Consequences of Upcoming Feedback Policy Changes

Most of the boycotters have talked about how it would be a disaster when sellers can no longer leave negative feedback to buyers. There will be scammers coming out of the woodwork trying to extort goods from honest buyers. I’m sure that will be a problem but there is something else that’s almost never talked about. What about unscrupulous sellers? It is bit of a touchy subject to talk about crooked sellers because there is a risk of making all sellers look bad but everyone know there are bad sellers out there. You know the type. They steal item pictures and descriptions while charging exorbitant shipping charges. Of course they have no compunction about creating a bogus account and then buying up competitor’s items and then leave pile of negatives. Now the honest seller is frantically trying to repair the undeserved negatives while rest of his items disappear off the best match search results because of wrecked DSR and potential customers flee. The net result is damage to seller’s reputation, loss of sales, loss of listing fee since eBay doesn’t refund listing fees and loss of valuable time that he could have spent on his customers and improving his business. The unscrupulous seller can repeat this over and over again until basically run the honest seller to the ground. Are you scared yet?

eBay Australia Makes PayPal Processing Mandatory

Just recently eBay UK made a change to their policy where all sellers must accept PayPal payment along side any other payment seller wishes to accept. This time eBay Australia went one step further. For eBay Australia, PayPal has to be the only accept form of payment with the exception of local pickup. Here is an AuctionByte article on this new policy.

I thought preventing the use of Google Checkout was bad but this sort of draconian policy just takes the cake. I guess eBay sees sellers who accept checks, money orders, or do their own credit card processing are nothing more than sellers trying to circumvent PayPal fees.  It’s only matter of time for this sort of onerous policy to be implemented in the US. Anyone want to make a wager on when this will happen here?  I guess those Australian eBay sellers who are on the fence about boycotting eBay just got some new motivation to join the global boycott.

Smell of Desperation

I get the feeling that eBay is acting bit desperate to get the listing numbers up. eBay is now trying to lure back sellers no longer selling with $10 listing fee credit.

eBay clearly knows the current state of eBay isn’t looking so good. Every indication is that most sellers’ sales numbers are way down. There is almost a perfect storm of three things are work right now. The economy is in or in a verge of a recession right now. The oil price has hit $112 a barrel today. Also this is the tax season so it’s not exactly happy time for spending money. On top of that eBay is suffering from the self inflicted wound known as the Best Match. Both seller and buyers agree that the new search engine is a complete disaster. Buyers are frustrated because they can’t find anything they’re looking for and sellers are even more frustrated because their sales numbers have plummeted. The third is the boycott. Ever since the announcement of the changes many have stopped buying or selling and even those that are still selling have scaled back considerably. The sellers that have returned selling after the first boycott ended are now using eBay to get buyers to an alternate venue.

eBay has recently started burying threads on Seller Central discussion group that talks about the upcoming boycott. That’s not too surprising but what they have started doing is going bit farther than normal. They’ve started cracking down on threads that discussed the burying of boycott thread as well as other loosely boycott related topics. They’ve also started deleting comments that are vaguely negative about eBay’s policies. eBay’s discussion group moderators are definitely more aggressive in curbing negative speech at this time and it’s likely to get even tighter as May 1st boycott approaches.

eBay Listing Count Charts

eBay’s 99 cent promotion auctions are coming to an end so I decided to create a chart showing the listing count. It looks like it’s heading southward.  The time zone for charts below are in PDT which is three hours behind EDT and seven hours behind GMT.

Below is the eBay listing count for Sunday, April 6th:

Listing count dropped from 15.4 million to 14.5 million.  That’s a net loss of 900 thousand which is pretty significant drop in listing count.

Below is the eBay listing count for Monday, April 7th:

The day isn’t completely finished as of this writing but it looks like the listing count has settled down around 13.8 million.  The day started with just above 14.4 million which means the listing count has dropped about 600 thousand.

