eBay Boycott Began Today
This appears to be a lesson in how to pi** off the most folks in the shortest period of time… outside of politics :)
I say this because something piqued my interest (a phone call from Auction Success Group which is now another topic for another time) so I decided to do some research and wound up reading through a lot of PO’d folks articles and comments beginning with CNNMoney.
There I found links that led me to articles like this;
“Bargainland was once one of eBay’s highest-volume PowerSellers, moving tens of thousands of items a month through the auction site. The company’s business is liquidations: it receives truckloads of miscellaneous goods every day from merchants – returned, discontinued, battered or surplus items – and unloads them all in no-reserve, 99-cent-start-price auctions. Last year’s sales topped $25 million, according to Bargainland.”
“But eBay became an increasingly frustrating place to do high-volume business… so Bargainland came up with an entrepreneurial solution: It launched its own auction site, Bidtopia.”
“For the first three weeks of Bargainland’s transition, its average selling price for its goods was lower than it had been on eBay. But after a month, as more buyers found the site, revenue leveled out, and in some categories returns are trending higher. Factor in the fees Bargainland saves by not paying eBay, and the move is already a financial success, Bargainland co-founder and CTO Paul St. James says.”
I may not be the brightest bulb on the tree but I’m not of the opinion that alienating a $25 MILLION seller is good business, especially when that seller had other options.
More links;
A very interesting thread at the eBay forums
John Donahoe’s Plan To Save eBay: Better Search
eBay Fee Hike Sparks Seller Rebellion followed by a lengthy discussion at the CNN forum
Techland: New CEO, uncertain future for eBay
what is the real deal with eBay anyway? I’ve been hearing news about them as early as a few weeks ago if memory serves me right. Hopefully, they’ll be able to regroup and find a way to recover. Personally, I’m more of an Amazon.com client. I suppose the difference is a bit like the difference between Walmart and Target.
Hi Jen,
I’m certainly not that well aware at this moment what the “real deal” is, but my first thought from what I’ve read is the removal of the ability to give negative feedback on a buyer is a major issue, which I believe is righteous because, especially in cyberspace, the customer just da** well isn’t always right…
In and of itself that disallows the sellers to conduct business in a “normal” manner because they’re now subject to scams galore. Not to forget that Paypal has some sort of hold on transactions for 21 days which can only add to the impossibilities.
I’m going to continue to look at this. It surely has my interest.
Thanks for dropping in…
Removal of the ability to give negative feedback from sellers is to make it more like traditional retail outlet instead of person to person trading platform. eBay is becoming more “corporate” and simply does not care much for the small and mid-sized sellers. But I thought that’s where they make the most of their profit.
I’m not so sure I agree with that – traditional retail is sooooo PC they are scared to death to tell the customer they aren’t right all the time.
Traditional retail has reached the point where the customer is stealing and being allowed to get away with it and all their rights are protected.
Which actually sounds about the same though…