posted on October 23, 2000 08:25:45 PM
AnnieJean
No they will not listen to me,I am a Powerseller but so are a lot of others.I am a nobody a drop in the bucket.
But its always interesting to see what others think.I will still list on ebaY .I just listed another 40 items and have I think over 150 items on there.
But in comparison to most I am but small fry so I will have little or no affect on ebaY.
posted on October 23, 2000 08:27:22 PM
I am a powerseller on ebay, have been since they initiated the program and at a high level, and this hurts, I just sent them the following:<p>
just finished reading with interest the "Tech Letter" on the announcement board, as a long time seller on ebay I rely very heavily on the "seller search" button for my customers, I have developed a large following of loyal customers on ebay and I do a healthy amount of business, thank you for that, however without the "seller search" button my listings are suffering! The majority of my customers have my list bookmarked and when they can't pull it up I don't get bids. I am sure my situation is echoed by many other successful sellers on ebay and I for one would like to see a solution and see it fast, this is getting old. With your huge customer base you have a lot at stake not to mention your responsibility to your stockholders of which I also happen to be. Lets get this thing fixed, we need functionality on all levels
I am sure I will get a prompt "canned response" and I am sure it won't do any good at all, I think if someone contacted one of the news services it might get some attention, didn't some sellers do this during the "reserve its only a dollar" crisis?
posted on October 23, 2000 08:51:09 PM
I pity eBay sellers, but all this downtime is doing great for me on Yahoo. Already tonight I sold 7 items using the first bid wins feature. I knew buyers were upset at ebay because they email me wanting to know why they cant bid on my eBay items. I now moved my auctions to yahoo, and list just a few items on eBay for advertising. I got 2 emails tonight from yahoo telling me my feedback increased by 2. Yahoo's technology is so far advanced than eBay. ebay should steal Yahoo's tech people.
posted on October 23, 2000 08:57:54 PM
EBah! is where the buyers are? What difference does it make if they can't get to your items?
Try the approach we tried a year or so ago. Announce a Day Without eBay. The media loved this one! The AuctionWatch coalition agrees not to post on that day, and each gets ten others to do the same.
Then start with sending 10 percent of your postings over to Yahoo (or whatever other site you might want to try). Increase the percent each week.
posted on October 23, 2000 09:38:25 PM
I am a buyer and a seller. I buy at ebay and yahoo and sell at both also. I let my husband handle the yahoo account and I do the ebay. I too have seen my sales go to break even. But I believe that the internet will survive and I will be a business as I try to operate in a business like manner. I have been very disapointed with some other sellers. I purchased two LP's to add to my personal collection to see how things worked. the ebay seller charged $3.75 and stated it was for proirity mail and they send it parcel post. the yahoo lp was quoted at $2.00 bookrate and arrived that way. I will delete the ebay seller and keep the yahoo. As far as the outages, I will ride them through. As it has been quoted here before, when one dosent work the other goes up. As I told a friend the other day, never put all of your eggs in one basket. He wishes he had listened.
Just looked again and it is 54%. Maybe there is way to figure out what was owned 2 years ago but I am not sure how to do it.
On the Insider SEC page it tells you how many shares are held and how many have been sold. I supose they could be added up. But then too, the stock has slipt twice, and eBay has issued more shares since the IPO, I am not sure how to figure it all out.
From what I can tell Pierre O and Meg W seem to sell blocks of shares on a fairly regular basis. There doesn't seem to be any buying activity though.
My point in saying eBay and the insiders own 53% or 54% of the stock means that eBay and the insiders have firm control over the company. Although Wall Street might react, the major owners (eBay and the insiders), can continue to do what they want to do without worrying about being tossed by the other shareholders.
Profits are the most important thing because it affects them directly. When you affect eBay's pocketbook you are affecting the insiders more than the other shareholdes since they own most of the stock. And it is the Insiders who have been making all of these decisions. Complaining about them to Wall Street isn't going to make the Insiders make different decisions, not if those decisions are keeping the profits rolling in, and according to the last financial report profits are up, up, up.
posted on October 23, 2000 10:32:39 PM
I've been doing almost as well on Yahoo lately as on eBay. The first time I tried Yahoo, I couldn't GIVE stuff away, so I was leery about trying it again. That was 4 or 5 months ago.
