No merry Christmas for eBay
By Yi-Wyn Yen
Santa Claus won’t be coming to eBay this year. The online auction giant reported quarterly sales and profits late Wednesday that met expectations, but gave such a dismal outlook for the holiday season that one analyst suggested Christmas had been cancelled.
eBay reported third-quarter profits of 46 cents a share, or 12% higher than the same period a year ago. Revenues came to $2.12 billion, up $229 million, or 19%, from last year thanks to advertising sales and its PayPal payment service.
But any delight that investors found in eBay’s numbers was quickly doused when eBay (EBAY) delivered some Scrooge-like numbers for the current quarter. Executives noted a sharp spending decline starting in mid-August for both high-priced items like cars and for smaller ones like concert tickets, which are sold through its StubHub subsidiary. The San Jose-based company expects its revenues to decline by 4% in the fourth quarter from the same period a year ago.
eBay also cut revenues for the fourth quarter to $2.02 billion to $2.17 billion. That would make the current quarter, typically the strongest because of holiday spending, eBay’s weakest of the year. Wall Street, which had been warned by eBay last week of slowdown, was expecting revenues of $2.44 billion. eBay now predicts earnings of 39 cents to 41 cents per share for the current quarter, well below Street estimates of 47 cents.
Investors signaled their disappointment, sending eBay shares down 3.5% in after-market trading. Shares are down 53% so far this year.
“Your guidance indicates there is no Christmas,” said Goldman Sachs analyst James Mitchell during the company’s post-earnings conference call with analysts.
eBay CEO John Donahoe tried to convince investors that the impact of a severe economic slowdown was beyond eBay’s control. Donahoe used the phrase “challenging and uncertain times” multiple times during the call. eBay CFO Bob Swan said a stronger U.S. dollar will cut into international revenue and a consumer spending decline will make “growth deceleration that much tougher.”
Swan presented slides to investors that showed spending on the auction site mirroring consumer spending trends offline.
However, some analysts were skeptical that eBay’s problems could be blamed primarily on sagging retail spending. “eBay’s model has been probably hit harder than the average e-commerce company would be,” said Jeffrey Lindsay, Sanford Bernstein’s Internet analyst. “This is a fairly poor performance, but it looks like it’s going to get worse with no improvement any time soon.”
For the first time ever, eBay’s marketplace business, its main revenue driver, fell 1% to $14.3 billion from a year ago. The decline in eBay’s transactions are not a healthy sign of the company’s growth prospects.
A steady decline in eBay’s traffic for the past two years has prompted the company to spend the year trimming costs and restructuring its auction model. eBay recently announced plans to cut 1,000 jobs, or about 10%, of its global workforce. The company is also focusing on items that consumers can buy immediately and offering standardized shipping rates to better compete with Amazon (AMZN), which has been gaining popularity with buyers and sellers.
Donahoe said the company is seeing improvements with its turnaround plan, citing a 3% increase in users for the third quarter. Still, that hasn’t translated into more eBay users buying on the site.
Said Lindsay: “Santa Claus is coming for Christmas, but he’s coming from Seattle - not San Jose.”
to ebay buyer not a seller, you do not sell on ebay and you have not been subjected to the thieves. you are the problem not the answer, the buyer is not always right and your attitude toward towards businesses are typical for a buyer who thinks they are right about everything and should get MORE THAN WHAT THEY PAY FOR. If buyers would act more responsible instead of blaming everything on sellers when they do not read the ad,or expect cheaper shipping when the cost is stated in the ad. a bunch of cry baby whiner buyers have caused major problems, it is your responsibility to shop with honest sellers not ours wake up and quit whining we have a right to make a profit. What is the problem can’t you read or what?
FIRE JOHN DONAHOE PETITION!
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?jdonohoe
“Ebay Stockholders and Sellers Calling For Immediate Termination of John Donohoe CEO”
PLEASE! Pass this information on to others!!!
When I heard about ebay’s policy changes earlier in the year, it reminded me of when Coca Cola replaced the “Real Thing” with “New Coke” in a panic at Pepsi’s increasing popularity. Ebay haven’t changed the name, but they have certainly changed the product - we are just beginning to see the consequences.
