antiquary

eBay: The PayPal Factor

The "greater number of unique visitors" statistic is about the only one anyone uses these days when analyzing eBay in public. It's seriously misleading. Any longtime eBayer could tell you that listings and prices, the actual indicators of eBay's cash flow, are for the year down on a par with the S&P 500. The problem is that Donohoe has the economic downturn as cover for his profound mishandling of the company, which widely alienated sellers even before the worst of the downturn hit.

Expect deep losses at eBay.

eBay: The PayPal Factor

The "greater number of unique visitors" statistic is about the only one anyone uses these days when analyzing eBay in public. It's seriously misleading. Any longtime eBayer could tell you that listings and prices, the actual indicators of eBay's cash flow, are for the year down on a par with the S&P 500. The problem is that Donohoe has the economic downturn as cover for his profound mishandling of the company, which widely alienated sellers even before the worst of the downturn hit.

Expect deep losses at eBay.

2008: The Year eBay Lost Its Mojo

Thanks directly to the new seller-unfriendly policies, I stopped selling on eBay months ago (and the last sales I made had crappy results). It's clear to me that most sellers have done likewise, because simply browsing through all the new listings in my favorite category, one of WWII collectibles, which I have done regularly, has visibly resulted in 50+ pages going down to 25-30 and my "watched" list going from 70-90 down to 10-20, in the past few months. I find myself starting to drop out of the eBay-searching habit in favor of other things on the Net or in life.

This might be explainable as the result of a bad economy, but in this area most sellers are ordinary people, not dealers, and in dark times become as desperate to sell as much as they limit their buying, which would result in a net wash. No. It's Donohoe's staggering incompetence and habit of taking eBay's sellers for granted which has caused this.