Heartless eBay tells sellers it just doesn't care about them

[mandy]

Why does all the protesting, screaming, crying, ranting, raving, begging, petitioning, pleading, and threatening appear to fall on deaf ears at eBay? That is very simple, they do not care. Oh they do care very much overall, but they may not care about you in particular.

Every time eBay increases its fees, modifies its procedures, changes its format, the noise starts up in earnest by those directly affected and they all wonder why eBay does not care about them anymore, or more importantly, why they are pushing them so hard, perhaps to their financial limits...

full article: http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2006/08/15...ow-or-die/

[regic]

Channel Advisor Scott Wingo makes a few comments about the article:

This guy, Sheldon, over at bloggingstocks has an interesting opinion.  He basically says that sellers have no choice, so eBay can jack up prices as much as they want and as long as the sellers that survive can absorb the increase, then eBay will be fine.

Interesting theory, but I strongly disagree with the "no alternative" argument.  We have many of our top customers at ChannelAdvisor who now show meaningful+material GMV coming from their websites via search and comparison shopping engines.

full article: http://ebaystrategies.blogs.com/ebay_str...g_per.html

[mandy]

Blogging stocks has a followup to yesterday's article:

eBay was revolutionary - now "peasants" are revolting!

Points of consensus:

    * EBay does not care to directly address the concerns of many of their sellers. They treat this subject like so many others where they choose to "play innocent bystander" like they were not involved. I do not know why eBay chooses not to be more accommodating and pretend all is well. Pretending is not usually a good thing.

    * There is real market pressure for an alternative to eBay so Google or any other entity that can gain traction in this space will be gloriously welcomed. To date this has not happened and there are only meager signs, at the fringe, that might be chipping away. Despite portrayals of seller options, nothing I read was convincing...

fter reading all the negative sentiment about eBay, my general feeling is that the "little guys" feel like they are being pushed to their financial, logistical, emotional and stress limits and are becoming extremely frustrated with the world they must now operate in...

full article: http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2006/08/16...revolting/

[mandy]

More from Blogging Stocks:

Having posted all week about eBay and getting a tirade of in depth responses from sellers who feel mistreated, deceived, disrespected and financially punished, I feel that this issue will not go away. Not because of my continuous posts and not because sellers feel so passionate about the issues they raise.

The real reason the fire continues to burn is that eBay has not sent in the fire brigade and chooses to ignore the fire. It may be a small fire now but small fires turn into big fires if the fuel is not removed (objectionable business practices) or the fire is not overwhelmed by a fire retarding agent -- better communication, more transparency, more warning of changes and seeking seller input as to how improvements might be made for mutual benefit.

In the case of eBay they hope the fire will burn itself out. Will it? The problem is that they are bullying the "little guy", but absolute power corrupts absolutely and eventually they will meet their match. It may be Google, it may be the SEC or FTC, it may be a large law firm that identifies a class action opportunity or a foreign company...

full article: http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2006/08/18...-your-act/

[BellisimaJ.]

In the case of eBay they hope the fire will burn itself out. Will it? The problem is that they are bullying the "little guy", but absolute power corrupts absolutely and eventually they will meet their match. It may be Google, it may be the SEC or FTC, it may be a large law firm that identifies a class action opportunity or a foreign company..

Take THAT, ebay!!