This is a basic error. Donohoe will eventually pay with a golden parachute whilst stockholders, well… erm… pay.
FeeBay aka eBay has continually shot itself in the foot with the bad business decisions, changes, etc. that are sending their top sellers off to other sites.
Stupid, incompetence, adversary decisions, rules, changes . . . I can’t say enough.
GOD help us if Meg gets a place in the next administration!
Ebay has turned into”fleabay” and I doubt the economic crisis is to blame for all of their troubles. I have a perfect customer rating on Ebay (from past use) but would not even think of selling anything on the site now. All the fees ebay charges now makes it unprofitable for any seller, regardless of their customer rating.
Ebay is so frustrating to use, that I had my own site programmed at great expense that rewards honest, responsible sellers. It is at:
http://www.myabuy.com
I began as an eBay buyer, then seller years ago. It was a magical marketplace of myriad treasures. Now it is just a lot of crap. Ten years ago I knew we would look back on the early days as a golden time. It was. Too bad someone could not figure out how to keep the community spirit and also make enough money to satisfy stockholders.
Mr D and company have not exactly killed the goose with the golden eggs, but they have put her on life support and the prognosis is not good. It is very sad.
I recently tried to sell some things after a gap of about a year. The eBay policy changes frustrated and aggravated me and the buyers so much that I cancelled my account. I’d rather throw the stuff away than go through that again. So I’m no longer a seller (small loss to eBay) or a buyer.
It seems clear that the people who post here with comments in favour of eBay have no idea what it is like to sell in high volume on eBay.
I am one of those high volume sellers. I have people sabotaging my auctions. I write constantly to eBay and, let’s be clear about this, they ignore my emails or respond with ‘we’ll look into this’ and then they ignore the email. I have never known such an arrogant and appalling company.
They do not give a damn.
It would be silly to say that the economy is not playing a large role in the decline of sales on ebay. Nonetheless, ebay’s lack of respect for it’s sellers is surely playing a crucial role in the decline. Everytime Ebay makes an improvement or decrease in its fee structure, it finds another way to sock it to the seller through outrageously priced ‘extras’ such as the high costs associated with adding extra images, using a subtitle or second category, and featured items.
Another very huge issue is Ebay’s unwillingness to invest more of its profit in technology to simplify the headaches involved in listing and editing listings.
Over the past year, ebay has made numerous policy changes that have turned into a nightmare for sellers.
Example: A year ago I was bombarded with sales by fraudulent buyers who then wanted to pay via BidPay. So I added a notice to all of my store listings stating that I do not accept BidPay. Two months later, ebay made a backside change to disallow Fixed Price and Auction listings with the term ‘BidPay.’ Those listings continue to relist as store listings. But the ONLY way I can send them to Fixed Price now (1,200 of my items are affected), is to edit them one-by-one (through ebay’s turtle slow website).
Then, another backside change. Ebay made recent category changes. Thus, any items sellers had previously listed under a particular category will not send to Fixed Price because ebay assigned a new category number. Again, another manual item-by-item edit will be required to change all these listings. Sorry! I don’t have time for this crap. So ebay is losing $420 per month in fees from me alone for the items I can’t send to fixed price.
Ebay has no respect for the amount of time sellers invest in their businesses. Those of us who are PowerSellers are mostly self-employed full-time (i.e. small business owners). The average small business owner works 60+ hours per week. Ebay creates policies that subject us to excessive wastes of time to fix problems. Then they nickel and dime us to death on fees. And then, to top it off, they expect us to maintain ridiculous performance measurements in order for our listings to be visible to buyers. Now, if we don’t offer free shipping, our listings are buried as ebay has created a structure so that everytime a buyer comes to ebay, items are sorted by ‘Best Match’. And ‘Best Match’ has NOTHING to do with being the best match. It has everything to do with poor policy decisions by ebay.
I could go on and on. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
I have been making money. Instead of whining, I have been listing and have had one of my best month’s ever.
