dolldr99

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    • eBay: Where's Oprah When You Need Her? [view article]
      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.
      Apr 10 05:54 PM
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