eBay Dangles a Carrot to Pacify Its Sellers [View article]
While this discount gives normal sellers with high DSR score a 20% discount on Final Value fee's and yes that is a new change.
Power Sellers with 4.9 or better rating stars have got this 20% discount since early 2009 so thats old new's for them.
Whats a newer developement and not ever talked about by Ebay is the fact that Power Sellers got a 40% discount on their Final Value Fee's if they offered "Free Shipping" that is "gone" now, they can only get 20% off max, since this new developement of giving regular sellers 20% off with high DSR score.
So the Power Sellers with 4.9 Stars that offered Free Shipping their Ebay bill has actually gone up 20% ... if you look on Ebay in the past month all the Power Sellers have removed the Free Shipping option.
More Spin from Ebay to screw those who sell and list the most product, so in the end this is just more price raising by Ebay.
The free auction 5 listings a month arent free by any means, they almost double the Final Value Fee's if you would happen to sell those 5 items.
So basically they are charging more once again, people need to dig into these policies more than what Ebay spoon feeds them, its just another increase hidden by Ebay spin folks.
eBay: Out with the New, In with the Old [View article]
Yeah they arent in now way saying they are going back to anything from the past, "The Ebay of Today doesn't look like Ebay of the Past and will not look like Ebay of the Future" was what was said, or something like that (too lazy to look it up, but thats very close)
So basically they are at it again, more change to the way Ebay runs like last year, these damn fools are just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks, John Donahoe in his utter smugness will never say I messed up Ebay and I will change it back ... this guy has an ego that is borderline psychotic, he definatly has some kind of syndrome to be doing all this, everything you look at shows that changing all the dynamics toward "Fixed Price" and raising the Final Value Fee's has failed and failed big time.
I had to adjust everything I do on Ebay just to adapt to their constant crap because I was in a bad way and just could not drop everything and start on another site.
I used to auction everything, start low and let it go and did pretty good, then came the "Best Match" and the Fixed Price Monsters, I was like for about 2 months what the hell is going on I am losing my arse!
You cannot Auction on Ebay anymore, it just doesnt work ... how can you auction and have your item thats ending sometimes being on page 3 ??? of Best Match search??? in a word .. YOU CAN'T! ... well you can, but you will lose money.
They brag how Fixed Price sales went up .. well duh yeah, thats because you can't auction on there anymore and any seller that makes alot of sales monthly knows this.
The only way you can auction on Ebay and not lose money is have an item that tons of people want and you are the only one that has it, while I do every once in a while have that, maybe once a month its so rare to have something that would do better at auction than in fixed price its scary, sort of like 99.9999% you should not auction your item, versus what it used to be Auction was the way to go ... lower fee's on sold items and lots of people bidding, after Jan. of 2008 that all changed, no traffic to auctions and rare making money ability, basically a shot in the dark you would actually get a bidder then and now.
You want to get rid of items just to dump it?? Oh yeah auctions are the way to go start them $50 to $100 items at .99 cents and they'll sell lol ... but at .99 cents lol cause you wont have but maybe one bidder if you are lucky.
John and Lorrie are brain dead, Meg was actually the person that ruined Ebay these fools are just following the direction Meg wanted to go in anyway ... Meg got her job at Ebay when a monkey could have made it a billion dollar company, it was the only game in town, or should I say the world?? Yes World! ... Her hiking of fee's and stupid policies are what made people look elsewhere to find other places to sell for years and years, they should have kept fee's very low then people would have had no reason to ever leave or look anywhere else and Ebay would be at least 3 times the size it is now.
Sort of like selling hamburgers ... would you rather sell 100, $1.00 hamburgers and make 100 dollars or sell two $50 hamburgers and still make $100 ... while the later sounds great but if the 2 people dont show up that day to buy your $50 hamburgers you make ZERO ... if 2 people dont show up to buy the $1 burgers you are only down $2 ....
Thus thats why they raised their rates last year cause they peeved off alot of people and had to collect more fee's from less people to make the same amount, that worked for about the first 5 or 6 months until people really noticed hey these fee's are crazy and thought to themselves I am not making money and left Ebay for anywhere else they could find.
Just my opinion, but I think its pretty close to what is going on.
The whole problem with "Auctions" started the day they implemented the "Best match" search as the default search versus the old way that was "Ending Soonest"
This was implemented to court the "Diamond" sellers, they do not auction items and their listings are long term, thus they would not have come up to the top of the catagory list when the default search was "Ending Soonest" ... But when in "Best Match" mode and with all the metrics used, Free Shipping, Items Sold and just the basic preferred status they get from Ebay puts the "Diamond" sellers up to the top of the catagories.
The author doesnt realize that Ebay did have the "Auctions" and the "Buy it Nows" or "Fixed Price" as they call it now, totally integrated the day before they started this "Best Match" search system, this was about a year ago and before.
It worked like this: All search was defaulted to "Ending Soonest" ... but along the top of the page there were HUGE YELLOW tabs that all you had to do was click that would just show you "FIXED PRICE" items only, that worked well for years, these tabs were so big not a person in the world could miss them, now they still have a way to switch to "Ending Soonest" on the page but its really small and on a pull down, hidden almost.
This was the "Auction Killer" ... you cannot auction item and have them ending in 20 minutes and them being on page 3 ... just not gonna work, Auctions do move up the list as they come close to ending (sometimes)but it all depends on how big of a seller you are, if you dont sell much then you are completely screwed, if you are a bigger seller then you are just regular screwed if you auction with this "Best Match" versus "Ending Soonest" search.
These changes were made for only one reason and one reason only, to get the "Diamond Sellers" to come on board with Ebay, I mean this is common sense, otherwise this would have never been changed, it just would not make any sense, Diamond Sellers had to have a perk to bother listing on Ebay, Donahoe made such a huge mistake by doing this ... his thinking was, lets get huge sellers to bolster the numbers so Ebay can keep a good average of items on Ebay all the time, instead of the ups and downs, this should have kept stock prices in check, I repeat should have.
But he did not realize what kind of site he was actually running, he thought he worked at Amazon instead of the Worlds Largest Flea Market, thus bring in only Diamond Sellers and have them on top of all the smaller sellers thus giving the majority of the best placement on Ebay for them and putting all the smaller sellers lower in the catagory list, well this pissed off the smaller sellers and they just stopped listing or slowed because their listing were getting no views because of the bad placement on the catagory listings.
