eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

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AuctionBytes Blog
News and insight focusing on
ecommerce and the online auction industry
by Ina Steiner, Editor of AuctionBytes.com

July 02, 2007

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

By: David Steiner

Mon July 2 2007 15:37:49

A check of Nielsen/NetRatings shows that eBay users are spending less time on the site than in previous years. In 2006, eBay trumpeted in a Seller Central Report on how buyers use eBay that visitors spend more time on eBay than on other sites, and that time spent on the site is increasing year-over-year. It used data from December 2003 to March 2005 to prove its point. A look at more recent data, however, shows the time spent has gone down.

I was looking at the Nielsen/NetRatings report along with other data to see if anecdotal reports had any merit - you can see my musings in today's AuctionBytes Newsflash article here.
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y07/m07/i02/s00

There's tons of data, I'm interested in hearing what readers have to say, please leave a comment below.

Comments (228) | Permalink

Readers Comments

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Andrew Waites

Mon Jul 2 16:33:53 2007

Your data mirrors our business to a ''t''.

Andrew Waites
eValueville

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Kewpieboots

Mon Jul 2 16:37:37 2007

I used to sell lots of vintage items on eBay UNTIL about 2 yrs ago when the prices for gas, eBay fees and USPS fees went up. I think the biggest hit was the gas prices. People quit bidding and buying in a sharp spike. It doesn't take a genius to understand that if you have to spend a lot of time listing and expending $$ for fees and have to sell your items for less than expenses that Sellers are not going to list either. eBay has affected a bunch of markets and not always in a positive way. It seems that Management wants the whole enchilada. Making eBay ''Fun'' doesn't bring profits into MY pockets.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Ed Tomchin

Mon Jul 2 16:38:50 2007

The answer is as simple as the nose on your face and as old as business. If it's not broke, DON'T FIX IT.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Fred Giuffrida

Mon Jul 2 16:41:20 2007

I'd add into the mix one inane advertising campaign after another. Seriously "IT"? I saw the next big TV ad splurge at eBay live and today I can't even remember what it was about except that I just shook my head and said, "When are they going to get a new ad agency?"

Then again, many experts believe TV ads to be ineffective vs. word of mouth, and eBay's word of mouth says that it's full of scammers and it's easy to get ripped off there.

Our sales have been down since Christmas.

~Fred

http://stores.ebay.com/paladinshops

http://www.paladinshops.com
http://www.myroadtoweightloss.com

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Bruce

Mon Jul 2 16:53:00 2007

Like the economy, eBay is always up and down. I concur that higher fees, reducing store visibility and the tons of myriad rules and regs eBay now enforces, all hurt sellers. Most call it Feebay (I have to admit, my sales are up but I'm much more selective in what I list and they are listed with higher starting bids).

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Jerry C

Mon Jul 2 16:53:12 2007

Great research Mr. Steiner. Graphs do show the truth, we use them in our business and I will be the first to tell you, your research is dead-on. Since the auction world does revolve around eBay, there are other things that may make sellers decide to leave eBay. Just a wild guess, but I would say eBays poor customer service. How can a company that has such a well adopted feedback tool for buyers and sellers not understand the importance of customer service? I don't get it. There is no resolution to problems, eBay just does not want to hear it. Must be nice not to answer to anyone. I think buyers and sellers are fed-up. I think eBay is one of the biggest double standards in the online world. If they can fix their customer service issue, and I mean a real fix, then I am sure sellers, buyers and Wall Street will come-through with business.

You're right, sellers are business people and use eBay as a partner to make money. The keyword is partnership. It's not a one-sided relationship. If sellers can't find support, can't make a profit or always getting pulled this way and that way, chances are they may move on. The current feel on the eBay site is, "it's us against them".

It won't work!

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: osama

Mon Jul 2 16:54:14 2007

You hitted the point !!! I am a seller from Egypt selling on eBay since 8 years.... my business was very stable on eBay even with no paypal account since years untill the first of 2006 almost half of the profit and double the expenses.... Actually the changes on eBay and being very greedy is the reason of this site fall down or broke... If they don't change this soon sales on eBay will drop down more and more many sellers ( real sellers ) left eBay after many shooting stars...

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: ccharned

Mon Jul 2 16:58:41 2007

Great article!

I would also add the introduction of "eBay Express," commonly referred to as "ExpressMess," as a cause for the ennui, frustration and lower sales. Last year, eBay began implementing ExpressMess. What for, I do not know. It appears they want to be the Wal-Mart of the Internet and no one seems to have told them that Wal-Mart has already been invented. ExpressMess concentrates on new items, for the most part, that usually can be purchased with far less hassle at discounters like Wal-Mart. No wait, no shipping costs, etc.

At the same time, eBay began its endless tinkering with search, now euphemistically called "finding." The "finding experience" has deteriorated. Store inventory (which, the last I knew, comprised about 87% of eBay's listings, whether they like it or not) can't be found without difficulty, leading to a _decreasingly_ effective "finding experience." I could go on and on here but the SIS fiasco, the change in search after SIS (eBay has always denied this but many sellers believe it), the radically increased fees, the introduction of the seemingly pointless ExpressMess (from which one can't easily even GET to eBay, btw), and recent changes in the "finding experience," all have contributed significantly to the problem.

For several months now, eBay has foisted a "back to basics," as they call it, campaign for "core" (doublespeak for auctions) listings on us. But, eBay refuses to listen to its customers - the SELLERS - who tell them that "buy it now" and stores are where it's at. Many customers no longer care to wait a week or so to find out if they won an auction. They want to find the merch, buy it and move on. Which is what made stores great. IMHO, eBay missed an _opportunity_ to brand itself as THE central e'commerce store location on the Internet. eBay refuses to consider the idea that auctions might be...passe. Most of the time, sellers feel like they are on a rudderless ship - from which they are jumping like rats.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Arnie C

Mon Jul 2 17:11:17 2007

Your posting is very interesting and touches on very relevant points. There is one however, that you fail to mention, which I think is equally important. And that is the subject of listing clutter. I remember in 2006 with SIS and lower fees that the average search used to come up with 100's of poorly priced and identical listings. It was essentially so cheap to list that people were listing items even if they knew many would not sell. Sure, this was great for listing figures but not for GMV. I'm not saying the fee hike did not hurt all sellers but it hurt the low quality listings the hardest. Since then, most of those have dropped off the system. That is exactly why we have seen higher ASP's and higher GMV despite stagnant or even lower total listings. One more thing, removing the clutter makes items easier to find and perhaps that is why the average user no longer needs to spend the 2 hours you mention.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: L Armstrong

Mon Jul 2 17:25:47 2007

For me, the one thing that has most negatively affected my business has been the increase in fees.

Your metrics show that all sorts of things are down on eBay, yet their profits continue to rise. They are sucking it from sellers and treating sellers as if we are the source of their problems instead of the source of the revenue.

Remember, before they implemented SIS, they pushed hard to promote stores to their sellers. They wanted every seller to open one. Then, they did an about-face and started acting like we, those who had opened stores, were almost criminals. We were punished with less visibility and higher fees, and told we were moving the site away from its core values.

If eBay wants to put the FUN back into 'finding', they need to help out the sellers and make it profitable for us to sell again.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Jay Smith

Mon Jul 2 17:28:42 2007

The one observation that I would add is that as business people, sellers have an expectation that, over time, as they work the bugs out of a system and accumulate repeat buyers, the seller's sales will become more profitable. In the beginning we assume that we may have to operate on very slim margins (or even at a loss) just to build business, but that as operations mature that we will be able to operate with a stable, consistent (but perhaps very modest) profit margin. However, every time sellers approach this point of happiness, eBay raises fees, changes the structure or search methods or item specifics, etc.,, eliminates/changes related support services (i.e. SAP changed to Blackthorne, etc.). To a small business person, these ''small'' changes are huge and disruptive, often reducing or eliminating profitability for a while. Added to that the dismal and completely disrespectful customer (seller and buyer) service and safety situation, I found myself realizing that there was no point at all doing all that work for a nominal return. Instead I focused on our website (which was already underway), now increasing it to 1380 pages and growing fast (with an eventual likely target of around 10,000 pages). If I could make as much money (still a modest amount) on eBay as I make in my other related operations, I would still be listing 150-200 items per week on eBay. But that possibility ended a while ago. eBay's conceit and arrogance are its downfall. As a professional buyer (buying for our inventory) capable of spending significant sums for material I need, I find myself now spending less than 10% of the time I spent on eBay 2 years ago. Though it is still possible for me to spend as much money as I have available to spend (not a small amount), I just don't want to mess with it any more -- it is certainly not fun any more. I am so often angry about whatever eBay or PayPal has or has not done recently (some of which to my mind is almost criminal), that I try to find other ways to spend my time and money.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Marg

Mon Jul 2 17:29:56 2007

Like others have said, eBay is continually changing things, and NOT for the better. Just off the top of my head I would say the many new ''innovations'' are certainly part of the problem, such as:
search (or ''finding'');
the ''stars'' rating for sellers;
bidder #1, #2, etc. on auctions over $200;
the proliferance of non-ebay advertisements;
the new ''sell your item'' form;
the new ''feedback rating'' system (where the price one paid for an item is right upfront for all to see);
the faulty eBay auction counters;
disallowance of being able to offer cash as an optional payment;
the ongoing suspension of sellers who are purportedly in the lower 2% of sellers; and
although not in eBay's purview, the rise in USPS postal rates. I'm sure I could come up with a few more unfavourable developments!!

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: grumpy3b

Mon Jul 2 17:29:59 2007

Arnie C:

I agree completely that perhaps people are spending less time because the site is overall more efficent.

Also, users have begun to digest the site and how eBay works. That too might lead them to find what the want and get out. Saved searches, fav sellers, the watch ''and forget it'' list. These all factor into the amount of time spent on the site.

For me metrics like bids/visit or items-viewed/visit would make far more sense as a gauge but no way is eBay ever going to release real data of any meaning what-so-ever.

heck with them we are done with eBay maybe next year and then it's gonna be fun to sit and watch as the place falls down for good. BTW, PP is where the entire shift of attention has been...eBay is no longer in the only line auction biz, if you had not noticed, they are in the credit/payment processing business.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: sharonhintze

Mon Jul 2 17:33:56 2007

I used to go to eBay before I went anywhere else, and ALWAYS to find something unusual. I bought a lot! I also sold items with wonderful success but not as a full time seller. EBay sent a message not to long ago and asked the reasons why my spending had decreased. I told them that previously there were ''Mom and Pop'' type sellers and I perceived I was getting a good buy. I could ''connect'' with these people and I felt comfortable and secure in purchasing.
Now there are so many big discount and
close out store sites it is not the same experience anymore. There were people I bought clothing from repeatedly that I can only assume aren't doing ebay anymore for the same reason I don't sell much anymore...the fees eat up your ability to make it even worth your while. There were eBay sellers I watched like a hawk to try to pattern after because they were always selling so much, now many are selling hardly anything or not selling at all. I know the big discount companies surely have found a valuable outlet at eBay and I am sure they are bringing much more revenue to eBay than my little sales and purchases and those of other little Mom and Pop operations..and hey, that's what business is all about. eBay is there to make money, not to satisfy us. I don't see how anyone can expect to change them. I just hope someone will come up with another fledgling auction outlet that will be as lucrative and as interesting for us little guys as it used to be and let the big box distressed merchandise guys stay with ebay!

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Beth Cox

Mon Jul 2 17:40:21 2007

I agree David, eBay has been broken for some time. We have gradually realized this as sales have diminished and fees have increased.
We had thought that a perfect feedback record and fantastic customer service would make us successful, but that turned out not to be the case.

We are gradually phasing eBay out of our marketing, and we have opened a real-world bricks and mortar store.
The eBay and PayPal fees combined have been running 18 to 20 percent of our total eBay revenues, and our sell-through rate from auctions has declined to maybe 30 or 35 percent some weeks. It has become increasingly annoying to pay fees for items that don't sell.

At present we are maintaining a low level eBay Store with virtually no auctions -- if people find our Store items, great; if not we have spent only pennies per item.
Meanwhile, we are developing an e-commerce Web site to mirror our real-world store.

We expect our eBay selling effort to just sort of fade away over time.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Ed

Mon Jul 2 17:40:23 2007

I had always looked at the volumes eBay always included in their quarterly financial reports like registered users, active users, gross sales in major categories, etc. I don't quite remember when but a few/several quarterly reports ago they stopped including many of the key volumes I had been watching. I felt, right then, that something was up. The data you've preseted seem to indicate why ebay removed the info. from their financial reports. Ed

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Jamie Curtis

Mon Jul 2 17:46:02 2007

Impressive article, thank you.

