posted on October 27, 2008 07:05:25 AM new
Thank you, my sentiments exactly. Sad.
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A poll is not a prediction. It is a snapshot of how people are thinking right now.
posted on October 27, 2008 09:05:30 AM new
I wonder if Donahoe where to be fired would it really change anything. I do think I'd like to find out - I think he is a idiot.
posted on October 27, 2008 09:31:19 AM new
I doubt any changes would happen but I would like to find out also!
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A poll is not a prediction. It is a snapshot of how people are thinking right now.
posted on October 28, 2008 07:00:45 PM new
This post makes sense-
used to sell on ebay. I was a bronze power seller at one point, and in all I've sold thousands of items on ebay. I stopped selling there years ago. Not because of terrible ebay policies, but because what I sold was no longer profitable.
It's clear that a lot of posters here don't understand basic economics. They seem to think that a profitable business model will remain so. In fact, just about the opposite exists. If you are in a niche where you are making good money and other see that you have a profitable niche, they will enter the market in enough numbers until no one can make a profit, and eventually several are forced out of the market. This is not something that I'm making up. Read any textbook on basic economics and you will see that it is the truth. Of course the ebay fees speed this process along. And other ebay policies may speed the process up as well. This is what happened to me. I understood it when I entered the market. I knew that I just had a period of time until a larger seller would enter my niche and there would be no profit in it.
I still maintain close friendships to ebay sellers, and it's clear to me that ebay does want to get rid of the little guy. It's their business. They can do that if they want to. When I sold on ebay I would throw anything in the trash that would not bring at least $10 in an auction. I knew that I would lose money on something that only sold for $5 and that because of the waste of time factor something that was $8 wasn't really worth it. (This did not apply if I had a lot of the same item.) Just like I decided that a $5 item needed to be in the trash can, ebay has decided that small sellers need to be in the trash can. They've looked at their numbers and decided that it's more profitable to deal with fewer larger sellers. I can't say if that is a good decision for them or not, but they have the right to make that decision, and it's clearly the decision they have made.
There is no doubt that if ebay had a clear-cut competitor, the small sellers would be flocking there, but the options are not clear-cut. Sure there are lots of other sites, but one of those sites needs to win the competition so everyone can flock there. Due to the nature of the business if there are 10 competing sites, none of them will even put a dent into ebay's business.
It's funny that this has happened this way. In my part of the country is a very large flea market, and the same thing has happened there. 30 years ago, it was just everyone cleaning out their junk to sell it. Now it's mostly just the commercial vendors who sell the cheap imported junk who predominate there. The individual sellers have been relegated to a few of the crummy locations. Does this sound like any company you know?
Ebay now has, and has always had terrible customer service.
Insofar as the feedback issues are concerned, it's easy to look at it from one side only. The current feedback system punishes honest sellers, but the previous one punished honest buyers. If you are an honest seller, perhaps you never thought about how under the old system, a dishonest seller could punish or extort from an honest buyer. Think about it, under the old system a bad seller could send an defective item to the buyer. If the buyer left negative feedback, he knew the seller would leave negative feedback for him. There have been several times that I have had a less than satisfactory transaction with a seller, and tried to resolve it, but could not. I didn't even dream of leaving negative feedback. Why take a chance on getting a negative feedback over a $10 or $20 transaction.
Because there is a tradeoff here, and because there are always going to be dishonest buyers and sellers, ebay has decided that the burden should fall on the sellers, not the buyers. There are better systems that ebay could implement, and I'm sure that ebay will keep tweeking it. On 10/24/08 they implemented feedback revision to try to partly undo the harm of the latest feedback changes. Anyone who makes a suggestion about fixing the feedback system needs to address both sides of the issue.
Overall keep in mind that it's ebays business and they can do as they wish. If you don't like it, go elsewhere. Notice though, that the people who have set up their own websites and been successful are the exception, not the rule. If you just sell a few thousand per year, setting up your own website is not the way to go.
I'd like to see ebay go back to the way it used to be, but it won't and can't. The level of fraud keeps them from going back. Since they can't and won't go back, and in the end they will just be a front-end for buy.com and others, I'd like to see them fail. If they did fail, then a clear-cut successor could arise, and that would indeed be sweet
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Economic Reform act of Chairman Obama of the socialist States of America :
10 ounces of meat per month,half a yard of cotton per year per adult.
Hellilujah!
