posted on December 24, 2000 05:06:14 AM
Last week ebay stock was down to near 20. Some famous(?)stock guru had changed his prediction that the stock would go back up to 100 and now said it wouldn't go past 50.
His reason? Due to the mutterings and grumblings of ebay sellers, ebay will be hard pressed to raise their rates.
Well, the stock is back up around 35 but the point is that someone seems to be hearing the "muttering and grumblings" and this tactic of ebays to plug the holes is just one more step in it's policy to displease sellers.
Now there is talk of them buying Yahoo. Now Yahoo is a big site and their auctions are only a very tiny part of it, but they are where disgruntled ebayers have spread out to in the majority. That would be one way to block out the competition, small as it is, it's still the major competition.
Is this just good business or is ebay turning into a very devious company? Note I didn't say venue. They are "only a venue" when it is to their advantage.
posted on December 25, 2000 02:15:07 AM
My neighbor, a business lawyer, says the new policy legally removes eBay's protection of "only a venue". He says attorneys have been waiting for this kind of language and expect it will be open season on eBay for many types of litigation.
I fear your lawyer neighbor may be right on the mark.
If eBay truly does hide everyone's email address and forces everyone to use eBay's special email forms in order to communicate, eBay will be taking on the responsibility of making sure communication happens. eBay's "we're sorry if this outage inconveiences you" excuses won't cut it anymore. (if it ever did)
And if their automated complaint system truly does suspend people from the site without due process OR suspends their use of the email forms process (which would amount to a suspension from doing business if all email addresses are hidden), I think eBay's "only a venue" claim will be long gone.
And then there's the "you can't offer to sell your stuff to anyone outside the auction" rules to contend with. When eBay starts suspending people and putting people out of business, taking away their incomes simply because people are trying to sell their goods without eBay, well, this sure looks like possible free trade restraint to me.
I'm afraid eBay is trying to act like a conventional business, when in reality ebay is NOT a conventional business. eBay has the power to close people's businesses without due process and in doing so, cause serious monetary damage. eBay's members are NOT eBay employees and are therefore NOT entitled to the protection under the law from wrongful termination that conventional employees have.
As a result, civil suits could begin to surface and eventually state and federal eyes
will be looking hard at the power eBay has and how eBay is using that power.
posted on December 25, 2000 01:05:58 PM
-----
Highlights of the Changes (these are not permitted):
[some garbage deleted]
· Sending unsolicited offers to bidders for the same or similar products that they have bid on in the past
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Isn't this the very essence of the new Customer Management tools here on AW? I thought I was tracking my former bidders (and runners-up) so I could send them occasional emails (no more than every 10 days per AW policy) about promotions, specials, other auctions, whatever. Apparently ebay wants ALL the money, ALL the auction management tools, ALL the everything.
Sending UNSOLICITED offers has been prohibited by eBay's Spam policy for as long as I can remember.
Andale or whoever is providing this "customer management tool" is helping to foster this spam -- I've received a couple unsolicited offers from sellers I've won from in the past and I'm not enthralled with that.
posted on December 25, 2000 02:16:48 PM
From Lisa_B
Sending UNSOLICITED offers has been prohibited by eBay's Spam policy for as long as I can remember.
Andale or whoever is providing this "customer management tool" is helping to foster this spam -- I've received a couple unsolicited offers from sellers I've won from in the past and I'm not enthralled with that.
-----
I don't know what Andale does... I'm referring to our very own AuctionWatch. Take a look at http://wsacp.auctionwatch.com/my/acp/cdw.html and tell me what other purpose AW had in mind with "Communicate with Your Customers and Grow Your Business" as it relates to collecting bidder information. I can't think of any.
