is NOT an efficient means of conveying information if a reader has to continually bounce back and forth trying to match question with response.

4. The Ask Griff live radio call in is in need of some tweaking also. I have been disconnected every time I have called. Glitch? Done on purpose? I don't know, but noticed? YES. There is also too much air time being used for paid advertising so it's supposed purpose of educating the community gets lost.

Only the top 200 sellers were involved in the process. How many people sell on Ebay? But even here if you go to 'About Ebay' and then to 'Media' you can find a webcast of the question and answer session follow-up that was given to the Power Sellers. By watching the facial expressions of the top brass it is evident that the changes ARE NOT OPEN TO DISCUSSION. There was a Part 2 of the Q&A. I can find no record of it.

Being an executive is more than getting listed within a company website. This is not a traditional business with varying strata of management. If there is any form of intermediary that can interface with the buyers and sellers, can someone please tell me what it is?

Lastly, in my quest to make sence of this quagmire, I looked up Bain & Company. I wanted insight into John Donahoe. As a test, I sent an Email inquiring about potentially hiring them. I wasn't expecting a response. I received a very courteous and profeesion decline within 24 hours. I was impressed.

When I returned to the Bain site I learned that the company ranks # 45 in Fortune's Best companies to work for. I learned that Bain believes very strongly in training their employees.
Well, the Ebay sellers may not be employees in the traditional sense, but they are generating income for the company and doing this without the benifit of medical or any company sponsered help in terms of retirement plans.

Bain also said that it believed in telling management what they needed to here as opposed to sucking up. This also impressed me. Mr. Donahoe, did 3 years reverse 20?

Lastly I was impressed with Bain's concept of the 1% possibility.
By only involving 200 people in the 2008 policy change engine how many 1%s got away?

P.S.

I am also one of those 1% and I KNOW IT!

2008 Apr 07 08:15 AM

[Ousted:]

What a great article! I have scoured all the articles about eBay and this is fresh and clean with a great insight.
What is not mentioned is that eBay, in it's chaos, is trying to clean up the more vocal people. eBay has put out statements saying they allow their community a voice, yet I am an example of that "misremembered" statement. I and others, have been stopped from even ENTERing the forums without explanation. I have had no infractions or suspensions as verified from the eBay employees themselves. So...........I would call this UTTER CHAOS when they feel the need to squelch the views.

2008 Apr 07 09:26 AM

[Jewelry Blo...:]

Ousted: You have a voice right here:-) The distribution of articles on seekalpha is much greater than that of any message board or forum on eBay.

2008 Apr 07 10:24 AM

[Tippie:]

John? What makes you think that Oprah would even want to be in the Auction format business? Lol. You obviously love and adore Oprah, while more than half the country hate Oprah! Lol. They call her a money grubbing broad who, exploits people for her own gain.

eBay is not the monster a few disgruntled sellers are trying to make this company out to be. In fact, quite the reverse is true.
eBay has LIVE HELP in the top right hand corner of almost every page. eBay also has help all throughout their site with phone numbers, all you have to do is call and they respond like any other company.

eBay must do for the good of all. eBay must protect their sellers and buyers alike. Their new format will do just that! There are always dishonest buyers and sellers lurking in cyber-net, fleamarkets, etc. eBay is trying to stay one step ahead of the game. eBay will weed out the good from the bad.

Who is a bad seller you ask? A bad seller is someone who will buy a truckload of liquidated items for pennies on the dollar. He will buy 2,000 pairs of shoes for $3.00 dollars a pair, all size 8 1/2 medium.
He will then advertise them on eBay as size 8 extra wide, 8 wide, 8 med, 8 regular. People will bid and buy these shoes for around $9.99 plus shipping $9.00 according to the size they wear.

Seller ships out his size 8 1/2 shoes. Buyer receives the shoes quickly, but can't wear the shoes. "Wrong size". Seller bid on size 8 extra wide and recieved size 8 1/2, med, a half size larger from what they normally wear, and they are clearly not extra wide!
They are clearly the wrong size.