If you have no bidders, I suggest you take your crap back to Macy’s, Target or Wallyworld.
Everything I sell is vintage, one of a kind or unusal. The crap y9u people sell is over the top.
Many are right - You can find better deals now on Amazon with way less risk. Scammers, bad sellers and junk misrepresented merchandise are now the norm on Ebay. And ‘Buy It Now’ stuff is overpriced big time. I find everything cheaper and more reliable on NewEgg.com, Amazon or other retailers and don’t have the hassles, so I have way curtailed my purchasing on Ebay.
““100% of eBay’s annual revenue comes from sellers. Buyers account for 0% of eBay’s annual sales.”
that is simply not true as you can’t sell anything if you do not have any buyers, and the more people buying the higher the bids, so the more money Ebay makes.
I find it quite funny to watch sellers complain about how EBay does not seem to care about them as customers, yet they treat their buyers with great distain, like witholding feedback from someone who pays right away until after they get good feedback left for them.”
O.K. I wasn’t offering a discussion point for debate; I was informing other readers and the eBay corporation about thwere the profits came from. 100% of annual revenue comes from the sellers. Fact. eBay has never collected a single penny from anybody buying an item. Your circular logic about sellers needing buyers misses the point completely. If what you said were true, then it would also be true that Macy’s customers pay newspapers for running Macy’s ads. Macy’s is in fact who pays the newspaper to run ads promoting sales at their stores. The customers of Macy’s are just that–the customers of Macy’s. They do not pay the newspaper for the ad that Macy’s ran.
Ebay charges sellers to post their items in a well-trafficked and reasonably maintained site. Sellers pay eBay for the service of using that site. Buyers buy items from sellers. Period. Buyers don’t buy items from ebay, they buy items at eBay. Again this is a key distinction which got lost somewhere. Hearkening back to the Macy’s example, your argument is tantamount to claiming that if the newspaper is having trouble filling pages with ads that they should raise the rates on ads. Of course this mkes no sense, right? According to your argument, however, the newspapers real customers are Macy’s shoppers so therefore raising the costs of ads and driving away companies like Macy’s from placing ads should be just fine and unassailable as long as doing so is somehow making Macy’s customers feel more comfortable.
Again, eBay isn’t seeing the forest for the trees. The forest is the sellers and the trees are the buyers.
eBay could be FLOURISHING right now. A bad economy should mean “boom town” for eBay as everybody (in need of spare cash) hawks their goods - listing them on EBAY.
Even if they dont “sell through”, YOU HAVE GENERATED TRAFFIC and eBay still makes on the listing fees which is better than the eBay listing revenue right now - which is dwindling towards ZERO.
Well, well well. Ebay blames the “downturn of the economy” for their woes. WAKE UP EBAY!!! Blame your policy making as the source of your woes.
ALL of your bad policy decisions have protracted your problems. NOT made them better. HOW CAN YOU NOT SEE THIS??!
also,….to the whining sniveling bidders (BIDDERS ARE NOT BUYERS) who say that these policies are a good thing; THEY ARE NOT!
Without sellers listing the items there is nothing to buy! You cant sell out of an empty cart eBay!!! SELLERS>BIDDERS.
also,….to the whining sniveling bidders (BIDDERS ARE NOT BUYERS) who say that these policies are a good thing; THEY ARE NOT!
Without sellers listing the items there is nothing to buy! You cant sell out of an empty cart eBay!!! SELLERS>BIDDERS.
E-Bay is failing because it has forsaken the roots of its own greatness. It has been taken over by professional Crap importers and is known to harbor an amazing array of counterfeit and misleading merchandise pandered by con artists and scammers. E-Bay was a wonderful way for collectors and enthusiasts to market and shop but now it is just the same old cheap stuff over and over and over again. There are other sites that now do a much better job catering to the needs of collectors and enthusiasts. E-Bay started it all, but now…
eBay will emerge victoriously through these uncertain economic times.