I sold on a pretty small margin so price increases were disastrous for me, but I also wonder if having a choice of venues isn't a little bit of a factor in the slow down? No one else is a large as eBay, but being number two or even three in the market can still attract sellers. Besides, eBay makes most of their money from the big guys, and us small fry seem to have been dismissed without thought or regret.... Maybe we were a bigger piece of the action than we (or they) thought.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Trevor Ginn

Mon Jul 2 17:49:22 2007

Interesting in the UK Bebo (a social networking site) has overtaken eBay as the most searched term see

http://www.hitwise.co.uk/press-center/hitwiseHS2004/bebo.ph
p

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Peter

Mon Jul 2 17:50:02 2007

1) The data on the slump trend matches our own decline in net and gross revenue on Ebay.

2) A lot of the reasons for this decline of business on Ebay are right on, but it is not about a multitude of reasons. It is about one reason which is at the top of the hierarchy of facts causing the decline: it is Ebay's core vision on her product.

Ebay has never seriously tried to analyze and understand the core reason for her success. Ebay is that odd company which had a lucky break, but never figured out how it got that break.

The core reason for Ebay's initial success was her unique laissez-faire marketplace offering. In a world where business people and consumers were otherwise restricted by government rules and tariffs, Ebay was a free trade area like none before, even in the worst regulated geographic area. Such freedom showed how efficient a free market can work, both producing optimal low cost and high revenue. It also gave sellers and buyers a lot of their personal time back, as they were able to trade from home, not wasting time traveling around.

In 2005 Ebay started to cater more and more to the moochers (politicians, lazy ignorant buyers, lazy business people) who wanted Ebay to give them privileges at the expense of the productive members of E bay (hard working business people, smart educated buyers).

Ebay started to impose rules and limitations on the productive people, like explicit censorship of specific words, anti-keyword spamming measures, limits to s/h, limiting visibility of products, limiting account use, limiting payment options, limiting store items visibility, abolishing specific subcategories, increasing fees most for high priced items etc).

From a laissez-faire venue, where buyers and sellers could set their terms on their own without interference from the venue management itself, the venue management became de facto a dictator, telling sellers as well as buyers how they should trade, instead of offering them options and letting them decide what to use and what not.

For sellers the Ebay venue management is now 'de factor' and employer, not a venue. Most of what we sellers need to do to sell, is directed, forced, not chosen.

Ebay's sole salvation, in order not to fail entirely, is to go recognize its laissez-faire roots and go back to them, but in its corporate culture and in its venue culture.

Anything else that is not a change back to its core philosophy would just an attempt to postpone its inevitable demise. Dictatorships never worked.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: steve49

Mon Jul 2 17:54:26 2007

eBay's downfall is going to be their complete lack of communication with, and total disdane of, the sellers.

They treat the very people who are putting the money in their packets as the "enemy".

If you look at their own boards you'll NEVER see a "pink" (ebay employee) post in the discussions. They won't offer to solve a problem, they won't even admit there IS a problem.

The latest round of suspending the "bottom 2%" of seller's with no explanation as to the reason for the suspension or what to do to get back on the "good boy" list is just the latest example of their arrogance.

When you treat your customer's (sellers) like crap they're not gonna be around long.

The constant tinkering with the search function is equally frustrating. Who know what you're gonna see when you hunt something. I haven't even tried the "playground" (oh, puhleeze) yet.

With their idiotic commercials, blogs, wiki's, playground, etc, I have to wonder what demographic they're going after anyway!

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Susan

Mon Jul 2 18:08:37 2007

Thanks for all the new data, it is confirming what we have been assuming for a while. We are an eBay Trading Assistant with a B/M drop-off store. Since we need to pay our sellers in a timely fashion, we have no eBay online store.

The biggest vulnerability I see for eBay is that most of their latest decisions, and PayPal policies for that matter, favor the buyers. We have 100% positive and average >$200/auction. However, the star rating system that is non reciprocal (what about buyers who don't pay on time, have threatened negative feedback unless they get paid off, or don't even communicate) only stands to disenchant its sellers. For example, buyers that have no idea what it costs to pack and ship something can now rate shipping costs - not shipping costs that they knew in advance to placing a bid through the calculator. We don't make any money on shipping, so this rating seems to encourage sellers to reduce their shipping costs to even a loss so an item sells higher (more in eBay's pocket).

If eBay is focusing on making the experience more positive for their buyers, unfortunately they are not taking the sellers into account, who are the ones who actually pay their salaries. That will eventually erode their profits.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: EstateRoadShow

Mon Jul 2 18:08:58 2007

Formerly as CatBecca and now as EstateRoadShow our focus has been on live auctions connected to eBayLive. We list on eBay for 10 days then hold the live auction. In 2001 we could expect 3000+ bids and 125 bidders signed on eBayLive, now getting 300 bids is difficult and having 25 signed on bidders is the norm.

Our last event showed something amazing, we received MORE bids from AuctionZip.com (a free site) than eBay for the first time since 2001, and those bids accounted for 33% of the winning bids.

My opinion is that the magic of no reserve auctions where the chance to win something at a great price is gone on eBay. Sort of like going to a Casino where the house always wins.

With EstateRoadShow, we are taking off where the old CatBecca model left off before we sold the company in 2005. We are listing 600 items at a time worth $25-$5000 and starting all items at $5 / no reserve. The focus is on the big picture, not on individual items. If more sellers did this, I think the magic might return. We have never lost money using this method, focusing on the big picture not individual items.

In the meantime, other sites like AuctionZip are gaining ground on eBay - heads up folks!

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Bob Furlong

Mon Jul 2 18:14:18 2007

Everyone is right on. It always stuns me that while storage cost and server cost per transaction are dropping like stones, eBay fees went up. They should be going down. Then they would get more listings and still be profitable...probably more so as they make most of their money in listing fees.
Our profit picture is not good either.
Higher fees, lower conversion ratios, higher shipping costs, and of course higher gas prices have all reduced our profit. Gas prices are a particular worry as they suck money out of our customer's hands like nothing else. I think most of us forget that a large percentage of our customers live on fixed incomes and paycheck to paycheck.
It struck home the other day when it cost me $40.00 to fill my VW Bug.

To top off the cake the rise of the Chinese bandits is bone chilling. Not only am I bombarded with wholesale offers but I also have to compete with a never ending supply of sellers who list low prices and high shipping cost from China. Their low feedback numbers suggest that they are flooding the market and then changing names. I bet they are stiffing eBay as well. Maybe the new requirements for ''overseas sellers'' will help.

I am a gold power seller with 10,000+ feedbacks and I don't know how much longer we can beat ourself up on ebay

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Anonymous

Mon Jul 2 18:15:17 2007

Thank you for such an interesting article.
First I would like to apologize - English is not my mther tongue so please excuse my mistaakes.
I do not think one can atribute the slow down to one mistake or another that ebay has done in the last two years. It seems to me that the general atmosphere has changed dramatically. When I registered to ebay back in '99, my user name was my email address. I could speak freely with sellers, ask them everything about anything and then just buy. I don't recall a time in which a seller tried to convince me to buy anything off ebay, and before paypal was a major thing - money just crossed the atalntic in an envelope.
Now, as a seller I feel like I'm being hunted (financially of course). Ebay had blocked direct and free contact between buyers and sellers and now when I get an e-mail from a potential buyer I feel I need a lawyer to answer it without being at risk of suspension. This, along with the never ending hike in fees has created two things which influence my business: The fees are reflected on the prices and sellers become less comfortable with their communications with clients. In other words there is no more fun for buyers either. Niche auction sites, in which I am active are much cheaper and much more tolerant to things which are a big no on ebay (such as free communications and off site deals). It influences prices and it influences the atmosphere in which buyers and sellers are doing their transaction.
And one last thing. I know much have been said about the fees, but the listing fees as they are on ebay now had killed the flea market atmosphere which is the base of the pyramid.
To conclude. Ebay has become a place which generates a paranoic atmosphere in which buyers and sellers are so much "protected" they can no longer trade with ease. And all that because of greed.
More than anything the figures shown in the article make me sad. It realy used to be a fun place - not anymore.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Emily Leonard

Mon Jul 2 18:17:32 2007

eBay's besetting sin is a total disregard for what Corporate America calls ''stakeholders'', the many constiuencies that must be well served to keep the company profitable.

eBay's stockholder's letters go unanswered, even those addressed to the chairman of the board by name. In most successful big companies such letters go to a department which does nothing else but keep the ''owners'' happy.

eBays employees (sellers) are exploited, insulted (where they find the idiots who staff customer support is a mystery worth of Mr. Holmes) and apparently entirely overlooked in both long and short-range planning.

Customers (buyers) are made to work so hard to find anything it's hardly worth the effort, expecially when there is no genuine attempt on eBay's part to stop fake emails, fraudulent sellers or those who charge exorbitant shipping fees. Attempts to draw their attention to one of these misccreants result in the most condescending form letter.....

And the general public is insulted by the most pointless ad campaigns ever devised.

It may well be that eBay is easing out of the auction business into the much more lucrative field of financial services. Did everyone notice that one can now pay for Northwest airline tickets via Pay Pal?

Too bad we can't find a smart venture capitalist to start a new auction site, staffed by people who understand the 'stakeholder' concept, and capitalized at a level that would allow for the very best technology, carefully selected and trained customer service personnel and really great advertising.

Or just put a handful of veteran sellers on the Board of Directors and on the Compensation Committee. Present management would either shape up or ship out.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Michael Paese

Mon Jul 2 18:24:16 2007

Here's my take on the whole situation.
1. SIS was a wake-up call to many sellers (such as ourselves). It showed caused us to go "all-in" on stores, and we had great sales as a result. Even after the reversal, sales improved while the percentage of fees (due to lower listing fees) DROPPED.
Sellers abandoned Core, which was overpriced and hard to justify for slower moving niche items.

2. SIS reversal was NOT about "clutter", as eBay (and one other posted) said. It was about stopping the free-fall in Core listing totals. (Want proof? If "clutter" was the issue, and not totals, why did they allow sellers to list 15 identical items? Some cats are now completely spammed by sellers, who admit to using all the listings to insure buyers can find just THEIR listings.)

3. EBay then proceeded to try to make Store listings less attractive (rather than improving Core performance), again because Core listing totals continued to decline, and with it the stock price.
This has since brought some degree of stability to the totals, but the trends are still bad.

HOWEVER, please note that the SIS was not the cause of the fall, rather the trigger event which made the disease apparent.
The underlying cause is the lack of faith which buyers have in the site. It is NOT about seller problems - it's about BUYER problems. Most seller problems would go away if buyers would return and be willing to pay more again!
If you speak to most buyers about eBay, the first word out of their mouth will be "FRAUD". They'll tell you how they got ripped off, or their friend did. They'll tell you how they had problems with their last purchase(s). Heck, even most EBAY EMPLOYEES openly suggest not spending more than $20 or $30 on the site as a safety measure! Even experienced buyers say that they have to be very cautious buying.

As for "fun" on the site, how much fun can it be if you always have to be on your guard? If you have to beware that the "thrill of the hunt" and "bargain hunt" isn't really "too good to be true"? Until they make buyers feel safe again, few buyers will really have "fun".

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: merrie

Mon Jul 2 18:26:55 2007

Great article, many useful observations. If Ebay wants to get back to the "CORE," then do it. The stores can be a separate venue. Most of the big guys that they have recruited are STORE type enterprises. They need to make up their minds. Auction, store or both, but don't keep whining about one thing unless you are sure that is really the problem. We, the sellers did not initiate the STORE concept. Make it work, integrate it or get rid of it. I sell both auction and store and am tired of Ebay blaming their slide on this or that.

Ebay, you are the market giant, make it work!!

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Kathie Harrow

Mon Jul 2 18:34:15 2007

I've been an eBay seller for 7 years, and for the first time I have nothing listed. It just isn't worth the time and effort right now.

I can live with the fee increases, but what they've done to the search function is criminal. It began with adding stores to search and then pulling them out, but the real disaster was the expanded listing numbering changes from product based to seller based. It used to be that numbers were assigned according to the type of item being sold so that items were on servers according to the type of item. Then they expanded the numbering with the first two digits of the new item number being the same for all of a seller's items - I think this is actually relates to a server number. I also think that servers are rotated on a regional basis so that a person doing a search for Item X in Maine will not necessarily see the same items that a person doing the same search at the same time in Oregon will see. Only a theory - since eBay will not discuss the issue.

Ebay Express has been a disaster and should be dumped along with the inane advertising campaigns eBay has run. Permitting ads from Yahoo, etc to compete directly on the same page with an ebay sellers items may be putting money in eBay's pockets but is taking it away from the sellers.