BTW, do you think ebay believes that anyone who EVER buys from me via ebay is somehow endentured to that 3-way relationship? What about the time where I sold some parts to a 15+ year customer through ebay because I only had one set in stock at the time and he wanted them bad enough to wade through the auction process to get them. Does my 15+ year relationship with this person fade away in favor of ebay's "fee avoidance" policies?
posted on December 25, 2000 03:01:34 PM
No, and I am on the record as stating that I am opposed to this policy that attempts to control the mom-and-pop seller. I too have cultivated customers and if I choose to negotiate an OFFLINE trade, say in a reserve-not-met scenario, eBay has nothing to say about it. They can try -- and if they suspend me -- that will be it for me. I will find another line of work.
The issue I have with Andale (and AuctionWatch it seems) is that some sellers are using these services to send folks e-mails just by virtue of having one transaction with them before. If they ASK customers whether they want to be on a mailing list or notified about such-and-such items, and a customer is amenable, that would be different because then the mail is no longer UNsolicited. I am assuming that is the primary intention of such "customer management" services, but some folks are abusing this feature methinks. Personally I already get enough e-mail and I don't want more, but I am also adult enough to realize I have a delete-key finger and I don't need e-BigBrother to "protect me" with their scorched-earth policy, nor do I appreciate them suddenly making a long-standing practice (i.e., sellers and buyers occasionally negotiating offline trades after an auction was unsuccessful) a violation of "their new rules."
I understand that eBay is concerned about the willful Fee Avoiders -- those who do this purposefully and consistently -- but are the new rules going to do much to change this? I don't think so.
posted on December 25, 2000 03:13:11 PM
I have no problem paying fees when I have sold something either. And I have amailing list, and I tell people that if they want to be on it they have to specifically email me and ask to be on it. And I save those emails.
eBay is NOT going to hide everyones email addys and/or FORCE anyone to use eBay's special email forms in order to communicate.
Anyone that wants to use their email addy as their user ID will still be allowed to do so, and everyone will still be allowed email links on all auctions.
posted on December 25, 2000 05:18:00 PMBTW, do you think ebay believes that anyone who EVER buys from me via ebay is somehow endentured to that 3-way relationship?
If you have sold to a person, you then have a relationship and can continue that relationship if you both want. The policy is about items that are sold off eBay with no prior relationship.
The intro on the announcement says:
"Problems associated with outside trade (selling to underbidders or bidders in a Reserve Not Met item)"
posted on December 26, 2000 08:55:29 AM
reddeer wrote:
"eBay is NOT going to hide everyones email addys and/or FORCE anyone to use eBay's special email forms in order to communicate.
Anyone that wants to use their email addy as their user ID will still be allowed to do so, and everyone will still be allowed email links on all auctions.
Hope that helps clear things up for you."
Reddeer,
I'm glad you KNOW without a doubt what eBay is and isn't going to do. (How can that be, BTW?) Unfortunately, some of the rest of us aren't so sure.
Sorry, of course you're correct, I can't say 100% for sure what eBay will, or will not do in the future.
BUT, if you go take a look at the eBay International sites, you'll see that eBay is already using these online forms, and are in no way restricting the use of email addys as user ID's, or in posting email links on the auction pages.
I understand why some of you don't trust eBays intentions on this matter, I seldom do myself.
posted on December 26, 2000 12:05:34 PM
There are legitimate reasons for offering to sell to runner-up bidders. What if you can't contact the high bidder? What if the high bidder is a dead beat? Does ebay expect you to only relist the item when you have another good lead already?
We had an exchange with an ebay moderator over on their forums about this eariler this year. At that time she agreed that it was OK to contact runner ups if the high bidder didn't come through, though she also agreed that such sales weren't protected by Safe Harbor rules.
We've had dozens of people contact us after EOA wanting to purchase more of the item. No way we're going to turn them away!
(Personnaly, I've been contacted by sellers after loosing the bidding and been offered the item as well. I was glad for the offer and no way I'd turn them in over it either!!)
posted on December 26, 2000 01:35:31 PM
Artsnflies, I agree with you wholeheartedly. I am so dismayed that eBay is using these weasel words about "clarifying their policy" when what they are doing is also trying to sneak in additional NEW policies. Someone has been taking lessons from Paypal Policy Clarification. Do they really think their users have such short memories? Do they really think we little eBay frogs won't notice the water temperature being turned up?
