This is one chart from Powersellersunite.com;

And it’s only for one day – today. There was a point, around 10am, that they had fallen about 900,000 for the day.

I think this graphic might be a bit more telling. Its from Tues., Feb. 19th;

This tells us that eBay’s listings have fallen over 2 million in the last two days. Do you think that’s a result of a boycott? There are other factors…

“eBay had a special offer last Wednesday (the 13th) on listing fees which caused a surge in traffic. Because of the special offer the number of listings sky rocketed from 12 million up to 16 million, and those auctions are just starting to dissipate right now.”

Up, down, up, down. Christopher Null offers: “For its part, eBay has said the boycott “hasn’t had an impact” and that it was “too early to speculate” on whether the boycott would have any long-term effect.”

Post from: EveryJoe

eBay Listings Down, No, Up, No… Oh Who Knows?

“eBay said the current system prevents buyers from leaving honest Feedback as they fear retaliation from the sellers if they leave a negative. ‘This makes it hard for buyers to distinguish between sellers while making bidding or buying decisions. In addition, when buyers receive negative Feedback, they reduce their activity in the marketplace, which in-turn harms all sellers.’”

eBay’s rationale for the changes are:

One, Buyers will be more honest when they leave Feedback since they will not fear retaliatory negative Feedback.

Two, Buyers will bid more and higher since their trust in the Feedback system and the sellers will increase.

Three, Our best performing sellers will be able to differentiate themselves from all other sellers and increase the amount of business they receive as buyers gravitate towards them.

Four, Sellers will leave Feedback upon payment more often in order to increase their chance of receiving positive Feedback.

****************************************

Now, maybe its just me and I missed something in over thirty years of dealing with the public face to face in a sellers’/buyers’ situation, but the single, loudest method a buyer had to exclaim their dislike of a seller was to -

LEAVE AND NEVER COME BACK!

That was always their preferred method of expressing their dislike of… you! Even while they were out there speaking (true or untrue) volumes of spewage about you, the one thing they’d never do again was darken your door once more. Granted, they were doing everything they could to influence as many others as they could to see things their way, but they could (and still can) do that from whatever distance they felt comfortable.

I suppose what my thoughts really are might be “why have this feedback system at all?” Is it really necessary if it doesn’t work both ways? The buyer can speak his/her mind by walking and the seller can learn, pick up the pieces, improve and move on. Just like reality…

Observation: Reading through some of the threads in the community forums and the links offered there, it appears, to me, that two things are noticeable. One – the smaller sellers seemed trapped and aren’t willing or able to move or extract themselves. Two – yes, it sure feels like the eBay powers are bringing this around to much more of a brick and mortar type deal where the power sellers are the bread and butter.

Lastly, this feels like more of a “bone-toss” than anything substantive;

“While this will be highly controversial, sellers may be pleased at one part of the changes: eBay will remove Negative and Neutral Feedback left by members who are suspended or who fail to respond to the Unpaid Item Process (deadbeats). Negative or neutral Feedback left by currently suspended members will be removed in late May/June. eBay is also increasing the number of buyers a seller can block from 1000 to 5000.”

But that’s simply mpo.

Post from: EveryJoe

The Rationale Behind Eliminating Negative Feedback

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;

eBait at BossHatch

A very interesting thread at the eBay forums

It’s eBay’s Game To Lose

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

Post from: EveryJoe

eBay Boycott Began Today