posted on March 30, 2001 02:42:47 AM new
If you want us to read it, put the link to the article in your post, not a link to your webpage that's full of article links. It takes too long to sort through all your links to find the one you're talking about.
posted on March 30, 2001 09:31:29 AM new
Here is what I got.
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posted on March 30, 2001 11:08:13 AM new
I think there is a lot of interest in and a number of good ideas being attempted to give users more collective "power" in the auction marketplace.
In years past it was difficult for phone customers to use their purchasing power to indicate their satisfaction, or lack there of, because they had few or no choices with regards to who they used for local or long distance phone service.
Now there are options and while I'm not sure things are better at least we have choices as to service providers and can spend our dollars to purchase similar services from different sources.
With online auction services there is only one major provider, eBay. Some users may find one or more of the alternative sites useful and productive but for the vast majority of users eBay rules.
I don't believe any form of organization will have much impact. We are not employees of eBay so a pure Union has no place here. Any Association of sellers would have to have a large numbers of members.
Poor communications among sellers and a possible lack of interest has shown, to date, that there is little possibility of creating any sizable Assoc. membership.
eBay's move away from being dependent on smaller independent sellers towards larger businesses also suggests that they would not be responsive to an Assoc. even if one existed.
Some might say I'm too pessimistic while others might give me the benefit of the doubt and say I'm realistic.
I do believe small independent sellers have to make use of what is available from eBay while helping to develop the secondary marketplace.
Rather than "fighting" eBay I believe our energy is better used building markets elsewhere. Unfortunatly it is not clear at this time just which is the best "elsewhere" to help build but the next few months should bring some clarity to which site(s) will emerge as strong secondary marketplaces.
I appreciate everyone who is attempting to find solutions and work toward a better marketplace for all of us.
posted on March 30, 2001 01:00:45 PM new
Hi reston_ray:
Thank you for taking the time to respond so eloquently and thoroughly to my posting.
I think there are a lot of interest in and a number of good ideas being attempted to give users more collective "power" in the auction marketplace.
I don't know how much genuine interest exists among (sellers and buyers) users to acquire more collective "power" in the auction market place. Since the Boycott efforts started on March 25, 2001, the number of listings has actually increased.
Presently there are on eBay boards a large number of threads with the number of posting ranging from 1 to 225 about an April 1, 2001 Boycott of eBay.
With online auction services there is only one major provider, eBay. Some users may find one or more of the alternative sites useful and productive but for the vast majority of users eBay rules.
You are absolutely right, eBay is like the old AT&T for Long Distance, prior to the break-up into the little Bells. With the demise of Yahoo, there is no alternative site, and eBay knows it. Their latest response to the overcharging problem reflects their cavalier attitude, only after national press coverage, it modifies their position to a fairer and more reasonable approach to resolve the problem automatically. http://www.geocities.com/auctionexaminer/ebayovrchgs.htm
I don't believe any form of organization will have much impact. We are not employees of eBay so a pure Union has no place here. Any Association of sellers would have to have a large numbers of members.
I am comparing the Auction Sellers & Buyers (ASB) Union to the Student Unions of the late sixties and seventies. Students were not employees of these Colleges and Universities, but customers, very similar to the eBay, (seller and buyer) user relationship. Students paid to use the Colleges and University facilities, eBay users (chiefly sellers) pay eBay to use these facilities.
Poor communications among sellers and a possible lack of interest has shown, to date, that there is little possibility of creating any sizable Assoc. membership.
We have the ability to sent thousands of emails by the click of a mouse, which Student Unions didn't have in the sixties and seventies. We can run instant polls and members opinions thru a website, that Students lacked in the sixties and seventies. We can be very responsive to the wants of (sellers and buyers) users, more than the Student Unions were to the students, back then.
The poor communication can be handled, however the "apathy factor" is the problem that needs to be resolved. However, the bad economy and the slow sales may wake up sellers and overcome that apathy.
EBay’s move away from being dependent on smaller independent sellers towards larger businesses also suggests that they would not be responsive to an Assoc. even if one existed.
The same 13 Million plus unique visitors that eBay received the week of March 10, 2001, http://www.lowestbids.com/number2site.asp, are (buyers and sellers) users. I believe that there are very few pure "sellers" or "buyer"; most users are both "buyer and sellers". If eBay were to move away from independent users, towards large businesses, they still would need an audience of (sellers and buyers)users to unload their products. That audience is that amorphously defined (buyer and seller) user, we previously discussed. If eBay had thousands of larger businesses as sellers, we know that businesses are not buyers, the site would collapse, because they would not have those (buyer and sellers) users who make eBay or any auction house successful. While you are in the above URL, please note that the LowestBid.com had 5 Million plus unique visitors and only 165 Thousand listings, while the entire Amazon site had almost 9 Million unique visitors and an estimated 160 Thousand listings. http://www.dtmagazine.com/auctioncounts.html. The new site www.LowestBid.com, while it has many good points, it has some points that may be unacceptable to many sellers -- over restrictive rules of what is allow to be listed. That could be negotiated by a steering committee of the Auction Sellers and Buyers (ABS) Union or Association, what ever we call that organization.
Some might say I'm too pessimistic while others might give me the benefit of the doubt and say I'm realistic.
I do believe small independent sellers have to make use of what is available from eBay while helping to develop the secondary marketplace.
