posted on June 22, 2001 11:09:44 AM
Hope the AW Mod Squad lets this post stand.
Off the DNF.
Posted by Bob on Jun-22-01 at 10:45:20 PDT
Good Morning. I have never posted on the DNF Board before but I feel as if many of you are my friends and I am certain that most of you know who I am. I certainly wanted to thank all of you for your overwhelming support of the Shooting Star Jacket auction, the petition and all the followups to them.
Those were very vital actions. So were all your emails (over 800 and they are still arriving) expressing support for my action and voicing your complaints that eBay has stopped listening to us. And all the messages right here and on all the other eBay and non-eBay boards left no doubt where a large percentage of the user base was on the RECO issue. The bid history of the Shooting Star Jacket had some frivolous bids (especially
near the end where a half-dozen folks registered new user accounts just to bid and retract) but it also had more Red Stars
than have been seen in any one place since the last time the Soviet Army marched in a May Day parade.
No rational company could ignore that type of feedback. eBay didn't ignore it either. On Wednesday, I met for 40 minutes with Meg
and Pierre to discuss why someone with over 25,000 feedbacks would be so disgusted that he would act as I did and why so many others would join him. Let me tell you all that both of them were (and are) genuinely concerned and neither had heard, in detail, just why we were so upset. Unlike all the other changes (the reserve fee, the listing fee increase and the restrictions on links and email addresses) this one was driven not by revenue considerations but in an effort to cater to the large number of folks who come to eBay, find something they want, bid on it, are outbid and never come back again.
Obviously, eBay would like to capture them as buyers either as a one-time shot or on a regular basis and RECO was designed for that purpose. eBay simply didn't consider the extreme negative effect that this message would have on eBay sellers.
They didn't listen to the Voices people who told them that, they didn't listen to the comments here, they didn't listen to the 20% or so of the folks in surveys who hated the idea. But they listened to 8,000+ page hits, 150+ bids in just a few hours and all those Red Stars. Yes, all the other folks count as well but these are eBay's largest volume sellers. And they listened to the portions of the emails (edited to remove any possible indentifying information) that you had sent me in which so very many of you indicated that, if a viable alternative existed, RECO was enough to cause you to leave.
Meg took lots of notes and promised me that she would discuss all our concerns with the eBay staff and do whatever was possible to
modify the program so that it would not have such a negative effect on us. And she has talked with all the involved folks at
eBay (some of whom were already working on revisions along these lines). And I should emphasize that all along the way
some of eBay's management were 100% on our side.
On Friday, a message will be posted on the eBay Announcement Board describing all the changes but I am authorized to come here, to the folks who were so instrumental in convincingeBay that such changes needed to be made, and to tell you the most important parts. All sellers will be able to opt out. You will get the chance to ensure that no RECO emails are ever sent to any of your underbidders and, once selected, that status
will be retained.
All buyers will be able to opt out. Every RECO email will have a link on it that, once used, will permanently stop all such spam to that buyer. No RECO emails will be sent out until at least 24 hours have passed from the time of closing so the original seller can, if he wishes and has multiples, relist the item. RECO emails will list the original seller's auction at the top with a link to all his auctions before any others are mentioned. "Recommended" will vanish to be replaced with a much less suggestive term. I might have preferred it if the entire project were killed never to surface again but we won
so much that I think we proved that eBay does care and does listen. I did this because I thought the cause was right. Youfolks all joined in because you thought it was right. It was. We didn't get 100% of what we wanted but we got most of it and, from this battle, eBay has certainly learned to listen. I may read the messages here once in a while but I am quite unlikely to post any more here. And I think I'll keep the jacket. God bless you all.
posted on June 22, 2001 11:35:30 AM
ebay has been mailing 'Recomendation Emails' to the under bidders directing them to other auctions with similiar items
posted on June 22, 2001 11:37:41 AM
Great job Bob.
Now that this is on it's way to being resolved what about the other issues you mentioned in your listing and/or are of general concern to the independent sellers.
posted on June 22, 2001 11:52:42 AM
That is so great! I just knew that Glenda gal had to be involved somewhere! She has always been sooooooo responsive to any problem I have ever posted about here in the past. Where'd she go btw? I miss her!! (thinking this is the same Glenda I have refference to now)
posted on June 22, 2001 01:13:05 PM
I have a problem with the honesty of the eBay post on the announcement board:
"***Recommendation Email Update***
On June 3rd, we implemented a "recommendation e-mail" feature for users who did not win an item they were bidding on. The e-mail features both additional items from the seller and similar items from other sellers. Early results show that the feature has increased bidding and our customer survey indicates that, overall, the feature has been well received, with over 80% of all users and 70% of sellers with feedback above 1000 liking the feature."
