EBay Sellers Seek Management Change

BlueCup writes to tell us that even though some seem willing to let eBay's Chief Executive Meg Whitman slide on recent problems, many eBay sellers are calling for a change. From the article: "'EBay's core (auction) performance is suffering tremendously,' says Steve Grossberg, a longtime videogame seller on eBay. He says he now lists an item four times on average in order to sell it, up from two listings two years ago. Adds Andy Mowery, an eBay seller of home and garden gear: 'It is time for new leadership at eBay.'"

Fierce Competition & a developed market

[dfenstrate]

Ebay has been around long enough that everyone knows about it, both buyers and would-be sellers.

Competition is fierce between sellers, especially any twits who bought a 'how to make money on Ebay kit' and are trying to do it full time- and buyers will jump sellers to save a buck or two- there is absolutely no loyalty on ebay.

I'm an occasional seller and very occasional buyer on ebay, and I like to be sure to be able to sell my stuff. Since I'm not trying to turn a profit on new items, just unload stuff I have and don't need for a few bucks I can be pretty cheap.

What do I do?
Put the starting bid waay under the going price (but at a price I'm willing to sell it at), and the buyout slightly under the going rate for an item. Usually it gets bid up close to the buyout/going rate, I sell my item, and everyone is happy.

I cannot imagine trying to run a normal business this way.

That being said, Ebay is soaking their sellers for more fees lately and this cut in profit margins isn't helping them at all.

The biggest problem with eBay is this:

[loomis]

I have been selling on ebay for 9 years now, since the beginning. Anyhow, what I see as the problem with ebay is this: eBay created, and then refused to truly govern this glut of "power sellers" who, more often than not, majorily illustrate exactly what is wrong with eBay.

Shoppers are tired of trying to buy, oh say a used or NOS laptop hard drive, only to be bludgeoned with auctions that consist of nothing but shipping overcharges after shipping overcharges after scams and more scams. Just trying to find a working computer or computer part sold by an average honest Joe at a decent price is nearly impossible. It's nothing but NYC camera store-style scam power sellers (now with used items too), if you know what I mean, and ebay turns the other cheek.

In fact, ebay continues to turn the other cheek even though they are losing money in these fee-circumventing, high-shipping auctions. It's strange. I guess they only care about insertion fees, and care little about maintaining happy buyers.

However, the system falls apart without the buyers, so therein lies the problem that I see.

Too Much Fraud

[chromozone]

I find more and more sellers are phony. They can even have a high "positive" rating and they burn you. There are so many bogus electronic sales its amazing. Laptop auctions come with emails inviting people to make end around offer. A Google search shows email addy on long list of phonies kept by private groups concerned with ebay fraud. You can find lots of interesting items with no bidders even in the last minutes. Why? Because people know they are phony. I got burned twice on ebay for cheap DVD's for sale by sellers with high positive ratings. Then I get notices from ebay warning me about seller. Oh it seems people, can hack/fake accounts. Haha too late for me. Getting burned gets almost no action from ebay, Paypal etc. Ebay went from interesting auction to flea market full of high prices, phony hustlers and junk. A friend bought big collection of all Buffy DVD sets. They were meant to be in excellent condtion. Then big box of broken plastic arrives and seller listing is gone. Lots of people figured out the deal and ebay. Amazon is much better. "How Amazon and Google are taking eBay's Business" http://slashdot.org/articles/05/06/22/2154201.shtm l [slashdot.org]

Re:What ebay needs.

[reflector]

Don't even get me started on items that are clearly in the wrong category. I don't want to sift through 18 pages of leather cases for PDA's before I find the cheapest listed actual PDA.

sounds like you're not using your search filters, on the left side of the search results page.
they are very effective.

for pda, make sure youre browsing the HANDHELD UNITS category, not ACCESSORIES, and not PDAs which includes both of these other 2 categories.

also, put in a minimum price, say $20, that will cut out almost all the crap like leather cases that you're not looking for.

Re:Community policing and honest selling

[Eivind]

The complete honesty works wonders.

Describing in minute detail *all* faults in the product actually makes people trust you more and consider the product *better*.

It may be counterinituitive, but I think it's just human nature.

People will prefer: "Book is like new, except there is a clearly visible stain (not affecting readability) on the lower left margin of page 35" over "Book is in a perfect condition".

Re:While I agree, it's for other reasons.

[RockModeNick]

Certain bastard sellers want to cheat ebay out of their piece of the pie, and since they Ebay doesn't charge based on total cost, only final bid price, this works out well for the sellers even if the buyer sees the shipping charge is robbery, and doubly well if the buyer doesn't notice before placing a bid and keeping that charge in mind.

Re:If ebay wants me back as a buyer

[antic]

+1

My story - bought some electronics in the vicinity of $200-250. Item was specified as brand new and in the box. Arrived scratched with dog hair attached - obviously second-hand and/or stolen - seriously, no doubt about it. When I suggested that it was not a new product as promised, I was given a bait and switch routine for another second-hand product ("pay a bit more, and get this upgraded model which is second-hand" - that sort of thing). I refused and asked for a refund. Thought it was important to leave this information as feedback for future buyers to read.

What do you know? Negative feedback saying that I was difficult and had made factless accusations.

Contacted eBay and just got bullshit responses.