I believe that you are being realistic. However, to develop a secondary market place without (seller and buyer) user leadership is not possible. Look at the present situation, many sellers are moving some of their listing to many free sites, there is no concerted effort to go to a specific site to create that secondary market place. EBay is very happy with the "divide and conquer" philosophy that so far we all (sellers and buyers) users have followed. We need a steering committee to negotiate with auction houses and give guidance to our members.
Rather than "fighting" eBay I believe our energy is better used building markets elsewhere. Unfortunately it is not clear at this time just which is the best "elsewhere" to help build but the next few months should bring some clarity to which site(s) will emerge as strong secondary marketplaces.
We don't want to fight eBay, because at least it gives one ready made market place for our goods, what we want to do is flex our muscle and negotiate in good faith terms, rates, rules, changes, quality of service, etc., that are fair for all eBay users. Presently the low price items, the fees are extremely high http://www.geocities.com/auctionexaminer/Breakeven4.htm; see the four Break-even articles for a full picture of this disparity. Also service has taken a turn for the worse see eBay Boards - Technical Issues.
posted on March 30, 2001 10:31:28 PM new
Auctually this worries me. The words BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING keep ringing in my ears.
If something like this was to happen. Would the UNION boycott scab sellers or bidders? I don't like unions. Unions usually attempt to force people to follow a set of rules. I'm honest but I'm also a free spirit. I don't want someone telling how I will run my business.
I urge people to think twice before joining a union. Not only would you have to follow Ebay's (or another sites) rules but you would be subject to the whims of the majority.
I can see it now. Manditory 48 hour shipping. Exact postage only, restrictions on what you can sell, your auctions must look a certain way, only bid on auctions displaying the union logo, etc.
Scarry stuff if you ask me. Let's not go there!
[ edited by outoftheblue on Mar 30, 2001 10:48 PM ]
posted on March 31, 2001 11:53:37 AM new
A union is a good idea in theory, However, there have been many attempts to create a mass of seller's with enough core support to influence ebay's behavior, all have failed to my knowledge. I truly believe ebay needs to be humbled, a effective way is attack their bottom line. If a majority of the seller's would place a certain percentage of their listings on other venues. Create their own picture gallery for ebay and their other listings on other sites. So when a potential ebay buyer clicks on their ebay gallery, with only another click the buyer can then explore your offerings on other venues easily. Now if several seller's combined their listings into one gallery this would have the potential to expose many other venues. I along with several ebay seller's in my region are contemplating this idea. This approach does not require a mass of support, just a few people you know doing the same thing.
posted on March 31, 2001 12:49:04 PM new
Ebay does get humbled every time something they do doesn't pan out (examples Japan, France, Billpoint, Autos). Ultimately, they can only succeed if their smaller sellers succeed. The more their smaller sellers prosper the more they'll prosper, and Ebay can't prosper if their smaller sellers can't prosper. I'm sure they understand that completely. I think C2C auctions will continue to be their bread and butter for at least the next few years. Big corporations that sell on Ebay (like Sun) get the headlines but as a percentage they're not meaningful. Of course, in exchange Ebay will want their piece of the action, not enough though to jeopardize the success of most of their sellers.
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There was also the April Fool's Date Bug, which play havoc with many auctions, by moving them to the close category before they were closed. eBay was not prepared to deal with this bug which was found by Richard Smith, now chief technology officer of PrivacyFoundation.org, in January of 1999, and was well known.
April Fool’s bug may change time, March 29, 2001, MSNBC
I also learned from several rumors that the Fee Schedule for the Large Corporations is lower than the one paid by the regular sellers and that eBay has hundreds of eBay "paid loyalist" that do not pay fees, they get credit for helping other eBay users and from defending eBay in the Bulletin Boards. Can that be true?
I wasn't aware of the boycott. I don't really follow the Ebay seller news very closely. A drop of 162,500 wouldn't be unusual by itself. Normally, the peak is Saturdays so a drop that much from Saturday to Sunday is even normal.
Ebay changed the Categories Overview page so they must be in the middle of making changes. Surprisingly, I mentioned publically that was the page I followed, and coincidentally it changed the next day. It was a hasty modification because there was (is) still the web software diagnostic messages at the bottom of the page. Sometimes I have interesting timing with Ebay. I guess the moderating item counts has been some concern recently. It's clear to me that it's due to the slowing economy but I seem to be in the minority. Anyway, it's not a popular message as you can imagine.
I don't know about sellers getting compensated to be on discussion boards. It wouldn't surprise me if that was true on Ebay's discussion boards. Ebay is very smart about things like that and sellers would know much more than even their staff about certain topics.
It wouldn't surprise me that larger corporations got a break on their listings on Ebay. They're high profile and newsworthy. I've always figured that the earliest of them, Sun, just sold server equipment as part of a swap package deal for Ebay's business.
John
P.S. I doubt they'd compensate sellers to be on investment discussion boards because I think that would violate some kind of securities law. Ebay does seem to inspire loyalty. Personally, I came to believe it to be a somewhat interesting phenomena back during May '99. The whole idea you can connect 2 people in that kind of exchange is a powerful idea. I found some things that I wanted and before Ebay it would have been impossible to find.
[ edited by John10101 on Apr 2, 2001 12:47 AM ]