Now what do we have? Well we have thousands of the same items that are placed high in all catagories that you can buy on any site of the internet and all the one off items from smaller sellers and "All Auctions" are buried, when you are a small seller you also have to pay the full price on FEE's ... Diamond Sellers pay no listing fee's ... Thus can flood Ebay with whatever and at whatever price with no penalty.
See I Remember when Ebay was courting the Chinese sellers years ago, they gave them free listing fee's as well, they flooded the entire site with FAKE NIKES, I mean it was crazy the amount of fake Nikes Ebay had on ... you would have to go through pages and pages just to find a seller that was from the United States and then they were few and far between and no they werent only selling Fake Nikes, they were selling Fakes of all kinds, Ebay finally had to get rid of the Chinese Sellers, it drove Ebays fraud to a new high, then they finally realized ok that was a bad move, Meg Whitmans move by the way, these policies have been handed down to John Donahoe as you can see.
Now we have Dimaond Sellers, which are on par with the failed Chinese idea they used years ago, just with different metrics ... Donahoe thought this will be a great idea, but now he is swimming in problems ... the smaller sellers actually paid to list on Ebay, Diamond Sellers do not ... Diamond Sellers have their own websites which when you buy and item from them on Ebay they give you coupons to go to their own websites, Smaller Sellers kept people on Ebay because they didnt have their own websites.
Smaller sellers only have unique items and they also buy here, Diamond sellers dont buy from Ebay, at least not anywhere close to the percentage that a small seller would, smaller sellers pay the highest fee's, buy the most off Ebay once they sell their wares, in some cases small sellers would buy 100% of the money they made on Ebay, example sell 10 $10.00 items and then get something they want for $100.00 ... this keep the Ebay economy running like a small planet, now the planet that was created buy the small seller is in depression in the same way the World is in its own small way, think about it.
Donahoe was totally spoofed by these huge online sellers, now he has no idea what he's going to do, you think this moron will swallow his pride and say ooops I messed up??? lol NO WAY IN HELL ... We small sellers are noise and he would never bow to us, he would much rather take his millions and leave than ever ever saying he made a mistake.
Well there is a "HUGE" reason Auctions are on the decline, VERY HUGE!
Lets say you have an auction:
One item at a time comes onto the "Block" at a time, right? (or top of the list on Ebay)
Well with Ebays "Best Match" search your item almost never see's the "Auction Block" ... its sort of like having an auction and having a table full of items in the basment somewhere hoping someone will wander down there and bid on one of your items, because now on Ebay your item almost never comes to the top of the catagory list (I call it your time in the light) no one really can auction on Ebay anymore because there's is about a 99.999% chance that your item wont reach the top of the list when its ending and thats a Huge, Huge problem for Auctions!
Thats is the whole premise of "Auctioning" an item because it gets total attention at some point, (once it reaches the top of the list or "Auction Block")
On Ebay this doesnt happen anymore with the "Best Match" search engine, so people are forced to only used fixed price or risk not getting a bid or even worse getting only the opening bid.'
Best Match search killed the Auction business and thats a 100% guaranteed fact ... I mean this is common sense here, not hard to figure out why this is happening at all.
They made best match to cater to Diamond sellers so their fixed price items would always be near the top of the list or the top of the list, because they dont auction items and Best Match was the only way they could manage to do this.
Yeah they make more like 15% or more once you figure in PayPal
Thats one of their problems, Ebay used to be cheap to list and sell on, now once you sell it you are almost afraid to see what profit you end up with, 15% of gross or more is usually 100% of alot of people's profit, thus people ran to Craigs list or something like that.
They kept raising their rates to stay with Amazon, you are making tons of cash every quarter so lets raise our rates to what others charge and make some more money lol
Did it work?? hell no! ... why? because people sold alot of used item and such on Ebay and didnt use Amazon, now that they are both pretty much the same price people gave up or went looking for a better or cheaper place.
Why raise rates sky high when you got all the people using you? ... So people will get mad and discover other web sites? another complete blunder by Meg and John Donahoe, people have left and are finding other places all because they just couldnt afford to list and couldnt figure out how to list, they made it from simple to now complicated as hell for a newer user.
Think, why would they keep raising fee's when the were clearly making tons of money, why raise it to what others charge to make people look other places?
High fee's might have worked in the 90's because no other existed like Ebay, now just about any person can make their own site for practically nothing or go to one of 100 other sites, good move Ebay you made the wrong move for years, its just finally amplified by the economic times and your turn to wanting to sell items that are on a 1000 other sites instead of being unique.
Lets talk about the economic times, Ebay should be blasting every other site out of the water right now if they would have stuck to what worked, low fee's and a level playing field for all sellers, the Diamond sellers are now sticking it to Ebay and they have to take it because Donahoe ran everyone else off by giving Diamond sellers a elevated level in search and free listings of NON UNIQUE items that everyone else on the web sells including the Diamond sellers, these people all have their own websites which when you buy from them on Ebay they send you coupons to use at their own website and basically tell you not to buy from them on Ebay .. go to their own website lol
Donahoe I wish you would read these because they are 100% true, you and Meg ruined Ebay and people that sold there, soon I hope the media will turn on you and report whats really going on on Ebay and send you packing without a cent to your name.
CEO's should be held 100% liable for what they do to a company, especially this guy, he has openly insulted smaller sellers by calling them "noise", this guy needs slapped by everyone from the stockholders to the sellers and even the buyers, because if it werent for Donahoe and Meg the buyers would be paying alot less for items on Ebay right now, fee's fee's and more fee's is all they know.
Think about this, Ebay got rid of 1500 Employee's ... 1500 x $30,000 average salary is another 45 million, they would have went down last quarter, instead of 91 million make it 136 million ... again Donahoe thinks short term to keep the stock afloat as long as he can because this moron really thinks these changes they made will work,
I have no idea why the board of directors of this company keeps letting this go on, its seems criminal too me.
Funny they get rid of 1500 customer service people to streamline the site??? these people buying shares of this company seem to be falling for this, this stock is worthless.
