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

[BellisimaJ.]

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.

That's why I was looking for you.

[cranky_hippie]

Someday?

Picky, picky.    

Since then "community" has been nothing but a clever marketing gimmick that thousands of sellers have been misled by.

Recently, I've wandered around the web looking at Pierre and I pretty much believe that "community" was a clever gimmick from the very beginning.

[DecorativeDishes]

Desperation and grasping at straws...

That sums it up perfectly.

The jackels are coming in now to rip off eBay in their desperation. That ad agency that came up with the pathetic beyond comprehension Express campaign must be laughing their asses off that someone would pay a fortune for that crap to represent their company...

Then there is Match-ups and new MyWorld and the banner ads... I'm pretty sure those will save eBay for sure  Kim

[thentavius]

(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.)

Absolutely. They are NOT junk--but just try to sell a wonderful book in perfect condition for even half of the cover price. It's not fair at all.

GlacierBay may have contributed to the penny race, but eBay set up the stadium so the race could begin.

Randy, as for my quote:

“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.”

I hope you did notice I wrote it all in the PAST tense (on purpose)?

It used to be all those things. That's why it's so unfortunate.

[mandy]

Auctionbytes interview with Glacier Bay DVD:

AB: What was the biggest challenge you faced in terms of profitability? Was it sourcing? Overhead? Selling prices? Competition?

RS: Our biggest cost on the P&L outside of our product costs was eBay. Our biggest problem, and this was a problem that to this day they have not dealt with, which is why you see the big guys going away, or falling apart like I did, or never growing past a certain point - they hit a wall. eBay doesn't provide a mechanism for you to scale your fees. Every other aspect of your business you can scale. I can get better pricing from my distributor, I can get better pricing from my shipper, I can get better pricing from my packaging guy, all these things you can get better pricing on. With eBay, you can't get better pricing, and the more you list, the worse your conversion rates get. Your sales go up, but your cost of sales on eBay goes up too.

AB: The more you list, the more your conversion rate goes down?

RS: Yes...

full article: http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m09/i29/s01

Editor's Note: Bear Stearns is hosting an Internet Conference Call with Randy Smythe for clients on September 29 at 1pm, hosted by Robert S. Peck, CFA, entitled, "#2 All-Time eBay Seller’s View on the State & Future of eBay."

[cranky_hippie]

And then, eBay - and I had been pushing for this, so I can't blame eBay - eBay came out with Pre-Fill for the media category.

Well, Randy, you just lost points with me if you helped, even in a small way, to get pre-filled on Ebay. That was the beginning of the end for media sellers.  >

[rksmythe]

Cranky - Ina quoted me correctly but I may have misspoken in regards to pre-fill.  eBay was going to do pre-fil regardless. They came up with the idea not me. It would have been a more accurate comment if I had said I pushed ChannelAdvisor to give me the capability to use pre-fill.  And yes I agree in retrospect that it lead to the homogenization of the Media Category.

[cranky_hippie]

Gotcha! Thanks for clarifying, Randy.

[Anita]

The ONLY time I would buy from a seller (on eBay) that used pre-fill was if I believed the seller was selling a new item and I already had done research on the product myself. 
Toooooo often eBay's prefill info is incorrect.  Or I felt the seller could be selling a piece of carp, but with using eBay's prefill info and eBay's picture... who knows what the seller was really selling.

[landofsmiles]

Is pre-fill the same as Items Specific?