This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

If you’ve ever wondered why sellers have gone completely batty over the recent feedback changes is because of stories like this. That is a chilling account of a one crazy thief that’s be praying on eBay buyers for a long time and eBay has done absolutely nothing about it. If you think sellers are whining and over reacting to the upcoming feedback changes, then that long thread should give you ideas as to why sellers are calling it quits in droves. The fact that eBay simply ignores problem buyers like that is simply unacceptable. eBay should be working with law enforcement on cases like that but they simply blame the sellers for all the ills eBay has. Instead of going after her I bet eBay probably sent that thief a coupon for her “unsatisfactory buying experience”.

Targeted Advertisement eBay Style

I was reading through Boycott eBay Delphi Forum this morning and came across this eBay ad embedded in the middle of a thread. Someone should work on the targeted ad system bit more because it’s both funny and sad.

Ebay Member User ID For Sale 99.7% 3000+ Feedback!!!

Apparently an eBay seller decided to throw in the towel. He decided to sell his eBay ID with 99.7% 3000+ feedback on eBay. The current bid on the item is $28.33. I think the very reason Digital Downloadable Goods Policy was implemented recently is to thwart sales just like this. Just imagine if everyone did this? There would be thousands of ID being sold. Anyway listing itself is pretty hilarious. Below is the full text of the item description in case eBay decides to be a party pooper. By the way, anyone interested in bidding on my eBay ID with 100% 1700+ feedbacks?

Up for Bid:

One Ebay Member ID, opened May, 1997.

ID boasts a healthy 3,250 positive individual feedbacks making for a feedback rating of 99.7%. (eBay does not count feedback from repeat buyers, even though those are the best kind.)

Having left well over 10,000 feedbacks, this ID is very experienced, and prides itself upon those very repeat buyers, which are the lifeblood of any good ID.

It started out life as an enthusiastic, healthy member ID, taking pride in its appearance and reputation, and experiencing joy and serendipity in it’s dealings as both a buying and selling ID. None of this schizophrenic “I buy under one ID and sell under another ID and sometimes I diddle with both on the same auction” business.

It is proud of being an honorable ID, one that, as a seller, works to make it’s winning bidders happy with their wins, and, as a buyer, to pay promptly when invoiced by fellow sellers.

A globe-trotting ID, with all the necessary shots, it boasts friendly and personal feedbacks from nearly fifty different countries, and considers it has done nearly as much for global relations as any host of ambassadors.

For many years, this ID was happy in its warm, comfortable, nurturing eBay environment, but then it noticed it was becoming tired and out of breath trying to create listings. “It’s just old age”, the Member ID thought. “I’m not as fast or efficient as I once was.” “My arm is sore. I wish this Mexican bidder would stop twisting it and threatening to leave negatives if I don’t give her the same postage rate as someone in the USA.”

It wearied of trying to outrun accusations of dishonesty by prank bidders. “What men are these,” the ID wondered, “who would steal their closest kinfolks passwords and bid nilly willy on laptops they didn’t really want? What hath the world come to? Nay, is it the End of Days? Or simply a Fool’s Paradise online?”

Then the ID realized, it wasn’t all old age. eBay was secretly contributing to the problem, like six pound ankle weights on a treadmill walker (the Member ID was very familiar with this form of torment). It seemed every day there was a Policy Change email lurking in the inbox, waiting to pounce like a crazed nonpaying snipe bidder.

“My head hurts!” moaned the ID. “The rules are changing so fast,I get dizzy”.

“Take the Pill!” cried eBay. “Trust our diagnosis! Our corporate doctor, while knowing little about the day to day operations of an actual eBay user, does know what’s best for all Member IDs!! He’s not an auction participant, but he did play one on TV!”

But the honest little Member ID found the side effects only made things worse. It began to question eBay’s motives, worse, to doubt them.

Question upon trouble, trouble upon question began to burden the poor ID’s wearisome thoughts, even intruding upon its sleep.

The Member ID even tried taking a six month cold-turkey holiday from eBay, but foolishly found itself lured back, like a hobby moth to the flame of virtual e-commerce.

So, now, sadly, this ID finds itself in poor and declining eBay health lately. The relationship has become abusive, and unhealthily co-dependent.

In short, the Member ID finds that it needs to make a clean break from it’s owner, for both their sanity.