I remember the look on the guys face interviewing Donahoe on CNBC it was priceless, he sort of gave him a look like: ummm are you really saying this and trying to make me believe this is a good move, I am not that dumb ... this Donahoe keeps saying this stuff and people used to actually believe it for some reason, I can look at that guy and see he is just a fool/liar and totally out of his league, he should have never been a CEO of a company like this or any other if you ask me.
As far as PayPal, well PayPal was built by Ebay users long before Ebay owned it, Ebay had its own Credit processor it was called "Billpoint" and it was a miserable failure, Why you ask? cause of Meg running it and the disruptive policies of Ebay.
Once Ebay goes those people will go to another processor and PayPal will be old hat and again worthless, the only reason PayPal worked is because of Ebay, when you got 100's of millions of people using Ebay and sign up for that processor its just convienent to use it because you already have it ... once Ebay gives up its market share to another big auction site or sites they will then use that processor, people dont give a damn about PayPal, its just easy because they already use it, but if sellers change whom they take payments from, its done.
If another site opens and all the sellers use another processor because its cheaper to use its over for PayPal, PayPal owns nothing and sells nothing its just a processor, I am sure any company in the world would process for half as much as PayPal does when you have the super high level of transactions, you can discount fee's heavily.
PayPal used to be basically free or charge very little before Ebay owned it and that site made tons of cash and didnt screw everyone in the process, Ebay has made the U.S. a monopoly as far as processing goes making us only take instant payments and no money orders, I mean they dont force you to use PayPal but thats what everyone is used to on Ebay so giving us a choice of that or some unknown processor or NOTHING makes it total BS.
Will eBay Spin Off PayPal and Skype? [View article]
Before the end of last year is when all the rates started going sky high at Ebay and well before that, every year their was a huge increase in listing prices thus people thinking i cannot afford to list their anymore, it was all Ebays' doing that this happened, its called greed, people selling used items cannot afford that, check Craigs List its alive and well thats where all the people went to rid themselves of used items and basically all kind of other stuff, people just got sick of geting stabbed on listing fee's and paypal fee's it just wasnt worth all the trouble anymore, when you get rid of all those people that were selling then you also rid yourself of the buyers, because on Ebay the people trying to make small change were also buying items, the thing thats not understood on Ebay that well is people are creatures of habit, if they are now selling on other venues thats where they will buy, thus goes the traffic.
Ebay charging these sky high rates ruined them, they are just a listing engine, they own nothing they sell nothing, why would they think they are even entitled to a 15% to 20% gross of others merchandice and that would succeed??? ... can you even think how much a % of gross that is?? On a flea market style item? ... cripes that in some cases could be 100% of the profit.
If Ebay closed tomorrow PayPal would be worthless as well, dont you remember that Ebay didnt always own PayPal, they hated PayPal and all the people that now use Paypal was from people that used Ebay in the 90's ... If someone else opened a site like Ebay and had their own PayPal type of processor it would end up being used in the same way and people would then migrate to that, the people that have run Ebay have their heads in the clouds and every last one of them should be FIRED!
Will eBay Spin Off PayPal and Skype? [View article]
The Flea market beat the hell out of Amazon for years as far as sales go.
But I ask you something why would they even want to compare themselves to what is going on at Amazon? Ebay was Ebay a totally different venue and thus totally different metrics, sort of like comparing an apple seed to a pepper seed, them being both seeds is about all they have in common.
Now that Ebay has turned to an Amazon like platform its getting beat ... Amazon is Amazon, Ebay is Ebay comparing the two is apples and oranges until Donahoe decided hey lets be just like Amazon, why would you want to be like another site that you are beating?
Think about it Ebay wanting to be like Amazon was about the dumbest move in history, you will always have people that like going to auctions and flea markets and you will always have people that want to go to Target, but why make yourself the same place??? or try to? thats just Stupid in all ways, you cannot sell unique items on Amazon its just not set up to do that. You want a "vintage" new pair of Nikes?? can you get it from Amazon?? nope ... want an antique chair can you get it at Amazon?? nope ... used car? nope etc etc etc. only a flea market can give you that, that was their niche.
Amazon is the Walmart of the online selling sites, Ebay isnt that or should I say "Wasn't" ... thats the whole problem, Ebay made money and increased their profitability every quarter until the decided to be something they are not.
Them trying to be like Amazon has to be about the Dumbest move I have ever seen, John Donahoe is just a total idiot and Meg didnt have much of a brain for the kind of site she was running, perhaps she would have done better at Amazon, they think like major retailors not flea market mentality or auction mentality, they just didn't have a clue about why the site was so profitable.
Meg did well because Ebay was a giant and like a giant it does well no matter who's at the helm for a while, until too many changes are made and it all starts crumbling because other giants built their own house instead of trying to copy their neighbors house like Ebay decided to do.
Will eBay Spin Off PayPal and Skype? [View article]
Ebay should be doing better because of a bad economy, when the economy is bad, Ebay was good before, now that this moron Donahoe has turned Ebay into every other site on the internet its not unique, people came to Ebay because they could not find another venue that was like Ebay, now its like every other venue on the internet ... He has filled Ebay with Diamond sellers that have their own websites and list for free on Ebay and flood it with stuff that can be found anywhere on the internet and usually at a lower price( once you buy from a Diamond seller you get notes to buy direct from their website with a discount, thus pulling you from Ebay, mom and pop only use Ebay to sell and keep you there), \ Ebay used to be the only place to find unique items and that was the draw to the site to begin with, now its Walmart but more expensive and whats left of the "Unique" items are buried under all the free listings by the Diamond sellers which have a dismal selling rate and poor customer service but yet rate high in "best match" search thus bringing all the crap to the top and hiding the "Unique" items that Ebay was the only place to get that stuff at.
Wait til next quarter you want to see a fire sale on this stock, that "Live" search by "Microsoft" that Ebay had been advertising with was giving 30% to 35% off if you used "PayPal" in December and now those payments are being paid out, I got mine yesterday, you think Microsoft was footing the bill on that? no way! (Everyone else in "Live" search was only giving maybe 5%) Ebay was definatly subsidizing alot of that and still Ebay sales went down???? They were basically giving you 30% to 35% cash back on any "Buy it Now" on Ebay thats a ton of cash and will come due this first quarter, I know some people that are getting over $2000.00 back from that gimmick and still Ebay sales were down????? HELLO DONAHOE are you a total MORON or WHAT!!!!!!! YOUR CHANGES HAVE RUINED EBAY!!!!!!!!!
