Nov 28 09:53 AM
I joined ebay in 1998, I left ebay in 2008. The reasons
are simple. Dinah's list is partial for my decision, but at the root of
all things that have gone wrong on ebay.
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Nov 28 09:14 AM
Ebay DROVE me out of business. High fees. Cryptic emails or no emails to
questions asked. Crazy rules that no one could follow and make a profit.
Hassles and more hassles. I bought and sold on Ebay and have left 4-5
months ago. Do not miss it at all. Probably spent what I made as a
seller on Ebay. All in all, they lose. I can live without "deals" that I
was buying. Feel sorry for the people who needed the extra income and
income as a whole. Donohoe should rot.
Oh and so-called successful Ebay sellers, glad you're so happy that they
put so many out of business and in great financial straights when times
are tough already. I boycotted with the sellers even though at the time
I had no problems with Ebay. I just thought that what they did to these
people was horrendous.
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Nov 28 09:29 AM
SSSSLLLLLOOOOWWWW is correct. Did you ever try to do eBay on a dial-up?
I have fast internet and it takes forever to search for stuff. When I go
to the country, where many are still forced to use dial-up, it is
impossible. I can find links to stuff on eBay with a google search
pretty fast, but I can go to sleep trying to get to it on eBay. I wasn't
always that way. Sadly, they are killing it with the "Slowskis."
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Nov 28 09:33 AM
If someone "invented" the original eBay (are you paying attention,
Yahoo??), and started in today, all the action would move in a
heartbeat.
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Nov 28 09:53 AM
I joined ebay in 1998, I left ebay in 2008. The reasons are simple.
Dinah's list is partial for my decision, but at the root of all things
that have gone wrong on ebay.
You can say that ebay has cleaned out bad sellers with their changes but
we know that to be untrue. All one needs to do is look around ebay and
see that some of the worst sellers are there, still there and new ones
showing up at the same rate they did before the changes.
Sadly, some of the best, longterm members are finding themselves
restricted or worse, suspended for 30 days with the contradictory and
canned notification that they need to improve their stars to get back to
selling. Now there's a well thought out change!
It was all by design, to slowly but surely remove sellers ebay wishes to
replace with diamond power sellers who sell things like toilet paper
overpriced with outrageous shipping. But those diamond powersellers with
all their special hidden deals with ebay can list hundreds of thousands
of listings to give the appearance to the wall street analysts something
to chatter about. Fortunately some of the analysts are looking past the
surface numbers and seeing the revenue doesn't line up with the data
ebay promotes to show "We're growing!".
Ebay is in fact, dying on the vine in the core site. All one needs to do
is pay close attention to the real numbers, the ones that matter and
those are not listing numbers, but in fact are member numbers verified
outside of ebayspeak. And the revenue numbers which are not tied to
forced paypal use.
Paypal is the ultimate life raft, without it ebay would already be gone
off analysts radar screens. And forcing paypal use is an act of
desperation to keep a positive balance sheet for the fourth and final
quarterly report, you know, the one that ebay is bent on showing all
they are still viable.
Many many sellers left voluntarily with the upheaval of draconian
policies and micro management of sellers' business on ebay.
Many more sellers are being suspended based solely on the star ratings
that are still above 4, which remember, ebay tells buyers is GOOD. That
certainly makes a seller faithful to ebay doesn' t it? No, the ebay
message boards are full of frustrated and furious sellers who have been
suspended for this nonsense and in the critical largest selling quarter
of the year. They won't be back either, they're leaving too.
Now the folks who defend ebay will say that those leaving will be
replaced with more new sellers. Really? How long will they believe the
video professor telling them they can make money on ebay when they spend
a couple months trying to sell on ebay only to find their fees outweigh
their sales income, that the whole system is set up for failure, unless,
of course you get special deals with ebay because you can dump millions
of listings on the site and demand special treatment.
Level playing field? And they still have the nerve to say it's such.
Smart sellers use ebay to feed their own websites but diminish their
presence on ebay until they're established on their websites.
