Former #1 eBay Seller Glacier Bay DVD (Randy Smythe) Speaks

[rksmythe]

This is fun! I never paid attention to message boards when I was selling. Obviously another mistake of mine and I've made many.

Honestly, at times I am going to sound like a cheerleader for eBay sometimes but be assured these are my opinions only not some eBay spin. And since they are opinions they are very much open to debate. Since I am no longer selling and outside of the Ebay community I will also be very critical.  I'm sure at points you will think I'm an idiot and others you will agree with me. I'm a big boy I can handle the criticism. And occasionally I’m even wrong.

We will see what happens!

thentavius - Good Points. BTW you are correct I put those comments in regarding shining star and the meal with Meg for credibility and it appears it comes across as arrogance. That was not the intent.

In regards to me blaming everything on myself. I have more articles to write and more comments to make I thought it prudent to fall on my sword in my first post. I will deal with the issues I had with ebay in the coming weeks. I’m still new to this commentating thing so bear with me.

[BellisimaJ.]

rk,

Struggling, but keeping an open mind.


http://community.tuliptools.com/index.ph...l#msg25160

[rksmythe]

BellisimaJ. - That's all I ask.  Thanks for turning me on this message board.  I'll pop in again

[cranky_hippie]

It's amazing to me that some business owners blame only themselves for the unlivable mess eBay created.

And the Rah! Rah! Ebay! mentality is such that many sellers who remain on Ebay can't see Ebay's fault in all this but can only think that those sellers who left are somehow to blame for the shut-down of their Ebay business. I guess they would rather think that "we" did something wrong or didn't do enough than to face the reality that Ebay will screw them someday, too.

And Ebay fosters those sentiments with their "community" bullsh.it. There IS no true Community and there probably never really was. It was and is just a game on Pierre's part that Meg and Bill continue to exploit.

[thentavius]

In regards to me blaming everything on myself. I have more articles to write and more comments to make I thought it prudent to fall on my sword in my first post. I will deal with the issues I had with ebay in the coming weeks. I’m still new to this commentating thing so bear with me.

I'll be watching for future articles. Be sure to post the links here, if you have the time (or I can check back from the original article). I'm not trying to sound totally negative, by the way. I feel as though I'm coming across that way in everything I'm doing today. I just hate to see a small business owner blame himself for everything that's happened, when there were many aspects of the big picture that were beyond control.

There are always things we can do better--which is where I hope your articles can benefit people. But there are some things which can't be done or undone (trying to pay the rent on penny DVDs).

The "$1.00 deals" catchphrase was the mantra of downfall for eBay's quality items and sellers. They're now wondering where all the good stuff has gone... where all the higher priced, better quality things are... (if they check ecommerce sites, Overstock, and other venues, they might find some of it).

I have no doubts or disagreeances that eBay revolutionized parts of the retail world. For one, local swapmeets haven't been the same since the late 90s. The junk dealers I loved have all gone online, or they have cardboard signs that claim a clone of their rusted, broken MacGyver lunchbox "sold for $2,500 on eBay last week"--and they're giving you a deal for $900. eBay sellers scour garage sales and flea markets, grabbing up things that used to be priceless weekend finds. eBay has certainly changed the local peddler's market and taken away the magic of discovering something fantastic in the midst of rubble.

It has also allowed people with limited funds to start their own business. It allowed people with limited mobility or the desire to stay at home and work near their children and animals the chance to make money, without having to stuff phony envelope schemes. It allowed people to follow their dreams, rather than a 9-to-5 job with no soul. It allowed people to turn their passion into a paycheck. It encouraged people to learn new skills: digital photography, basic HTML, product copywriting, salesmanship, advertising. It raised the number of people who realized they could go into business for themselves, and I also suspect it helped increase the number of web stores off-eBay on the net.

eBay has certainly had an effect.

It's lowered the general populace's expectations of price. "I can get it cheaper on eBay" is something I hear frequently. It's encouraged people to steal to make a bigger profit margin. It's encoured people to collect and attempt to sell souvenirs from terrible events (World Trade Center rubble) and allowed people to make a mockery of honest retail trade (Mother Mary on a Grilled Cheese Sandwich), while artists selling their wares can't move an original painting on the venue.

It's encouraged knock-off sales and phonies to shovel "designer" accessories.



I hope your articles can help the remaining few who dare try to make a living over there. Maybe someone can put the information to good use. It's certainly worth sharing, I'm sure.

In the meantime, I'll be shopping off-eBay and potentially paying more money for some things--but I'll be supporting off-eBay ecommerce sites
(and the soul of the small business industry).

If I want cheap broken sh!t, I'll go straight to eBay.

With any luck, maybe you can reorganize your business and open a fast & friendly retail website? I've bought from you before. The DVD was in great condition. I see no reason eBay should have ever expected you (or other media sellers) to beg for pennies on products that are worth far more.

[thentavius]

By the gods--I'm a chatterbox today. I'll be quiet for a while.

