Henrietta

Skype's Hold Up Problem

This is one of the most muddled and poorly written articles I have ever read on SeekingAlpha.

What is the position? "And don't worry. You got your Skype"?

Author says "JoltId claims that eBay has violated the licensing agreement, citing a few obscure and relatively minor details in the contract. Litigation is pending."

Joltid did not sell the underlying technology to eBay, they licensed it, that means eBay rents it. Joltid claims "eBay accessed Joltid's source code and modofied it" thus breaching the license.

eBay says in their Q2-09 filing if Joltid prevails in court "Skype would be severely and adversely affected and the continued operation of Skype's business as currently conducted would likely not be possible"

This is an "obscure and relatively minor detail"?

Is eBay's Core Business Turning Around?

Having read this and totally rubbished it I read this tinyurl.com/qu95nf at AuctionBytes.

I stand by the majority of my comment, however my comments on Sandeep Aggarwal were based on the inadequacies of this article, not the facts as written by Ina Steiner.

Crow for dinner.

eBay Starts Stripping Skype from Its Services

eBay is too busy worrying about building the walls ever higher to prevent communication between buyers and sellers to permit direct contact these days, they might do an off eBay (no revenue) transaction. Gasp.

If eBay could figure a way to keep sellers from knowing the buyer's mailing address they would be happy.

The metamorphosis from 'only a venue bringing buyers and sellers together' to extraordinarily poor environment for business on the net dates from about the same time eBay began referring to 'our buyers', an interesting viewpoint from a service provider who owns no inventory to sell and refers to their fee paying customers as 'only noise' who will be 'demoted' and 'routed off the site' .

Is eBay's Core Business Turning Around?

There is no such thing as 'free shipping' the Post Office charges an annually increasing amount to ship and sellers pay it, passing on the cost to their buyers.

"Increasing selection by implementing fee structure changes" is BaySpeak for our Diamond Sellers pay no insertion fees so they list lots of cheap imported and refurbished rubbish.

There is very little selection anymore in the categories that grew eBay and differentiated it from all the other sales venues. Sellers of collectibles have been fee differentiated to the tune of 12% in final value fees which are also paid on the value of shipping when free shipping is mandated. As they DO pay insertion fees the resulting price increases price their items right out of the market.

Shoppers with more than two functioning brain cells search for the items they want on Google, not eBay.

I am so tired of lazy analysts who swallow the corporate line, bait, hook and sinker. The only one worth reading is Jeetil Patel.

As a previous commenter said, there are a lot of really angry former customers out there, there are even more who are past anger and merely contemptuous. Some of us were shareholders. Think of the three eleven rule and get real.

Is eBay's Real Threat Amazon or Classifieds, or Both?

PastTense: $5 shipping? It had better be real light, shipping just went up again.

Of course Scot is right. Commodities sellers particularly the larger ones, Channel Advisor type sellers are doing OK, not as well perhaps as before but surviving and if I know Scot Wingo he will have them on diversified channels anyway. Every listing that goes to Amazon from those sellers is one that 6 years ago would have been solely on eBay.

The question of selection on eBay particularly in collectibles and antiques is an excellent one. I find in my research that things I used to find are gone. If you want to see where they are do a Google product search. A surprising number are on Bonanzle, Ruby Lane is booming, Etsy has lots of vintage kitsch and there are a gazillion websites, ning sites etc.

I have found two disadvantages to Craigslist, as a seller you are limited in reach. As a buyer it can be a bit scary, there are a lot of wierdos out there.

Why Isn't Paypal More Successful?

I also used PayPal since XCom days and got paid $5 a pop referral. I liked PayPal before eBay bought it and a year or two after. As an ex-eBay seller I can tell you PayPal sucks, on eBay. No matter how scrupulously you follow the rules, have a signed delivery confirmation, if the buyer squeaks the seller looses, not only the money but the goods too.

As a buyer your protection is absolute, on eBay.

Buy something with PayPal off eBay and your 'protection' is limited to what PayPal can recover from the seller.

I offer it because the customers like it and my customer service ethic is to please the customer. I prefer Google Checkout, it has a well designed & workable dashboard, has better security checks and I jump through less hoops. GC is a PITA to integrate on any website which has the PayPal API installed, odd coincidence huh.

I no longer keep funds in a PayPal Money Market account, the User Agreement changed last year and not in my favor. I have a totally separate bank account which never has a balance of more than $100 for longer than an hour or so and I sweep PayPal deposits to it daily and on out, limiting what can be hooked out.

That is a lot of work to protect myself from a payment processor. Sooner I believe rather than later 'money exchangers' will be regulated and the consumer abuse will stop.

Option Spreads With Large Upside and Limited Downside

Large upside and limited downside huh? I thought you were talking about the inverse ratio between eBay CEO John Donohoe's ongoing attempt to find his rear end with both hands and a flashlight and the continuing exodus of eBay's customers, the sellers who pay the marketplace fees.

Your strategy sounds like a very small car spinning its wheels and making lotsa dust.