Unfortunately, alienating parts of it’s loyal users in the process.
i sold over 250K on six month on ebay for the last 6 years, until ,their stupid new rules and laws, oh, we want to make the buyer feel like home, please buy on the items of our sellers, but screeeew the seller .. right ! well wrong ebay, if you are making money and your stock up today last year was trading at $45 and today is below $15 , you lost $30 of your market value, why change a formula that is working, don go after what amazon is doing for years amazon was after what ebay was doing, now ebay is going after them , go and find your self to be like you had on the pass, what you did before worked for every one, but for the new ceo.
Will continue to see stocks drop ,the bottom line, is that the same way circuit city stock is worth $0.39 right now, ebay will be trade at around 5 to $6 a share, then you are going to have a lot of people piss and this guy wil resign.
Thanks for cancelling my $250 on sells every six month ebay, you wake me up before all of this turns now and i learn how to make my business profitable outside of ebay, thanks god! Ebay you suck, your paypal sucks and it needs to be regulated as a bank since you come out with your own rules and the ceo is sinking this ship , no amounts of bilge pumps will pump the water fast enough not to see you sink.
I used to LOVE Ebay, first bought back in 98′ or 99′, never sold anything. It was cool, cause you could find interesting stuff. Ya still can sometimes but they always screw with their interface (the search in particular) just because someone over there needs something to do. Sellers can’t leave neg feedback - what’s up with that? Fees keep going up, PayPal fees are crazy! Get back to basics and save your business. Get this new CEO the hell out of there. He should be over on Wall Street ruining banks, not (what used to be) a great site like Ebay.
Ebay has been losing sellers over the last year. The fee’s have gone up drastically, a negative feedback cannot be left so the buyer can harrase you, make no payment and you have no recourse except for a non-paying strike. It is okay to offer paypal as a payment option but I had buyers here in the states that preferred to pay by money order so a legit seller should be able to accept any form of payment. It might make sense to take Paypal in the first few transactions to confirm that seller is going to follow through with future transactions. The changes in policies are getting out of hand. We recently had twin girls born premature and I could not ship my items right away and tried to tell all of our buyers but our score on “shipping time” fell right to 4.0 out of 5 points and they suspended our account. I tried to tell ebay the circumstances but got a generic response that our account would be suspended for 30 days and I called but got a heartless response. I told the Ebay rep that we rely on selling to pay our bills but they could care less. We have been on Ebay since 1999 and have done well over 22,000 transactions but this was a sign that we needed to move on. We have since developed our own site and found a couple of free sites to advertise and promote ourselves. It is true that sellers are buyers since we have not bid on anything since the suspension and I have nothing in “my watched items” section on my account. This approach towards only taking the side of the buyer, the high fee’s and heartless approach towards everything has convinced us that the current leadership at Ebay is not keeping a good balance between buyers and sellers. There are many other options now such as: ioffer.com, Amazon and others or just build your own site with MS Frontpage (all gui), host it for $12 a month and get a domain name for $15/year and take the time to promote yourself. It sure beats paying $800 a month of Ebay fee’s to sell $4000 worth of product! Take it from someone that has tried and tried but I finally see the light!
Artie —Owner & Operator of Finishlinehobbies.com
Online collectibles auctions are a dying business, not a growing one.
It’s time for eBay to get out of the auction format forever.
eBay must focus on profitable fixed price items sold by professional sellers who understand such basics as free or low-cost fixed rate shipping coupled with buyer-friendly, liberal return/refund policies. The Amazon business model is working; the eBay model is failing.
Buyers are sick and tired of putting up with the quirky, insane, rude flea market lunatics who auction their total crap on eBay.
The online auction format is a loser for eBay and must be eliminated. The era of the online auction is dead. Get over it.
The true reason behind Ebay’s downfall is its arrogant stance against its PowerSeller base : continuously changing rules, fee structure, search engine, 3rd-party advertisers, feedback policy, etc. Those Ebay execs are just like any MBA junior consultant. They don’t know nothing about YOUR real-life market, YOUR products, YOUR suppliers, YOUR competitors but they know one thing for sure : how to run YOUR business better… Yeah right, tchao tchao Baytards, see you at Amazon MarketPlace and merry christmas…
Donahoe has done a lot of stupid, “disruptive” (his words) things but selling advertising space that takes buyers away from the site is insane! Couple that with his new search engine that takes searchers to what Ebay “thinks” they want to find instead of what they’re actually looking for is responsible for the exodus.
