I have not been able to figure out why users post to the eBay Boards to criticize eBay. Have you?
I never paid much attention to the eBay Boards until I saw them mentioned a lot in this forum awhile back when eBay initiated AFA. Then Checkout. I clicked over to the boards and couldn't believe what I was reading, all of these sellers signing petitions, going to the press with anti-eBay rhetoric and threatening lawsuits.
When they post with their selling id and complain about how bad their sales are, you can click into their auctions and what do you see but anti-checkout graphics, Checkout is Satan and other anti-eBay rhetoric. So no wonder their sales are lousy, who is going to bid on such an auction? Then look at their 30 day history and you can see with all of their auctions that don't get a bid that those sellers are working for less than minimum wage.
And to sign an anti-eBay petition on an eBay Board seems the height of stupidity to me. It just makes eminent sense that eBay administrators would be tracking those ids, making a permanent record of their posting activity.
If eBay monitors this board, at least my id here doesn't match up to my ids on eBay. Unless AW releases the information to eBay, what I say here won't go into an eBay datebase correlated with my real name and ids.
I never personalize anything that eBay does. When eBay announces a new feature, I take time to analyze how it will benefit my sales. Some things I ignore like Stores and BIN because those features don't suit my business. Other things, like Checkout, I could see right away it was permanent so I adapted my auctions to it and as a result obtained more buyers new to eBay.
I know, just like I am certain the sun will rise tomorrow, that eBay will continue to make changes that impact the listing page. Ebay is an evolving company, striving to gain international markets, striving to stay ahead of the competition. The number of unique visitors to eBay is up 57% over last year.
Thus, I will never craate elaborate internal systems to my eBay business that will go crashing every time eBay changes their format. If eBay reaches a point in their evolution where I no longer make money, then I will walk away. I certainly won't post to the eBay Boards, saying it is eBay's fault that I am not making money.
posted on December 8, 2001 01:01:36 PMI think that's why a lot of eBay members have multiple ID's. Some have one for selling, another one for buying, and a third one for posting.
I think an id for posting is only good to keep other eBay users from knowing who you are. Unless you registered the id with completely fraudulent contact information, eBay will be able to correlate all ids registered to any user.
posted on December 8, 2001 03:10:24 PM
many ebay users have multiple ids with same phone number,address,ss number,age and sex etc.it does not take a genius to know these are all of one person.
ebay users are very vocal,i remember when ebay started to charge one dollar for reserve auction,there was such an uproar on its board.
twinsoft-
does checkout really benefit your sales??you said your items do not work well with buy it now??
posted on December 8, 2001 04:54:17 PM
stopwhining -
Checkout has benefited my sales though I do not use BIN or stores.
First, I've captured a lot of new buyers. I have a repeat customer base, collectors who click into my auctions to see what I am listing on a regular basis since I specialize. However, this Christmas season I have a larger percentage of new users winning my auctions than I experienced last Christmas season. Part of that is the regular buyers are not bidding as much on eBay due to the economy. The new buyers, though, bid high, go through Checkout and pay with Billpoint A percentage of these new buyers are staying, continuing to bid on my auctions and again going through Checkout and paying with Billpoint - or sometimes going through Checkout and saying they will send a check.
Second, I am capturing the bidders who select eBay Payments as a criteria in their searches. The buyers are telling me they get annoyed with sellers who don't provide it. They understand it is a seller's choice to state the payment terms, but they find going through Checkout and paying with Billpoint to me real easy and convenient. The buyers find it frustrating that some sellers won't provide Billpoint or Checkout so they don't bid on those auctions. The buyers who love the convenience of Checkout and Billpoint actively search only for those sellers who use the services, avoiding the auctions of other sellers who don't use it.
On my last run of auctions 100% of the auctions sold. One hundred percent of the buyers went through Checkout. One hundred percent of the buyers paid through Billpoint. That means the cash was in my bank account within 48 hours earning interest, plus I had zero deadbeat bidders to worry about.
When Checkout was implemented and I first started using it, about 50% of the buyers went through Checkout. Then that percentage rose to about 70%. Then 80%. Now on any run of my auctions the percentage of buyers going through Checkout doesn't drop below 90%.