If eBay would direct the resources that have been invested in Express and all these cheap ''frills'' into combatting fraud and scams and improving customer service - eBay might become a more ''fun'' experience for all.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Bob

Mon Jul 2 18:59:11 2007

With all of the things going on,
aka MAJOR CHANGE

Store Search
Feedback Stars
Hidden Buyer ID's on $200 now making it easier for people to feel like they are being SHILLED
Higher store fees
Removing the Ads and Featured Store budget for those links (adwords)

AND eBay keeps making massive changes, and always says that it is what the users are requesting!!!???
WHO??
I have been a Gold PowerSeller and have NEVER been asked for MY Opinion.
I was rated by Sellathon in the top 40,000 sellers (ok, not major, but serious). And does anyone CARE???
NOT eBay, or at least they don't show it.

And to be honest, your SHRUG attitude you mentioned is exactly how I feel.
I really don't care anymore.
Yes, I am concerned about my business, but the decrease in profit and all the massive change, most being very negative,
have just made me apathetic.
eBay doesn't care, so why should I???
And that, my friends, is SAD

Really really SAD

People have been talking for some time that eBay has turned into a large Flea Market, not a nice unique shop to find treasures.

The best thing that could have happened to eBay would have been for Meg Whitman to have taken that job with Disney. Look at the amount of money in the high management, they are just bleeding eBay to death, a slow bleed....

Look at the stock options and how much eBay is giving away, all for a company that is in a spiral (downward and negative...) So why give the eBay execs all this incentive to ruin such a great place as eBay???

Is anyone awake at the eBay? Are you listening? Do you care?
Maybe you better show it to the sellers.

I wasn't even interested in going to eBay Live this year, why???
Just to get revitatlized for a few weeks, only to learn that all the promises won't mean anything when reality sets back in, and I come down off the high....

Sighhh.....

eBay is Apathy....

Can we all survive (the Sellers)???
I am not sure, only if eBay is listening and stops all this massive change and killing the great place that WAS eBay!!!!!!

I don't care about eBay Express, and Stars, and Wiki, and Blogs, and Reviews/Guides and whatever other CRAP you pile on, the bottom line is simple,
THE BOTTOM LINE.

Help the sellers make more MONEY!!!
eBay you are all about business and your stockholders and THEY want MONEY, and guess what, so DO the SELLERS!!!!!

Is that CLEAR!!!???!!!!

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Jeff Stannard

Mon Jul 2 19:12:07 2007

Hi- saw the AB's data article in my inbox right before listing more eBay items.

Maybe I'll wait, it is a holiday week afterall.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Rob

Mon Jul 2 19:29:18 2007

You trace all he problems to the top... to arroagant Queen Meg, more interested in her next bonus check (and stock options) than customer satisfaction... like another queen who once said ''Let them eat cake.'' Add Meg's liberal, controlling style. Add reliance on techno-nerds (with no Customer Service skills) who like to play with new ideas and find solutions to problems that don't exist. Add a frustrating one-way communication model that the Internet allowed (i.e. no customer interface) and you've got the Perfect Storm. So sad. Meg has cashed out her stock, is job hunting, and looking for another good company to wreck and plunder.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Chris

Mon Jul 2 19:43:19 2007

One of the biggest mistakes Ebay made was allowing the Asian invasion.
This dramatically increased fraud and this fact alone has sent buyers running - never to return. Yes, word of mouth is - never go near Ebay - you will get ripped off. Trust & Safety have done too little - too late. These buyers have been burnt & they won't come back.Management failed to recognise the Asian way of trading is very different to the Western world. Management have wasted millions in trying to woo the Asian population.
Allowing the Asian population to list on Western Ebay sites has driven prices down to a point where Western sellers have little or no chance at competing so they have left.
This, along with the never ending 'tweaking' of the site, draconian rules & fee hikes for less exposure makes sellers feel as though they are unwanted & we are just working long hours for very little return & employed by a bad boss.
We have been selling for over 4 years and the sell through rates have dropped from 80% to 25% in this time.
Ebay is no longer a safe place for sellers as one small listing mistake means Trust & Safety will wipe you off the face of Ebay for however long they feel like. Ebay refuse to disclose standards by which they expect sellers to adhere. Instead they just wipe you if they don't like your performance.
With all this, why on earth would sellers feel enthused? No wonder they have become apathetic & are looking at other avenues of selling.
We honestly think Ebay management are overpaid, top heavy, arrogant & the words 'customer service' or 'courtesy' just isn't in their dictionary.
Ebay have little or no respect for sellers - they seem to have forgotten who pays them!

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: steve49

Mon Jul 2 19:53:57 2007

I'm beginning to wonder if this whole ebay scheme isn't run by some teenage nerd in his basement.I

think he just goes out and takes a pic of a big office building and Photoshop's the ebay logo on it to make it look real. Every once in a while he'll wake up Grandma Meg and Uncle Bill and trot 'em out so people think there's a actual company.

How have I come to believe this? Just take a look at ebay's latest tricks...

Blogs, Wiki's (whatever that is, I bet the teenager knows)
My World (uh...huh?)
Regular Search broken for months. Nobody cares...they're makin' "Playgrounds" (there's that kid again) now.
"Hurry, open a store. No don't...too many listings. Just kiddin'...we REALLY like you!"
The famous 6% store fee hike (apparently the kid skipped math class).
Ignorant TV commercials that can only appeal the "lowest 2%" of viewers.
No phone number available unless you belong to the Secret Service.
No one to answer the phone that knows ANYTHING (must be his little brothers and sisters).
Suspend seller's for two weeks but don't tell 'em why or how to get back on the "good boy" list.

And on, and on, and on...

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Ray

Mon Jul 2 19:56:55 2007

David David David... You are my pal... It has taken a long time for what I have been saying to begin to show up in print.
I was a Gold Power Seller. A one man band at that. I was fortunate in that I could run 100 or so listings a week and produce pretty close to 20K in sales a month. I did that for close to six years. So while this is anecdotal, it stems from live blood, sweat and tears of full time sales on ebay. For what it is worth, I worked hard at this. To date I have 7000 total transactions, with 2 negs since 1998 when I signed up on ebay. So probably not the kind of seller ebay should drive away.

I bought my house, car, truck, put my son though college and relocated to the south from New England on what I made on ebay. Then... on March 1 the year Bill and Meg were compelled to play with SIS, sales just melted almost overnight.
You might wonder as what happened that I saw it so early in this ebay decline. How did I know this was not just some seasonal issue as Meg kept saying?... It wasn’t magic… 80% of my sales shipped to the west coast. I am in North Carolina now and moved here from Massachusetts. So have sold from the east coast a fair amount. One day the west coast simply disappeared along with 80% of my sales. The east coast was not searchable by the west coast. From the sounds of other sellers the effect seems to have gone both ways. I am only speaking to my own experience here.

I know that sounds extreme, but keep in mind I have been at this for a while and have come to know many powersellers personally on both coasts. I called all I know and we tested the east west disconnect from both ends at the same time. Folks in the west (as a practical matter west of about Kansas) could not find my stuff in the general search. But could find it if I provided the listing number. One guy ( a local guy) asked if I had anything listed at all. Then told me he did a search by seller and my user name came up as unknown or some such thing for a few days.
I had always set up my listings to end at 7pm or so PST to give my listings time to ferment so the west could bid at a reasonable early evening hour. It worked like clock work for years.

The east west disconnect was in place for most of a full year from its start. One day, poof, the west coast was back. Many, many emails and phone calls to ebay and never one response. At first I thought I was helping them a bit by pointing out the disconnect…
In short the volume has never returned. I am just selling off my inventory, locally and on ebay till it is gone. I have other irons in the fire and don't need to have Meg and Bill in my back pocket without earning their place there.
It is very sad. They make billions. They could have just shown their face once a year at ebay live and taken a 51 week vacation and made billions more.... Then they forgot the core of ebay is the sellers, real people not listings. They didn't listen. Maybe they should take a ride along the east coast of Lake Ontario and see what happened to the steel industry when they stopped listening... I can hear that steel rusting from Charlotte.... Too big to Fail?.... Not the steel industry, not Enron, not the Bank of New England and Not even eBay... It won't happen overnight, but they best start listening and acting on reality instead of Meg's imaginary community....

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Cowbell

Mon Jul 2 20:04:18 2007

Yanking of SIS was the beginning of the end for me. I now have more (and better) sales on other sites, afer six years of selling exclusively on eBay.

I chose sites where there is no fee until the item sells. eBay has no incentive to promote the sale of anything, as they get paid regardless.

I have come to believe that eBay sees FVFs as ''gravy.'' If it sells, fine. If not, no matter. They've already got a listing fee, a gallery fee, a BIN fee, and whatever else we poor saps buy to get seen over the other guys.

Why should they care that my sell-through rate dropped to 10%? They've already got my money.

Why should they care if anyone can find my store items? They've got the fee and five cents per item every single month.

eBay lobbied hard to get me to open the store in the first place. I had record sales until eBay pulled the plug.

If eBay really cared about ''clutter'' there were a number of choices they could have made.

They could have limited the number of items a seller could have in the store, for instance. They could have limited listings to one of each item.

How does making stores less attractive make core listings more attractive?

If a business wants to make one product more attractive to buyers, they do not raise the price of every other item in the store.

If eBay wanted me to sell more on the core, they would have lowered the price. They would have made gallery pictures free. They would have made BIN free.

They didn't, so I went elsewhere.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Bidofthis.com

Mon Jul 2 20:16:20 2007

I just listed my first auction on Overstock after reading your article.

Yes it used to be much easier to find a winning bidder on eBay.

brian

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Tully

Mon Jul 2 20:18:50 2007

I was glad to finally see in black and white some numbers that certainly made sense. Though I do think one of the most important factors was not emphasized enough- FEE HIKES.

Multiple fee hikes has sent MANY sellers fleeing from ebay. Those same sellers...were also buyers. Add to that what others have previously said:
Gas hikes
Ebay not listening seller OR buyers
ExpressMess
Fraud

I have been on ebay since the first year and have seen the up and down trends. But this down trend looks unrecoverable. I have 2 separate ebay stores and for the first time I am (like many others) having to look seriously at downsizing and finding options outside of ebay.

I'm afraid one more fee hike and there will be another mass group of sellers leaving and ebay won't recover.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: anonymous

Mon Jul 2 20:23:52 2007

Yes, EBay is broken - big time. The ''Powers that Be'' are more concerned with their profits than they are with working with their employees (the sellers) to create an atmosphere where the sellers make more sales/profits, thereby increasing eBay profits. They increase listing fees and final value fees - sellers list fewer items at lower costs - voila, eBay makes less money. If only eBay would go back to lower listing and final value fees, then sellers could get back to the business of selling more items for more money, making more money for themselves and eBay. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that one out - 100 sales at lower fees can be much more profitable to eBay than 10 sales with double the fees.

I have been a Power Seller and even though eBay will deny to the end that they ''picked'' on us, they pulled my listings right and left for trivial issues - when I was only listing exactly what the customers were asking for! I am an honest seller trying to make a modest living but eBay tied my hands at every turn. Now that I am not a power seller - and refuse their invitations to join the ''team'' - they have not paid a bit of attention to the very same type of listings they pulled before. EBay does not create a level playing field for sellers. We try to offer products the customers want at a competitive price and eBay pulls listings right and left from some sellers in that category and not others.

As for the store issue - I agree that eBay is missing the mark there. Yes, customers want to go shop, buy, and leave knowing their ''treasure'' will soon be on its way without having to wait a week for an auction to close and risk losing the item and having to start all over. When I go shopping in a local store, I want plentiful parking, well stocked shelves, helpful salespeople if needed, and no long lines for checkout. EBay can provide all of that without the hassle of leaving home, using expensive gas, and looking for parking - IF they want to. But they don't - they want to micro-manage the sellers. And in most cases, I believe that they have no clue what that seller's market entails. One Size Rules most certainly do not fit all in the world of eBay - yet they continue to force square-peg sellers into their round-hole rules. Customer service is a joke as they only give you canned explanations of those inadequate policies that don't do a thing to enhance the eBay experience.Fun? NOT! Many sellers are leaving eBay - and taking their mailing lists with them, I am sure. EBay was once THE place to find that hard to find item, but now, thanks to Google's increasingly powerful search, you can find it on any number of web sites without ever visiting eBay. Wake UP eBay - time to get back to the basics of what made eBay a phenomenon in the first place.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: duane

Mon Jul 2 20:28:11 2007

Right on David! You have hit the nail on the head. I have been an ebayer for over ten years and am pushing 7000+ feedback. I feel violated every time I use Ebay or Paypal and long for a new kid on the block.

On top of what Ebay does to its sellers, look down the road at the Internet Sales Tax. Add that to the list that will send even more buyers and sellers down the road.

The price of gas does figure into the the big picture for sure.