Buyer wants a refund. They email seller about mistake, and he tells them OOPS, they made a mistake in listing the item. If they have size 8 wide they will be happy to send them to you, if not, you will receive a refund, but you will have to pay shipping again because they already sent you the first pair. But first you must ship their size 8 1/2 back to them. You must now pay $8.00 dollars to ship these shoes back to the seller even though it was the seller who made the mistake, ( fraud-deception)

Most buyers will just keep the shoes, lol. They will not dare file a negative because of retaliation against them. They will get a negative from Hell from the seller if they do. Lol.

This is how bad sellers make money exploiting eBay members.

What should a grieved buyer do? They should call, or file with eBay a "Wrong item received!

I did just that a few weeks ago, and eBay through pay-pal gave me the $8.00 dollars to ship the shoes back. I then recieved my refund from the seller.

With this new policy coming in May, I can give bad seller a NEGATIVE without worry about back-lash.
This seller will need to change his tactics or be out of business in no time on eBay! And eBay in the long run will save MONEY!

eBay will be a safe and fun place to shop after May. I for one look forward to it!

2008 Apr 07 01:29 PM

[Jewelry Blo...:]

Tippie - it's tongue in cheek - go ask Dr. Phil:-)

2008 Apr 07 01:33 PM

[lecllc1157:]

Tippie, you appear to be representing eBay on this subject.

Why aren't your so called "Bad Sellers" already off of eBay by now? What is eBay waiting for, an engraved invitation to remove the sellers who have those negatives for poor performance already on their accounts.

I for one used to look at a seller’s neutral and negative comments before I would bid on any of their items.

I could usually spot a trend of problems, and some of these I would go back over several years to find the comments that comprised their bad scores.

By using the DSR ratings, you essentially hide the listings of the low volume seller, who pays the same or even higher fees as the Power Seller, and the low volume seller’s items are never seen by any of their potential buyers that might still searching for product on eBay, due to the new "Best Match" system.

Why would I, as a small seller, pay eBay and PayPal to list an item that is never going to be seen by the general public? In my book, that’s simply throwing good money after bad.

If I had no guarantee that an Item that I paid to advertise in a local newspaper would ever be published, do you think that I would pay for that advertisement? You bet your bottom dollar that I wouldn’t!

The February 18 - 25 Boycott actually affected eBay more than they are admitting. eBay padded listings then and now, which are being documented.

eBay’s tactic of passing on fees for piggybacking auctions from a power seller onto one of lower volume seller’s items is being documented. Driving traffic away from a viable auction item from a low volume seller to a power seller’s item is being documented.

Bringing to light eBay, their illegal practices, and how many laws they may have broken in their practices is important for the general public to know.

The words Monopoly, Anti-Trust, Cyber Crimes, Microsoft, and Enron are just a few that come to mind when thinking about eBay.

The following was taken from a post to the eBay Boycott forum in February, which has now been removed by eBay.

"Competition law, known in the United States as antitrust law, has three main elements:

* prohibiting agreements or practices that restrict free trading and competition between business entities. This includes in particular the repression of cartels.

* banning abusive behavior by a firm dominating a market, or anti-competitive practices that tend to lead to such a dominant position. Practices controlled in this way may include predatory pricing, tying, price gouging, refusal to deal and many others.

* supervising the mergers and acquisitions of large corporations, including some joint ventures. Transactions that are considered to threaten the competitive process can be prohibited altogether, or approved subject to "remedies" such as an obligation to divest part of the merged business or to offer licenses or access to facilities to enable other businesses to continue competing.

So, in this case, the "near-bundling" of PayPal with eBay limits competition by other PayPal-like businesses. Google Checkout, for example, is not an accepted form of payment on eBay. Google Checkout is competition.

It's the same thing that Microsoft got sued for. They were bundling IE and Office with Windows, which limited competition from Netscape, Opera etc.

Practices controlled in this way may include predatory pricing, tying, price gouging, refusal to deal and many others.”

Sellers are being blackmailed and threatened by buyers, and eBay refuses to take any action against those doing the blackmailing or threatening. eBay has chosen to turn a deaf ear towards the complaints.

There is also the question of insider trading, or stock price manipulation, with regards to the volume of eBay stock shown for sale by eBay executives over recent months.


