Meg or Her Direct Report on the Stores Board?

[BellisimaJ.]

MEG: Why Are Satisfied Sellers Paying To Run These Boards?
hula-mermaid  (Private ) View Listings | Report Aug-10-06 14:50 PDT
Afraid to pull the plug on the relatively tiny batch of complaining store-owners that have clogged and monopolized eBay's "opinion sites" during the past month, the corporation has wholly disregarded the rights of sellers who simply want to comply with venue policies, stock their stores, and provide excellent customer service to their buyers. eBay's liberal and permissive actions in this matter have harmed the venue far more than any price hikes could ever do. eBay's failure to understand the difference between "free-speech" and "privileged speech" is, in part, a contributor to the sell-through-rate disasters that many sellers are currently experiencing.

Protected speech is a fine concept, but it has its lawful limits. eBay - and its investors - own its message boards and blog sites. eBay has an absolute right to either prohibit discordant speech or regulate its time, place and manner. The corporation's management decision to allow malcontent sellers to vent their defamatory frustrations - using corporate property as their dissemination vehicle - constitutes a breach of management's duty to both compliant sellers and corporate investors.

It has been conclusively decided that private-property owners have no duty to provide free-speech opportunities to third-parties within the confines of such property. In this regard, eBay is private property and its interests should be protected from those that would harm its operations. eBay’s compound failures to provide such protections are unacceptable, and should be remedied forthwith.

Whether on-line or in the bricks-and-mortar retailing world, the owners of shopping venues must protect the free flow of commerce within those privately owned spaces. Policy-conforming sellers within such spaces enjoy an occupancy privilege, but not a right to abuse that privilege at the expense of either the venue owner or that owner’s other paying-sellers.

The constant bashing of eBay – on eBay’s property – during the current "fee-hike controversy" abuses the privileges of sellers that are content doing business on the venue. Scores-of-thousands of satisfied sellers have been cowered into silence by the loud-mouthed bashers that have seized control of the opinion boards. These reasonable sellers dare not openly enter the opinion-wars for fear of retaliation; such sellers know that the malcontents need only use disposable buyer-Ids to wipe out these rent-paying sellers’ BIN inventories and to disrupt their core listings. Thus, reasonable privileged speech has given way to the onerous tactics of those who seek to damage eBay under the guise of a free-speech concept that does not even exist on the private property that constitutes eBay’s venue.

Every person who buys and sells on eBay has an absolute right to make any protest, bring any civil-action, allege any wrong. But, I as a rent-paying customer of eBay, deserve management-enforced policies that protect my privilege to operate my business without interference from eBay sanctioned "free speech" abuses within this private venue.

eBay is not a government. It is a publicly-held corporation, meant to create profits for investors by providing services to sellers. As an investor and a seller, I perceive that I am being harmed by eBay’s refusals to halt the publication of competitive, disruptive, and untrue rants and diatribes within the property upon which I pay rent. Biased media accounts resulting from the bad-practices of sellers with malicious and disruptive agendas will cost sellers millions of dollars in net-revenues, if the misuse of the bulletin-board platforms within eBay is not stopped, and stopped NOW!

Sellers who are unhappy, here should leave. I should not be forced to subsidize their efforts to recruit small armies of failed sellers within the venue upon which I am a paying tenant. Discontented sellers have every right to complain and proselytize, but they have no right whatsoever to do it on eBay property. eBay management lacks the moral courage to deliver that message, and that renders them unqualified to lead and oversee this e-commerce giant.

The fact that many sellers do not understand that third-party vendors of internet-sales venues have played a major hidden-role in stirring the cries of exodus on eBay’s boards, is unfortunate. Such sellers should ask themselves: Who benefits most when sellers pay rents to ghost-town venues that have zero traffic?