The “Best Match” search implemented recently is broken and Ebay won’t admit it.. Sellers with poor performance history are being ranked ABOVE sellers that Ebay claims to want on their site. If I spend the same in fees as a “bad” seller and my items never show up in searches, why should I stay?
Unless you’re an active seller or buyer on Ebay, you can’t comprehend how much damage Donahoe has done with his policies.
Way to Go
Hoe Hoe Hoe
Merry Christmas
J J Donahoe a.k.a “Dennis the Menace”
Congradulations to YOU and your new “fraudbay” You deserve all of whats happened to Ebay ever since you took it over and destoyed the Company.
You will go down in history and well remembered by all of us here as the individual that singlehandedly destroyed our once loved community.
It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy .
I’m sure all those employee’s you fired last week the same day you were gaucking about spending nearly another billion dollars to purchase another company for your own personal greed, are laughing at you now and will enjoy there unemployment checks thru the holiday at your expense.
“100% of eBay’s annual revenue comes from sellers. Buyers account for 0% of eBay’s annual sales.”
that is simply not true as you can’t sell anything if you do not have any buyers, and the more people buying the higher the bids, so the more money Ebay makes.
I find it quite funny to watch sellers complain about how EBay does not seem to care about them as customers, yet they treat their buyers with great distain, like witholding feedback from someone who pays right away until after they get good feedback left for them.
I’ve been an ebay member for over ten years and have sold many thousands of dollars’ worth there. I’ve stopped almost cold.
Ebay just does not understand (or care) that many of us sellers won’t accept the increasing fees, including the new requirement to offer Paypal as a means of payment for all auctions.
Who ever heard of a heavily computer-reliant company not lowering its costs dramatically over time?
All they ever talk about is looking out for “the experience” of the end user/buyer. Nary a thought is given to the people who actually allowed the place to be built by selling there.
Had ebay followed a pattern of continual decrease in fees over time, they’d be ruling the world by now. A third of US commerce would flow through them.
eBay trying to become Amazon is like Dollar General trying to become Wal-Mart, it just isn’t going to happen.
Donahoe is portaying ‘The Grinch’ very well.
Ebay’s demise is imminent. Google will eventually release an auction site that will drive the final nail into Ebay’s coffin.
http://www.sellmyinventory.com
GO TO THE EBAY DISCUSSION BOARDS!
CLICK ON TO “THE SOAPBOX”
ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS READ A LITTLE THERE AND YOU WILL SEE WHY EBAY IS IN A DOWNWARD SPIRAL!
I HAVE BEEN BUYING AND SELLING ON THERE FOR THE PAST 3 1/2 YEARS…and since July of this year it has been DOWNRIGHT TERRIBLE!!! Few buyers and ebay just taking more and more fees! An the seller can no longer leave a negative feedback for a buyer, so the scammers have come out in droves to steal, steal, steal! I AM JUST ABOUT DONE AS I HAVE HAD IT UP TO HERE!!!
GET RID OF THE CEO…HE IS ONE BIG JOKE!!!
John Donahue lacks vision and is essentially driving sellers away. No one can build a business on/via ebay when an arbitrary decision can cancel their account. Nor can you sell or buy items when said items cannot be found (the new search engine is fatally flawed).
Constant rule changes also lead to insecurity and a lack of confidence. Mr D has attacked the core of ebay. And what he fails to understand: sellers are also buyers!
There are a lot of angry and upset ex/ebayers but the question is why? Not one Mr D would ask himself unfortunately.
But this little video is on the lighter side of ebay…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-7GOhVKd3E
“eBay also cut revenues for the fourth quarter to $2.02 billion to $2.17 billion. That would make the current quarter, typically the strongest because of holiday spending, eBay’s weakest of the year.”
