eBay Looking for Allies Against Google

Vitaly Friedman writes "A report in the Wall Street Journal today talks about how eBay is looking for partners to defend against the growing threat of Google. Specifically, Google Base and the payment system in the works in Mountain View are seen as possible dangers to eBay's auctions and PayPal payment operations, says the report. Google Talk just throws some salt in the wounds by looking for a toehold in Skype's turf."

Whose wounds?

[slofstra]

"Salt in the wounds". Whose wounds? Competition is a good thing for most of us.

I hope Google shit on ebay

[Idimmu Xul]

I'm sick of essentially being blackmailed by people I buy stuff off who refuse to give me feedback until I've given them feedback, even though I've just paid them £100 for an item they are yet to post.

And fucking the Katrina victims out of Something Awful's donations was the straw that broke the donkey's back.

Interesting...

[cp.tar]

So, eBay is afraid of Google.

I've heard many complaints so far about both eBay and PayPal - could it be that they feel Google's service will be beta^Hter?

So see if I care... they can get all the partners they want, but if Google rolls out a superior service, they can either adapt or go sulk in the corner.

God forbid eBay would clean up its own act

[Anonymous Coward]

a. How about bringing back a real archive of auction results. Not the crummy 2 week limit in place now.
b. Penalize bulk category flooders. Some categories are filled with sellers listing the same item over and over again. They should be forced to use the bulk option.
c. 0 rated sellers should not be allowed to list without verified bank account/address info.
d. Allow sellers to set feedback threshold restrictions on buyers.
e. Finally, ebay should stop spamming its own users with "deals" and credit card offers.

Re:I hope Google shit on ebay

[LunaticTippy]

That is an increasing problem. I've had an even worse variant of it:

Seller sends defective product, drags replacing it out past the 30 day mark (so I can't get my money back no matter what) and then stops dealing with me. I checked the seller feedback and they had lots of mutual retractions, and every negative feedback they received (over a legitimate problem such as mine) was retaliated against with improper negative feedback.

I decided to leave no feedback, didn't want the strike on my record.

Well...

[voice_of_all_reason]

Maybe if Paypal didn't confiscate its customers' money at will, they wouldn't have this problem.

Re:I hope Google shit on ebay

[generic-man]

Social networking services weren't made much less vapid by Google's ill-fated introduction of Orkut BETA. Your problems with eBay seem related to eBay users being jerks. What can Google do to combat the same behavior that is so ingrained in the on-line auction seller community, a community that strikes me as the next dimension of flea market vendors?

Re:I hope Google shit on ebay

[damiangerous]

Just never use your seller account to buy. No one cares about negative feedback for a buyer, so you're free to leave whatever feedback is appropriate without fear of retaliation.

Paypal alternative?

[heresyoftruth]

I would jump on a paypal alternative. I juat want to use my online payment service to buy adult goods along with the non adult goods. I hate that Paypal makes a distinction, and doesn't allow that. The alternatives for payment for adult goods just aren't widespread enough to use, in my opinion.

The evil will bubble up

[EraserMouseMan]

Microsoft and eBay are victims of their own success. They played the game and shut down every other player. They won. Now they are on top and seemingly nobody can touch them. The problem is that they are now making the rules. And to everybody else, that doesn't seem fair.

Now Google has made their own game and a lot of people are playing it. Google is making new rules. Everybody's happy about that because they have a choice now. But the day will come when people don't want to play by eBay's, Microsoft's or Google's rules. People will once again feel trapped and left with no good optios. Then google will be evil and the newest significant startup will be the hero.

Google is owned by the stockholders just like MS and eBay. The same greed for money will become more and more obvious to anybody who isn't love-sick.

Re:God forbid eBay would clean up its own act

[SlayerofGods]

My biggest pet peeve with them is crap being in the wrong category. It makes it such a chore to look for something to buy.
For example lets go with wholesale lots of PCs [ebay.com]
The first 20 results are single buy laptop computers and then we have

TEKTRONIX 840 850 860 AUXILLARY 500 SHEET PAPER TRAY
100 x Antistatic Anti Static Bags ESD (6"x9")
MAKE OVER £1000 A WEEK ON EBAY (100% PROFIT)
Mystery Box Of Computers
3 more single computers.
LAPTOP REPAIR BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY
Wholesale Lots- Buy Computers and MAKE A LOT OF MONEY !