Even giving stuff away did not work., were they giving stuff away on Amazon?? ummm Hell No!
Keep the spin going, it seems that even the board of directors have thrown in with you because they want to hold on to their jobs as long as they can, before some conglomerate buys all you idiots out.
Ebay is now begging for people to put on 1 to 3 day auctions, ummm how can we do that when you made search not bring items ending soonest to the top and traffic is down on the site??? Like who wants to give stuff away??? because no one will ever see it. (again problem Diamond sellers and Best Match search)
Fact is when "Best Match" search came into play as their default search it ruined Ebay and you just cant auction like you used to be able to without losing money almost every time, the day he did that he started giving "Diamond" sellers free listings was a very bad day and watchers of items went down at least 80% on items because they were buried by all the "Diamond" sellers listing at prices that are high and no one will pay and buried all the deals.
Buyers at Ebay just started giving up on even looking on Ebay anymore because the stuff they used to be able to find just wasnt there (it was stil there but buried deep in search, most people that use Ebay dont even know that you can change that search to ending soonest. thats the problem) eventually even the sellers that had the unique items gave up on Auctions because no one could find them and if they did you would get maybe one or two people that would even bid because they took the time to find the buried stuff and you got killed on that auction, so Ebay sellers had no choice but to use "Buy it Now" and again their prices are lower than the "Diamond" sellers but were buried under them and would get hardly no sales so pretty much gave up.
The star system is a good idea that has really horrible problems, the shipping star is just ridiculas, it says right in the description what the shipping is so if you buy it you must be happy with the shipping costs right??? if not DONT BUY IT!!!! then be mad later ...
4 stars is a good rating according to Ebay, but if you actually get 4 stars you are kicked off Ebay, how crazy is that??? ... If you are going to make 4 Stars a bad thing perhaps you might not want to put that 4 stars is a GOOD rating right on the Ebay rating page, when people that get 4 Stars lose all selling privledges!!!!!!!
Meg Whitman had made such a damn mess of Ebay before she left it was sad, anyone could have grown that company at the time by just leaving it alone. Now we got her underling John Donahoe to enact policies that they worked on together but all at once then BANG EBAY IS DEAD! .... Do you see any whizz bang changes on say Craigs List??? ummm no ... you stick with what works!!!!!!!!! I mean that site is OLD OLD School style ... Bring Ebay back to what it looked like in the late 90's and it will all be back and LOWER THE DAMN FEE's so people will be able to actually find bargains!!! Stop screwing the small seller that made EBAY! and stop insulting the small sellers calling them "NOISE"!!!!!!!
Looks like the Noise was 100% correct Donahoe, you were the Noise and your pompass atitude towards the small sellers will eventually put you out of a job and possibly even criminal charges or at least a place on the list of other failed CEO's that ruined the company, you CEO's need to start being held accountable for your stupid management, stock holders and customer lose money then you should have to pay and lose everything you have, thats what you've done to us, "An Eye For An Eye" should be how these CEO's have got to start being treated and maybe they will start actually doing their job because their own wealth is on the line!
STOP Dictating what we can ship for what stuff gets a higher rate in "Best Match" all LEVEL playing field is all we ask!! ... Dont give one group a better chance just because they list 100,000 items that can be found anywhere online .. THAT KILLED EBAY!! ... competition and level playing field is what will make Ebay profitable and bring people back, this whole "They are charging too much for shipping) is just stupid, DONT BUY OFF THAT PERSON! ... thus wrings them out of the system, they charge too much for an item? again they get wrung out of the sytem til they lower their prices, Diamond sellers can usually sell for less because they have no Listing Fee's!!! and alot of times they sell for the same price or more than others because Ebay puts them at the top in search!
eBay in the Basement - But Not for Long [View article]
They are trying to recapture small sellers by giving big box sellers free listings? and make the small sellers pay full price.
Things go up? Yeah I agree with that but you dont raise Final Value fee's for small sellers 50% in some cases its been 60% in one month, thats nutts!
Big box sellers dont give a damn about the final value fee's because they get free listing and when you get free listing you can list the same boring item over and over again until you get the higher price you want or do they really care if it sells on Ebay? ... they have their own websites!!! ... they figure if you are dumb enough to buy it on Ebay then go for it, meanwhile all those sellers Ebay lets them use their business website name for their Ebay user ID, anyone with a brain just adds .com to it and buys it directly from them.
eBay in the Basement - But Not for Long [View article]
Another thing this guy does not understand some sellers are still holding on and selling on Ebay but their fee's have gone up at least 40% ... alot of those people will have to stop selling on there or have stopped because the fee's are just crazy now, so the revenue you seen go up in the first half of the year was because the fee's were jacked to the moon for the sellers that actually sold their items, there were less sellers but tons of new Final Value fee's disguised as a discount lol ... caught most sellers by surprise and they delt with it because they had no exit plan at that time, now the exits have signage and people are finding all the doors and the tricks the big box sellers are using, I am telling you do not invest in this stock, go buy some Amazon if you want a internet marketplace stock, its doing what its been doing all along ... Ebay had 100% of the market share of auctions and they DID WORK PERFECTLY! ..auctions were key, we could put something on Ebay and basically list it at a very low starting price and then say the hell with it and it went up and sold, you cannot do that now because of the low traffic issue and this IGNORANT BEST MATCH SEARCH!, so now we have to start auctions at a much higher price because there is a huge risk we will lose money, thus the reason behind why Ebay is trying to get everyone to use "Fixed Priced Listing" ... the only reason auctions slowed was because OF THE FEE'S!!!! ... we can no longer say the hell with it when we list, I used to say oh well that guy got a deal, but I made it on another item it was fun looking at the auctions everyday, now its just plain scary at times ... Auctions are still the key to Ebay ... this fixed price bullshit is what ruined Ebay if you ask me.
