honeville

What Can eBay Do to Close Its Amazon Gap?

Ebay began to fall in Jan. 2005. Back then it was from greed and excessives fees that began a backlash against the company and began it's spiral into destruction. Amazon was just in the right place at the right time. Disgruntled and abused ebay sellers migrated to the river and the same forces that made a name for ebay began their work growing Amazon. 2006's outrageous "rebalance" fiasco only served to fuel the exodus as millions of media items left ebay to sell on the river. To continue ebay's pathway to destruction ebay showed the digital download business the door and they too landed on Amazon establishing it as their source for digital downloads. To ad insult to injury ebay began running sponsored ads in mid 2007, some of which were direct links to Amazon, showing ebays buyers where all those media items went to. As if all that wasn't enough ebay then implemented DSR's which uses POSITIVE comments from SATISIFIED customers NEGATIVELY against sellers and disadvangtages their items in their greatest stupidity ever... BEST MATCH. All while counting neutral feedbacks as negatives against sellers and prohibiting sellers from leaving turthful and accurate feedback regarding their customers if they had a negative experience. Ebay is nothing more than a teenager with an identity crisis. It woke up in it's teens and said "is this all that I am, am I nothing more", It's now desparate to shed it's identity and to break free of the chains inherant within it's brand. Can it shed it's identity and morph it's brand into that which it is not and wasn't created to be? Doubtful... but they are willing to die trying.

Amazon's Wheel of Growth

Scott, Scott, Scott... You failed to understand the impact of the july 19th, 2006 "Rebalance the marketplace" fiasco. Ebay purposefully jumped store insertion fees by 250%-450% in a stated effort to drive items out of stores and thereby revive core. They successfully drove out items by the millions but those millions of items didn't go to core... they went to AMAZON. "IT" was driven off ebay in mid-06, Amazon is where "IT" landed. Amazon reaped the rewards from ebay's rebalance. Then to add to the stupidity ebay plastered it's site with sponsored links to Amazon in search results in mid 07 sending buyers off ebay and to amazon to buy the items they came to ebay looking for.

No Christmas for eBay Sellers

As a long time seller on Ebay I have lost all confidence in the marketplace. I gave Ebay a vote of no confidence and CLOSED my store. Positive comments from Satisified customers are met with Negative consequences on Ebay. This is a serious flaw and management is too dysfuctional to address it. I asked why and instead of an answer I got suspended for 7 days... JUST FOR ASKING WHY! That's tyranical madness and total mis-management. I paid over $800.00 a month in fees I had a right to ask why positive comments from satisified customers are met with negative consequences on ebay. Truth is, they can't answer this question because the DSR system is flawed.

You can bet that sellers are going to have a great christmas this year! Consumers will flock to the internet like never before! Both my website and my amazon items are going thru the roof! In all likely hood I'll abandon ebay altogether sometime in 2009... or should I say, Ebay will abandon me because this shell of a dysfuctional site is not our fathers ebay.

eBay: A glimmer of Hope for Feedback

So what was the glimmer of hope here? Is Ebay going to address the problems with this stupid DSR system? You did get it right though... so long as positive comments from satisfied customers are met with negative results on ebay sellers will respond with apathy and simply speed up their off ebay ventures. I agree with you... I 'm behind the intent of the DSR but this car has square wheels and no steering wheel... it should have NEVER been sent to the market.