This Member ID has been diagnosed with the following malaise:

Advanced Non-Paying Bidder Syndrome: a cancer eating away at eBay

DSR Fluctuations: symptomatic of Advanced NPB Syndrome (see above), in which nonpaying bidders can leave malicious feedback and infect otherwise healthy cells, I mean, stars

Best-Match Palpitations: onset of sudden and unreasonable fear of being lost and never found in a formerly friendly environment

TurboListerrhoids: frequent cramping and bloating occuring during loads

Fee Ennui: Debilitating worry that fees are multiplying and spreading, and finding you no longer care

Bull-imia: The act of accepting absolute and utter bullcarp from eBay as Gospel, and trying to keep your feet out of it, while you wrap you mind around what sense it makes. Warning: This condition may cause confusion, disorientation, and irrational spurts of anger.

Altzliarheimers: Symptomatic of foreign wiseheimers demanding you to lie and put an alternate value on Customs forms.

Scams: Embarrassing condition involving others. Not to be confused with scabs, although equally ugly, bothersome and annoying when visible in public. Deemed necessary to hide, or at the very least, politic to ignore, by eBay.

Blockage: frequent necessity to block unwanted or unwelcome bidders, since Ebay won’t operate to remove these dangers themselves. Avoid eBay Brown Bag Lunches at all cost, as these will only exascerbate symptoms.

Shillarrhea: When one’s blood pressure rises upon suspicion of shilling. Often accompanied by Blurry Vision: seeing stars when one should see bidder IDs when viewing a bid history

Fleas: Irritating condition in which ID’s items are considered unworthy. All small IDs have them. eBay said so.

Quarantine: a mandatory 21 day isolation period for Paypal payments, at eBay’s discretion

IDgestion: the gut wrenching, sickening feeling occuring upon logging in to eBay these days

This ID has been told it has four weeks to live, and should make arrangements for last rights on or near May 1st, at which time, life support, in the form of Feedback reciprocation, will be removed, and negative bloodletting will begin.

There is no transfusion for this condition.

There is neither health insurance, nor customer service available, either, unless you count the standard eBay canned response: “Take two aspirin, clear your cookies, and don’t call us in the morning.”

This ID has been fully tested, and found to be devoid of any relatives, small children, or pets. It is therefore guaranteed completely free from the infectuous, highly contagious problem that many other IDs suffer from: “my brother/toddler/dog placed the bid and didn’t mean to”.

It comes from a smoke-free household. It does, however, cause steam to escape involuntarily from the ears on occasion.

Winning bidder will win all rights to this ID. Seller will provide winner with password, after payment of winning bid, and after removing seller’s personal information, and replacing it with winner’s own information. We can complete this transaction via phone, or in person. Seller retains all rights to, and will erase the current About Me page, but will happily work with winning bidder to create a replacement page.

Seller cannot, obviously, guarantee continued success, or profit of any kind, to buyer. Take at own risk. May cause irratibility and/or cramping. And gas. Do not use while operating machinery or size 4 font.

The photo below is a non-bidding, non-binding dog, and is not included with the auction. I show him only as an example of what this Member ID plans to do upon shedding itself of itself.

UPDATE (4/4 6:11pm):  As expected this item was pulled from the listing by eBay.  The highest bid I’ve seen on the item before it got pulled was $456.79.  The seller has now joined Power Sellers Unite Forum and there is a thread about it.

File a Dispute and Get a $500 Coupon?

I’d say about two weeks ago was when I heard about eBay giving coupons to buyers who had filed a dispute and ended up having a negative buying experience on eBay.  Of course I thought this can have a very negative impact for sellers and I’ll discuss why little later.  I guess I also just assumed that the coupons were probably $20 or maybe $50 at the most.  It turns out there is a buyer who received a $500 coupon for eBay almost immediately after filing a dispute.  The kicker here is that this buyer was able to resolve the issue amicably.  There is the thread on Seller Central discussing this.  Obviously there is an immediate skepticism on this because this is around April Fools day.  However there might be some truth in this $500 coupon claim because the guy even posted a screenshot of the alleged $500 coupon on that thread.  A reply on that thread was even talking about $750 coupon issued by eBay.

