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EBay Sellers Seek Management Change
BlueCup writes to tell us that even though some seem willing to let eBay's Chief Executive Meg Whitman slide on recent problems, many eBay sellers are calling for a change. From the article: "'EBay's core (auction) performance is suffering tremendously,' says Steve Grossberg, a longtime videogame seller on eBay. He says he now lists an item four times on average in order to sell it, up from two listings two years ago. Adds Andy Mowery, an eBay seller of home and garden gear: 'It is time for new leadership at eBay.'"
Ebay's management is in serious need of a kick in the pants. More for customer service, support, and the way it deals with fraud (which is all part of the same thing really).
Just because it's more difficult to sell on Ebay does NOT mean the problem is management, it means there's more traffic (buyers and sellers), so you have more competition. It may take twice as long to sell a game as 2 years ago, but I'm willing to bet there's well more than twice as many video games on Ebay now, as there were then.
--Not to be worried, Pitr fix.
They are going to have to get rid of fraudelent auctions. The last time I bought anything off ebay was a year ago, and the only reason I did that is because it was an uncommon item(English-Chinese electronic dictionary) that is hard to find elsewhere. If I search for anything that isn't eclectic, at least half of the items are fraud, if not more. I have to do a lot of slogging through(usually by sorting by highest price first and then trying to find the items I want) just to get to legit auctions. No, I don't want a "free xbox 360, powerbook and more!!!!!!!!!!" which just turns into a bid for "information that is 110% legit on how to find free items online!". I end up having to do a lot of work just to find the item I want. If you can't be bothered to get rid of fraudelent auctions, then I can't be bothered to bid.
Monstar L
What ebay needs is for people to stop selling stuff on it as if it was their own store. I go to ebay to pick up a bargain not to pay RRP for something I could get from the store for the same price. ebay needs to get back to what it used to be, a place to pick up rare items for a premium or second hand items for cheap.
Try searching for mobile phones on ebay, it's become a joke. There are people trying to sell new phones with plans included. Why bother, there is a shop near by that can do that and not charge me for postage.
Don't even get me started on items that are clearly in the wrong category. I don't want to sift through 18 pages of leather cases for PDA's before I find the cheapest listed actual PDA.
Damn straight. I don't frequent E-Bay anymore. Too hard to find what I want. Way too much fraud. The feedback system is a joke.
E-Bay has had this crazy idea that their customer is the seller. Well, their direct customer is the seller, but the seller's customer is the buyer, so E-Bay needs to start focusing on making buyers happy. If the buyer is not happy, the buyer will not come back. The whole system then colapses in a smoldering heap.
E-Bay keeps trying to police the buyers, and gives the sellers a free pass when ever they can. Thus, they have created the first planet-wide den of theives.
It's pretty damn simple. Follow the money. The buyers are the only ones feeding money into the system. How can E-Bay be so blind to that?
My formula for turning E-Bay around:
1. Stop treating buyers like thieves, treat them like valued customers.
2. Stop treating sellers like customers, treat them like sub-contract employees.
Obviously seller growth has outpaced buyer growth. I've seen that in some items I sell as well.
Furthermore there are other alternatives to eBay now, especially for video games. When they guy started on eBay I'll bet a lot of people were not picking up used games at the EB, since they didn't stock them as they do today. eBay made that happen.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
these fee-circumventing, high-shipping auctions. It's strange.
it's not strange at all, ebay themselves created the situation, by trying to squeeze every penny they can from sellers, and by only charging the sale cost, not the shipping fee.
consider, if ebay final value fee is 5% (for the sake of argument), then would you rather have a seller charge $0.01 and $10 shipping, for a total of $10.01? or charge $10.50 for the item and $0.01 shipping, for a total of $10.51?
the seller makes the same amount of money in both cases, but i would guess (call it a hunch) that buyers would prefer to pay $10.01 rather than $10.51.
the seller who moves as much of the cost over to the shipping side as possible, is able to sell the item for the lowest total price.
sadly, many ebayers are not very bright and dont understand this basic concept.
Don't listen to parent! Parent has bad ratings and doesn't pay for auctions! Seller beware!
Grandparent is A+++++ first poster. Will recommend to all. Will read grandparent's post again
Is there anyone who think eBay's feedback system is truly useful or even fair? I get slammed when people don't pay and think they are funny. People ignore terms of auctions and think I'm unprofessional for not bending over backward. People don't ship my stuff because they found out the postage is way higher than they thought and decide to just keep my money. It's a sin how bad it is.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
"He says he now lists an item four times on average in order to sell it, up from two listings two years ago."
Here's a tip, set the auction price at $0.01 to start, and let people bid it up to what *they* think it's currently worth. You'll sell your items the *first* time.