Also, the recent postage increase goes way beyond the 2 cent letter hike. Some rates increased by as much as 30%.

Lower realized auction prices and higher fees and much disrespect from Ebay itself all figure in to this.

Two quick suggestions.

1.An advisory board or seats on the board of directors comprised of veteran Ebay users. As I do not think that there is one person in upper management that would know how to make a living using the very service that they are selling.

2.The elimination of a set ending time for auctions. Make it so that an auction is not over until there have been no bids for a specified period of time. That would get rid of sniping and raise final realized prices thus create more revenue for once without increasing seller fees.

There is not one negative item in your article or in any of the comments today that I do not agree with. I feel that I will not be selling on Ebay any more within the next year. I have ZERO loyalty to Ebay and will treat them the same as they treat me when I ask an important question....with an automated answer that does not pertain to the question that was asked. And by the way...what about some real insurance as promised???.

The very concept of Ebay was fine all by itself without corporate thinking making suicidal changes as it has. The energy of that concept really was self sufficient and I believe it would be strong today had it been left alone. But once you have shareholders involved you have to make them more money by making your product cost less...their way of doing that was by making us pay more.

I could write a lot more...but I need to put more time into listing. Between what doesnt sell and and what is incorretly pulled for not being politically correct...maybe I'll still make two bucks in the end.

Ebay leaves a bad taste in my mouth and I have many testimonials from others that feel the same. These are people that used to be excited about using ebay...they arent any more.

One last point, Ebay and many other coroporations are in the practice of utilizing the free time of the consumer as their free resource. Be it though hold time, switchboard menus or some other form of time theft. We are out of time folks...it is time to let them know.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Don Davis

Mon Jul 2 20:32:23 2007

eBay needs Customer Service!

Stop spending money on these stupid "Toys", wikis, blogs, etc.

Spend some money on real live customer support that have a brain! The ones they have are over paid dummies!

Thanks eBay for suspending my account it just gives my more of an incentive to look into other areas to expand my business!

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Fed Up

Mon Jul 2 20:36:20 2007

Cowbell, you're dead on target.

One of the biggest flaws with eBay is that the company has very little to gain if an item sells. Oftimes the relist fee is more than the potential FVF!
Why should they care what the sell-through or ASP is? They make their money no matter what!
Compare that to Amazon, where they don't make money unless the sellers do. Which company do you think is more interested in the seller's health and best interest? On eBay sellers are simply a replaceable commodity.

Another huge flaw is that they give the same weight to poor sellers - those who spam the listings, those who list fakes and "vaporware", those who sell knockoffs, and those with lousy customer service. They desperately need to have a "preferred seller" program, open to everyone who becomes verified, maintains a minimum TOS and certain performance levels. Those who opt in would gain preferential search placement. This way, the market would give weight to the higher quality sellers, instead of the "survival of the worst" that we have now.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Fruity

Mon Jul 2 20:37:38 2007

Dear David,

Maybe everything blows because Ebay is a marketing drive company pretending to be a technology company. In their pursuit of the brand, they forgot about the secret ingredient. Buyers & dedicated merchants.

When you start changing the user experience at every log in and you start hiding inventory by not communicating and educating buyers how to find it, it shouldn't be any surprise that people are disgusted by the current state of ebay.

It's not about ebay telling buyers how they should be more efficient. Or continually blaming store sellers for their sucky GMV because they are too damn greedy to bust a cap into those who are filling core with crap. They need to start behaving like a venue instead of being our employers.

Where is the leadership to communicate to the membership. It is not there. Everything about ebays success is based on happy invested and dedicated merchants. When you start holding their livelihoods over a barrel and designing features that put them against the wall. It's not about enhancing anything except a bigger share of wallet and exploiting the merchants to be the worlds biggest sweatshop.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Fruity

Mon Jul 2 20:41:11 2007

and those blogs wikis and other user generated content. That's because ebay are a bunch of cheap bastards they dont want to pay for targeted quality traffic. So instead you get this passive traffic. Ebay probably doesn't want sellers to know that if they are generating this content and duplicating it on their personal websites, it will actually start affecting your external websites page ranking. Duplicate content is a recipe for spam. Go check out the google boards, you'll see. Ebay wants us to be their labor camp of keywords.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Mary

Mon Jul 2 20:41:13 2007

Thanks for a stellar article; you hit it right on the head, as have the comments from readers.

Over time, I have been much more a BUYER than a seller, and completely agree that eBay is just NO fun anymore (on either front). I HATE HATE HATE the wikis, blogs, reviews&guides, new feedback, myWorld, eBay Express, messed up searches (where things disappear and reappear mysteriously - how maddening!). And I really hate the Ads from Elsewhere, too. It all combines to make a cluttered mess that equates to a collosal waste of my time. I can honestly say I've probably read 100 or more guides and blogs, and found maybe 2% were actually useful. And yes, their ''customer service'' has become an oxymoron.

What I really liked was finding funky, unique, one of a kind stuff, and it just isn't there to the degree it once was. I'm sure the flight of smaller-volume sellers explains that. I also really enjoyed being able to follow other bidders around the site (found some GREAT sellers that way!), as well as being able to do research on what items were selling and how much they'd been selling for... Ahh , the nostalgia - - didn't one used to be able to look back 30, 60 and 90 days? Anyway, I know it was longer than just the three weeks you can look back now.

The atmosphere there has completely changed; it just feels like there is bad juju on the site (whether buying or selling). In part, I think it's now so rule-intensive you feel like one wrong move and you're going to get booted. Sort of like being shadowed in the aisles of the department store by a glowering security guard when you're buying, and having Big Brother BossMan looking over your shoulder when you're selling.

I hadn't heard until reading the comments that the lowest 2% of sellers were being summarily dismissed. What a shame, and what a way to discourage anyone from trying out the seller role...

I hope that eBay finds some way to breathe some life back into the ''experience.'' If they don't, it's just going to morph into some ugly giant with absolutely NO charm and even less personality. And bad breath. Really bad breath.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Chris

Mon Jul 2 20:58:34 2007

OMG, are you kidding me. I hate when sellers blame others for there failures. Industries are always changing. Technology changes, ways of business change.

Its up to YOU to change with it, now complain when your business goes down when you fail to attend the problem. Its always easier to blame someone then yourself. And thats exactly what these merchants do...big and small. Pathetic!

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Duane

Mon Jul 2 21:10:03 2007

Chris...you didnt read the facts? What is your experience/feedback level? Essentially your resort to name calling rather than offer an argument. The data? Many of the comments are from long time users? But you are right...it is up to us to change it and many of us will by leaving because it is broken! When the very people that sell what buyers really WANT -leave ebay, you will definitely see the change in what is available to buy on Ebay...brand new plastic trinkets from China and repopped Sponge Bobs. OMG....indeed.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Peter

Mon Jul 2 21:32:20 2007

Chris, when I pay $25,000 per year to a venue to provide me with traffic and a proper infrastructure, I believe I have a right to criticize that venue's management when they do not deliver what I paid for. That does not mean that I do not look for alternate sales channels to continue my business at. In fact we are working on a mall venue to share with our competitors.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Matthew

Mon Jul 2 21:40:27 2007

Great article!

I've been on eBay since the beginning, and I have several, related, theories.

"Community" means nothing if it's not genuine. It becomes a slap in the face. eBay used to be community oriented, but those days started vanishing once it went corporate. The boards are still active, but there's no longer an eBay voice on them. There's no customer service. There's no way to talk to eBay and, even if you managed to, eBay tends to be insulting.

Stores were a horrible idea, but one that eBay spoon fed to eager sellers who saw them as an alternative to eBay's unrealistic core fee increases. You can't drive auction prices higher if you have fixed price items in the same venue. If a person thinks a listing is gone forever after 7 days, they bid more. That experience disappears once they're able to find 50 identical items at fixed price. That being said, however, eBay may have realized that mistake but they handled it wrong. The decision should have been to either end stores, immediately, or find a way to fully support both venues, instead of starting a balancing act by punishing store sellers.

The new initiatives will prove to be yet another disaster. It's only common sense that punishing sellers over unexplained rules and discretionary guidelines only creates more animosity towards ebay which they can't afford anymore.

And I think that's eBay's BIGGEST problem. They don't understand the animosity which they've created on their own. Treat customers like garbage, and the customers will respond appropriately.

When I started on ebay, I used to spend $15,000 plus a year. Last year it was under $500. The decline in my spending has nothing to do with getting ripped off, but rather my sincere disgust and hatred for eBay. Everytime they come up with a new initiative it only increases tenfold. I don't like it anymore. I don't trust eBay corporate anymore. They are not friends, and they're not interested in helping me. And that's why I think fixing eBay is an uphill battle without 100% management change.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Joanne

Mon Jul 2 21:44:42 2007

When eBay tried to close Half and start Stores, I stuck with Half. Then eBay said they were going to promote Stores in auctions searches. So I joined up. I put a lot of effort into designing my store and listings. I even bought inventory in my niche that I could sell for profit only in Stores. It was great! I was making money. I was enjoying it and thought eBay Stores would be my next sales channel. Then they pulled the advertising and sales plummeted. Then they announced they were raising fees. I left and never looked back. I wasted a lot of money on inventory that was now of little value. And I wasted an incredible amount of time learning eBay, new inventory management software, and site design. What a complete waste! My overall impression is that they suckered people into Stores and then screwed them. I'll never sell there again.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Alex

Mon Jul 2 21:53:18 2007

I won't bother to re-hash the many real and pressing issues facing eBay. Most have been addressed at length in Ina's article & the responses written here to it. I will just say one thing. ALL of these things are related in one clear manner. They are all the result of eBay top management forgetting they are a SERVICE business - not a technology company. All of the reactionary changes to prop up their sagging stock, just makes things worse. While waltzing their way through all the cash they have raked in, they have failed to provide an acceptable level of service to the guy that ''brought them to the dance.'' One thing is very clear. Any company that has this many glaring & continuing problems needs a complete change of management & direction. Now, not later....

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Mike Knight

Mon Jul 2 21:58:28 2007

Rather than broken, a better word might be misguided.

Rather than looking at stores in search, a better place to look might be at management itself. ie: The emergence of John Donahue. The departure of a number of long-time ebay staffers documented on auction-bytes over the last 3 years.

Consider the negative press (well deserved) ebay has received in the last few years and the patent suit that was well publicized at the beginning of the decline.

My business has been relatively flat though items available have doubled in the last 12 months.

I rarely run auctions anymore due to the lack of bidding.

As a buyer, I have become less enthused because the number of items listed in which I am interested has declined while the ''clutter'' has increased. Hundreds of identical items listed one after another by the same seller (against ebay policy).

You seem to focus on seller dissatisfaction. I would suggest that the real problem is BUYER dissatisfaction and Ebay's inability to address buyer issues.

It's not just fraud or poor seller service. Express's search is a disaster for buyers. I NEVER go to Express because I can not find anything I am looking for but find all sorts of stuff that I am NOT looking for.

Now they want to roll that search tool out to the main site. Why?

The revision of Ebay Motors search offering has made the site more difficult and confusing. As an experienced user, I have finally figured out how to filter my results to a meaningful degree but it has been a source of frustration and it is still more time consuming than the previous interface.

My only conclusion is that someone in a high level position simply does not understand the average user.

I can only hope that, whoever that person is, the Board of Directors takes note and corrects the problem.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Peter

Mon Jul 2 22:10:47 2007

Matthew, 'Community' is actually the evil that is destroying our venue, just like in the real world socialism destroys trade. What we should be holding proudly in our business banner, is an independent rational selfish entrepreneurship. Sellers should be able to act as independently as possible on Ebay and so do buyers. Everyone should again be responsible for his own acts, his selling and his buying, instead of calling for mob rule, which is what Ebay's 'Community' is. Promoting 'Community' as the hghest ideal in a venue instead of individualism, is the same as saying 'don't think for yourself', go with 'the group'. That is what is makes Ebay worse every day.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Richard

Mon Jul 2 22:12:19 2007

Can't believe I waded through all the whining to finally get to Chris's entry...with which I whole-heartedly agree.
I'll be happy to resort to name-calling. I see a bunch of whiners and complainers.
I don't often frequent auctionbytes, but was engaged in some research tonight on a new angle and stumbled upon this discussion.
I've been selling fulltime on eBay since 1998 and my feedback is approaching 10,000. I've worked hard to discover what works on eBay and I alter my procedures whenever I feel it necessary. You gotta roll with the market.

Don't complain that nobody will buy your bowling balls because the shipping is too high.
Don't complain that a seller in China can undercut your price on MP3 players.
Don't complain about blogs and wikis and then spend all your time writing blogs and wikis.