[ edited by Lisa_B on Dec 26, 2000 01:36 PM ]
posted on December 26, 2000 01:38:10 PM
"There are legitimate reasons for offering to sell to runner-up bidders. What if you can't contact the high bidder? What if the high
bidder is a dead beat? Does ebay expect you to only relist the item when you have another good lead already?"
The policies page says:
Note: Selling to the underbidder in a Non-Paying Bidder situation is still permitted. owever, this transaction is not covered by services such as insurance or Feedback.
posted on December 27, 2000 04:10:30 AM
On the matter of links to our own websites, my understanding -- based on my last reading of the applicable user agreement (some months back) -- is that sellers are prohibited from including a link to a site that offers the same item as the listing has, IF the item on the website is priced at the same (or lower) price as the item is listed for on ebay.
Now, I'm reading in this thread that the terms prohibit linking to any website that contains either any items for sale, or, contains the same items as are listed on ebay. I think I've read it described both ways tonight.
And, to further complicated matters, one or two posters say that we can STILL link to a website so long as it doesn't have the same items at the same or lower prices.
Can someone point me to the ebay rules on this so I can know where we stand?
posted on December 27, 2000 08:07:30 AM
Thanks, R & V. I'm relieved that the existing rule is still in effect. I guess the next question is if they'll be changing that with any of the new stuff they're planning. Anybody have any clues as to what's gonna happen?
--
Not sourpuss on eBay.
posted on December 29, 2000 08:06:05 PM
I'll say it again....
External linkage in ad's is a non-issue issue. Not that many sellers draw much in the way of sales by linkage. This is not an opinion its a fact and any seller who has partaken in IRC etc. "auction chat nights" which tend to be a rather "select" crew of sizeable sellers knows it.
Were eBay to restrict content in advertising they are no longer a "venue". Again, your newspaper or swap sheet or classified ad does not restrict you putting say a website in the ad so your classified draws direct sales. All eBay will accomplish with such a move is two things. A. Making sure real volume businesses see the "real light" of exactly how valuable they are not to eBay, probably one of the best methods I have heard of to encourage the core vendors to seek other points of sale and B. They will open the flood doors for Amazon and I know Amazon would like nothing better.
Amazon already has "shops" in place and later this year they will be integrating REAL businesses much more into the service. The moment they are restrictive of Ad content that is part of that businesses nature they enter into a very grey area. For example, if you cant link to your homesite lets say why in hecks name can you link to PayPal or BidPay? Answer You cant. Or, if you can then there is nothing stopping any seller from putting a link in saying "here is how you pay or payment options" they click it, go to a page outside eBay which again can lead them to someones site.
As to email contact, if they make it a "form" that needs to be filled out to contact a buyer or seller thats the kiss of death for volume sellers. Most use automated software to contact bidders and use spreadsheets and such to track payments etc. Restricting that means one thing, restricting the sellers ability to contact sellers. eBay claims its payout is about 68%, ours is 95% at eBay because we send automated reminder notices to winners. Do they think we are going to do this by form mail? Not likely. In fact, if it were to happen it only again shows both bidders and sellers that "trust" is no longer "the force". It will take gobs more time to manage, payout rates will plummet and time is money for business. As it is eBay takes so much more time to manage than any other site we vend at its night and day.
What eBay needs to do is retrict the AVAILABILITY of email addresses of ANY non-winner. I read someplace that eBay stated its the consumers screaming to their support people about contact when they are not the winner or perhaps even a bidder. Again, thats easily resolved by restricting those that should NOT be contacted to begin with. Thats where fee avoidance is occuring and again, thats not opinion, its fact.