EBay In No Hurry to Spin Off Skype

Perhaps Donohoe is preparing for the unthinkable, scrutiny of the coercion of sellers to use PayPal, the monopolistic relationship between PayPal and eBay, and the apparent total lack of regulation of 'money exchangers' which enables consumer abuse on a scale long rendered illegal elsewhere in finance.

Is it beyond the bounds of reason to speculate that PayPal would become an instant spin-off at the first whiff of regulation?

Some Advice for Business-Challenged eBay

An unusually perceptive and reasoned piece.

Where there is no accountability there is no responsibility.

There is a 'seller czar' his name is Dinesh Lathi VP of Seller Experience and I would be surprised if he has ever sold anything on the platform. It is painfully obvious to sellers his hands on retail experience is nil. He shares the eBay management's contemptuous attitude to sellers and is incapable of any independent thought or deviation from the party line.

My response (as usual) is too long for a comment and may be found on my blog tiny.cc/AV8XZ

eBay's Donahoe Has Crow for Thanksgiving

Just keep up what you have been doing & send me a link so I can put you on my blogroll.
Henrietta
Red Ink Diary


On Dec 01 05:18 AM dinah balk wrote:

> Good morning everyone!
>
> I finally did it! Dinah has a website. It hasn't been picked up
> by the search engines yet but when it is I'll post a link.
>
> Any suggestions as to content?

eBay: Getting Something for Nothing

How will PayPal factor in your equations when (not if) it is regulated? Currently a large proportion of PayPal revenue is from the float. PayPal can and does currently hold funds routinely for up to 21 days, there is no incentive to reduce this, quite the opposite in fact. Additionally PayPal can freeze accounts for 180 days with no legally valid probable cause ("if we think" ) and no recourse for the customer. This will have to change to align with normal banking standards.

Have you considered that there may be monopoly or anti trust issues with attendant litigation expenses with eBay Inc's purchase of Bill Me Later?

PayPal will not benefit from the eBay related hostility engendered from 'disgruntled' ex-sellers, quite the contrary, it is Google Checkout who benefits from that. Ask me how I know?

My MM funds are now in Vanguard and PP balance is kept at ZERO. I sweep the same day for the very few occasions I am compelled to use PayPal.

eBay Looks Cheap Even with All The Negatives

Small sellers revolted in Q1 and Q2. Larger sellers are finding the hassle too much in Q3. Most are stuck on the site through Q4. Unless eBay fixes a bunch of stuff PDQ 2009 Q1 will be ugly.

Although eBay likes to refer to 'our buyers' their customers are sellers and as more and more sellers pack it in the choices 'our buyers' will have get less and less.

Unless your assumptions are based solely on advertising & non-marketplace income they are probably not valid assumptions or even calculated projections. They are just guesses.

Changes to eBay’s Pricing Plan Could Whack Shares by 20%

Some analysts seem to believe that eBay's 'take' is 8.1%, where that figure comes from Lord only knows.

I blogged this issue. tinyurl.com/65ll4t

Using a $9.99 fixed price item for a one time listing sale, with at cost S&H of $5, the combined actual eBay/PayPal take is 19.5%

If we loose the insertion fees and up the final value fee from 8.75% to 15% the combined eBay/PayPal take figure rises to 22.3%.

Note that this is on a single transaction and does not in any way take into account the catastrophic drop in sales directly attributable to the new unfinding eBay experience.

Given the how low can you go sell through rates on eBay today, maybe losing the listing insertion fees would be a fitting punishment for eBay management as they try to discover how to be Amazon without inventory or customer service.

EBay: Stock Swoons As Three Analysts Downgrade

Deteriorating consumer spending patterns are directly related to the eBay team's decision to declare war on small sellers. Small sellers were also big buyers, note past tense. eBay decided to go with Buy.com who pay no listing fees, and have a sales rate of about 3%. This replaced all the small sellers who paid plenty in listing fees and had sell through rates between 40 - 50%. Buyers who are not nearly as dim as eBay thinks they are find no bargains at Buy.com on eBay. A simple Google search for any Buy.com item will invariably produce a better bargain elsewhere, sometimes to the tune of several hundred dollars, try it.

I have never had a problem with PayPal but boycotting PayPal goes right along with boycotting eBay. Yes I do still offer it on my website. If my customers want to use it they can and I offer my customers choice, unlike eBay, but I prefer Google Checkout and encourage its use by giving discount coupons which pay for themselves because Google Checkout is free with AdWords.

eBay was a wonderful place once but any entity which confuses its customers, those who pay for service, with those who come to 'only a venue' to buy from their customers, deserves what it gets.

I sold my shares earlier this year and would advise anyone who still has them to dump them. They are non-productive, and the dance is over.

Innovate or Die: eBay at a Crossroads

@ User 153301
Congratulations on learning how to use Google, you should be very proud of your achievement.

You are mistaken, Randy does not 'hate' eBay. He is a businessman who built an enterprise on a flawed platform.

Yes, Randy failed on eBay and then took what he had learned & clawed his way back up again. I am sure he learned more from the experience than someone who has never achieved anything in the first place.

What is more to the point is that he has been generous enough to share with those who are capable of learning from his experiences.

What have you built?