Looking for something unique? You can’t find it on eBay (EBAY) anymore because of Donahoe’s latest disruptive innovation- eBay’s version of the game "hide & seek". Buyers are now expected to play and the only winner seems to be eBay.
On August 1, 2008 Jeff King, Sr. Director of eBay’s Finding Team posted the following:
In a nutshell, now our Finding technology can do the work of removing duplicates from search results, ensuring buyers have a good finding experience with plenty of variety and that sellers can list in whatever quantities and configuration that make the most sense to their business.
How does the new game work? A buyer types one or two keywords in the search box and then eBay uses Finding technology, a.k.a Best Match, to sort listings and determine which listings are duplicates. If Best Match thinks it found a duplicate – then the item disappears into a void because only one unique item per seller is allowed.
So what’s the problem? How could eBay possibly expect Best Match to tell the difference between similar items and identical items when eBay knows that Best Match has never worked since day one – otherwise they wouldn’t keep fixing it and millions of buyers & sellers wouldn’t keep complaining about it.
How will hide & seek impact buyers? Negatively. Buyers usually know what they’re looking for and when they discover eBay is hiding it from them, then they’ll probably shop elsewhere. This may be a blessing because nothing works right, anyway.
How will this change affect sellers? It’s a great big negative. Sellers woke up on August 1 only to discover that many of their listings had vanished into the void and that they paid listing fees for nothing. Those who took advantage of eBay’s Featured Plus listing sale held on July 29 through 31 were given no warning and watched their listings disappear one by one. Niche sellers are scrambling to find a new home.
Does eBay really expect sellers to pay listing fees and get nothing in return? I think they do, which could explain why eBay has lost over 1 million listings since August 1 and why sellers are calling their attorneys.
I suspect it won’t make any difference how much stock eBay repurchases to shore up their losses because any e-commerce site that has poor management, constant site issues, and no buyers or sellers isn’t worth much – not even at an Amazon (AMZN) auction.
Disclosure: Dinah Balk is a part time eBay seller.
