Philip Cohen

Global Outage at eBay: Seller Confidence Shaken as Holidays Approach

Is someone actually suggesting that anyone at eBay actually knows what day it is?

eBay Finally Spins Off Skype

Now, all eBay has to do is “spin off” that arrogant, strutting turkey “Noise” Donahoe, hopefully before he completes the total destruction of the eBay Marketplace.

Clearly, the suggestion is that the December quarter is looming, relatively speaking, as another disaster for eBay and, on that basis, how can this strutting turkey possibly survive yet another Xmas?

Lonely Value, have a closer look at those financial statements and you will see that they are suggesting that the long slow slide into the abyss is continuing: ongoing reductions in staff, revenue and—in particular—profits. Regardless of how much they are making, most companies prefer to grow rather than shrink, particularly when all around them are still growing ...

Why is “Noise” Donahoe trying to destroy eBay?
www.auctionbytes.com/f...

eBay Completes Skype Sale at $2.75 Billion Valuation

OK, so that solves the Marketplaces revenue problem for the December quarter; now what about the March ‘10 quarter? What is the head turkey going to sell to then? PayPal?

The eBafia Don will talk about the possibility of disposing of PayPal only because he is just smart enough to know that PayPal is as “clunky” as the eBay auction system is, that PayPal is a system more suited to a banking operation and that if “the banks” and their credit card company partners ever get off their butts and introduce a like terminal/card-less payments system (which the major credit card companies would undoubtedly implement professionally), the banks will dispose of PayPal—outside of the ever-shrinking eBay marketplace—in about five minutes flat.

Amazon Leads the Pack in October Same Store Sales

Contrary to all his MBA-leant instincts, the “eBafia Don” has decided, in his typically incompetent, deceptive manner, to court those “noisy” collectibles sellers again. Such utter desperation indicates to me that the October figures must be predicting that the Xmas quarter is looming as another—rightly deserved—disaster for eBay. It’s a shame though that so many small business people have to be hurt at the same time.

The buckwits in control of eFay may as will be headless turkeys, and one has to keep asking the question, how can the head turkey, “Noise” Donahoe, possibly survive another Xmas.

“Why is the ‘eBafia Don’ destroying eBay?” at:
www.auctionbytes.com/f...

Skype's Legal Drama Ends: It's Time to Start Innovating

Leftfield,

Quote: "They have been kicking small sellers off the site for a year now to reduce their workforce."

Actually, I thought it was the exact opposite. They have had to reduce their workforce to lower outgoings (to protect profits) because of the reduction in revenue because "they have been kicking small sellers off the site".

But what good will Skype's independence do for the rapidly-going-down-hill eBay marketplace?

The eBay Ad Campaign Has Begun: Will It Help?

Hey eBay+++,

Spend a little time looking at the "Completed listings" of some professional sellers and you will most likely see very few islets of green in the great oceans of red. ...

And of those that are selling, they are probably making good use of "buyer did not pay".

eBay's PayPal X Platform Could Drive an Increase in Transactions

eBay's PayPal X Platform won't drive an increase in transactions on the eBay Marketplace: it's continuing its journey down the toilet.

Where is the “eBafia Don” taking eBay?
www.auctionbytes.com/f...

The eBay Ad Campaign Has Begun: Will It Help?

Hey, eBay stooge, I feel hurt, you haven't yet commented on my earlier post; cat got your tongue?

"Where’s the “Ho Ho Ho” taking eBay?"
www.auctionbytes.com/f...

The eBay Ad Campaign Has Begun: Will It Help?

Why is the “Ho Ho Ho” destroying eBay?

Well, actually, he’s not trying to destroy eBay, in his peculiar way, he’s trying to save eBay.

The “eBafia Don” is just smart enough to know that eBay is little more than a “house of cards” that could one day be found by a court in some land to be the criminal organisation that I (and many others) believe it to be, and as a result of such finding the “eBay House of Cards” will likely then be blown down by some governmental consumer affairs regulator—if there is one out there that is actually interested in doing the job it is charged with doing—protecting we simple peasants from such unscrupulous commercial traders.

I say criminal organisation because it can be clearly demonstrated that eBay knowingly facilitates, indeed aids and abets before and after the fact, the defrauding of consumers by the many unscrupulous shill bidding professional sellers that now infest eBay, and in so doing eBay profits from the higher “final valuation fees” that result from such criminal activities.

As a reinforcement of that contention it can be clearly demonstrated that, contrary to eBay’s claims, eBay has no “proactive” nor truly “sophisticated” tools for the proactive detection of such criminal activity. Such activities not detected and reported by users go undetected, period. The only actions taken by eBay are re-actions to user reports. Users have to do the job eBay falsely claims to be doing, but with both hands tied behind their backs (by eBay).

eBay even denies that “shill bidding” fraud is a problem on eBay auctions and indeed they further deceive consumers by claiming that their auction platform is “as secure as any such platform can be”. It is clearly not secure, and it is nowhere as secure as it could be, and eBay knows it, and consumers should not be misinformed by them of this fact.