If eBay thinks that they will draw more revenues that way they are simply wrong and its not something that they can go back and remove. In fact, all it does is open the doors of opportunity to other sites to attract the core vendor groups. Yet, vendors who sell goods illegal for resale are policed by the entities who's products are sold?
Places like Auctionwatch become "history" as well in this same issue. If you cant link you site in ad's why can an external service be allowed to supply counters, or bulk load external of Mister Lister. Its ridiculous. Here they want to restrict both the buyers and sellers who keep eBay in business but not restrict the services such as PayPal or others? Half.com gets deployed causing several sellers to be somewhat segregated while others get considerable more exposure. The only thing affecting eBay revenues is eBay making changes that affect the revenues and usually the impact is negative on sellers. Since thats the case, of course revenues fall. I can guarentee 101% the moment this announcement hit the streets Amazon's people are figuring how to capitalize on it.
Another issue of a form-mail type item is privacy. If we have a support issue lets say and ebays form mail is down or doesnt work they then have liability as they are forcing the usage there-of. Curbing external sales amounts to nothing. Curbing sellers who are contacting non-winners does.
When thinking restriction I dont see anything said about sellers using 15 different accounts. Where is the "protection" there for consumers? How come a seller needs 5 accounts to sell the exact same items on each account?
Is that protecting the consumer?
If eBay truly is having revenue problems then they need look at WHY revenues fell off not implement restrictions causing more to fall off. Items such as the Micro-categorization, all this does is limit exposure which means limiting sales. If they are going to monitor emails via a form mailer then forget all about privacy, in fact that in itself might be questionable from a legal standpoint adn most certainly no longer means "venue".
Right now as I noted we use a bulk mailer to contact our winners with payment instructions. It inserts the bid amount, shipping and payment options. If they were to go form-mail all the bidder will get from us is "to pay go to this webpage" as we cant spend hours & hours on end using a online form-mailer. It instantly means we are no longer profitable as a business at the site and this is true for any volume seller.
When sellers are alienated it doesnt matter how many bidders are out there, sales fall of. Aka: Amazon. When changes are made that hurt product exposure such as this new micro-categorization sales fall off. Yet apparently instead of looking at where/why revenues declined it gets blamed upon sellers and bidders... I dont know about you all but when I see "we are going to restrict contact through a form mailer and we are going to restrict the content of your ads" is saying "We dont trust you sellers and we dont trust you buyers". But, its perfectly acceptable for some seller to use 10 accounts to sell the exact same stuff on each account and basically defraud bidders who think they are dealing with only A single seller account. But that money is made on.
If they are going to restruct ad content then they best be sure and restrict items that are not legal for resale, illegal import/export and then some as they are no longer a "venue" like a newspaper. In a newpaper a car dealer can put in a classified and direct people right to a website or their showroom. So, its no longer an "auction classified" site. Now content is restricted just like say Onsale.com auctions and they are then legally liable for the content they are restricting.
eBay may well indeed have revenue problems and to fix them does not mean punishing good buyers and good sellers, it means they should restrict access to information thats not needed. If a seller runs an auction with 1 item and gets 15 bidders they should get access to the winning bidder only. If that bidder doesnt pay or whatall then have a form to obtain the secondary bidders information/email address. If a seller has 2 items, 2 winners, then those two only. Buyers should be free to contact sellers anytime.
With ad content, if its not ok for a seller to put a link in to "payment instructions" on a webpage someplace then PayPal, BidPay etc. MUST be put under similar restriction. If that page happens to say "click here to see our site" well thats external of eBay.
They cite complaints, non-winners trying to invoke insurance for items bought external of eBay. Well how does that contact occur? It occurs by the sellers who ARE the people ripping eBay off, affecting honest vendors who do go by the rules, and defrauding high bidders by contacting non-winners and selling direct outside of the service. If the thought is that regulating email via a form mailer is going to stop those people they are wrong. The ONLY way to stop it is to make sure they dont have access to the loosing bidders.