eBay in the Basement - But Not for Long [View article]
This guy has no clue, he needs to sell a few things on Ebay to see what is really going on ... this moron Donahoe kissed the asses of all these big sellers and let them list for free so they can steal those same customers and take them to their own site, meanwhile basically telling all the smaller sellers to go to hell, the same ones that made Ebay famous for unique items, comparing Ebay to Amazon is just plain foolish when it comes to making money on their stocks ... if and when this idiot Donahoe fully completes taking this company fully to a Amazon like website its game over for Ebay ... you see this moron Donahoe made Ebay now fully exposed to the downturn in consumer spending by only catering to the big seller with new items, in a less than good economy people buy used and or bargains on Ebay, big box sellers wont offer any kind of deals on their items, hell that same stuff is listed all over the internet ... this can be short term a great idea for a bigger seller to discount items to get the email addresses of their buyer and drag them over to their site, its cheap advertisement for them and once they hook them, its bye bye Ebay ... I cannot believe someone has not put a bag over Donahoe and punched him in the face by now, this guy needs shaken hard, you talk about someone that has absolutley no damn clue what he is doing, its almost shocking ... these analysts only see what Donahoe see's, but to the rest of us on the inside of Ebay (the smaller sellers) its as plain as could be ... this stock is "junk" their feedback rating is zero ... he gives big sellers that screw Ebay in the end free listing and jack the smaller unique sellers fee's to the moon, now how stupid is that? ... you can buy what the big box sellers have anywhere on the internet, small sellers items have a huge huge sell through thus pay even more in fee's and they actually sell their items, but at a much higher cost, now the small seller has to raise their prices to sell on Ebay to cover the fee's and now instead of Ebay having good deals the prices are getting or have surpassed what other sites sell the same items for .... GET DONAHOE OUT OF THERE !!! JESUS!!!!!!!!!!
Ever send a 2 pound package? I sure cant send one for $4 bucks ... I ship USPS priority and its no less than $6 up to $10 dpending on distance sent ... Ebay wants the sellers to pay higher fee's and pay the shipping? ... You know what that means? Higher initial prices, I mean the money has to come from somewhere ... I mean if you cant make money on Ebay it dies, the only reason the shipping has gotten higher was because of their increases in fee's every 6 months, besides natural selection kills off the overly high priced shipping sellers and leaves the ones that charge the correct rate ... now with the DSR's if you charge too much for shipping you lose all your search and all your discounts when the buyer dings your DSR's and now if you get a 4.3 or lower on your DSR's you cannot sell on Ebay and 4.3 out of a possible 5 stars pretty much means you better get 5 stars just about every time your sell something, Ebay does not give a buyer a choice and you cannot pick like 4.5 stars, its either 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. ... get 10 buyers that give you 5 stars and 1 out of the 10 gives you one star even if by accident you are now at 4 Stars and are kicked off Ebay, well not kicked off but you cannot sell anymore, but they will let you buy items, lol how nice of them.
This is all Ebay spin to make shareholders think this is going to be great, just like when they raised all the seller rates several months back ... their 3rd quarter on Ebay is going to be a disaster ... they were giving fee shipping coupons to everyone and Ebay Bucks for purchases, remember all that comes due this quarter coming up and comes right out of Ebay's pocket, so the money they made by raising sellers fee's last quarter is all going to be gone, gone, gone this quarter, low sell through because of Best Match, so thus not as much final value fee's (thats where the real money comes from) ... tons of non-paying bidders thus no sell through and refunds on final value fee's back to the sellers, mark my word 3rd quarter will look like a fire sale ... how cant it??? ... All Ebay knows how to do it raise fee's, then sellers have to raise their prices causing "no sales" ... Ebay doesnt realize when you have a wide selection and low prices you dont have to do much because people will find you ... now Ebay with high prices and a ton of high priced junk that people cant sell in a week will clog and kill Ebay ... quick turnover helps Ebay and helps sellers because they can sell cheaper because they know its going to sell and they can get another item on quick and sell that, Ebay has to get their minds around this, the new management are just so unbelievabley stupid its almost shocking they dont know this basic stategy.
eBay Dangles a Carrot to Pacify Its Sellers [View article]
Power Sellers with 4.9 or better rating stars have got this 20% discount since early 2009 so thats old new's for them.
Whats a newer developement and not ever talked about by Ebay is the fact that Power Sellers got a 40% discount on their Final Value Fee's if they offered "Free Shipping" that is "gone" now, they can only get 20% off max, since this new developement of giving regular sellers 20% off with high DSR score.
So the Power Sellers with 4.9 Stars that offered Free Shipping their Ebay bill has actually gone up 20% ... if you look on Ebay in the past month all the Power Sellers have removed the Free Shipping option.
More Spin from Ebay to screw those who sell and list the most product, so in the end this is just more price raising by Ebay.
The free auction 5 listings a month arent free by any means, they almost double the Final Value Fee's if you would happen to sell those 5 items.
So basically they are charging more once again, people need to dig into these policies more than what Ebay spoon feeds them, its just another increase hidden by Ebay spin folks.
eBay: Out with the New, In with the Old [View article]
So basically they are at it again, more change to the way Ebay runs like last year, these damn fools are just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks, John Donahoe in his utter smugness will never say I messed up Ebay and I will change it back ... this guy has an ego that is borderline psychotic, he definatly has some kind of syndrome to be doing all this, everything you look at shows that changing all the dynamics toward "Fixed Price" and raising the Final Value Fee's has failed and failed big time.
I had to adjust everything I do on Ebay just to adapt to their constant crap because I was in a bad way and just could not drop everything and start on another site.
I used to auction everything, start low and let it go and did pretty good, then came the "Best Match" and the Fixed Price Monsters, I was like for about 2 months what the hell is going on I am losing my arse!
You cannot Auction on Ebay anymore, it just doesnt work ... how can you auction and have your item thats ending sometimes being on page 3 ??? of Best Match search??? in a word .. YOU CAN'T! ... well you can, but you will lose money.
They brag how Fixed Price sales went up .. well duh yeah, thats because you can't auction on there anymore and any seller that makes alot of sales monthly knows this.
The only way you can auction on Ebay and not lose money is have an item that tons of people want and you are the only one that has it, while I do every once in a while have that, maybe once a month its so rare to have something that would do better at auction than in fixed price its scary, sort of like 99.9999% you should not auction your item, versus what it used to be Auction was the way to go ... lower fee's on sold items and lots of people bidding, after Jan. of 2008 that all changed, no traffic to auctions and rare making money ability, basically a shot in the dark you would actually get a bidder then and now.
You want to get rid of items just to dump it?? Oh yeah auctions are the way to go start them $50 to $100 items at .99 cents and they'll sell lol ... but at .99 cents lol cause you wont have but maybe one bidder if you are lucky.