About a month ago I started listing there again, and was surprised by the bidding activity. I do run my auctions at "instant win" buy prices (where the minimum bid and the buy price are the same - whoever bids the minimum automatically wins), so maybe that helps encourage bidding. Seems to work for me!
I've also started putting both my eBay ID and my Yahoo ID in my end-of-auction letter that goes out to winners at both auction sites, and have had a handful of cross-auction winners as well.
posted on October 23, 2000 10:56:34 PM
It's time to figure it out and be steadfast in that determination. This isn't the first time ebay's had a revolt on their hands. When they tried to pull the Reserve thing on us, everyone went ballistic! They listened.
At this point I don't even think it's a matter of stockholders. It is a matter of advertisers. The stockholders have nothing in the way of dividends (since ebay's capitol keeps going to other aquistions under other offerings ie Half.com etc) and the stock is in the toilet. Write ebay's advertisers and let them know that they are p***ssing their money away on a site that used to be great and also let them know you will not buy their products. It's a simple boycott, but the adverts need to know that we as suppliers to the site are really fed up with the blatant disregard and contempt ebay shows us. After all, the announce board today really showed us what they think. We have been on these chat boards for weeks screaming at the wrong people while those cowards were changing configurations and disabling functions and not owning up to the changes they made until today and that was only due to a CNET report. COMMUNITY my donkey!!
posted on October 23, 2000 11:23:09 PM
Well, my thoughts keep going around in circles. They go something like "maybe the improvements will really help, so we should all just be patient & try to hang in till it's done." Then another part of me says "yes, but why couldn't they have done this back in Sept. when things were dead anyway"? Then I think "Well, at least they didn't wait till November and the BUSIEST time to pull this junk" Then I think, "Screw Ebay, time to YAHOO!!!!!"
I think CharlieGirl raises valid points- it's smarter not to keep all eggs in one basket, as the old cliche goes. When I first got the hang of Yahoo (it is a different world then Ebay, & it took a minute for me to "get it" I propmptly moved all my auctions to Yahoo & was doing GREAT for awhile. Then I hit a dead spell on Yahoo as well, and moved some of my auctions back to Ebay again. I realized that diversity is good.
dman3- LOL at your post, now that I re-read it a few times & get what you were saying!
posted on October 23, 2000 11:52:31 PM
I saw a post on here somewhere tonight talking about how ebaY is a cultural phenomenon and how it all started as a "word of moth" grass roots society.
She reminded everybody how she first heard of ebaY, thru a friend. And she is right! Thats how they started and that is their roots. All this yelling and screaming doesn't mean sh*t to them. They don't care about sellers like you or me because they know they don't have to.
But I'll tell you what, if I was in uppper management for ebaY, these posts about putting notes in the wbn email, advertising other sites would scare me.
Thats the most effective way to steer the bidding public. Same way ebaY got started, word of mouth.
They may laugh in private about all these boycott threats, but we handle the customers and without them, there is nothing to fuss over.
Let them continue in their predatory business schemes, I will diversify on other sites and advise my satisfied customers where my deals are available.
Yahoo is free! and guess what, if they want to save on shipping, they can actually view my other auctions on Yahoo!
posted on October 24, 2000 12:56:33 AM
Adrian - Do you have a web site also? I am composing one right now because I am having so many customers not able to get to my seller search page.
I have encouraged all my buyers to bookmark that or even make a folder of sellers and search it regularly for new items and now eBay cuts that page as a way to regain site stability.
I don't think they understand that that page is most important to their regular sellers.
Someone who lists now and then or 3 or 4 items every week gets sales from browsers but we need that page.
posted on October 24, 2000 01:50:23 AM
It's not the stockholders ebay is interested in. They are OVER. It's the advertisers now, given the large numbers of hits. It's them you need to focus on. Don't click on their banner unless you know you can contact them via e-mail and let them know how you feel about where they sink their money. Then let them know you won't buy their products as long as they support a company that doesn't support YOU. Tell them that you are ready to leave. Do you really think ebay started running banner ads because everyone else was doing it? Hardly. It's because it's the next batch of free floating money the Madison Ave. crew has at their disposal to justify their existance. Trust me on this one. I was in radio for 16 years.
[ edited by Puddy on Oct 24, 2000 01:55 AM ]
I propmptly moved all my auctions to Yahoo & was doing GREAT for awhile. Then I hit a dead spell on Yahoo as well, and moved some of my auctions back to Ebay again. I realized that diversity is good.