Filing complaints with your State Consumer Protection and FTC offices will also focus government attention on eBay as well. The FTC should be taking a good hard look at the latest changes on both eBay and PayPal and the MONOPOLY they have created.

The legislators can be located at www.house.gov/ and www.senate.gov/

The House Committee on Energy and Commerce is at energycommerce.house.g.../

The US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is at commerce.senate.gov/pu...

eBay is breaking laws, and needs to be held responsible!

2008 Apr 07 02:44 PM

[whattheheck:]

Wow. Is all I have to say. If everyone thinks this stuff is so easy to read, you haven't done your homework and looked at the ease of use & reading on the PayPal website.

These postings are with such venom and misguided tripe. "In Febuary 2008 Citibank estimated Paypal earns approximately $10M quarterly "floating" our monies." I'm assuming that by this statement you mean to say that Citibank & these 'other financial institutions' who have absolutely no affiliation w/eBay or PayPal other than their bank accts/credit cards are allowed to be used on the sites, somehow committed some sort of espionage to gather this information? Bullocks!

'I own a successful paralegal firm.' -Perhaps you should read the policies front to back on both eBay and PayPal, make a few phone calls for further explanation if you still don't understand what it means...and by all means start your own website, but enough is enough.

That would explain why your postings are so easy to relate to for some of these other readers. Do the words ambulance chaser mean anything to you? I'm guessing if your paralegal firm was that successful you'd have sued eBay for ownership rights or a large sum of money and won.....No??? I wonder why that is. Perhaps you need a few more million sellers to sign up & feed in to your tripe, then take it to court and 'make a deal'.

As far as buyer's leaving to go with seller's....what makes you think this would happen? Considering all of the changes on the eBay site are directed towards making their buying experiences more pleasurable and safe. They will no longer have to worry about receiving a box w/the wrong product and not want to file a complaint for fear of a seller leaving them bad feedback. Also they won't have to worry about a BAD seller, yes a BAD seller taking their money and running, because they will HAVE to use PayPal--By all definition, yes those would be considered BAD sellers, because if they allowed those sellers to use any other form of payment, then the amount of bad buyer experiences on eBay would then be equal to that of other websites. The action they are taking right now is removing those bad sellers from the site. I presume more than 1 or 2 of them are posting messages here.

I love how all of the research in every posting from you guys has either completely INACCURATE information or false trumped up BS to get people into a panic.

Some people still never read, listen &/or learn.

2008 Apr 07 03:15 PM

[greta_speaks:]

another great article mr. la rouche, thank you.

'eBay will be a safe and fun place to shop after May. I for one look forward to it!' fortunately tippie, i no longer have use for my bidder/blocker option. you'd most certainly be on it.

ebay wants to cleanse themselves of their members and eliminate those who don’t fit managements new desired profile. during this process they have included members who have made them the successful company they once were.

change can be good, however, they have missed the mark on how far they are taking changes while losing integrity along the way. citing one recent example (there are many): the conflicting stories given for what has been named ‘mystery auction listings’ from the Shopping dot com site (sdc). Initial explanation: it was a glitch in the system, next: limited test that ran its course; then: it was an accident; finally they settled on the test excuse. do they really think everyone outside their executive offices are that stupid and can't see thru the curtain? what type of company operates in that kind of vacuum?

in essence what ebay has done is to create opportunities for other companies to emerge who have welcomed buyers and sellers with respect, realistic fees, appreciation and customer service (ebay never got that concept). esty.com, online auctions.com and ioffer.com, to name a few. ebay has spun off their own company to others and will not survive at the level demanded by stockholders and the marketplace.

hmmm, did they overspend their pr and marketing budgets on all of their recent promos to drown out our noise, thus the employee layoffs?

everything ebay has been doing since the boycott started, points to their desire to create mass confusion so the stockholders will not be able to distinguish what the real problems are.

eBay has lost their integrity a long time ago, in life and business they are basic requirements. we can see the wizard behind the curtain, hopefully the stockholders will too.

in the meantime……

~ JOIN THE eBay BOYCOTT ~ BE INFORMED ~

Find your State or International Location folder and join us. Former employees are welcome too!