I mean holy shit, this reads more like spam then things to buy.
And it goes on and on and on like this.

Re:Google, Destoryer of Dreams

[sfjoe]

Here in Silicon Valley, the most often spoken line is now "We would fund your company, it's brilliant, but Google would just copy it, so no."

The fact of the matter is that there are more startups being funded now than any time in the past 5 years.
http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/03/technology/busines s2_nextpanel0303/index.htm [cnn.com]
Maybe your idea just sucked?

About time

[Jason1729]

Paypal has been an extremely customer hostile company for many years. The only reason a lot of people use them is there's no viable alternative. If Google come up with something good, nothing can save paypal from its own history.

Re:God forbid eBay would clean up its own act

[djmurdoch]

f. And they should try offering "Customer Service" in response to questions/complaints.

I received a "free listing for new sellers" offer, listed an item at too high a price, and it didn't sell. After the auction, someone who had been asking questions during the auction wrote to me to ask if I would re-list it at a lower price. E-bay would not let me respond to the question, because I had "exceeded my daily limit of messages". I never did get a straight answer about what the limit was, just that I could raise it by giving them my credit card information. I had a "conversation" with 5 or 6 different monkeys passing me boilerplate FAQ answers, but never any answers to the questions I actually asked.

Re:I hope Google shit on ebay

[LunaticTippy]

Fuck their terms of service. They change constantly, every time I've had a problem (buyer or seller) it seems tilted against me, they have inserted so many fees over the years, they ruined half.com, and as soon as there is a viable alternative I'm gone.

ebay would love for me to sell myself stuff. They get $.25 + 3% + 1.25% + 4% of every transaction. I get 2 feedback points that they generate for free. Heck, if everyone did this ebay'd make a trillion dollars.

And as for breaking rules, every time something rubs me wrong I think of ways around it. They stop irritating me, I'll stop seeking a less painful path.

Re:Google, Destoryer of Dreams

[AzureWrathHal]

You know, I find it really comforting that no matter what the subject matter is, there's always an "expert" on hand to inform you about the finer points of a slashdot post.

Let's See If I Understand this Correctly...

[DaveJ45]

eBay currently gets a huge percentage of it's traffic through paid advertising with Google.

Now, because Google might infringe upon it's payment system and dabble a bit in online auctions, eBay will move it's advertising focus to someone like Yahoo or MSN that wouldn't send them anywhere near the referrals they get from Google?

Anyone else besides me see that concept being a bit like tossing the baby out with the bathwater?

Don't get me wrong, I'm quite willing to admit that I am hopelessly eBay addicted. I can also say that the chances of Google coming up with an auction site that would lure me away from eBay are somewhere between slim and none.

As for PayPal, while I have personally never had any problems, there are enough horror stories around to make any rational person realize that they COULD happen to anyone. Who remembers, BTW, that eBay bought PayPal because, quite frankly, PayPal was kicking eBay's original online payment system's butt, to put it mildly. If Google can do a better job with their online payment system, then by all means, let the consumer benefit, and let the chips fall where they may.

Like others have mentioned, eBay's (and PayPal's) achilles heel is their abominable customer service, on those occasions when a user needs some assistance. Their current policy is patterned, no doubt, like the model of some Hollywood version of the evil mega-insurance company. Just slam the door in the complaintant's face, and give them the double & triple dodge & shuffle untill they just give up in disgust and go away.

Although I have been personally extremely fortunate to have not needed assistance from eBay or PayPal on more than a few occasions, I can attest to the fact that getting anything accomplished is more than frustrating, it's damn near impossible. (HINT: BE PERSISTANT, REFUSE to go away, and seach the net for a way to contact a real, honest-to-goodness, live, human-type Supervisor. They can and will help you, *IF* you can just figure out how in the world to contact one in the first place.)

Here's a novel suggestion to eBay:

Instead of shifting your advertising budget to a venue that will give you LESS business instead of more, divert some ad dollars into some semblance of REAL Customer Service instead. Beat your opposition in the good old fashioned capitalist way. Build a better mousetrap, etc., etc.

Of course, you could also just opt for the new capitalism model, buy out your competition instead of going head to head against them in a free marketplace. Simply buyout Google like you did PayPal, and then you'd be the big, bad Internet bully everyone likes to think Google will someday become, instead.

DaveJ45