Watch the real numbers in the fourth quarter, forget listing counts,
they're worthless when you look at what those listings are.
Watch the membership numbers, watch the revenue when paypal is broken
out, watch the billions of shares of stock being bought back which has
been ongoing and getting more intense recently, a program of buy back
that started in 2006. Not normal for a healthy company to continue to
buy back stock year over year, month after month.
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I gave good service, ebay didn't appreciate it and wanted me to be
punished for the sins of others. I don't call that a good business
model. I call that a very hostile environment and left before I became
victim of their insanity.
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One of the rudest people I have dealt with is still selling. I was
threatened by the boyfriend of the registered user. Their percentages
stay high enough that the behavior still goes on. I look them up ocasionally and they are still in business. This particular store has
ignorant people invoved who are unable to communicate in a rationale
manner if any problems crop up. They routinely threaten people with
legal action as a form of intimidation. I don't believe that the
boyfriend was expecting to discover the level of fight that he received
from me.
I'm honest.The package was sent but the ill bred sellers left themselves
wide open for me to successfully file a claim with paypal by not
properly shippiing their package. I do hope that they appreciated that I
didn't follow through.
I know whereof I speak. I was one of their customers. Ebay was
unwilliing to offer me any form of assistance because it would have
meant riskiing their no risk venue status.
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Having sold for 9 years, the final straw was the mandate of using
anything other than our nations money or the us postal service's money
order. I also was buying and spending more than i was earning on the
site.Now, i have flipped the opt out version of ebay and have still
found many things i want to buy because of the dramatic fall in prices.
But , i don't buy, and i won't bid, for the pay pal edict has rubbed me
the wrong way. The nation's economy is falling apart, and the next big
london bridge will be the credit card market. Even as i approach mid
sixties, i can hear my father telling me that if you don't have the cash
, don't buy it. Ebay is running to the left of this for their own
selfish greed, and now are a promoting factor in the next big national
problem. Donahue and his flunkie Lieberman, still think this is all just
noise?
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Nov 28 11:31 AM
I wanted to pass along the latest Paypal scam. This demonstrates
Paypal's complete lack of regard for the buyer or seller. If your Paypal
account is limited/frozen, you can no longer refund to buyers on items
you did not ship. Even if you recommend the buyer file a dispute, the
refund link is still disabled. The buyer will have to wait til the
dispute process completes in 20-30 days and then who knows what happens
with their money. Below is from a Paypal email dated 11/24. They have
the funds and will not allow the seller to refund. The seller refuses to
ship as Paypal has the money. The big loser is the buyer.
Thanks for contacting PayPal. I appreciate the opportunity to assist you
with your questions.
You have a limitation on your account at the present time. If you go to
the Resolution Center in your PayPal account it will walk you through
the steps to lift the limitation. Until you do so, you will not be able
to refund your Buyers.
I appreciate the opportunity to assist you. We are committed to making
your experiences at PayPal pleasant and rewarding.
P.S. The limitation was imposed after a simple increase in sales and is
pending a laundry list of documents and might or might not be lifted
after receipt. Seller refuses to even offer SSN as Paypal is not a bank.
Won't use Ebay/Paypal again. Amount buyers out is $775.
Thugs and thieves is all they are.
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Nov 28 11:33 AM
I can think of one more thing you might add to your year-end list Dinah.
12. Hiding ALL Bidder IDs makes eBay "auctions" a virtual Shillers
Paradise.
And, if things keep going the way they are with eBay, I can see an
announcement early next year that tells Sellers it will no longer be
“necessary” to leave ANY Feedback for Buyers. It would seem that after
May 2009, all Buyers will have 100% Positive Feedback anyway.
As for all of Donahoe’s changes “cleaning up” eBay; many of the changes
have actually made it easier for bad Sellers to stay on eBay. For
example, when eBay was in it’s prime, buyers were able to determine a
Seller’s reputation by using his Feedback from the time that Seller had
started selling, going back years in most cases.
