Comments on: eBay Is Slowly Losing Its Soul

By: Emily

Emily — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 13:42:12 +0000

ebay is too expensive for me. So I abandoned it. Now, I use FastCommerce.com ecommerce platform. It is low-cost, high-powered e-commerce for small business or home based business! It’s free for me.

By: Fed Up Ebayer

Fed Up Ebayer — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 20:10:43 +0000

Well I’m just an ebay buyer. I have thought about selling at times, but it always seemed so confusing I gave up. I have purchased a lot of unique items over the years, but I do find that things are much riskier now than they were in the past.
I don’t like the fact that ebay and paypal are connected. This hardly seems like a healthy scenario for buyers and sellers alike when you have a problem. Obviously ebay and paypal are going to be united in the outcome so it’s you against both. I also find it cold that ebay has to attach itself to everything just to make another buck.
I won’t buy on ebay much if at all anymore. Their new amazonian remake sounds like a disaster plan to me.
I love honest auctions. They even took the honesty away from that venue when they allowed multiple names on the site and hidden bidders. There have been many times when I have felt like I was indeed bidding against the owner of the item or a very close friend.
Also, the hidden feedback ratings that are fairly new. How senseless is that? Obviously the sellers will be hurt by this and it’s only another way for ebay to dishonestly manipulate things in their favour anytime they want to.
I liked the good old days when buyers and sellers worked things out on their own without the help of ebay and/or paypal. Who wants to buy from a scared seller or an over-charged seller? Since ebay got involved in everything things went downhill.
Ebay has become too big too fast. They think they are God – and they are far from it. The internet has always been an unsafe place to make purchases and it hasn’t become any safer due to ebay’s mismanagement.
It’s time to do my buying locally again. I can find any fixed price item I want – it’s the auctions I will miss. Fed Up Ebayer

By: e21media

e21media — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 05:31:00 +0000

it might be interesting to see what an innovative player like Google would do with the eBay group. definintely would love to see them do something new with Skype and PayPal.

By: orokusaki

orokusaki — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 03:51:37 +0000

Ebay is done. If I owned a business that was completely based on something that was going away. I wouldn't fight the uphill battle just to reach the top and fall off the face of the earth. I'd go out gracefully, and commit sepuku... with a samurai sword found on Ebay.

By: Unit7285

Unit7285 — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 03:20:10 +0000

Right from the start, eBay has always been a terrific idea implemented very badly. It has raked in money not because the people running it are clever, but because the idea was good and people put up with their incompetence.

Even a decade later it’s still cumbersome, awkward and confusing for sellers and buyers alike. Just try defining Shipping details for domestic and international for multiple eBay sites and it soon becomes clear that the people in charge of Shipping (and I believe there is a Vice President of Shipping, or some stupid title) don’t even realise that there are more than about 10 countries in the world, and have no understanding of how people ship stuff. After 10 years! It could be quite straightforward – just tick off a list of countries that you will ship to – but no, they made it incredibly complicated and it’s often impossible to get the desired result.

It doesn’t surprise me at all that eBay are trying to run themselves into the ground at full speed with other misguided changes. It’s a great shame.

However, Amazon is going downhill too, in my opinion. It’s like a chaotic car boot sale when you search for pretty much anything these days, full of dodgy listings from third party sellers and out of date Reviews referring to different products.

eBay also holds the world record for Worst Software Program Of All Time Bar None – namely the putrid excuse for an application that is Turbo Lister. It defines the word ‘rubbish’ and must have cost them billions in lost sales over the years.

I hope eBay can sort itself out. It needs new people with brains and common sense.

By: andalso...

andalso... — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 02:24:01 +0000

Ebay also destroyed their feedback system recently. Now it is almost meaningless. You cannot leave negative feedback for a buyer who causes a problem, doesn’t pay, any such shenanigans, only positive feedback. On the other hand, a buyer can post whatever he wants. (Yes, I know why ebay says they did this, but it still made the feedback system almost useless.)

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 22:24:24 +0000

I had to snigger…

I know of one woman who made just over £100,000 net profit in 2006/07 from eBay alone with her soaps, etc and now what is she going to do?

She’ll just have to make a honest living like the rest of us.

I’m still smirking by the way ;)

By: e21media

e21media — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:18:36 +0000

eBay: an eCommerce case study in how not to treat your core users
Having followed the eBay story since its early days when in the UK it was a poor man’s alternative to Yahoo UK auctions, I am keen to know just what the rest of you think about recent changes.

It seems as if eBay’s policy changes essentially as one commentator put it, “amount to nothing more than reaaranging the deck chairs on the Titanic”. Chasing fixed price listings and ignoring its core users with higher fee charges simply begs belief. It is clear they are chasing Amazon’s share but going about it with such a contemptuous attitude toward your own members seems suicidal. Would it not have been more prudent to split the business, in some way, thus retaining the core auction model?

By: lukemeister

lukemeister — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 21:59:39 +0000

I suppose things need to change over time, maybe this will open up a door for some new auction site to take hold that offers the uniqueness of items that eBay grew from.

By: lerxtjr

lerxtjr — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 22:30:12 +0000

I just feel sorta sad for the many people making their living scouring used clothing stores and flee markets to make a few bucks per item selling them on ebay. Ebay has helped a lot of people who have been laid off from their jobs or wanted a way to get out of corporate america but lack the technical aptitude to churn out a website for themselves or setup a shopping cart. If Ebay just disappears one day, there will be no place for those people to turn except back to a j.o.b. somewhere they hate.