John and Lorrie are brain dead, Meg was actually the person that ruined Ebay these fools are just following the direction Meg wanted to go in anyway ... Meg got her job at Ebay when a monkey could have made it a billion dollar company, it was the only game in town, or should I say the world?? Yes World! ... Her hiking of fee's and stupid policies are what made people look elsewhere to find other places to sell for years and years, they should have kept fee's very low then people would have had no reason to ever leave or look anywhere else and Ebay would be at least 3 times the size it is now.
Sort of like selling hamburgers ... would you rather sell 100, $1.00 hamburgers and make 100 dollars or sell two $50 hamburgers and still make $100 ... while the later sounds great but if the 2 people dont show up that day to buy your $50 hamburgers you make ZERO ... if 2 people dont show up to buy the $1 burgers you are only down $2 ....
Thus thats why they raised their rates last year cause they peeved off alot of people and had to collect more fee's from less people to make the same amount, that worked for about the first 5 or 6 months until people really noticed hey these fee's are crazy and thought to themselves I am not making money and left Ebay for anywhere else they could find.
Just my opinion, but I think its pretty close to what is going on.
Sorry for the long post lol
How to Fix eBay [View article]
This was implemented to court the "Diamond" sellers, they do not auction items and their listings are long term, thus they would not have come up to the top of the catagory list when the default search was "Ending Soonest" ... But when in "Best Match" mode and with all the metrics used, Free Shipping, Items Sold and just the basic preferred status they get from Ebay puts the "Diamond" sellers up to the top of the catagories.
The author doesnt realize that Ebay did have the "Auctions" and the "Buy it Nows" or "Fixed Price" as they call it now, totally integrated the day before they started this "Best Match" search system, this was about a year ago and before.
It worked like this:
All search was defaulted to "Ending Soonest" ... but along the top of the page there were HUGE YELLOW tabs that all you had to do was click that would just show you "FIXED PRICE" items only, that worked well for years, these tabs were so big not a person in the world could miss them, now they still have a way to switch to "Ending Soonest" on the page but its really small and on a pull down, hidden almost.
This was the "Auction Killer" ... you cannot auction item and have them ending in 20 minutes and them being on page 3 ... just not gonna work, Auctions do move up the list as they come close to ending (sometimes)but it all depends on how big of a seller you are, if you dont sell much then you are completely screwed, if you are a bigger seller then you are just regular screwed if you auction with this "Best Match" versus "Ending Soonest" search.
These changes were made for only one reason and one reason only, to get the "Diamond Sellers" to come on board with Ebay, I mean this is common sense, otherwise this would have never been changed, it just would not make any sense, Diamond Sellers had to have a perk to bother listing on Ebay, Donahoe made such a huge mistake by doing this ... his thinking was, lets get huge sellers to bolster the numbers so Ebay can keep a good average of items on Ebay all the time, instead of the ups and downs, this should have kept stock prices in check, I repeat should have.
But he did not realize what kind of site he was actually running, he thought he worked at Amazon instead of the Worlds Largest Flea Market, thus bring in only Diamond Sellers and have them on top of all the smaller sellers thus giving the majority of the best placement on Ebay for them and putting all the smaller sellers lower in the catagory list, well this pissed off the smaller sellers and they just stopped listing or slowed because their listing were getting no views because of the bad placement on the catagory listings.
Now what do we have? Well we have thousands of the same items that are placed high in all catagories that you can buy on any site of the internet and all the one off items from smaller sellers and "All Auctions" are buried, when you are a small seller you also have to pay the full price on FEE's ... Diamond Sellers pay no listing fee's ... Thus can flood Ebay with whatever and at whatever price with no penalty.
See I Remember when Ebay was courting the Chinese sellers years ago, they gave them free listing fee's as well, they flooded the entire site with FAKE NIKES, I mean it was crazy the amount of fake Nikes Ebay had on ... you would have to go through pages and pages just to find a seller that was from the United States and then they were few and far between and no they werent only selling Fake Nikes, they were selling Fakes of all kinds, Ebay finally had to get rid of the Chinese Sellers, it drove Ebays fraud to a new high, then they finally realized ok that was a bad move, Meg Whitmans move by the way, these policies have been handed down to John Donahoe as you can see.
Now we have Dimaond Sellers, which are on par with the failed Chinese idea they used years ago, just with different metrics ... Donahoe thought this will be a great idea, but now he is swimming in problems ... the smaller sellers actually paid to list on Ebay, Diamond Sellers do not ... Diamond Sellers have their own websites which when you buy and item from them on Ebay they give you coupons to go to their own websites, Smaller Sellers kept people on Ebay because they didnt have their own websites.
Smaller sellers only have unique items and they also buy here, Diamond sellers dont buy from Ebay, at least not anywhere close to the percentage that a small seller would, smaller sellers pay the highest fee's, buy the most off Ebay once they sell their wares, in some cases small sellers would buy 100% of the money they made on Ebay, example sell 10 $10.00 items and then get something they want for $100.00 ... this keep the Ebay economy running like a small planet, now the planet that was created buy the small seller is in depression in the same way the World is in its own small way, think about it.
Donahoe was totally spoofed by these huge online sellers, now he has no idea what he's going to do, you think this moron will swallow his pride and say ooops I messed up??? lol NO WAY IN HELL ... We small sellers are noise and he would never bow to us, he would much rather take his millions and leave than ever ever saying he made a mistake.
Amazon vs. eBay: Follow Up Q&A [View article]
Lets say you have an auction:
One item at a time comes onto the "Block" at a time, right? (or top of the list on Ebay)
Well with Ebays "Best Match" search your item almost never see's the "Auction Block" ... its sort of like having an auction and having a table full of items in the basment somewhere hoping someone will wander down there and bid on one of your items, because now on Ebay your item almost never comes to the top of the catagory list (I call it your time in the light) no one really can auction on Ebay anymore because there's is about a 99.999% chance that your item wont reach the top of the list when its ending and thats a Huge, Huge problem for Auctions!
Thats is the whole premise of "Auctioning" an item because it gets total attention at some point, (once it reaches the top of the list or "Auction Block")
On Ebay this doesnt happen anymore with the "Best Match" search engine, so people are forced to only used fixed price or risk not getting a bid or even worse getting only the opening bid.'