The trick is when eBay announces a new feature that changes the auction page is to look at it only in stark terms of black and white - and that is two-fold. One, how can I use this new feature to make my auctions stand out from every other seller on eBay. And two, will this new feature increase my bidder base or decrease my bidder base. With number two you have to examine the question with respect to NOT using the new feature also. If I use the new feature will it increase or decrease my bidder base, or if I DON'T use the new feature will it increase or decrease my bidder base.
Now with respect to number one, having my auctions be distinctive, look at the thousands of sellers who got upset by Checkout, put negative prose in their auctions, told their buyers not to use it. Or the sellers stopped listing. Whereas I made the feature usuable the first time I listed an auction after Checkout was implemented, the buyers found out how much they loved it and my auctions became distinctive - to the point where other sellers wrote to me and asked me for advice on how they could enable Checkout in their auctions also. At this time I've assisted over 12 other sellers through configuring Checkout on their auction pages and they are now delighted they did so.
With respect to number two, will enabling the new feature increase or decrease my bidder base, that answer was obvious. I knew I would capture the buyers who use eBay Payments in their searches and I suspected I would capture the buyers new to eBay, new users brought in by eBay's blitz of Christmas advertising. Look at it from the buyer's perspective. And when I say buyer, I mean buyer only, not an eBayer who sells and buys and is on eBay most of every day. I mean the people who click into eBay a couple of times a week. These buyers are a large percentage of the total buyers. They go through Checkout with one seller and love the experience. Then they click into another seller's auction, and that seller has a big paragraph devoted to how the seller isn't going to use Checkout or Billpoint because it is too confusing for the buyer. Well the buyers are not morons. They went through the Checkout process with other sellers, thought the process was real easy, got the item paid for and loved the experience. Now they see auctions where the sellers says this and that against Checkout and what that seller says is 180 degrees opposite the buyer's real Checkout experiences. So the buyer clicks out. The seller loses that bid entirely.
It doesn't even matter if I like Checkout or don't like Checkout, whether it messed up my existing systems or not. What matters is that I get multiple bidders and sell my auctions for the highest amount possible, that my buyers come back and that my buyers like the features. It means more money in my bank account.
posted on December 8, 2001 06:53:46 PMtwinsoft - does checkout really benefit your sales??you said your items do not work well with buy it now??
I don't remember saying that my auctions don't work well with BIN. I have had some success with BIN. My strategy is to set the BIN price just a tad higher than the opening bid. Some bidders will fork over a couple extra bucks just to secure the item now and not have to bid all week. Sometimes I set the BIN price at the opening bid, as in "first bid wins."
As for checkout, I haven't used it yet. To be honest, I've pretty much ignored the new features since "My eBay," which I have never used. Too many bells and whistles.
One unexpected result of Checkout is that my EOA notices come in saying that I charge $0 shipping, since I didn't fill in the checkout form. This is probably confusing to bidders, because my auctions state the shipping/handling fee. I'm thinking about trying Checkout just because I usually forget what the fixed shipping is and have to look it up each time. I really don't understand all the fuss about it, but I haven't tried it yet so I don't know.
HCOT, thanks for your analysis. I sell low-dollar items and so have avoided Billpoint because of the fee. Maybe I'll try your advice and see what happens. Sales can hardly be worse than they are now. (I always say that, but they keep getting worse anyway. LOL)
posted on December 8, 2001 07:06:48 PM
twinsoft - when I was still selling, I was getting about 50% of the people use checkout and billpoint. My billpoint usage really went up when the checkout was put in. Before most of my sales were paypal. Hopefully I will get to see it again SOON....
posted on December 8, 2001 08:33:24 PM
I know a LOT of users that have at least 3 ebay ids. It is NOT against the rules, and the one they use for posting can easily be covered for ebay not to know the connection.
I can tell you right now that ebay notes the IP address when you REGISTER a name, and subsequent IP addresses are not used except in the normal sense of the internet. The sheer number of IP addresses that log into their system makes it prohibitive to attempt to track and their InfoGlide system is not setup for that.
The InfoGlide system primarily tracks connections between billing information and has some flagging systems in place. They also can use InfoGlide to verify possible shill bidding, but that is the extent of it.
posted on December 8, 2001 10:58:22 PM
Tracking IP addresses wouldn't tell eBay much at all, unless the user is a TW RoadRunner user with a static IP address. It takes a court order for an ISP to search the logs to identify someone using multiple non-static IP addresses. Dial ups are all different rotating IP addresses assigned to the ISP.