Focus, Focus, Focus.
My business is good. June was good. July will be good. Because I say so.

btw, I first noticed the decreasing Alexa scores for eBay last summer. Some concern, but here's the rub, Alexa scores are percentages and not absolute numbers. As the web universe grows its understandable that eBay's percentage of the total will drop. It's a smaller percentage of a bigger pie.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Matthew

Mon Jul 2 22:50:02 2007

Peter,

Perhaps I'm not explaining what I mean by "community" well enough.

It's the relationship that eBay USED to have with it's buyers and sellers. When you had a problem, you could actually talk to ebay. When you had a question, it would be readily answered by someone actually connected with eBay. They were real people. They answered questions and they participated in the forums with their real names.

That personal interaction is what I'm talking about. Not the semi-mediocre nonsense that gets posted on the boards these days.

That is what's missing, but eBay still talks about their great community while they've intentionally avoided participating in it. The talk is phony and it's glaringly obvious.

The marked difference is that eBay's replaced it's former proactive and "friendly" interaction it had with users with a system of canned responses which usually amount to nothing more than bad news over some discretionary interpretation of an ambiguous rule.

And I'm not proposing that as a substitute to entrepreneurship or individual decision making.

It went a long way. eBay's biggest supporters were SAHM's and sellers, both of which ebay has consistently shafted since it went corporate.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Les

Mon Jul 2 22:56:00 2007

I started to sell on eBay about 4 years ago. My record in that year was over $20,000 a month in sales, which gradually declined to less than 25% of that amount.

There are a number of problems facing a seller, and not all are caused by eBay - Internet fatigue, greater seller competition, and increased shipping charges. Unfortunately, Ebay's arrogance and mismanagement make selling on eBay even worse. From what I hear from sellers and buyers alike, eBay is one of the most hated companies, but they still enjoy the position of a monopoly. When an alternative auction and store venue appears, eBay will collapse much faster than any Internet company in history.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Matt Price

Mon Jul 2 22:56:12 2007

The problem with eBay and like all other online venues is that you have manufacturers and distributors as well as retailers in the channel. What this does is put the retailer in a pickle, the distributor in a pickle, and the manufacturer in hog heaven.

Why?

Because if the manufacturer can send out the door the product at a retail, not wholesale price, why have a middleman?

While there are many who are in china and many who are going through china for product, more and more retailers will focus locally leaving eBay.

I see the problem as a multi-pronged problem:

The markets are flooded with everything.

eBay's marketing has been weak at best

Manufacturers are selling the the same space as retailers, not giving retailers the same price that they are selling the items on eBay.

Drop off stores are shutting doors faster than they can count, and can not vertically complete in markets already taken by others.

People get sick and tired of overpaying, fraud, and the "too little too late" mentality of trust & safety.

Sellers are POed becuase they get jettisoned off eBay because of honest mistakes, rather than warn them and correct issues - they hit the whack-a-mole button and NARU the seller.

Sellers and Buyers are sickened by the mentality of Paypal and eBay support, which when you do get someone to assist you, you have already had to report them to the BBB. (I reported PayPal three times to get my issues resolved.)

The overall novelty of eBay has worn off, and now is looked at as nothing more than where the sneaky petes and crooks hang out.

eBay makes decisions that hurt sellers sales, and then when they don't list as many items, they jack up the prices to appease the stockholders.

eBay is finding out very quickly that the "customer experience" sucks, and they are taking their business elsewhere. Both buyer and sellers.

Because I am an auctioneer, I am selling and seeing more buyers at a live auction than I do on eBay, it used to be the other way around.

At the end of the year, we are switching from eBay and eBayLive Auctions to Proxibid. Plain and simply, I upload an excel spreadsheet, and the auction is on. No having to spend an hour per item on a listing.

Those are just my honest opinions. eBay has sent sellers packing, focusing on their happy puppies of Powersellers, leaving the others out in the cold who rely on auction listings, and smacks buyers in the face with all kinds of stupid requirements.

It is one of those things where "People will do this one thing in order to do this to make us happy" scenarios, where one thing leads to 100 things, and anything past 3 clicks is a lost sale.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Todd

Mon Jul 2 23:26:48 2007

Wow...amazing that eBay had not acknowledged any of the problems that are continually repeated by thier community of buyers and sellers.

For some reason, they feel they can abuse, insult, take sanctions against and outright violate thier sellers. A recent conversation with eBay T&S and our account manager has really brought me to an understanding. eBay is a socialist venue (communist in the modern day) and that they have one leader, one way. If you do not like this way, well dont let the door hit you on the way out. When Pierre stumbled upon this remarkable success, I dont think that he had this mentality in mind. His initial vision of community, cooperation and treatment of everyone as being ''pretty much honest'' is so long gone that it will not and cannot ever be grasped again. When eBay tells a seller with 99.1% feedback out of over 7000 transactions that they are a bad seller and do not want them on thier site, I think this is when you can really see that they are clueless. What they forget is that all transactions need a buyer and seller - they want to closely guard and protect the buyer but what happens when the sellers are gone?

Customer service is nothing more than flow chart reading phone operators. They remind me of Paypal in thier early days (which is not the case any longer). They would tell you no, transfer your call and tell you no..regardless of who you talked to the answer was no....and they were not allowed to say otherwise.

What will correct this ''broken status'' of eBay? Who knows, but I dont think they have touched even closely on anything that will assist in correcting it.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Blake

Tue Jul 3 00:00:42 2007

I applaud you for your insightful and spot-on article, David.

It's both gratifying and alarming to see the majority of the responses here - people who don't know one another and have no relationship - speak in virtually one voice. To theirs I add my own, as I too have experienced most everything written here by so many others, and have come to the same conclusions.

I have sold continuously on eBay since 1999, and I am a Powerseller, although unlikely to remain one for much longer, as my sales for last month inexplicably, suddenly dropped lower than at any time in all 8 years I have been selling on eBay. With NO changes made on my part.

Yes, something smells of fish at eBay.

Your friend was right. When eBay 'rolled back' search and removed store listings from search, it was not a mere rollback. I don't know what changes they made, but I do know the effects. Others here have commented on them too.

Shortly after the 'rollback,' sellers began noticing their listings were not showing up on the site in searches. Then people began experimenting and found their items could only be found by others in various regions, and not in others.

Sellers also began noticing their sales would be clustered by region of buyers - far and away out of the realm of what could be realistically considered coincidence. Sales in general, in addition to watchers and Ask Seller A Question emails, began coming in clusters, followed by flatline periods. People began referring to it as 'the faucet effect' - turned on by eBay (somehow), and then turned off.

Most likely it does relate to the new item numbers, which were rolled out not too long after store items were removed from search. At least the geographic/regional element. As someone else noted, these item numbers which were once assigned semi-randomly and relating to the time an item was listed, began being assigned to sellers.

Why? I wrote to 'customer support' numerous times asking that question in June of '06. As per usual, what I received were responses that dodged my question, claimed the item numbers were assigned randomly (obviously they are not), or the response was completely irrelevant to my question. Stonewalled again. What else is new?

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: e r

Tue Jul 3 00:05:12 2007

People forget that ebay started out as a place to trade collectibles & used items and it was quite sucessful at that. Once it became a place to buy new wholesale items is when it went down hill for most buyers.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Barbara

Tue Jul 3 00:27:33 2007

I agree with Richard and some of the other minority about the disenchantment, whining and complaining.

I'm not getting rich, but I've been selling on eBay since 1996. I make a full-time living at it. I don't have a husband bringing home a paycheck so I can dabble at eBay.

I am part of the small percentage of sellers left who sell antiques & collectibles. No matter what time of year, what the fees are, or what bells and whistles eBay insists on adding to the site (which I agree are unnecessary for the most part), if you have something unique that more than one person wants, you will do well. Don't try to sell junk and then complain.

As Richard said, adapt. If the Sell Your Item form is a piece of junk (which I agree it is), find a batch lister to use - you shouldn't be wasting your time filling out those screens over and over. Goodness knows, there are enough batch listers out there, and many are free.

I also agree with another post that said perhaps people spend less time on eBay because they have streamlined ways to find what you're looking for. The favorite search emails that come straight to your inbox when your item becomes available are great. Those users who spent hours and hours poring over the categories rather than using a quick search finally figured out how to do it right.

eBay may have problems, but I still consider it the best place to go on the Internet to find something. I wouldn't sell anywhere else.

If the USPS rates are too high, try FedEx Ground or UPS.

Finally, customer service is there if you look for it. Live Help, Powerseller direct lines, even emails of employees are available if you go to eBay Live and talk to them.

I'm here for the long haul, just like those people who buy stocks and don't jump ship the minute the price looks shaky.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Matt Price

Tue Jul 3 00:33:04 2007

As a seller since 1997, I have been around the block a few times on eBay, both as a buyer and as a seller. However, something happened about 2 years ago that disturbed me.

We started putting electronics and perfumes up in symphony with our eBay drop off business and we found that we were having outstanding results with the mix. Then eBay started to play around with the searching functions of the core listings & auction listings and since then, our sell through has fallen through the floor. Customers are not purchasing anything. We have sold perhaps $30 last month on eBay when our normal sales were $1,000 or better in a month.

I am very concerned about this, since as an auctioneer and as an eBay seller, I am finding that more people are flocking to my website for purchases than eBay, where it is “secure.” I gave all of my auction attendees an open survey about what they did not like and what they liked about eBay and found the information startling. It was a very BIG eye opener.

First, customers did not like eBay Express. The reason is that for the most part, their trusted sellers are not selling there. When querying a few fellow sellers, I found out that their staff is strung so thin, that they can not get the items out the door as eBay Express wants. So they don’t list there. Additionally, even my online guests say that for the most part, the shopping destination has made it clearer that they can get it cheaper from a local store than on eBay express.

Second, my customers complain that the Feedback, even though it is here to stay has become confusing. They don’t want to be bothered with selecting any more than 2 options when it comes to things – they want to click, enter some info, and click and be done. Several of them have told me that any more than 3 clicks and I lost a sale. This is great, since it is driving customers to our website, but it does little to help with the dilemma eBay has.

Third, my customers are baffled about the Hidden ID’s at $200. They think that now because the person’s ID is hidden at the $200, that eBay is hiding or condoning Shill bidding. I understand the policy, but for most, it is making people a bit afraid to work on eBay because they believe that they are fighting possible shilling. On voicing my concerns to trust and safety, I get a canned response followed up by another canned response, so I feel that there is no need to report their concerns.

Fourth, what is getting me to post more off eBay is the fees. Since they have gone up, I have attempted to keep up with the changes, however since we are making on average 20% on the sale, not able to recoup the costs of eBay and PayPal fees, our fees are 27%, which have now put us in a negative situation, which if you include fees for the store, is more than the 7% that we are loosing. Sure, we can raise prices, but what is the sense if I can post them other places and get a better return?

Fifth, I as with many other store keepers are a bit upset that eBay went with Adwords in listings and searches. Since this practice, it has driven customers to other sites, perspective and returning, because they are under the impression that I no longer sell an item. They are more willing to go where they can get the item (off eBay) than on. What perplexes me and upsets me is that I can not put links to my store off eBay, but eBay puts links on searches and in my listings to other companies and off eBay sites for the same or competing products. The situation is upsetting many sellers to a boiling point which they see no one responding to their complaints.

Sixth, my customers now consider eBay a place where fraud and crooks do business, rather than a platform for honest sellers to globally represent their goods. It is a shame that eBay which was once a leader in quality and security now has a mark against them in the public. It would seem that more and more of the trust & safety procedures that are put into place cause more harm to honest sellers than good. I am sure that there are some out there that believe different. Even when we pitch that we do eBay Live Auctions, I get a cringe. This means that we have an image problem.

Last, with the explosion of drop off stores evaporating into thin air and taking peoples money and their merchandise, my customers simply do not trust them even if they have big guns in marketing, and they intentionally stay away from them when they are shopping on the site.

I by no means am saying that these changes have harmed me in particular; it has driven traffic to our site and to our other areas which we at one point in time considered dead areas but kept them because of the little amount of money that it takes to maintain them.

I am sure that you have heard tons of these issues arise in the last several months. Probably more than once at eBay Live. But what used to be fun and a great way to make money has turned into a burden that is not breaking even. In order for eBay to become fun again, it will need to go back 5 years ago. We need to examine two things here – eBay’s and PayPal’s credibility & questionable policies. Once we have looked at them, we can then say eBay is a stellar place to sell items.

I think this need to be talked about at the next Town Hall meeting.

Your thoughts?