You dont see uBid having email addr's or user names or feedback etc. They are a closed venue. There is no such thing as "partially open", the moment that occurs libel comes into play as its no longer a venue as control is excersized in contact, in ad etc.
So every seller must then also remove their phone number and bidders too. How do people pay us if they cant get to our credit card payment server? Can they restrict us one the content of that payment server? If so then paypal, bidpay etc. all must be restricted or it becomes an argueable predatory practice.
One person in the thread here claimed they contacted an attorney. Perhaps so, perhaps not. Most assuredly however tampering with direct contact from buyer to seller or visa versa and regulating "external linkage" Ag's will find HUGE holes in and eat then alive. At the sametime you can be certain Amazon will flip around faster than you can say Amazon to suck the core vendor groups off the site and offer them a much better shake. The only reason that never "has" already happened is the core vendors "trust in eBay". When they see eBay no longer trusts in them, and thats what we are talking about here, trust. Trusting sellers and trusting buyers to do whats right. The moment they cross that line core vendors convince other core vendors to exodus and guarenteed Amazon will welcome them with open arms.
Sure there are sellers & buyers who break the rules. Dont punish the good buyers and the good sellers because of them. Instead restrict what needs to be restricted. Get rid of sellers having 15 accounts to peddle the same items. If its stricly money thats the interest then eBay should deploy a B2C auction site, get the businesses at it and who cares what the rest do?
Or... Add what Half.com makes into the eBay revenue figures as that grabs sales as well.
If eBay cant trust or find a equiateble solution to lost revenues then this is a great way to send that message. I am certain the majority of sellers and bidders can understand that and find services that wont treat the GOOD people like the BAD people.
When a car dealer uses underhanded tactics to steal sales the law doesnt punish every car dealer or every car buyer saying "we cant trust any of you".
It took you approximately 18 minutes to write your last post as it contained 1,799 words (w/ over 30 spelling errors and some grammatical errors ass well.)
posted on December 29, 2000 09:55:13 PM
Just zippin' along.
Wanna know another eBay revenue killer?
Mr.Lister the bulk uploader. We tried it for three weeks and sales plumeted.
Why?
Simple. Mr. Lister blows as much product into auction as it can, one right after another.
List 120 auctions and send them up as a collection. Say it lists an item every 2 seconds. When closing time comes which is when most people bid you have all of two minutes of exposure as they are going to close every two seconds as well.
Bidders need time to browse ones auctions. If you end list an auction once a minute your total exposure is now 2 hours with those same 120 auctions. The moment we stopped using it sales picked back up.
Its also rather unknown that LOTS of auction houses are in trouble. EZBid folded up. Auction Sales has a "under construction" sign up at their site, reality... they folded up.
Web sales in general at many many places are waning for a multitude of reasons.
Oh.... and the 18 minutes and spelling errors for the last message (as pointed out) I sincerely apologize for. I was hopping back and forth relisting auctions and typing here.
I generally dont partake in AW too much. The only threads I have been active in are issues with PayPal who I FINALLY got to admit to say "They are the merchant" which yielded much enlightenment and is why they void peoples various rights in TOS and why many banks will nail cardholders to the walls for breach of cardholders contract. And... now and again I will read something like this thread where there are those such as twinsoft. Those who quite obviously by what they are saying (and not how they spell it) are not fly by night sellers and end up coming up with the same conclusions that anyone who's been at the auction sales serious like already knows.
They take it serious as they know the results. One of Amazon's biggest problems is they dont understand auctions, buyers or sellers and they have learned a great deal over the scant years since Amazon Auctions was deployed.
Yahoo has been a disaster ever since Onsale sold them the site. It used to be the Onsale exchange. We are a reseller at Onsale and we helped them with the former Onsale Exchange.
That site was the only "small business" auction site that ever gave eBay a run for the money and besides Amazon, the only entity that made eBay stand up and take notice. Unfortunately Onsale did not police bad merchants at the site and that damaged Onsales reputation and thus they sold the site.