…
“For the first time ever, eBay’s marketplace business, its main revenue driver, fell 1% to $14.3 billion from a year ago. The decline in eBay’s transactions are not a healthy sign of the company’s growth prospects.”
Maybe this would be the right time to think about another eBay boycott, during the Christmas shopping season, beginning November 1 and running for about 6 weeks until mid-December. The several weeks leading up to Christmas is when historically the listings count soars, as sellers list their items for Christmas shoppers. Then there is a sharp fall-off in the listings count a few days before December 25th.
This boycott would come on the heels of this disappointing Q3 report which contains a dismal forecast for Q4. It would come as the stock price continues to fall. It would come as the sellers who do not use PayPal and only accept checks and money orders are being forced off eBay beginning October 20th, according to an eBay announcement. No checks and money orders allowed: this payment method accounts for about 10 percent of all transactions, meaning even lower than expected GMV in Q4. It would also come right before the termination of the Live Auction format on Decenber 31st, so that the meaningful revenue from the Live Auctions will no longer contribute to the eBay.com Marketplace revenue beginning Q1 09.
Will anyone agree to support another boycott of eBay? Let’s kill off this NEW eBay abomination that Donahoe and team have created. Then, hopefully, the Board of Directors and the large shareholders will lose faith in his plans and bring in new executive management which truly understands and appreciates what made eBay the success it was. This company needs a management team who understands e-commerce, the auction business, the collectibles market, and the eBay community, and who will return eBay to the OLD eBay.
The good old eBay, where PayPal is not forced upon all users, and where checks and money orders are accepted forms of payment between 2 parties.
The good old eBay, where small occasional sellers can still co-exist with the large corporate sellers, and where collectibles are an important part of the marketplace, and where sellers are appreciated and are not condescendingly referred to.
The good old eBay, where positive / neutral / negative feedback and a written comment is all that is needed to rate a transaction and a seller and a buyer, and where our entire eBay lifetime feedbacks count in our score.
The good old eBay, where this anonymous DSR garbage and eBay’s malicious usage of the DSR system against sellers does not even exist.
An analyst stated that “Your guidance indicates there is no Christmas.” Well let’s help make this happen! Let’s show Donahoe and team that there will be no Christmas for eBay. This year 2008 has not been a good one for eBay. Donahoe’s NEW eBay is a failure.
Another eBay Boycott — not to hurt the eBay we love, but to send a strong message to the Board that this is not the eBay we want, and we will not sell the way conditions are now and we will not buy.
Another eBay Boycott — to get OUR OLD eBay back.
EBAY BOYCOTT NOV. 1 - DEC. 15 ???
Let’s get OUR eBay back!
Dovetailing with some of the previous comments, eBay’s problems have been caused by other factors besides simply the economy.
I have been saying this for a few years now: eBay does not understand–or chooses to willfully ignore–who their customers are. Do you want to hear an interesting fact?
100% of eBay’s annual revenue comes from sellers. Buyers account for 0% of eBay’s annual sales. This is so key yet eBay is unable or unwilling to see it. eBay has been feverishly trying to cater to buyers by manipulating and restricting the activities of sellers. They forgot somehwere along the way that sellers accouhnt for 100% of their annual revenue. If thy concerned themselves with catering to sellers the buyers would be taken care of because the free market would be allowed to work.
When eBay was run like a free market economy it flourished. The more it has clamped down on free market activity the more money it has lost. It has lost this money because it has slowly driven away it’s customers. Who are it’s customers? That’s right–the sellers. eBay has not made a single cent from a buyer in over 10 years of oeration. Not one cent.
eBay needs to get back to serving “its” customers, not “the” customers.
I should have proofread a bit more carefully before I posted. What I wanted to say in my comment earlier was:
It’s especially the bad SELLERS (fake items, stolen goods, etc.) that insist on untrackable cash transactions, and don’t want to commit to being trackable by listing a PayPal account. While using PayPal won’t stop all of them from trying (they are stupid after all), it does make it a lot easier to catch them once reported. If a SELLER insists on cash or money orders, I KNOW they’re a fraud. So, PayPal makes eBay safer and for all buyers AND sellers.