One can say that this is just eBay trying to keep their customers happy by issuing these coupons.  Of course that may be true if we’re living in an ideal world but that’s simply not the case.  There are indeed unscrupulous people out there that would see this as an opportunity to file a false dispute in hopes to maybe get a coupon.  If eBay doesn’t issue a coupon then they haven’t lost anything so there is no downside for a buying doing such a thing.  When the economy is in a state it’s in there are lot of people who may not normally do such a thing that may try this sort of thing to see if it works.  There are forums out there discussing bargains and deals and if a message gets out there that eBay is issuing $500 coupons for filing a dispute after a sale then you’re going to have people who will try just that.  Even if this $500 coupon is just an April Fools joke, eBay has indeed planted the seed about a week ago that made this sort of thing more believable.

Maybe I’m wearing my tinfoil hat bit tightly this morning but here is what I’m thinking.  Could this be a publicity stunt by eBay?  Could this be eBay’s deranged and twisted way of trying to attract new buyers to eBay?

The International Site Visibility Listing Upgrade?

Here is an eBay announcement about international site visibility listing upgrade. There is a discussion thread on seller central about this new “upgrade”. There seems to be something very funky going on here. The seller central thread had a message from pink about how eBay isn’t charging any money for what was once free. Then immediately afterwards there were some messages directly contradicting the claim of pink. What’s going on here? Is eBay adding a feature and once again charging fees for it or did they suddenly decided to charge fee for something that was once free? If you know the answer to this question please feel free to comment.

UPDATE (8:13am) : There is a new thread discussing this announcement and it seems like sellers aren’t liking it.

UPDATE (4/2 8:11am):  I found this Power Sellers United thread discussing the international site visibility upgrade.

USA TODAY article on eBay

I found a rather dull USA TODAY article on John Donahoe and eBay’s past and future business. The article reads like a press release written by an eBay PR rep but disguised as a meaningful content written by a journalist. Despite this lackluster article there is one short paragraph that jumps out. “Donahoe has vowed to put greater emphasis on fixed-priced listings — items sold through its eBay’s Buy It Now service — a seismic shift for eBay buyers that would approximate their experience on Amazon and elsewhere.” Donahoe believes that eBay has to become an Amazon clone but I just don’t see how this is possible. The buying experience with eBay is completely different than Amazon in terms of the type of goods available, the process of the purchase and the expectations that goes with the purchase. eBay already has a marketplace that works somewhat like Amazon and that’s half.com. Ironically Amazon has made parts of it’s store to be more like half.com while eBay wants to abandon it’s core business even though they already have half.com.

Here is my take on current status of eBay. It’s obvious eBay’s core business has basically flattened out. The big question is why? I think when all is said and done the main reason for this stagnation is result of ever increasing fees. Years ago when fees were much lower, sellers were able to offer items at a non-significantly lower price than your brick and mortar stores or Amazon. Over the years the fees have gone up significantly and sellers had to incrementally raise prices to make up for the increase in fees. Of course that makes the seller’s items less competitive against conventional online retailers which in turn means less sales. Less sales by sellers ultimately results in flat stock price but I’m getting ahead of myself. On a side note, the increase in fees also created the problem of inflated shipping prices. Since the final value fees don’t get calculated from the shipping charge it’s only natural to bump up the shipping charge to minimize final value fees as much as possible. eBay has basically caused this problem and ignored it for so long that it became a common and to some degree accepted practice. Getting back into the stagnation issue, the increase in fees resulted in elimination of any price advantage of items sold on eBay verses the conventional online retailers. Everyone knows that buying from an unknown seller on eBay does have more risk associated with it than buying it from a local brick and mortar store but the reason why people take that risk is because of the money you may be saving from the purchase. The cost associated with the risk has to be outweighed the money savings for buyers by some margin or else buyers will go elsewhere. eBay’s increase in fees have eaten up all the price point advantage that eBay sellers used to have. When the price difference no longer exists only thing remains is risk and that’s when buyers decide it’s just not worth it to make the purchase from eBay. To me it’s not a big mystery why eBay’s business has flattened out. Raising fees even higher in attempt to to bump up the revenue for eBay only makes the matter worse for both eBay and sellers.