Best Match search killed the Auction business and thats a 100% guaranteed fact ... I mean this is common sense here, not hard to figure out why this is happening at all.
They made best match to cater to Diamond sellers so their fixed price items would always be near the top of the list or the top of the list, because they dont auction items and Best Match was the only way they could manage to do this.
eBay Worsening [View article]
Thats one of their problems, Ebay used to be cheap to list and sell on, now once you sell it you are almost afraid to see what profit you end up with, 15% of gross or more is usually 100% of alot of people's profit, thus people ran to Craigs list or something like that.
They kept raising their rates to stay with Amazon, you are making tons of cash every quarter so lets raise our rates to what others charge and make some more money lol
Did it work?? hell no! ... why? because people sold alot of used item and such on Ebay and didnt use Amazon, now that they are both pretty much the same price people gave up or went looking for a better or cheaper place.
Why raise rates sky high when you got all the people using you? ... So people will get mad and discover other web sites? another complete blunder by Meg and John Donahoe, people have left and are finding other places all because they just couldnt afford to list and couldnt figure out how to list, they made it from simple to now complicated as hell for a newer user.
Think, why would they keep raising fee's when the were clearly making tons of money, why raise it to what others charge to make people look other places?
High fee's might have worked in the 90's because no other existed like Ebay, now just about any person can make their own site for practically nothing or go to one of 100 other sites, good move Ebay you made the wrong move for years, its just finally amplified by the economic times and your turn to wanting to sell items that are on a 1000 other sites instead of being unique.
Lets talk about the economic times, Ebay should be blasting every other site out of the water right now if they would have stuck to what worked, low fee's and a level playing field for all sellers, the Diamond sellers are now sticking it to Ebay and they have to take it because Donahoe ran everyone else off by giving Diamond sellers a elevated level in search and free listings of NON UNIQUE items that everyone else on the web sells including the Diamond sellers, these people all have their own websites which when you buy from them on Ebay they send you coupons to use at their own website and basically tell you not to buy from them on Ebay .. go to their own website lol
Donahoe I wish you would read these because they are 100% true, you and Meg ruined Ebay and people that sold there, soon I hope the media will turn on you and report whats really going on on Ebay and send you packing without a cent to your name.
CEO's should be held 100% liable for what they do to a company, especially this guy, he has openly insulted smaller sellers by calling them "noise", this guy needs slapped by everyone from the stockholders to the sellers and even the buyers, because if it werent for Donahoe and Meg the buyers would be paying alot less for items on Ebay right now, fee's fee's and more fee's is all they know.
eBay Worsening [View article]
I have no idea why the board of directors of this company keeps letting this go on, its seems criminal too me.
Funny they get rid of 1500 customer service people to streamline the site??? these people buying shares of this company seem to be falling for this, this stock is worthless.
I remember the look on the guys face interviewing Donahoe on CNBC it was priceless, he sort of gave him a look like: ummm are you really saying this and trying to make me believe this is a good move, I am not that dumb ... this Donahoe keeps saying this stuff and people used to actually believe it for some reason, I can look at that guy and see he is just a fool/liar and totally out of his league, he should have never been a CEO of a company like this or any other if you ask me.
As far as PayPal, well PayPal was built by Ebay users long before Ebay owned it, Ebay had its own Credit processor it was called "Billpoint" and it was a miserable failure, Why you ask? cause of Meg running it and the disruptive policies of Ebay.
Once Ebay goes those people will go to another processor and PayPal will be old hat and again worthless, the only reason PayPal worked is because of Ebay, when you got 100's of millions of people using Ebay and sign up for that processor its just convienent to use it because you already have it ... once Ebay gives up its market share to another big auction site or sites they will then use that processor, people dont give a damn about PayPal, its just easy because they already use it, but if sellers change whom they take payments from, its done.
If another site opens and all the sellers use another processor because its cheaper to use its over for PayPal, PayPal owns nothing and sells nothing its just a processor, I am sure any company in the world would process for half as much as PayPal does when you have the super high level of transactions, you can discount fee's heavily.
PayPal used to be basically free or charge very little before Ebay owned it and that site made tons of cash and didnt screw everyone in the process, Ebay has made the U.S. a monopoly as far as processing goes making us only take instant payments and no money orders, I mean they dont force you to use PayPal but thats what everyone is used to on Ebay so giving us a choice of that or some unknown processor or NOTHING makes it total BS.
Will eBay Spin Off PayPal and Skype? [View article]
Ebay charging these sky high rates ruined them, they are just a listing engine, they own nothing they sell nothing, why would they think they are even entitled to a 15% to 20% gross of others merchandice and that would succeed??? ... can you even think how much a % of gross that is?? On a flea market style item? ... cripes that in some cases could be 100% of the profit.
If Ebay closed tomorrow PayPal would be worthless as well, dont you remember that Ebay didnt always own PayPal, they hated PayPal and all the people that now use Paypal was from people that used Ebay in the 90's ... If someone else opened a site like Ebay and had their own PayPal type of processor it would end up being used in the same way and people would then migrate to that, the people that have run Ebay have their heads in the clouds and every last one of them should be FIRED!
Will eBay Spin Off PayPal and Skype? [View article]
But I ask you something why would they even want to compare themselves to what is going on at Amazon? Ebay was Ebay a totally different venue and thus totally different metrics, sort of like comparing an apple seed to a pepper seed, them being both seeds is about all they have in common.
Now that Ebay has turned to an Amazon like platform its getting beat ... Amazon is Amazon, Ebay is Ebay comparing the two is apples and oranges until Donahoe decided hey lets be just like Amazon, why would you want to be like another site that you are beating?
Think about it Ebay wanting to be like Amazon was about the dumbest move in history, you will always have people that like going to auctions and flea markets and you will always have people that want to go to Target, but why make yourself the same place??? or try to? thats just Stupid in all ways, you cannot sell unique items on Amazon its just not set up to do that.
You want a "vintage" new pair of Nikes?? can you get it from Amazon?? nope ... want an antique chair can you get it at Amazon?? nope ... used car? nope etc etc etc. only a flea market can give you that, that was their niche.
Amazon is the Walmart of the online selling sites, Ebay isnt that or should I say "Wasn't" ... thats the whole problem, Ebay made money and increased their profitability every quarter until the decided to be something they are not.