Now, eBay has cut that time down to 12 months, and in many cases 30
days. How does this help a Buyer determine a Seller’s reputation?
It is quite possible that eBay is concerned about all of the Government
regulations that are right around the corner. The cost of keeping track
of each Seller's tax information could overwhelm eBay/PayPal's shaky
infrastructure, and they now seem determined to rid themselves of all
but a handful of Diamond Power Sellers before the tax laws take effect.
eBay is fully aware they have no inventory, and John Donahoe is tired of
being the ringmaster at the flea market. They want to rid themselves of
ALL SELLING, and become an advertising portal. Oh yea, and in the future
they want to be referred to as The First Bank of eBay.
No credit... Bad credit... No problem...
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Nov 28 11:38 AM
trusted1 - your point about the paperless payment policy is spot on.
Actually, ebay took no risk in buyers using money orders or personal
checks, the sellers did.
They did that for one reason only, to GROW PAYPAL as Donahoe likes to
refer to it in his priceless presentations to stock holders in his
powerpoint presentation.
And we know, those of us who have watched quarterly report after
quarterly report, that paypal is the only revenue generator they have
left. So growing paypal is a necessity to cover the losses elsewhere.
Oh, wait. There is one other revenue generator they are happy with,
stealing bandwidth from sellers via all the click through advertising
permeating every inch on ebay's site. Check those numbers in their
financials and you will see they don't mind redirecting traffic OFF ebay
(away from sellers) because they are making what they consider easy
money.
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Nov 28 01:01 PM
Come join us in the exodus! Powerseller here with over 14,000 feedbacks
at 99.9%. We are fee'd out. Best match sucks. Stars are as Dinah
said.... 1st grade level. The ship is sinking......read yesterday that
they cut a deal with more huge sellers to come in an list for free.
Can't wait to see the annual announcements come January. Go to etsy.com
for handmade stuff, bonanzle.com and onlineauction.com for all the
goodies you have always got at eBay with your check or money order and
more. You can even find the stuff eBay has banned like ebooks, mystery
auctions and such.
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Nov 28 03:02 PM
Ebay has forgotten what made them great in the first place. The one of
a kind unique items . Where else could you find a hubcap for a 1936
dodge that you are restoring or a doll part from the 1800's . DonaWho is
catering to sellers that post 13,000 Iphone covers or other cheap
electronic parts . The unique sellers have been pushed out in favor of
cheap mass produced items . I sell vintage concert shirts on Ebay (spacedustcowboys)
and have to compete with those powersellers who are selling Knock-off
remakes by the 1,000's . Ebay has no problem with them and encourages
them to list more and more . It's really sad what Ebay has become :-(
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Nov 28 03:31 PM
@ unbroke who stated:
"...If someone "invented" the original eBay (are you paying attention,
Yahoo??), and started in today, all the action would move in a
heartbeat..."
That's for sure!!!
Too bad Yahoo is sleeping with eBay and has caught the same disease.
If you want to get back on track, Yahoo, get yourself a shot of
penicillin, re-open your auctions, and millions of sellers will flock
away from the has-been giant called eBay and over to you. You picked the
wrong time to buddy up with eBay just for the Pay Per Clicks.
Your site is still there Yahoo, all you have to do is flick the switch
and turn it back on. What are you waiting for? Microsoft is not going to
give you another offer.
----------------------
Nov 28 05:05 PM
Regardless of who pays the fees or is now abusing the (broken) feedback
system, or the latest PayPal pressure on buyers and sellers, the fact is
neither eBay nor sellers can survive without the confidence of the
buyers, and the recent application generally of hidden bidders, in
conjunction with the absolutely anonymous alias (“Bidder N”) suffered in
Australia, UK, Ireland and the Philippines, which serves no other
purpose that to hide from view the shill bidding that is undoubtedly now
running rampant, so that buyers can’t detect it and therefore eBay does
not have to waste any of their valuable resources (ie, 1600
redundancies) pretending to do anything about it, is not going to
improve that confidence anytime in the near future.