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Patricia

Tue Jul 3 00:36:14 2007

You're dead on with your research but there is another 800 lb gorilla in the room...FRAUD. Ebay has done nothing to stop it. They speak about it but nothing is really done. Yes, word of mouth does get the news out and the news is don't shop on ebay because its full of scammers who rip you off. I've been selling on ebay for 9 years now - this year is by far the worst for sales. I am noticing less and less new buyers and I've become more and more dependent on buyers who have been with me for some time. This can't go on - without new buyers my business will eventually fade away. Instead of fancy ''IT'' ads, they need to seriously clamp down on fraud and THEN use advertising to tell John Q Public that buying and selling on ebay is safe and fun again! At the same time they need to institute REAL customer service and not just a convoluted mess of forms. They need more Live Help who know what they're talking about and they need some phone service. Unless they own up to becoming active in their site - they're going to lose it and that will be sad for all of us who depend on sales. :-(

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: John L

Tue Jul 3 00:38:05 2007

Good job and research Ina. To add to your 2006 theory, I would say...

eBay has been constantly speaking about the "Fun Factor" for sometime. Using it as the fix for what is broken. What would be fun is to get the items you paid for, in a timely manner, with less risk.

That is what eBay should focus on, that is what people should expect to get from eBay.

eBay of late has been like my new cell phone. My phone does all this "fun" stuff. It can take pictures, save dates and calendars, now it even plays music and surfs the web.

But, every since I have owned a cell phone, they all drop calls. I would pay extra for a phone that simply WORKED! I can buy a camera and an MP3 player, I need a phone that works.

eBay needs to WORK! I am not going to have fun with blogs on an eCommerce site that does not work. Get back to basics and make sure the transactions work.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: John L

Tue Jul 3 00:39:44 2007

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Cowbell

Tue Jul 3 00:44:58 2007

Chris,

I don't see any "whining" here. I see a lot of business people discussing options and criticising what they (and I) consider to be bad decisions on the part of eBay management.

The store fiasco was just plain stupid on eBay's part. No other way to say it.

The business world does indeed change, and we need to change with it. When eBay priced auctions out of my market, I simply moved my merchandise elsewhere.

When they made my merchandise hard to find, I moved it off the site entirely. When they restructured the pricing, which would have made auctions cheaper for me, my stuff was already gone.

No "whining" here, I am making simple statements. When I pay for a service, I expect to get it. A place to list is useless without buyers looking at it.

eBay was especially stupid about Half.com. eBay bought it, gutted it, and left it to rot. I haven't seen a commercial for Half in many years.

They wanted items in eBay stores, so encouraged Half sellers to move there. To do so, they eliminated a lot of merchandise from Half.

When they yanked the stores, they encourages sellers to use Half, but they did not return the merchandise categories.

All you can sell there now are books, DVDs, CDs, video games, and VHS. Why not cassettes? Or vinyl records?

I used to be perfectly content to pay eBay and PayPal alone. I was making plenty of money using the site exclusively.

But it was eBay itself that forced me to seek other options. I certainly didn't waste any time writing guides or blogs. I used my time to post hundreds of items at Amazon.

If eBay doesn't want my money, I have no problem giving it to other venues. Especially ones that have a vested interest in seeing my item get sold.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Duane

Tue Jul 3 00:45:23 2007

Barbara, I dont think these comments are coming from junk sellers. I have been on as long as you and I also sell antiques and collectbles and I have to say that I talk to my customers and many many of them who are buying nice things from me express the very content of this articles. I hear it in real life as well. Go ahead and take "what you can get"....but what you get could be a lot better.

There is not much of a comparison on shipping any more. UPS has hidden charges and ever town that is more than a mile from Chicago is considered rural. The post office is trying to get rid of Parcel Post and has gotten rid of surface. The Internet Streamline Sales Tax is on the way. I am still selling on here, but I am actively looking for other venues so that I can leave after 10 years plus.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Mario Vodopivec

Tue Jul 3 00:48:25 2007

The methodology used here is COMPLETELY wrong. You just can't use Alexa for trending.

eBay number are NOT down, Alexa toolbar user base is down. Take a look at a number of sites in completely different industries (cnn.com, homedepot.com, amazon.com, etc), and you will notice IDENTICAL trend since beginning of 2006. It's Alexa user base going down, not ebay.

With all due respect to David, both he and Ina write great articles, but on this one he is plain wrong.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Barbara

Tue Jul 3 00:53:12 2007

I agree that the people voicing their concerns are businesspeople who know what's happening with their bottom line and I am a small self-employed seller. I hope, for the sake of all the people who are voicing their opinions (including myself), that eBay management is reading this. Ina and David, will a transcript be sent to them?

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Marty

Tue Jul 3 00:56:13 2007

There are definately some valid points in the posts here, and I think ebay should take note of them and really understand these issues.

Overall I take a somewhat different view. I believe that taking stores out of core search, the fee increase, the sliding customer service and lack of effective advertising are all issues with the site.

I fail to believe however, that eBay operates in a vacuum and this country and the economic health of the middle class has been driven into the ground is not a major factor in the leveling and even decline of some stats on the site as well as other retailers.

When savings drop to the lowest level since the depression. When 80% of retailers miss estimates, when inflation is out of control but said to be 3-4% and mortgage foreclosures are up 90% in a year to the highest level in 40 years, sitting and blaming every move eBay makes is not taking into account the big picture.

Its is this big picture and the failure to hold on to their customers (sellers) as Ambassadors of the site (by treating them well having reasonable fee increases etc) that has led to an exodus and decline.

Does eBay finally get it? Well at EBay Live I met with many people from ebay and I believe they are finally getting the picture. Stores were back in the picture and Pinks have returned to the boards. Even small token gifts were sent out unexpectedly.

Across the world people love eBay. If you think business is any easier outside of eBay these days then I think you are wrong. Businesses are closing left and right and you can buy a home in Detroit cheaper than a car. People need to wake up and smell the coffee.

By the way the Traffic graph for Amazon and other E-commerce sites have similar patterns. This is because many people spend less time poking around eBay and are watching Youtube or are on Myspace of Facebook or any other numbers of places.

I for one hope eBay can make some changes and turn the ship around. I do believe it will be difficult. I feel advertising has been too cute and nerdy and not struck home with people who are not already on Ebay. I believe the efforts of staffers recently are to be commended but they need to keep it up and need to take into account all these opinions (not just mine) as just as fast as eBay wound up it can unwind with negative word of mouth.

Contrary to the opinions of many here I do believe eBays web 2.0 efforts have been useful and insightful. Many eBayers are doing very well with building content as the emphasis now is on natural search not paid search. I have my first commission junction affiliate check that just showed up today, some friends are making 30% of their Ebay sales from their content sites.

Sure Ebay should bring traffic, but I can tell you one thing, broke people dont buy things. Even people like myself that are business owners are spending less, a lot less, everyone is.

Marty

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Mario Vodopivec

Tue Jul 3 01:01:22 2007

I forgot to say - if ebay numbers were lower, that would be visible in the quarterly reports - and while eBay profit grew from Q1 2006 to Q1 2007 mostly due to higher fees and phenomenal paypal growth, the number of listings also slightly grew from 575 million to 588 million.

So there is nothing at all here to indicate ebay is slowing down. It's just not so.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: duane

Tue Jul 3 01:11:08 2007

Mario..ebay listings were up on the international scale but U.S. listings were down 2.8%

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Sheila

Tue Jul 3 01:20:49 2007

I'm a very small eBay seller, so anything I say is anecdotal, personal and likely not statistically significant. I haven't listed anything on eBay in several months, because my heart has gone out of it. Why? I sell vintage collectibles. I put my soul into every listing, spending hours making each one look professional, beautiful and perfect. In the past, most often I was rewarded. A very high percentage of what I listed did sell. I rarely had to re-list an item. But this stopped within the last 12-18 months. Suddenly, no matter what I listed wouldn't sell. I did not change my style to list things with high opening bids. I didn't start listing things with reserve prices. I never charged outlandish postage. The categories of the items I was selling were essentially the same. And my 100% positive feedback seemed not to matter. After 16 out of the last 18 items I listed closed with no bids, the fun went out of it. Now, with postage going up again, gas prices out of sight, and the last eBay fee increases, why bother? Will I list again? Probably - I have too many things still to sell. But it's no longer at the top of my agenda, and I've even closed my business checking account.

One more observation: As an occasional eBay buyer, I buy one particular item of new lingerie. When I first started buying it, about three years ago, there were just a couple of individuals selling it. Now the numbers run to the teens, and it's not unusual for that item to be listed and relisted and close with no bids. Apparently, the amount of [new] merchandise available to sell is flooding the market, and this has got to have an impact as well. I've noticed this with several other brands of items I always watch and infrequently buy.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: me

Tue Jul 3 01:59:49 2007

Nail on the head! I have been with ebay since 1998 and had great sell thru rates, then this past year the ever increasing fall in that rate and the hassles ebay has imposed upon the sellers has felt one sided for sure.

After selling off my stock I have not been selling on ebay for couple of months now and feel great about it.
Fees and ever increasing fall in profits is just not worth it and the fun is gone. I miss it but can live without it since they don't care about us anyway.

Buyers, you won't have anything to buy if ebay chases off all the good sellers.

I was a power seller for about 3 months back in 2003 or so but did not do this for a living I did it for a fun pastime and making a little extra cash but prided myself on pleaseing my suctomers and being honest, that is more than ebay has ever done for me.

I may get back to selling later but if they are cutting unproductive sellers then I may not. This for sure does not make sense. Sellers are also buyers so Ebay wake up.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Candy

Tue Jul 3 02:37:15 2007

For what it's worth, I've been selling full-time on eBay for nearly 9 years now, PowerSeller since about my fourth month here, have been a Shooting Star since even before the first eBayLive in Anaheim, and have a 99.9% feedback rating. I know how to run a business, I know how to market, I know how to advertise, and I spend an extraordinary amount of time assessing my product, my market, my customers, etc. in order to keep up with the changes that affect any business over time.

And I hate selling here now. By this time next year I hope to be gone, or at least mostly so, unless there are some major changes in the interim.

Ebay used to be fun. Ebay used to be really profitable if you put some time and effort and thought into it. It hasn't been either for some time now.

I won't go into the why. All the posts before me have touched on just about every reason I would give.

One thing I haven't seen suggested, that I've wished for some time now that they would do, is to have the eBay home page consist of 3 doors.

Click on Door #1 and you will be taken to auctions ~ and to only auctions ~ and to ALL of the auctions. Same list if you are logged in from California as you would get if you were logged in from Maine or, for that matter, Malta. You like to see if you can get a bargain, or to help set the market price for an unusual item, and don't mind waiting a bit to achieve those goals. You want auctions. If you want to narrow your consideration, you can choose to see only items listed by sellers selected by geographic location (including country), by feedback rating, by feedback percentage, or by perhaps number of items listed. Once you view a listing, you can choose to view that seller's entire offering, including Fixed-Price core and BIN Store listings, but that's the only way you will see any of those kinds of listings if you've entered through the Auction door.

Door #2 takes you to Fixed-Price core, and only Fixed-Price core, listings. Again, the same stuff regardless of where you are. You want to buy quickly, not bid in an auction, but you don't want to wade through crap listings. So you go to Fixed-Price core to see if what you are looking for is available for you to buy now at a price you like. To narrow your consideration you can choose to see only items listed by sellers selected by geographic location (including country), by feedback rating, by feedback percentage, or by perhaps number of items listed. Once you view a listing, you can choose to view that seller's entire offering, including Auction core and BIN Store, but that's the only way you will see any of those kinds of listings if you've entered through the Fixed-Price door.

Finally, there's Door #3. Going through this means you will see only Store BIN listings. The upside is that there will be a lot of items here priced lower perhaps than in core, because the listing fees are lower, and/or that you won't find in core at all because they are not worth enough to list there. The downside is you have to wade through a lot of stuff to find your gems, but they are there to find if you are willing. To narrow your consideration you can choose to see only items listed by sellers selected by geographic location (including country), by feedback rating, by feedback percentage, or by perhaps number of items listed. Once you view a listing, you can choose to view that seller's entire offering, including Auction core and Fixed Price core, but that's the only way you will see any of those kinds of listings if you've entered through the Auction door.

As a buyer and as a seller, I'd love to have my choice of doors and then to be the one who narrows it down once I'm inside.

Just my two cents.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Candy

Tue Jul 3 02:45:30 2007

Obviously, at the bottom of the third to last paragraph, I meant to say, "that's the only way you will see any of those kinds of listings if you've entered through the Stores door."