A place to organize.
A place to unite.
A place to focus.
United we stand, Divided we fall.

forums.delphiforums.co...

www.accknowl.com/

Boycott Victoriously ….. While Making Noise!
Evacuate by May 1, 2008!

2008 Apr 07 03:35 PM

[Et tu, Brute!:]

Good grief!

whattheheck, speaking of "INACCURATE", you've rebutted in the wrong column! ! !

2008 Apr 07 03:37 PM

[Watching th...:]

Can Tippi let the rest of us know where ALL THESE PROMINANT phone numbers are located?

2008 Apr 07 03:59 PM

[lecllc1157:]

whattheheck

Where did the comment 'I own a successful paralegal firm.' come from?

It's not in the original article, nor is it in any of the comments?

Who's paralegal firm are you calling an ambulance chaser?

If you are referring to my post, think again. I’m not a paralegal, nor am I a lawyer. I simply do a lot of reading and research on laws that affect me, and any enterprises that I might associate with.

“We grow too soon old, and too late schmart!” Spelling error intended.

Buyers are not there on eBay, follow through sales are down since the original February 18 - 15 Boycott, and will begin to plummet again beginning on May 1st, when the next round of the Boycott begins with no end in site this time. At least one of eBay’s competitor’s will be offering a special listing event to begin on May 1st.

If you don't have the sellers to list their product, you are certainly not going to have the buyers making any purchases. Don’t forget that many of the Sellers on eBay are also Buyers, so those who are boycotting won’t be using eBay beginning May 1st, and many have already left.

Sellers have already migrated to the many competitors’ sites to list and sell their items. This is leaving eBay and PayPal out in the cold for their increased fees, which they are not going to collect on the items that are not going to be listed and sold on eBay.

Merchants will get around the PayPal requirement by using their own merchant account for credit cards, so again PayPal and eBay the parent company, will be loosing out on their fees for collecting money at the end of the sales.

Buyer blackmail began when the rules changes were announced in January, and some sellers were experiencing the extortion long before that.

The FBI takes a dim view of cyber crimes and through the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) www.ic3.gov/ you can file complaints about blackmail and extortion.

2008 Apr 07 05:27 PM

[-noname-:]

Very good article!

And Tippie, ebay should have dealt with the seller on your deal... Instead, the gave you that warm fuzzy feeling by paying shipping, made you happy, and kept their crappy seller because they make too much money off of them to do anything...

Their new rules have nothing to do with "customer service", it has everything to do with "ebay greed"...

All this new feedback system will do for you my friend, is push away the good, honest seller... That system sets even the most perfect of sellers up for every cyber criminal on the net...

Oh, by the way, did ebay send you a coupon for filing a complaint???

BOYCOTT VICTORIOUSLY!!

2008 Apr 08 08:20 AM

[dolldr99:]

Tippie,

Does anyone believe this isn't a "planted" comment? It had to be written by someone who never tried to find Help on ebay. Live Help? Oh, come on...

The only real help on ebay is the Answer Center, which is ebay users helping each other. I'm one of the ebay sellers who left recently, after doing business for the last 10 yrs.

In the beginning, ebay was successful because it was managed by the people, and for the people, with ebay only providing the venue and a basic set of rules. Once the developers sold and when Whitman came on board, the business changed. The successfull exchange of products and payments was over. Now ebay was a corporation, with shareholders and layers of executives. There had to be acquisitions to keep up the profits and salaries of these new executives (even seller fees can't keep up with bonuses !).

Now it's an inexpensive way for merchandisers and retail sellers to reach the maximum number of buyers with virtually no advertising expense. The auction format has been overwhelmed by Buy-it-now and ebay stores. It is time for we small sellers who are supplementing retirement income, or work-at-home moms, to move on. There's no getting the genie back in the bottle; if ebay must grow, it will have to grow without us.

Fortunately, there are many good auction sites out there now; I've decided to go with Onlineauction.com, as have thousands of others.
OLA is growing by leaps and bounds, and had over a million listings the other day. It's no ebay, but then that's what sellers want now, a privately held, well-run auction site with real customer service.

It's what ebay was in 2000.

2008 Apr 10 05:54 PM