Having said that, I think that most of us appreciate that the people
currently in control of eBay are a bunch of unprincipled, unscrupulous,
corporate snakes; it’s very difficult to keep track of such snakes as
they slither through the undergrowth; and that “spinning” forked tongue
doesn’t help any either!
A detailed criticism of the eBay “snake” at http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=6499794#6499794
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Nov 29 01:00 AM
Everyone is quick to point to the current economy when discussing recent
declines in Internet Sales Volume, especially the dramatic decline at
eBay.
eBay however, has no excuse to hide behind the economy declining
curtain, except for the fact the CEO is unwilling to admit he had led
the marketplace down the wrong path.
Draconian policies and failing infrastructure combined with search that
returns irrelevant results, and the worlds worst customer service has
been slowly bringing eBay down for years.
Enter Mr Donahoe and his "new coke - green ketchup - disruptive
innovation' plan for eBay, and the skids of failure received a new layer
of grease.
Ebay has historically out performed the brick and mortar retail segment
as well as the stock market during past recessions.
When times got tough, buyers used to flock to eBay in search of
incredible deals on unique items as well as scoop up second hand goods
to help stretch their dollar.
Then came John Donahoe, the killer of small sellers, the eBay suicide
king, leader of the gang that could not shoot straight.
Under Mr Donahoe's leadership, eBay is being converted into a high
priced shopping mall at the very time that retailers of new merchandise
are filing for bankruptcy in numbers never seen before.
Mr Donahoe's choice to eviscerate the core of eBay by purging small
sellers could not have come at a worse time.
eBay's quarterly reports are dismal and it's stock price which has seen
its value drop by 2/3 since Donahoe assumed control, sinks to a new low
almost every week.
This decline at eBay started to set in long before the economy displayed
signs of recession, and runs completely contrary to eBay's historical
success during tough economic times.
Ebay has always offered the worlds worst customer service, recent
staffing cuts have served to exacerbate this problem.
Ebay has alienated buyers with forced search methods that do not return
what buyers want to see.
The failed Best Match does not allow buyers to search, but instead shows
buyers what eBay has determined they want buyers to see.
Sellers that pay to place listings see those paid listings deliberately
disadvantaged in placement in favor of a class of sellers that pay
nothing to list items. These Diamond sellers flood the core and drown
the small sellers that pay to list.
eBay has further alienated sellers with a draconian DSR policy which is
not the tool promised to sellers. Instead, it turns out that DSR's are
really a weapon pointed at sellers heads that only delivers suspensions
not information to foster improvement.
Sellers are frustrated by eBay's failure to address the increasing
frequency of non paying bidders. NPB activity has increased since
implementation of the one way feedback policy. The issue continues to be
ignored as eBay profits from re listing of unpaid merchandise.
EBay further alienates both buyers and sellers with a crumbling IT
infrastructure that is subject to rolling 'glitches' on an almost daily
basis. Glitches that effect payments, shipping, searching, access to
funds, correct payment information, delayed revenue transfers and others
cause buyers and sellers alike to give up on the company that suddenly
can't get anything right anymore.
As eBay continues to deteriorate, they have become less of a venue as
they now want to dictate every facet of a sellers business from retail
pricing and fixed shipping costs to what kind of feedback sellers are
permitted to leave buyers. They cannot get anything right, yet they
dictate what sellers must do. So much for the claim of being a venue.
Mr Donahoe and the rest of his executive leadership team keep their
heads buried firmly in the sand. They only pull them out for the
occasional press release to parrot Donahoe's claims that "all is well"
and "everything is proceeding according to plan", while ignoring the
roof that is obviously falling in around them.
Add the fact that as the marketplace crumbles, eBay continues to
steadily increase fees and it is no wonder why so many sellers have
opted to migrate to other marketplaces and open their own web sites.
This company is failing on every level. Emperor Donahoe continues to
fiddle as eBay burns.
Will shareholders step in and call for the removal of eBay's current
leadership or is John Donahoe the next poster child for failed CEO's?
We have a ringside seat, so time will tell.
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