This is the part that I have a problem with:
"Early results show that the feature hasincreased bidding and our customer survey indicates that, overall, thefeature has been well received,with over 80% of all usersand 70% of sellers with feedbackabove 1000 liking thefeature."
This implies that eBay did a survey of all users and that 80% liked the spam. It also implies that eBay did a survey of all sellers with a feedback of over 1000 and 70% of those sellers liked the spam.
I didn't receive a survey. Did you?
I did send emails to all eBay address that I could find complaining about the spam.
[ edited by noshill on Jun 22, 2001 01:15 PM ]
[ edited by noshill on Jun 22, 2001 01:17 PM ]
[ edited by noshill on Jun 22, 2001 01:19 PM ]
posted on June 22, 2001 01:53:37 PM
If a seller is able to opt out and not have his underbidders get the RECO emails (that they may have opt-inned for), is that seller's auctions also NOT shown to other seller's underbidders?
If not, a very unfair situation is set up...a seller can make sure HIS underbidders do not get information on his competitor's auctions, but at the same time, his auctions are shown to his COMPETITOR's underbidders.
If a seller opts-out, he should be opt-out for the whole feature, not just part of it.
Also, what about the buyer who wants these emails? His choices seem to be limited by a third party (a seller), which also doesn't seem fair to the buyer.
posted on June 22, 2001 01:59:00 PM
Well they are still alive! Gotta hand it to ya Bob - if you had trouble with a brick and mortar shopkeep I could see you walking to the middle of the floor pouring gasoline on your purchase and yelling "Weinie roast time!" - Sure know how to get their attention.
posted on June 22, 2001 02:08:59 PM
Bob deserves our appreciation - WTG BOB!
What I wonder however is this, why must such extreme measures be taken in order to reach the higher-ups at ebay? Were ebay truely as community minded as they claim, actions like this should not be necessary.
The insulation of the decision makers at ebay has in the past, (and will again I'm sure) proven to be a far greater problem then the almost dailey implementation of silly, useless, and annoying features.
That is exactly how it will work: If a seller opts out, their underbidders will not recieve the email, and their own auctions will not be included in any recommended itms (renamed Similar items) emails.
BTW - The announcment Bob referred to is now up on the Ebay AB
From what I can gather from the following post on the AB, once a seller opts out, they're out completely. I could be wrong, but that's how it reads to me.
.............................................
** We will provide sellers with the ability to opt out of the feature. If a seller chooses to opt out, bidders that do not win an item the seller has listed will not receive an email with similar items, and
the seller's items will not be included in any emails sent to bidders looking for similar items. This change is being developed now and should be released within two to three weeks.
.............................................
IMO this feature still stinks, just a little bit less than it did before. The 24 hour waiting period is a freakin joke, and eBay knows it. I have to wait 2+ weeks to get my FVF refunded, but eBay considers MY auction DOA after 24 hours, whether I get paid, or not.
If Meg & Pierre really gave a rat's azz, they would have killed this RECO B.S., not JUST tweaked it a bit.
Oh well, with any luck most buyers will find it to be a useless tool & will eventually opt out. Here's to hoping!
posted on June 22, 2001 03:20:03 PM
What I want to know is...
If I'm in-opted to out-opt, but my under bidders out-opted to be in-opted and my winner bidders in-opted to be out-opted, doesn't this create some kind of a fold in the space-time continuim?
posted on June 22, 2001 05:30:27 PM
Hi Neil, thanks for posting Bob's DNF message. I agree with you about wishing the whole program would disappear but I guess the compromise will have to do.
BTW, do you really think folks are so used to winning the bid at real auctions that they would leave eBay if they lost the bid? Who are these people and what kind of auctions do they frequent where they always win the bid?
posted on June 22, 2001 05:57:41 PM
Joice, I think you should let this thread run. It is of interest to us folks in UK. You do get cut and pasted to other boards. Sorry.
posted on June 22, 2001 06:02:00 PM
Thanks Joice, I didn't post a link to the DNF because Bob's post would have scrolled within off an hour or two. It got a tad bit busy there today. And just because I'm a good little AW'er, I made sure to delete his user ID.
Hey Blanche, of course you're correct, most underbidders at RL auctions always come back for more.
I suppose there are thousands of bidders that have never attended a RL auction, but I would also imagine at some point they would discover the search engine on eBay. Had this simply been about buyers leaving eBay, they [eBay] could have been promoting the SEARCH feature via their SPAM email.
The 24-hour delay gives a seller an opportunity to relist an identical item, so that item could end up being included in the recommendations email to the underbidders of his previous auction.
With the original rollout, the recommendations emails could have been sent out in as few as 4 hours, so the relisted items could not have been included.
Hi jlb444,
The DNF is the Discuss New Features board at eBay.