As others have already said, it's a den of thieves and they're not going to change. Long gone are the days when you could reliably find a bargain. Now it's just not worth the risk.

Re:If ebay wants me back as a buyer

[twistedsymphony]

Sellers might be the ones DIRECTLY paying eBay... but the root of the money trail starts with the buyer. Where else do you think those sellers got money to pay for the auction listing (heck most of them include the eBay fees in the shipping costs). If eBay's management has so much as half a brain they'll realize this.

As someone who frequently buys as well as sells on eBay (about 50/50) I can completely agree with a BLIND feedback system.. Leave feedback within 30 days of auction end until both parties have left feedback neither will be visible. If the time reaches 30 days and only 1 party has left feedback then it becomes viewable and the other party forfeits their ability to leave feedback.

As both a buyer and a seller I definitely wouldn't like it if the seller was forced to leave feedback first. Typically I wait for some kind of conformation from the buyer that they received the item I sent them and that they're happy with it. IMO the transaction isn't complete until it's complete for BOTH parties.

Re:The biggest problem with eBay is this:

[boingo82]

Yes, the buyers don't realize that paying $10.01 totally screws them if the item is defective and they have to get a refund of a whopping $.01.
Total price isn't the only thing that matters.

Re:While I agree, it's for other reasons.

[phyrra]

Interesting. How long ago was it that they tried to charge you for changing your email address? I have change mine several times over the 4 years that I've had my eBay account. I've also updated my mailing address, and even changed my eBay username with no difficulty. I've been charged no fees, either. Perhaps it is different if you don't sell things, as I only buy on eBay, but they've never tried to charge me for updating my information. However, I agree that their customer service needs to be fixed. I've had problems with sellers who did not answer their emails, or answer their phones, and it took a lot of effort on my part (calling the seller's phone number for a week straight) to get a problem straightened out. eBay only helped by providing the contact phone number. When I had a problem with another seller, (I paid for shipping insurance and never received the item), I had to get PayPal's help to get my money back as the seller told me it wasn't her problem. That's why I always end up paying for shipping insurance, as it seems to make it less likely that I'll end up with a problem and not receive the item. In my 153 purchases on eBay so far, I've only had 5 problems, 3 of which were easily resolved with the seller, 1 being the hard one to resolve, and 1 having to be resolved with PayPal's help. eBay's customer service didn't really do anything to assist in any of those situations, other than tell me 'here's their phone number. you call them.'

Visibility

[phorm]

It's also about visibility. While ebay has modified their search+listing system to show the shipping costs, for many of the auctions I see this is still blank, and the little box at the bottom says "see item decription" wherein the shipping cost is hidden within a mass of tables, coloured text, and pictures.

The first thing that the buyer sees is "item X" at a low cost. It's enough at least to get that first viewing, and sometimes enough to snag an unwary bidder who doesn't notice the immense shipping cost. Sure, I wouldn't mind paying $0.50 more in shipping costs, but the fact is that sometimes the shipping is 100% the cost of the actual item, which is far beyond covering the ebay 'expenses'

Re:Yes, look at auctions

[BalanceOfJudgement]

I've tried listing items that are legit and they'll cancel the auction because someone files a bogus report.

I had someone do this to me 4 times - for the same item. He claimed our auctions were substantially similar because I, god forbid, actually included a table of conversion values that are freely available anywhere, and he included such a listing also (which I didn't know until I went hunting for auctions similar to mine).

Ebay actually let him get away with his "don't you dare compete with me for the same items" until I posted, in size 24 font, the reference for the values I was using, so that he couldn't claim I was copying him (it was a list of gold weight conversions, by the way).

At that point he really had no grounds to complain but seriously, I should not have had to relist the damn item 4 times because some seller gets upset that someone is competing with him.

And yet other serious, genuine complaints get completely ignored with a polite "Thanks for telling us, now go away!" email, for example, sellers who post a DVD at 1 cent and charge $75 shipping (actually happened; I reported the auction to ebay and it stayed up until it completed).

Re: Yeah, Feedback

[anagama]

Your post and sentiments reflect why I have abandoned ebay. The quality of service is lousy. I don't shop at brick & mortar stores that treat me like a criminal (e.g., Best Buy with their bag searchers) and the type of attitude reflected in your post is part of why I quit considering ebay. For example, I once left a "neutral" feedback on a seller who didn't post an item for two weeks following my immediate payment. Shipping was noted as "priority mail" -- I expected to have it in a week -- a few days in shipping and a few days for packing and going to the PO. She didn't even take it to the PO till two weeks after the auction. After my neutral, seller left me a negative feedback. Is that fair? I paid within an hour of the close of the auction, was made to wait unreasonably long, lodged a "neutral" feedback about a factualy obvious matter (date of payment, postmark, priority mail listed as method (and to be fair, it was sent priority mail -- just two weeks late)), and was given a neg. Obvious retaliation.

Anyway, I shop where my money is appreciated -- quality customer service is worth a couple bucks to me and repeat customers often find themselves getting sweetheart deals just because of the relationship that develops. I'm sure sellers get hit with scams or whatever, but so what. If you treat all your paying customers like criminals, you won't have any paying customers. It's a cost of business -- plan for it and deal with it without alienating customers and you'll do fine.