For eBay to survive they do need to address the problems at the site. Those problems we have found extremely noticable are:
1. Mr Lister needs a "time delay" between postings or remove bulk loading entirely.
2. Sellers with multiple accounts selling the same stuff on all the accounts.
3. No access to email addresses/contact info for non-winning bidders. Should a buyer skip out on payment, whatall, the secondary bidder must use a form which eBay can track for abuse in being used for Fee Avoidance. It also happens to be fraudulent. The Winning bidder would not pay say $20 if they knew a looser was also being sold one for $10.
4. Any item known to be illegal for resale should be forwarded by eBay directly to the sellers local authorities. Start getting some consumer confidence back and set some examples.
5. Payments through any format other than eBays Billpoint service should be carry insurance thus encouraging Billpoints usage.
6. Create eBay storefronts so those businesses that do wish to gain product exposure get the opportunity to do so right at eBay and eBay gets its commissions on those sales. Flat rate fee the cost of the shop. Say $500 a year.
7. Make a TRUE business to consumer auctions service so consumers know they are dealing with a business and that real return policies exist, warrants of merchantability etc.
8. When a seller does a credit request for commissions refund administrative negative feedback is automatically issued to the buyers account and the bidder cannot retaliate against the seller account.
9. Reverse the Micro-categorization recently put in place. It limits exposure to goods.
10. Do not charge extra listing fee's for multiple items in auction. Do charge the commissions on each sale. This encourages sellers to put up more product.
11. Create a method by which true user validation can be accomplished. A automated callback service for example.
12. Do away with reserve price auctions. Big turn off to bidders... I won but I didnt win.
13. Automate the process of customer/seller contact. Thus, we never for example need to contact the bidder direct. eBay tells them our payment options, terms and how to pay. ie: Send payment by check or money order (whatever is applicable) to this address along with a copy of this email. For credit card payment "click here" and off it goes or Billpoint etc.
Many of the above items encourage sellers, many are simply eBay revenue oriented. Restricting things only tends to cause more problems, fixing things awry create solutions.
If you have a car and the wheels are falling off the solution is not to only drive the car in a five mile radius, the solution is fix the wheels.
posted on December 29, 2000 10:31:34 PM
whynot: Although I don't agree with everything you're saying.... you certainly make some "business sense". I like the way you think (for the most part) and I find your posting style to quite easy to follow. *smile*
I'm still ticked at eBay though... their recent policy "clarification" on Spam and Off Site sales is so REDICULOUS that folks will just be motivated to do as they darn well please. *sigh*
posted on December 30, 2000 12:18:18 AM
Reddeer, you strike me as a reasonably intelligent person, but the incessant sniping at people who post on these boards is getting very tedious.
posted on December 30, 2000 06:45:46 AM
Gee, I'm crushed. Then I guess this means you wouldn't have approved my comment before I edited it? I was planning on picking that spiel apart piece by piece, but decided not to waste my time. Some people will never be happy, no matter what eBay does, or doesn't do.
If you don't like what I have to say, feel free to use the ignore feature.
posted on December 30, 2000 07:02:49 AM
We all are agreed that setting an unreasonably high reserve price inorder to sabotage the auction and sell outside of ebay is wrong and should be against the rules. And we agree that emailing the bidders of other sellers auctions is wrong.
To us issue is emailing your own underbidders after the close of a successful auction. We can see how ebay thinks it's may be fee avoidance. But it's not.
Ebay fee model is per auction. It is not per bid received or per customer on an auction!
When an auction ends successfully ebay does get its prescribed fees as per it's own rules. They get a posting fee, special features fee (if used) and their FVF (which can total 5% or more of the auction). If that auction comes with more than 1 perspective buyer so much the better. All part of the service of being a venue.
Underbidders are legitimate leads. It has to be handled professionally and respectfully but it is legitimate regardless of what ebay thinks it is. That's the way business is.