[BellisimaJ.]

[quote author=thentavius link=topic=219.msg25185#msg25185 date=1159465893]
By the gods--I'm a chatterbox today. I'll be quiet for a while.
[/quote]

Lmao, it's okay, Thent, it's "good" chatter.

[rksmythe]

thentavius – Very well said! While I agree with just about all of your points. I keyed into this one:

“It has also allowed people with limited funds to start their own business. It allowed people with limited mobility or the desire to stay at home and work near their children and animals the chance to make money, without having to stuff phony envelope schemes. It allowed people to follow their dreams, rather than a 9-to-5 job with no soul. It allowed people to turn their passion into a paycheck. It encouraged people to learn new skills: digital photography, basic HTML, product copywriting, salesmanship, and advertising. It raised the number of people who realized they could go into business for themselves, and I also suspect it helped increase the number of web stores off-eBay on the net.”

That is straight on point for an article I’m working on would you allow me to use it in an article. You can contact by me using the contact button at the top my articles.  I just posted a new one today. If you get time take a look and give me your opinion. I’m going to be busy the rest of today but I’ll pop in again later.

Here the link to the latest article.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article...d_for.html

Thanks!
Randy

[cranky_hippie]

Actually, Thentavius, what you have said was useful to me. You gave me another way to look at things.

I'll admit that my first reaction to Glacier Bay was to think "Another one of those who began and contributed to the race to the bottom - pricewise - on Ebay!" I was a media seller so that race to the bottom made it very hard for me to get the profit that I wanted. I also resent the de-valuing of media items, especially books. (Nothing that helps, even in a small way, in one's quest for knowledge should be considered "junk" as many books are now, thanks to Ebay prices, IMO.)

Because of what you said, I am now seeing that, maybe, sellers like Randy were just caught in the Ebay web sooner than others. I may not like the choices that they made but I can see why they may have made those choices.

I think we are seeing more and more sellers reacting in similar ways to the Ebay web by jacking their shipping prices just to get by. In the end, will this cause the failure of their Ebay business as buyers get wise and refuse to pay exhorbitant shipping prices? I think it will and Ebay will bear some of the blame here as well.

[bargainbloodhound]

I’ve been observing eBay over these past 8 months and I’ve come to the realization that they are a ship without a rudder,

Very true.  They're grasping at straws in a desperate attempt to win back Wall Street's favor...with their new emphasis on the "core" the latest example of their desperation.  I'm sure that eBay's management fully realizes that no matter what they do they're not going to be able to resurrect "the magic" of auctions because the novelty of online auctions for US shoppers wore off a long time ago.  I'm sure that eBay's management is also fully aware that the public increasingly prefers fixed price...which is bad news for eBay since they have failed repeatedly over the past 6 years to create the same level of "magic" with their fixed price ventures (Half, eBay Stores) that they had with auctions or that Amazon has with fixed price. Desperation and grasping at straws...

Thanks to eBay's hairbrained marketing plan that encouraged buyers to come to eBay for great deals and cheap stuff (remember their catch phrases?), many sellers who deal in items like yours have struggled with competitors (and the venue in general) constantly lowering costs. How on earth is someone supposed to stay in business if their profit margin is constantly being shrunk by the market? They're not, and they don't usually last--whether they're brick and mortar or electronic.

. I made the decisions or neglected the issues that caused Glacier Bay’s demise. I ignored the competition, I didn’t adapt to the changes in the marketplace, and I didn’t cut overhead when I should have.

I'll place the blame on both eBay and on many sellers' failure to recognize a changing/deteriorating market environment until after they've either passed the point of no return or been hit by a significant setback (like eBay's recent de-emphasis of Store inventory and fee hikes).

Too many sellers on eBay focus solely on their current sales and completely ignore the deteriorating market/competitive conditions they're operating in on eBay (like sell-through rates and ASPs that have been steadily declining for 5 years) until its too late. Waiting until the bad times hit (e.g. a change in search, a fee hike, ASP's falling to levels where it's impossible to turn a profit) before adapting to changing conditions is definitely the wrong way to run a business (or to remain in business)...the changes need to be made when the cracks first start to appear.

And the Rah! Rah! Ebay! mentality is such that many sellers who remain on Ebay can't see Ebay's fault in all this but can only think that those sellers who left are somehow to blame for the shut-down of their Ebay business. I guess they would rather think that "we" did something wrong or didn't do enough than to face the reality that Ebay will screw them someday, too.

Someday?  eBay's screwing them (the "rah, rah eBay brigade) today and has been for years but many sellers have swallowed eBay's marketing BS and don't realize it is nothing but BS. eBay's focus since they decided to go public has always been on doing what's best for eBay with little regard for the welfare of its users when it makes decisions...the community officially died in 1997/98 when they hired the uber corporate Steve Westly and marketing spin wiz Meg Whitman. Since then "community" has been nothing but a clever marketing gimmick that thousands of sellers have been misled by.  ;D