Also, I DO think the vast majority of eBay sellers are great, honest and hard-working sellers, which is why I keep returning to eBay. I just don’t see why they don’t appreciate eBay’s efforts to get rid of the bad apples that ruin it for everyone.
As an eBay buyer, I’m tired of seeing these complaining sellers. I’ve been burnt too often by bad sellers to not welcome eBay’s efforts to curb fraud, untruthful item descriptions, fake items, non-delivery and spiteful sellers (ever tried leaving a negative feedback to a seller? All you get in return is a retaliatory negative, never a fix for your being ripped off)
QUOTE: “SELLERS CANT EVEN LEAVE FEEDBACK FOR BUYERS ANY MORE ! !”
Not true. Sellers can leave feedback, but no negative feedback, once the buyer has paid. Since that’s the only part for the buyer in the contract, why should leaving negative feedback to the buyer after payment be necessary or allowed at all? I’m tired of the threat of retaliatory feedback, just because I’m unhappy I got ripped off.
QUOTE: “Forcing buyers into The New Search Experience, which is not only full of glitches that make it nearly impossible for anyone to find anything, but they are also are using manipulated best match searches that are aimed at taking everyone into buy.com as well as their other new big box Wal-mart type listings”
In which parallel universe? Unique, special priced items offered by small sellers will show up on top at any time. I can see it’s hard for small sellers to compete on price alone. But to blame eBay for no longer being able to get away with prices that are above market? WEH! It’s called market economy! Overpriced items with excessive shipping charges from bad sellers will be pushed down. Really sellers, what’s the deal with listing a commodity item for $75 + $15 shipping, when I can buy it from the retailer at $50 with free shipping?? (Ask me if you want a few dozen examples…) As a buyer, I don’t even want to even see those BS items. “At the bottom” of search results is still too good for those. Are you annoyed you can no longer get away with it?
Items from good small sellers with good prices and service will still outrank items from big sellers with worse service or worse prices. Besides, if buyers really want to be deceived by excess shipping etc., they can still switch back to the ‘old’ search result order. I wonder why they buyers don’t do that all the time????? NOT!
Having said that, the eBay keyword search does need fixing, as it doesn’t always give the right results (not with regards to sellers or ‘best match’, or anything sellers complain about, but just with not getting all the items that are available, regardless of the seller)
QUOTE: …wants 100% Paypal payments while outlawing ALL money orders and legal tender..
I can see the pain on this for small sellers (like really really small sellers). But if you want to run a business, you’ll need to accept the reality of accepting ‘electronic’ currency. I don’t see ‘professional’ sellers being hurt by this. However, ‘other’ options are not OUTLAWED! PayPal is never the ONLY option allowed. If buyers prefer PayPal over checks, then the seller will have to accept that. It’s especially the bad buyers (fake items, stolen goods, etc.) that insist on untrackable cash transactions, and don’t want to commit to being trackable by listing a PayPal account. While using PayPal won’t stop all of them from trying (they are stupid after all), it does make it a lot easier to catch them once reported. If a buyer insists on cash or money orders, I KNOW they’re a fraud. So, PayPal makes eBay safer for all buyers. So, it makes it a better place for honest sellers too.
Sellers: If you can’t make it on eBay, you can only hope I’ll be deceived into visiting your website and buy something unpredictable using cash only. Keep hoping!
I agree with most of these comments. Ebay needs to get rid of the CEO and start treating us with the respect that Pierre (eBay’s founder) treated us. I have been with ebay, selling full time, for 10 years, and I can say that eBay is under the worse management it has ever been. GREED is the word. Ebay is not Amazon. Ebay started with a very special vision, and as the new people are trying to change it, they are sinking eBay.
Ebay knows how to boost sales: go back to the basics. Go back to what made eBay an unique site. Stop trying to be a copy of Amazon. Bring FRESH IDEAS, get rid of copycats.
If it was not for GREED they would be making the big money, people are sick to death of their high fee’s !!!!