In any event, I've long thought this would settle a good part of the arguments. Store sellers wouldn't feel ignored in search. The buyers wouldn't feel overwhelmed by stuff they don't want to see. A store seller can use Auction or Fixed Price to interest buyers who can then see their store, so eBay gets the core listings they want.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Nat

Tue Jul 3 02:51:48 2007

What most people forget is that Pierre wanted ebay to stay OUT of buyer/seller relationships. This worked early on because sellers were less likely to be fraudulent, and more likely to be smaller 'mom and pop' stores. As ebay has grown, it has become increasingly difficult to stay out of buyer/seller relationships. And yet if they were to get involved and tackle fraud etc, then there would be the potential to blame them for everything (and I guess get sued a lot). This of course, makes their tactics with dealing with fraud, feedback, etc, extremely vague. And yet, it is this exact vagueness that is hurting ebay so much. If they had implemented a battle plan for being an impartial third-party in the first place - and get personally, meticulously, and informed-ly involved in buyer/seller relationships - then perhaps they wouldn't be going down.

I'm only a small buyer, but I never realized that ebay was such a trap for fraud until recently. Now I double and triple check everything about the seller, their feedback, their listings, their return policies... And even if everything looks legit, I still get nervous about being ripped off. Why? Because I know that ebay won't do much to support me if I do... I see so many fraudulent items listed time and time again, by PowerSellers, and they never seem to be removed.

Time for a new marketplace.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: donnell wells

Tue Jul 3 05:34:26 2007

Not really sure who Mario is - he must be related to Dick Cheney - you know -
the guy who could care less about the facts, and upbraids any and everyone who questions the status quo served up by those in charge -

Ebay begged all of us to open stores-
I could not open my email account for months without some come hither seductive eBay offer that praised the idea of opening a store since my auctions were doing so well.........
Yikes, the moment I took that bait, they quadrupled the fees and left all of us without the proverbial paddle.
I purchased inventory for my store and after the oily persuasion from the higher management to " come to the middle of the rug" so I can really jerk it out from under you - I was so irate that I had a paragraph in my listings that outlined the perfidious nature of the eBay management and asked my clients to opine on how it affected their buying habits.............
IMAGINE MY SURPRISE WHEN EBAY JERKED ALL OF MY LISTINGS THAT HAD A WELL-DESERVED AND FACTUALLY CORRECT CRITICISM OF THEIR ACTIONS.....

GAG ME WITH A SPOON - THE OAR IS NOT NECESSARY.....

My frustration is beyond definition at this late date. Between the constant tweaking of "new" concepts that are utter failures, the lack of responsibility for their own constant and never ending mistakes that create havoc in the actual marketplace that we
pay vividly for and have no recourse when blocked and the seriously disturbing "NEW MATH" approach to just exactly how long your item is actually on the auction block (and believe me, you would be horrified if they would release the truth about the 7days you think you are paying for and how much face time your item is actually given)

Sign me,

BITING THE HAND THAT FEEDS YOU WILL RESULT IN LOSS OF DIGITS...........

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: donnell wells

Tue Jul 3 05:37:43 2007

MERCI FOR THIS TIME TO VENT!

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Phil C

Tue Jul 3 05:49:24 2007

As a buyer and part-time seller I think Ebay's attempt to kill off the little guy is working. I can't afford it anymore. And as a buyer, Ebay's longtime refusal to seriously address counterfeits, knockoffs, and outright fraud have me searching a LOT less.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: gb-in-uk

Tue Jul 3 07:10:22 2007

I couldnt agree more with most of the above. Heres a few thoughts from a disgruntled and fed up UK powerseller.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++

In addition to the above, one of the great things about ebay here in the UK is that when we listed an item for sale, it would be presented to the GLOBAL MARKETPLACE. We used to enjoy selling great stuff to people all over the world. ************************************Not anymore. In february, ebay REMOVED uk listings from ebay.com.********************** Ebay has never ever given a straight answer for this, and i complained so loudly at having my market taken away from me without warning, they stopped me (and others) from posting comments on their discussion boards. Some people have even had their accounts suspended, just for asking questions! So we are now paying more fees, for less product visbility. I believe this is also the case for ebay canada? This is of course in addition to the rapidly increasing fees (they are a website, why do they need more money?). Ebay sellers are finding that they are having to spend more and more time, for less and less money. Even before when you could advertise an item for 99 cents, whatever it was, and the market would dictate the selling price, thats not happening anymore. More sellers are listing at fixed price (BUY IT NOW), or a very high starting bid. Ebay.co.uk has seen both buyers (who have had countless fraud experiences on ebay, as its VERY easy to run a scam on ebay), and sellers exiting in droves, the problem is theres nowhere else to go. Many of them are now starting up their own websites and having far better success than they were on ebay, for far cheaper, and far more control. When ebay removed uk sellers from the main ebay site, everyones sales here in England PLUMMETED, i mean really nosedived. Our sales are down 75% since february! (and we're not newbies at this) Hundreds of ebay shops , maybe even thousands here in the Uk have closed as its simply not worth it anymore. And what does ebay say? NOTHING! Despite furious and angry posts on the discussion boards and blogs,and 1,000s of emails to ebay by angry sellers, ebay wont give us a straight answer, mirroring, the terrible almost non existant cusotmer service that ebay provide, another eason why people are leaving.Ebay is lying to people about what is going on, it could be suggested, Ebay was built thru the strength of its COMMUNITY, the users of the site. Any changes or suggestions, were run thru the community, ensuring that ebay met sellers needs. Now thats gone out the window, ebay will not and does not listen. Im lucky in a way as my ebaying is only part time, but i still miss the regular second income!

The CEO MEG recently sold all er shares. I wonder why? Does no-one find that highly irregular? It would be nice if google opened an alternative ebay, i would drop ebay like a stone and list all my items there instead. In addition, their accquisitions of late are stupid. $75 milion for stumbleupon? Who the heck brokered that deal. I bet the authors of the site are still laughing now! A networking site that could have been built for $25,000 max!!!!!!!! These are our sellers fees they are spending!

The worst thing that you can as a corporation is to ignore your customers, lie to your customers, and continue to rip them off. Ebay is on a downward trend, and just like a runaway train going down a steep hill, the decline gets faster and faster until.....................

well, you decide.

All comments welcome

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Gottaride

Tue Jul 3 07:59:38 2007

It all comes down to one simple question - do buyers have faith in the site and the goods for sale there? Increasingly they are saying HELL NO! As more, safer, alternatives have become available they are voting with their feet and buying on other sites. Those that do remain usually purchase only if the price is low enough - if the potential savings can overcome their reticence. Adding more auctions, BINs, Wikis, guides, dancing girls, you name it - NOTHING will make a real difference until buyers once again feel that they can spend their money safely and get what they paid for with a minimum of hassle. Until this happens, they will go elsewhere and the numbers will continue to decline.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: steve49

Tue Jul 3 08:58:45 2007

There's an article on Bloomberg.com today titled ''EBay's Whitman Says Changes Needed to Placate Auction Sellers''

Placate...what an interesting choice of words. The definition...To appease; to pacify, especially by making concessions.

eBay management continues to view sellers as ''the enemy''. Instead of ''helping'' the seller experience they attempt to ''placate'' us until they decide what the next kick in the pants will be.

What an attitude!

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Alli

Tue Jul 3 09:07:49 2007

Sellers have proved to their own satisfaction that the rotating server issues and the glitchy Search have made their items unviewable to some of the people some of the time, at the very least. What you see and when you see it vary based on where you are and when you Search. It's like shopping in a mall during a power outage. Yes, you can make a sale here and there, where the shopper can get a glimpse of the merchandise, but increasingly its sellers calling to each other down a long empty hallway...

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Elaine

Tue Jul 3 09:55:07 2007

If they are going to focus so much on the buyer experience, then they need to do something to change this "global garage sale" image that ebay has always had.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: A.A.

Tue Jul 3 10:05:37 2007

Ebay auctions IS the 800lb gorilla for casual sellers looking to unload whatever they might come across in their attic, and as an entry level site for sellers testing the waters to see if it's something they might want to pursue as a full-time endeavor without the expense, commitment, and risk otherwise associated with alternate venues.

However, once they decide that they want online selling to be a permanent, full-time business, the auction model becomes cumbersome, unpredictable, and more reminiscent of Las Vegas than a serious venue for ongoing commerce.

''Stores In Search'' became -albeit for a short time- that opportunity to exhibit your wares in a more stable, less carnival-like environment AND IT WORKED!

While Ebay claimed that SIS led to confusion in searches, there always was, and is, a need-it-now/want-it-now buyer who didn’t have the time or inclination to play the drawn-out, wait-and-see auction game, AND didn't mind buying for the posted price, just like they would if they were buying from any other major e-commerce site.

True, while the revenue stream to Ebay was lower from “stores” listings, the final value fee remained a nice, substantial source of income. And, while the pretext for ending SIS was that Ebay’s core business (auctions) was the overarching principle upon which Ebay was founded, it is equally true that change, adaptation, and constant tweaking is the sine qua non of all successful businesses. But all is for naught if done for its own sake, without seeing, or worse, ignoring the obvious, and failing to act on it.

Bring Stores In Search back!!

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Steve49

Tue Jul 3 10:52:20 2007

Candy...

The "Three Doors" concept...what a GREAT idea!

I'm sure that wouldn't appeal to the techies at ebay, way to simple, but it sure would be great for the buyers.

Maybe once they get done with wiki's, windorphin's, playground's, and such they could give that a whirl.

Don't hold your breath though...

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Anthony

Tue Jul 3 11:15:50 2007

I especially agree with Ina's point regarding seller indifference, and it's one I've been making since the last round of fee increases. I noticed that there was much less anger and much more indifference. Seller's had come to the realization that this is just the way it's going to be, and many concluded they had no other choice than to expand into other channels.

I think eBay mistakenly interpreted the lack of anger as a good thing. Instead, it's a sign that many of their sellers have become apathetic and increasingly detached from eBay. It's a real shame that eBay squandered all that loyalty and passion that once existed! I'm not sure it can ever be recovered.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Dan

Tue Jul 3 11:35:27 2007

I really think that the practice of hiding bidder IDs after the $200 point was a HUGE mistake! I saw my sales start to drop significantly after they implemented this around the end of last year. eBay can SAY that they are taking measures to fight shill bidding but hiding bidder IDs creates the opposite impression for the user. This might not have initially affected sellers who sell items that go for under $200 but I believe it has a lot to do with a growing general sense of unease buying on eBay. That hurts all the sellers regardless of what their price marks are.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Jay Smith

Tue Jul 3 11:46:58 2007

Some have suggested that improvements in the interface are part of the reason that people spend less time on the site.

While this may be true for buyers who are looking for one extremely specific item, I do not think the statement is likely to be true for buyers in the collectibles categories. We can look for hours until the content is exhausted. In my area, stamps, I look until I run out of time or get annoyed with eBay. There are so many items that could be of interest or are not well described (i.e. in the wrong category, etc.) or are incorrectly or inadequately described (to the buyers benefit) that one has to look and look and look.

However, despite all those possibilities, I look less than I used to because it is just so annoying with all the ads and bigger/bloated pages.

By the way, eBay's advertising on Google has become a joke. A couple days ago, I was looking for the obituary of a client and friend -- the first Google item was ''buy John.... obituary on eBay''. How tasteless and wasteful. This type of spamming Google results also contributes to a lack of credibility of any eBay result on Google.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Stefano Neis

Tue Jul 3 11:52:37 2007

I am a power seller on ebay with a 42,000+(97,000 gross) +FB ranking and have sold over 170,000 items on that site.

I too am fed up with the anti seller attitude at ebay and am taking my wares (& customer list) off of ebay.

I bought into the ebay "dream" and converted my traveling antique show business into a viable online venture.

As my sales grew, so did my buying on ebay. At it's height I was selling $30,000 per month and buying $10,000 per month on ebay.

I was sold on their store concept and packed a store with 50,000 better items.

I monitored ebay live two years ago and read how they wanted stores to work and grow.

Then the hammer came down, hard; without notice and without recourse. Less than two weeks after stating how important stores were to ebay at ebay live, ebay announced an online increase to store fees designed to get back to their core business.

I received an email that the increase would amount to 6%. I could live with that I thought, especially if they supported store in search.

I was amazed to find that their 6% increase in fees actually amounted to a 500% increase in base fees/mos and that was combined with a reduced presence in ebay search. FVF also doubled.

I was going to have to pay more for less. My power seller account manager was at a loss to explain the 6% increase actually being 500%. He even apologized for the fee hike, simply stating that the company wanted to get back to their core.

That fee increase combined with FVF increases and listing fee increases targeting small ticket item sellers, you know, the ones that made ebay a success caused my sales to drop rapidly.

Realizing from previous ebay actions that this is only the beginning of the end of the "ebay experience" I started moving my items to a site with more favorable fees; Delcampe.com.

Imagine my surprise when my items listed to sales ratio was better there than ebays on that site! I had to list 10 items on delcampe for every sale compared to 19 on ebay to get a sale.