Them trying to be like Amazon has to be about the Dumbest move I have ever seen, John Donahoe is just a total idiot and Meg didnt have much of a brain for the kind of site she was running, perhaps she would have done better at Amazon, they think like major retailors not flea market mentality or auction mentality, they just didn't have a clue about why the site was so profitable.
Meg did well because Ebay was a giant and like a giant it does well no matter who's at the helm for a while, until too many changes are made and it all starts crumbling because other giants built their own house instead of trying to copy their neighbors house like Ebay decided to do.
Will eBay Spin Off PayPal and Skype? [View article]
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Ebay used to be the only place to find unique items and that was the draw to the site to begin with, now its Walmart but more expensive and whats left of the "Unique" items are buried under all the free listings by the Diamond sellers which have a dismal selling rate and poor customer service but yet rate high in "best match" search thus bringing all the crap to the top and hiding the "Unique" items that Ebay was the only place to get that stuff at.
Wait til next quarter you want to see a fire sale on this stock, that "Live" search by "Microsoft" that Ebay had been advertising with was giving 30% to 35% off if you used "PayPal" in December and now those payments are being paid out, I got mine yesterday, you think Microsoft was footing the bill on that? no way! (Everyone else in "Live" search was only giving maybe 5%) Ebay was definatly subsidizing alot of that and still Ebay sales went down???? They were basically giving you 30% to 35% cash back on any "Buy it Now" on Ebay thats a ton of cash and will come due this first quarter, I know some people that are getting over $2000.00 back from that gimmick and still Ebay sales were down????? HELLO DONAHOE are you a total MORON or WHAT!!!!!!! YOUR CHANGES HAVE RUINED EBAY!!!!!!!!!
Even giving stuff away did not work., were they giving stuff away on Amazon?? ummm Hell No!
Keep the spin going, it seems that even the board of directors have thrown in with you because they want to hold on to their jobs as long as they can, before some conglomerate buys all you idiots out.
Ebay is now begging for people to put on 1 to 3 day auctions, ummm how can we do that when you made search not bring items ending soonest to the top and traffic is down on the site??? Like who wants to give stuff away??? because no one will ever see it. (again problem Diamond sellers and Best Match search)
Fact is when "Best Match" search came into play as their default search it ruined Ebay and you just cant auction like you used to be able to without losing money almost every time, the day he did that he started giving "Diamond" sellers free listings was a very bad day and watchers of items went down at least 80% on items because they were buried by all the "Diamond" sellers listing at prices that are high and no one will pay and buried all the deals.
Buyers at Ebay just started giving up on even looking on Ebay anymore because the stuff they used to be able to find just wasnt there (it was stil there but buried deep in search, most people that use Ebay dont even know that you can change that search to ending soonest. thats the problem) eventually even the sellers that had the unique items gave up on Auctions because no one could find them and if they did you would get maybe one or two people that would even bid because they took the time to find the buried stuff and you got killed on that auction, so Ebay sellers had no choice but to use "Buy it Now" and again their prices are lower than the "Diamond" sellers but were buried under them and would get hardly no sales so pretty much gave up.
The star system is a good idea that has really horrible problems, the shipping star is just ridiculas, it says right in the description what the shipping is so if you buy it you must be happy with the shipping costs right??? if not DONT BUY IT!!!! then be mad later ...
4 stars is a good rating according to Ebay, but if you actually get 4 stars you are kicked off Ebay, how crazy is that??? ... If you are going to make 4 Stars a bad thing perhaps you might not want to put that 4 stars is a GOOD rating right on the Ebay rating page, when people that get 4 Stars lose all selling privledges!!!!!!!
Meg Whitman had made such a damn mess of Ebay before she left it was sad, anyone could have grown that company at the time by just leaving it alone. Now we got her underling John Donahoe to enact policies that they worked on together but all at once then BANG EBAY IS DEAD! .... Do you see any whizz bang changes on say Craigs List??? ummm no ... you stick with what works!!!!!!!!! I mean that site is OLD OLD School style ... Bring Ebay back to what it looked like in the late 90's and it will all be back and LOWER THE DAMN FEE's so people will be able to actually find bargains!!! Stop screwing the small seller that made EBAY! and stop insulting the small sellers calling them "NOISE"!!!!!!!
Looks like the Noise was 100% correct Donahoe, you were the Noise and your pompass atitude towards the small sellers will eventually put you out of a job and possibly even criminal charges or at least a place on the list of other failed CEO's that ruined the company, you CEO's need to start being held accountable for your stupid management, stock holders and customer lose money then you should have to pay and lose everything you have, thats what you've done to us, "An Eye For An Eye" should be how these CEO's have got to start being treated and maybe they will start actually doing their job because their own wealth is on the line!
STOP Dictating what we can ship for what stuff gets a higher rate in "Best Match" all LEVEL playing field is all we ask!! ... Dont give one group a better chance just because they list 100,000 items that can be found anywhere online .. THAT KILLED EBAY!! ... competition and level playing field is what will make Ebay profitable and bring people back, this whole "They are charging too much for shipping) is just stupid, DONT BUY OFF THAT PERSON! ... thus wrings them out of the system, they charge too much for an item? again they get wrung out of the sytem til they lower their prices, Diamond sellers can usually sell for less because they have no Listing Fee's!!! and alot of times they sell for the same price or more than others because Ebay puts them at the top in search!
Hope Everyone has a Great Day!!
Thanks for reading my rant lol
eBay in the Basement - But Not for Long [View article]
Things go up? Yeah I agree with that but you dont raise Final Value fee's for small sellers 50% in some cases its been 60% in one month, thats nutts!
Big box sellers dont give a damn about the final value fee's because they get free listing and when you get free listing you can list the same boring item over and over again until you get the higher price you want or do they really care if it sells on Ebay? ... they have their own websites!!! ... they figure if you are dumb enough to buy it on Ebay then go for it, meanwhile all those sellers Ebay lets them use their business website name for their Ebay user ID, anyone with a brain just adds .com to it and buys it directly from them.
eBay in the Basement - But Not for Long [View article]
eBay in the Basement - But Not for Long [View article]
EBay: The Doldrum Years [View article]
EBay Survey Says People Buy Stuff They Don't Want [View article]
eBay Introduces New Listing Type [View article]