Once again the reporters have missed the true reason behind ebays current downfall. If someone would just take the time to talk to the sellers (or at least spend even a little time on the ebay discussion-community help boards at: http://pages.ebay.com/community/boards/index.html …they’d find the truth to be much different then Mr Donahoe’s once again extremely skewed version.
Ebay has been systematically destroying itself over the last year, and with special vigor over the last few weeks, by implementing guaranteed-to-fail system changes. Forcing buyers into The New Search Experience, which is not only full of glitches that make it nearly impossible for anyone to find anything, but they are also are using manipulated best match searches that are aimed at taking everyone into buy.com as well as their other new big box Wal-mart type listings. At the same time they have been treating their long-term sellers like garage sale vendors and nuisances that need to be done away with.
Blaming it on the economy is a smokescreen that is just plain not true. Ebay could and would be doing great in the current economy if it was only marketed as The Place to Get A Great Deal… that it once, not all that long ago, was. Any of the sellers still hanging on (as their policies, breakdowns etc have driven at least 1/4 of the sellers away) will tell you that the way to save Ebay is simple. Stop the madness!! Restore ebay searches to what they were a year ago before all the nonsensical changes, get rid of the CEO and treat us as sellers with the respect we have earned while we built their site over the last decade, and Ebay will once again thrive. Its not too late. But the end is getting really close.
Search for the truth, its really not hard to find, then share it with anyone you might know that has a financial interest in Ebay, and as an offshoot you can help in possibly saving the livelihoods of over a million sellers.
The whole problem with eBay is their CEO John Donahoe who knows nothing about dealing with the public, the auction biz, who promotes the stores format which is b-o-r-i-n-g and wants 100% Paypal payments while outlawing ALL money orders and legal tender..He should go back into the stock market business before eBay dumps totally and is gone!!
When sellers warned of this we were called “whiners”. You can’t destroy your customer (sellers) base the way Donahoe has done, and is still doing, without it showing in the quarterly numbers eventually. His new FP30 which coaxed sellers to take items out of their stores and put them in core kind of saved this quarter. It should have been much much worse. Ebay is big and it can crunch numbers and hide failure like nobody’s business but this is becoming so evident they can no longer hide it. This is simply the beginning…look for q4 to be much much worse than anyone expects. Between the economy and Donahoes crazy policies and changes the place is clearing out of sellers…who are also buyers! All the sellers I know are not listing and all I hear from sellers on the boards is that they’ve had it. Soon, Donahoe, buy.com and shopping.com will be all alone!
eBay’s P/E is less than 8, Amazon’s over 40 - don’t know what Santa says, but eBay’s stock looks much much more attractively priced… besides eBay has always been conservative with the estimates, so let’s wait and see (also what’s Amazon’s 4Q forecast) - before we make linsdaian statements…
I sell on ebay for a living, I am going to leave, They are screwing all the sellers. All they seem concerned with is trying to run with amazon. Thats not what got them to where they are. Unpaid items all time high, no seller protection. SELLERS CANT EVEN LEAVE FEEDBACK FOR BUYERS ANY MORE ! !
eBay has abaondoned the small auction sellers who made it great–I left this year for Amazon.
It will be a pleasure to watch the eBay Death Spiral.
When you treat your sellers, the way eBay has for the past couple of years, what do you expect will happen? Sellers list fewer items, and/or leave eBay for other auction sites, or simply open their own online stores. eBay has nickeled and dimed their sellers until they finally had enough. eBay won’t listen, so now you see the results. When sellers leave, so do the buyers!
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Ebay’s probems stem primarily from thier own ‘punish our sellers’ tactics. Sellers can’t afford thier fees and cuts. They claim a discount but the end is higher cost. Its a scam and a ripoff. A lot of sellers have moved to amazon and other sites. Sellers are also big ebay buyers, so… when you run off the seller you ran off sales too and loyal customers. But then, to hear ebay tell it the majestic buyer can’t make a mistake and the seller should stand slumped and waiting with a jar of johnsons vasiline in thier hands with a big smile on our faces in the process. Ebay deserves to fail for the way they have treated thier sellers over the past year.