- Sunday, 8 November 2009
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In the beginning, there was nothing -- which exploded - Terry Pratchett
Ebay introduces bold changes
OLD CLOBBER FLOGGER Ebay will announce changes today to transform the jumble-sale business into a worldwide shopping mall.
Ebay will introduce more fixed-price items alongside the bargain hunting auctions the site is famous for – there will also, more importantly, be improved financial protection for buyers.
The global selling site has had a wobbly year as, with the £32.7m Luis Vuitton case top of the problem list, analysts began to question the company’s growth capacity.
Changes announced today are aimed at fighting off competition such as Amazon as well as helping entrepreneurs make the most of the fixed-price sales – buttering them up after the fallout over the new fee structure, Ebay?
Ebay denies that these changes, whilst encouraging the big retail partners
they so badly covet, will push away the smaller dealers.
A humongous rise from £500 to £30,000 will also be introduced to protect
customers paying for goods through Paypal.
Clare Gilmartin, director of marketplaces for Ebay in the UK explains that, "We've been on this path for the last few years. There's no doubt this year has seen some very, very bold changes - necessarily so and entirely reflective of what our buyers and sellers want."
Gilmartin concludes by saying that, "If you are a buyer and searching on Ebay, you'll have far more chance of finding what you are looking for. In a credit crunch environment, it's far easier to shop around online for a bargain than it is offline." µ
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The buyers have vastly too much "protection" as it is - sellers are hanging in the breeze thanks to eBay's recent blunderings.

Not to mention it's so incredibly expensive to sell on eBay anymore. 10% final value fees!? PayPal-usage penalty fees!? Ugh.

I was really, truly hoping that other online auction sites would take off after the last round of eBay stupidness - but they didn't. I stopped selling on eBay altogether, and now have been off the site for a very long time - many months. Waiting for one of the other auction sites to become a viable solution.

...but they haven't. Why? Firstly, eBay is the only site buyers know about. Because of it's size, buyers can't be bothered to look elsewher anyway - that would require thought and effort, after all. Also, with the ridiculous bias towards the buyer, and against the seller, now in effect on eBay, you'd be a bit nuts as a buyer to buy elsewhere anyway (and a bit nuts as a seller to sell there, but...). Secondly, sellers are still selling via eBay - and I probably will have to start there again too - fundamentally because of the fact that THERE IS NO VIABLE ALTERNATIVE. eBay is a monopoly that can abuse it's sellers all it wants because they have no where else to go. At least not at the moment.

Can somebody please put up a good auction site that doesn't brutally punish it's sellers and encourage abuasive behavior on the part of it's buyers?
Another example of something that was once good, becoming bad, or unnecessary. ebay has so pissed off everyone, that very few people, in the US at least, buy there anymore. And most would rather do root canal on themselves than sell on ebay, as the fees are so HIGH now, it no longer makes sense.

Plus, ebay stopped telling people the truth when they went down the path of crediting all the "positive changes are what our buyers and sellers asked for"...... right.... way too many marketing people with zero skills.
I don't use Paypal. Money orders are now banned. Scratch me as an occasional Ebay purchaser.
I refuse to buy or sell now on ebay, they are still refusing to honour the help they promise on their paypal site, I bought what I was told was a legitamate (new) Photoshop CS3 from one of their sellers, only to find out from Adobe it was a forgery, even after we sent the CS3 to Adobe and they contacted them with a Fax on our behalf they (paypal/ebay) say its my problem not theirs, and now they wont return any emails, how can you fight a company that has no guts to stand by their own morality, ebay burn in hell !
What can anyone really say on behalf of ebay - erm.. not a lot really.

Over the years we have written many applications which are standalone or work with ebay, we are now seeing the death of ebay as we knew it.

It will soon stop selling secondhand / bargin goods - which is what is was aimed at.

Instead they are forcing the smaller sellers out for good. Its like all other types of businesses, we want bigger companies as we think we can get more money from them.

eBay dont reply to emails, if they do they are automatically copied and pasted - they never read the emails you send them and hence never reply correctly.

Who can compete with ebay ? Not many, there are a few auction sites becoming mucg bigger such as ebid, etc

None of them will take the step, make the commitment to buy a serious advertising campain - why dont one of these companies go to a mobile phone giant and team up ?

Direct bidding on your mobile phone ?

eBay has this very simply message to all of its buyers and sellers, by way of thanking us all for all the money we've given them over the years.

'we rule, you dont'

And in a nut shell, this is eactly what there saying, were doing it our way and if you dont like it go away.

Once again, thanks ebay - great to be stitched once again.

Dave.

Ps: I still try to sell on ebay !