There is not now, there never has been, and there never will be a pogrom against eBay’s responsible store-operators. Irresponsible store-owners who have been dumping ten-thousand item drop-ship catalogs into their stores should be and are the righteous target of eBay’s fee-hikes. Store owners who allow their stores to be populated by junk that nobody wants to look at - much less buy – need also suffer the fee-hike stick. Operators who display inventories of hundreds of one-cent items with one-dollar price tags on them, need to pay their fair share of the fares that the rest of us have been paying on their behalf. No responsible seller will do anything but gain, by the "pricing out of the marketplace" of the junk peddlers that have driven traffic away from good stores and rendered eBay’s core-listing formats a value-shell of their former selves. Quality sellers, bring quality buyers; many, but not all, currently complaining sellers need to look in the mirror to see the real culprits in the fee-hike and store-search controversies.

What can eBay do to solve the problem I have outlined?

First, eBay management must abandon the theory of "let the crazies rant and they will burn themselves out." The "crazies" will also burn down eBay, if they are allowed to continue to defame our collective enterprises within the forums that our own dollars are paying for.

Second, eBay needs to stop worrying about any potential public-relations blow-back resulting form the termination of accounts that continue to disrupt and defame the marketplace that the majority of sellers are satisfied with. If minority opinion wants to be heard and rule, it should do so on a venue that I am not paying for. I do not want to fund dissent in front of my place of business, which is located on private property. If people wish to complain about "censorship," let them do it, but force them to do it someplace else and without using my money to do it.

Third, eBay must make it clear that the sole purpose of providing "opinion opportunities" to members is to create more selling and buying opportunities for those members. eBay message boards once provided a myriad of "tips and tricks" about delivering better customer service and attaining better technical abilities to build and stock better stores. Boards now being used to sow discontent and shuttle sellers to other venues should be discontinued, since they cannot be properly moderated.

If eBay’s current liberal policies continue to damage compliant and satisfied sellers, the corporation should be very concerned that allegations will arise that it has negligently allowed third-parties to tortiously interfere with the relationships that such sellers have built and/or are trying to build with their customer base.

eBay has a right to price its products at whatever levels it feels are competitive and business-building. eBay has no right to allow the majority of its satisfied customers to be financially harmed by persons whose motives may or may not be transparent.

If anti-eBay protesters want to air complaints, petition for corporate changes, and even mislead the media, they are free to do so with the constitutional protections that apply to government owned or controlled venues. Such "protections" do not apply on eBay, and corporate management needs to muster the courage to say so, today.

The band of protesters should build and pay for their own complaint sites; then they will be entitled to "free-speech protections." They can enjoy no such protections while the are standing in front of the stores that I pay to occupy. If they tried their nonsense in any shopping center in America, they would be arrested and prosecuted. The least eBay can do is to ask them to depart.

Business may be "bad" at eBay today, but it will not get better through the constant bashing of the venue. Those who "hate" eBay should leave for a while, and go where they will either find their inventory has zero visitors in alternative venues, or only a few visitors and fewer buyers on their own amateur-created e-commerce sites. These peoples’ presence here, absent a change in their public conduct, is really no longer necessary and should be considered redundant.

MW, please tear down these "free-speech" message boards, before they tear down the working and retired eBayers who are paying the freight on those boards….and on the entire corporate entity that is eBay. Tell the people who want to "leave the community," to do so if they chose to; and, please be prepared to welcome them back under a new scheme of building the eBay community up. Kindly abandon your current, cowardly scheme that allows the few to harm the many, and forces the responsible many to pick up the tab for the irresponsible few.

MW, your "fuse" has been far too long in this entire matter. Many silent sellers are now disgusted by your refusal to act. I have no "right" to sell on eBay. Selling on eBay is a "privilege," for which I pay "rent" to the corporation. Please try to get your head around the fact that no eBay member has the right to damage or defease that privilege. Stop defending "fee-hikes" and "search-routines," and start protecting the "privilege" that I am paying you to receive.

hm

[BellisimaJ.]

Hula mermaid has been posting with a private id and sounding awfully like Meg.

If you click on the link below, it will update each time you click, and you will be able to read Hula's latest enlightening posts.


http://forums.ebay.com/search.jspa?q=&dateRange=all&userID=hula-mermaid&numResults=30

[cranky_hippie]

She's our man! If Meg can't do it, no one can!