The probability is that eBay cannot afford to effectively police shill bidding on its auctions lest it devastate the many unscrupulous professional sellers from whom, I suspect, it receives a great deal of its revenue.

The Ho is trying to downplay auctions because he well knows that eBay’s auction system is so open to abuse by unscrupulous sellers that long ago some court should have served notice on eBay to cease the conducting of such “clunky” open-to-abuse auctions, or at least supply the transparency that would give genuine buyers the opportunity of better protecting themselves from the many unscrupulous shill-bidding professional sellers laying in wait for them.

eBay has done just the opposite. Rather than make any attempt at fixing the auction system or making the process more transparent, the Don has introduced a system of masked bidding aliases that serves no purpose other than to further lessen the transparency of the auction bidding process. In the past, the naive cheat had to resort to the obviously devious seller-selected “private listing” auction (and many naïve shill-bidding sellers still do use it), a mechanism that serves no other purpose than as a hide for shill bidders. Experienced eBayers know to avoid, like the plague, those sellers who use “private listing” auctions for being the auction cheats that they most probably are.

On the UK site the form of bidder masking it is even less transparent than in the rest of the eBay world. The masked alias used there (“Bidder x”) gives sophisticated shill bidders free reign with absolutely no fear of detection by users; the UK cheat no longer needs to resort to “eBay’s classic shill bidders’ tool”, the “private listing” auction.

But, rather than attempt to do anything about the broken and abused auction system, the Ho apparently had the idea that he could change eBay into something other than what eBay is (or used to be). His assumption was clearly wrong, as the continuing falls in revenues and profits from the eBay Marketplaces periodically reaffirm.

Why is this destruction of eBay continuing? Understand one thing, the executive management and board of directors of eBay are concerned about only one thing, themselves. (Is it any different anywhere in the “for profit” world?). Having chosen the wrong course, these latter-day Captain Queegs are apparently intellectually incapable of recognising the error of the many bad decisions that have been made in recent years and, as a consequence, eBay continues on its journey down the sewer, no doubt soon to reach the even rougher waters of the big ocean.

And that is a real shame.

PS: Maybe Meg is not so dumb; she’s passed the poisoned chalice to the Don and has taken off running—with the money. The real test of her intelligence will be whether or not she has also dumped (if not contracted to do otherwise) her eBay stock for something more secure instead …

eBay Set to Launch New Ad Campaign

For all the eBay “buyers” who are still trying to find a bargain on eBay and are (hopefully) agile enough to avoid all the shill-bidding professional sellers that now infest eBay, eBay recently touted two Diamond/Titanium PowerSellers as major success stories of selling on eBay. They apparently could not find any scrupulous sellers (or simply did not bother to look). An analysis of bidding patterns on these two sellers’ auctions suggests that they are probably both habitual shill bidders. A full comment thereon at:
www.auctionbytes.com/f...

And “eBay is turning around” (and around, and around)? Take a look at the very few islets of green (ie, shilled auctions and (pseudo?) Best Offer “sales”) in the ocean of "blood" in the completed listings for one of these sellers, at:
completed.shop.ebay.co...

eBay needs more that a new ad campaign, it needs a new executive committee, one that has some understanding of marketing and just what is (was) the eBay marketplace. The currents incumbents clearly have not got a clue and are quite deservedly continuing their journey down the sewer; undoubtedly, soon to reach the even rougher waters of the ocean ...

Shoppers to Spend $400 Million on eBay Using Its iPhone App

The Diamond PowerSellers are doing very well on eBay too, so says eBay ...

How to become an eBay Diamond PowerSeller—the unscrupulous eBay way, at
www.auctionbytes.com/f...

And I'm nor a disgruntled eBay seller, I'm a disgruntled eBay buyer ...

Earning Recaps: Yahoo, Microsoft, eBay, UPS, Amazon

Re eBay: Hang on, if, since the introduction of masked bidding IDs, every one of the many unscrupulous sellers on eBay now has 10-20 shill bidding IDs, that increase in "active users" should be a lot more than (only) 2%; methinks there has probably been a real decrease in genuine users. Face facts, the "Ho Ho Ho" has not got the faintest idea of what he is doing at eBay, except for holding his finger on the toilet flush button ...

Amazon Crushes Third Quarter

Well, that says it all.

When then is the eBay board going to get rid of the chief idiot and his fellow lunatics who are presently running berserk at eBay—the "Ho Ho Ho", being the chief amongst them.

eBay Q3: Earnings Not Too Shabby, Outlook Tentative

Let's just accept eBay+++ as the resident eBay stooge and simply ignore him. What else do you expect a (probably paid) eBay appologist to be saying? Those of us who actually watch the activity on eBay know what is happening. I am only surprised the downturn in the marketplaces was not more obviously expressed in the financial statements; but I guess that's "accounting" for you ...

eBay Sentiment: In Neutral Ahead of Earnings

"Only eBay knows their actual results,..."

How true! I'm looking forward to "Noise" Donahoe's little song and dance routine this evening as he attempts to hide eBay's real results. I wonder if he will be doing his own comera work again?

In the meantime, some light reading for eBay "buyers":
www.auctionbytes.com/f...