My fees on Delcampe were based on SALES only and amounted to $100/month for a 20,000 item store. That same size store on ebay cost a min of $1,000/mos. FVF were less than 1/2 of ebay as well. No relisting fees. No insertion fees.

More sales, less fees, a "no brainer". I have moved off of ebay slowly and with purpose. My Delcampe store is now larger than my ebay store (28,000 Vs 21,000 items now). Profits are up.

I now use ebay as they used me. All my ebay customers get a Delcampe ad shipped along with their item. All my old customers (I have over 73,211 email addresses are being told about non ebay options as well.

I now average less than $300.00 per in my buying on ebay per moth(much less than my 10,000/month before).

My goal is to be totally off of ebay in another 10 mos.

I perceive from the comments above that my action is similar to others. The loss in revenue to ebay is colossal!

The loss in good reliable sellers leaving ebay is even more severe.

Can they reverse the trend? Maybe. But not without a change in attitude, a change in structure online and in the corporate headquarters, and not without financial concessions to their reliable seller base.

I hope that they will do it. Until they do, I have Delcampe and dream of a GOOGLE entering the online auction venue.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: shay

Tue Jul 3 12:32:27 2007

You forgot express. Ebay express has also taken page views away from ebay dot com and I'm sure this contributes largely to the problem of visitors not staying as long. EE was introduced around the SIS and I believe clearly has contributed to this issue.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: chiquita55

Tue Jul 3 12:53:58 2007

I used to sell alot on ebay for the past 10 years, but have listed very little in the past year. One reason I don't bother anymore is it just isn't fun anymore and not very profitable. Way too many scamming buyers on ebay. I refuse to take Paypal because PP has really no seller protection altho they advertise that they do. They refund buyers right and left and sellers are left holding the bag. Yet if you do not take PP many buyers will not purchase from you which leads to poor sales. You add up the fact that sellers are ripped off right and left to the fact that ebay has raised their fees and the post office has raised their prices, it is very difficult to make a buck on ebay anymore. Just not worth all the hassles.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Joey

Tue Jul 3 13:02:02 2007

I no longer look through rose colored glasses upon Ebay. Everytime I think Ebay lately it is followed by "yea but..."

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: ccharned

Tue Jul 3 13:02:57 2007

Bloomberg has an interesting article today which, once gain, points out the disconnect between what eBay and Meg want and what we, their customers, the SELLERS, want. in the Bloomberg article, Meg says that we'll see more changes on eBay in the next 12 months than we have in the last three or four years.

Read my lips: We're sick of tweaks and ''change for the sake of change.'' The new ''my eBay'' page is an example. It's an unnecessary change, full of pictures of items for sale, for fun I guess. We don't want ''fun,'' we want a glitch-free (or even less glitchy) site that works and we want our merchandise seen!

Also, the Bloomberg article says: ''Sellers have complained that EBay [sic] allowed the site to become cluttered with too many listings, resulting in fewer sales and driving shoppers to other retailers...''

No, no, no! We are NOT complaining about too many listings, we are complaining that our store listings can't be FOND in eBay's broken search. jeez. This is the kind of doublespeak we put up with at eBay. We've also expanded to Delcampe.com and our own website, and our eBay presence is minimal. Why? Because our items can't be seen in search, since stores are ''disadvtanged.''

No, no, no! We are not complaining about clutter! Will they ever get it right? Is it ever possible for eBay to view our discontent for what it is and address the issues that sellers need addressed?

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Mario Vodopivec

Tue Jul 3 13:33:24 2007

> by: duane
> Mario..ebay listings were up on the international scale but U.S. listings were down 2.8%

True Duane, but +/- 5% is not even visible on Alexa charts. All I'm saying is that Alexa can't be used for trending. It's only useful purpose is site-to-site traffic comparisons at the same point in time.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: rudymobiz

Tue Jul 3 13:59:43 2007

I think buyers are spending less time because the variety or spice is gone. Ebay has made selling online a ''miserable experience'' for the sellers so they are not putting up as much variety as they had before the search was changed. Even now, the search is skewed. Last summer, I was making $1,000.00 per month and this summer I have only made one hundred or so dollars. I have to pay the fees for listing and the fees when I sell something so I am essentially losing money. I opened a mall shop and it is making more money than my Ebay site. If Ebay continues this downward spiral, a lot of people will be hurt.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: LK

Tue Jul 3 14:13:50 2007

I was a Powerseller who stopped selling this year (I was a seller since the beginning of ebay). I became fed-up after the store debacle. I think that's when sellers really started to hate ebay and view them as the enemy instead of as a partner. They built ebay on the backs of small sellers and have nickled and dimed them out of business. It is infuriating. As a buyer, it used to be fun. Now I'm worried about scams, I don't want to have to spend 5 minutes to leave a simple feedback as the new changes make you, and my account was broken into two times in the past year. I think when sellers stop selling they also stop buying as I have because we don't want to give ebay any business anymore so they lose on both ends. Ebay jumped the shark and is in decline. I don't think they can bring it back because they alienated too many sellers.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Kirk

Tue Jul 3 15:15:33 2007

EBAY is on auto pilot and the controls are set for the center of the sun. With over 25,000 feedback and years of sales on ebay I hate for such a good thing to go so bad. I too have been involved in a two week suspension that elimiated my ebay store with over 3000 listings in it.
On the upside I will be certain that my ebay fees NEVER approach the levels they reached. Along with that after less then 2 months my AMAZON sales have passed my previous monthly ebay sales records. I don't have any but if I did I would sell all of my ebay stock. Kirk

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Al cole

Tue Jul 3 15:16:16 2007

So, where are all of you ex-eBayers selling? What sites are giving you the best results? I was going to go to Yahoo, but that disappeared.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Gerald

Tue Jul 3 15:32:24 2007

Intereting article and I'd have to agree with the majority of it from where we sit. After selling at Silver Powerseller level for 4 years we took ebay completely out of our business plan 6 months ago. While that was not our original intention we found that we were selling 2.5 times the amount over ebay (with a superior profit margin and less time investment) when we expanded to some other selling venues.

We maintained an ebay store for several years with over 80% of our sales originating from the store. The infamous SIS debacle caused our store sales to plummet. Actually we did not find SIS to be successful for us but things only got worse when ebay reversed it. That appears to be when they ''broke'' search/finding.

The biggest factor for us to leave ebay came last summer. The price increase was only a small part of it. The lack of exposure for stores and the growing disinterest (ie: shoddy customer service) by ebay in working with it's sellers really made our decision.

As you stated the wikis, blogs and other such nonsense are too much busy work for most sellers. In addition, having to constantly tweak your ebay store in order to be seen (turn on Express, turn off Express, turn on/off vacation settings, do a squido lens, make a MySpace page, etc.) is beyond rediculous. If we are going to have spend that amout of time marketing our ebay store we'd be better served doing it for our web site intead.

We're not at all bitter about ebay's decisons. We are grateful for the opportunities they offered but as any good business person knows, you have to change with the market. Ebay is no longer a viable venue for our business. Sadly, we hear the same thing from a lot of other ebay sellers.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Bill

Tue Jul 3 15:32:35 2007

And one other thing I haven't seen mentioned here much. How about the entire Blackthorne fiasco? Shifting a Beta version onto sellers and still expecting us to pay for it, As soon as one problem was corrected, another would arise

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Blake

Tue Jul 3 16:25:20 2007

Barbara, I agree with Duane that most if not all of the sellers who have posted are not junk sellers. I sell high end vintage, myself.

The trend I have been seeing is MORE junk sellers on eBay, and the quality, experienced sellers leaving. Either for their own web sites, and/or starting B&Ms. Interesting on the latter, as 5 or so years ago eBay put the B&Ms around here out of business. Now there's a reversal.

There are many more inexperienced sellers now, and without question they are going to further erode the "buyer experience" eBay is suddenly so concerned about. Lots of new sellers selling drop-shipped junk, and the same drop-shipped junk.

Good, experienced sellers have seen the writing on the wall. eBay isn't budging. That's clear. No amount of anger or pleading is going to change anything. Hence the change to indifference towards eBay.

A company can only alienate and infuriate their customer base for so long before it come back to bite them in the arse. That's what's happening now.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Larry Deming

Tue Jul 3 17:06:33 2007

This article really focuses on eBay's current problems. I am featured in a recent German documentary that further shows how far eBay goes to lead you believe that you can easily make real money on their site...They are killing me and my products with Live Auctions and continuing raise fees. I may leave eBay soon for a web store...Larry

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Larry Deming

Tue Jul 3 17:08:03 2007

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Melissa

Tue Jul 3 17:38:28 2007

Your article had excellent stats and information, but you failed to include a major reason for decreased ebay traffic: scammers. They come in the form of Nigerian scammers, bad sellers, and those who send the phishing emails. The aforementioned has been getting alot of nationwide news expsosure, and I firmly believe that is keeping buyers AND sellers from using ebay.

Also, ebay frequently experiences billing glitches which results in sellers being overcharged by hundreds of dollars. That is another reason sellers got fed up with ebay.

Ebay constantly makes buyer-friendly policies that stick it to the seller, and ebay wonders why sellers are leaving.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Justonce

Wed Jul 4 02:29:08 2007

I am David's friend who keeps telling him that eBay is broken...and it is for all the reasons set out so carefully and clearly in the posts above.

...and I know when it broke. The day that eBay announced Check Out and made it mandatory. After about three weeks they relented on the mandatory part, but Check Out was the first time that eBay said to its seller's "We are going to take control of a very important part of your business...and there's nothing you can do about it." Despite eBay touting Check Out many seller didn't use the system...I didn't for years....but eventually eBay completely abandoned their position that eBay was "just a venue" and began to creep further and further into the daily methods and activities of sellers.

eBay has become Big Brother.....

While there is plenty to be said for rolling with the punches, it is very difficult to take a hit from someone who purports to be on your side and an important part of one's "community".

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Ebayer

Wed Jul 4 03:58:59 2007

consider me an ''eBay insider''. the new eBay is pretty amazing. You'll see some amazing features. And the announcement of no fee hikes should be welcomed.
eBay ''gets it'' and the new ebay will bring back the community and fun that many are used to.
Be patient, good things are coming...

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Ron

Wed Jul 4 06:36:02 2007

I hope they don't make us bow our heads and flipper clap madly when the messiahs take the stage.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: dimes

Wed Jul 4 08:01:31 2007

Until I'm no longer afraid of getting my account hijacked or something bad downloaded to my PC because I happened to click on the wrong picture, I won't be logging into eBay. Which means I won't be using paypal, either.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: RAmy

Wed Jul 4 08:42:11 2007

Hi
I think one of the big mistakes eBay did is that they don't give any price break down for power sellers who list and pay lots of expenses compared to a home seller selling his owen used PC who the fees doesn't make a difference for him as he only wants to get back any money from his old PC.
I would suggest that they would make discount based on the seller total monthly volume fees. Something like if you fees is more than $500 we will take off $100 something like this.
I think this a natural way to make discounts in life.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: jim

Wed Jul 4 08:51:13 2007

When I registered with ebay for online selling I also checked other sites. I think Yahoo! was a close runnerup so I checked their site but didt'n like the carnival atmosphere. The colors hurt my eyes. The multiple subject pages hurt my brain. I never tried to sell one item becasue I liked the fast uncluttered pages at ebay.

Ebay would add more and more clutter to their pages a little at the time. The colors were first to really make me sorry I loaded pages. Then the confusion of cluttered listing pages trying to sell me options by forcing them into my eyesight created more negative feelings.

The straw that broke the camels back was, for me, when I noticed I was paying for items that didn't show in search. I wasn't alone. There were thousands of posts at Community Chats of people wanting ebay to fix search. Ebay hired help would find missing auctions and reset them into search but the problem was never fixed. Still isn't even if the search problems seem different.

I stopped listing under any ID over two years ago and haven't missed ebay's site for any reason other than the friendships of the community.

One day I think ebay will be like Yahoo! and need another site with more activity to take them out of the dumps.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: glitterati

Wed Jul 4 11:20:06 2007

i have definitely witnessed ebay going down hill and there are several reasons:
1. ebay started as a collectors market, they now dilute that market by starting a new ebay for new stuff. people dont know the difference.
2 they are allowing gazillions of listings from China with cheap copies of vintage goods that fall apart. people dont understand the difference
3. they have the worst customer service and can never help the sellers ~ and their billing is a nightmare, and their fees are impossible to figure out
4. they have allowed paypal to become too powerful and they deduct money from you acct no questions asked. customers con paypal and paypal always sides with customers because of chargebacks. they never ever back the seller! i have had at least 5 seller friends quit ebay because they were totally fed up.
5. they distract and steal our customers, when they log on they get adds that tell them to enter competitions, games and other stuff having nothign to do with their shopping. they get burned out and have less time for shopping
6, they put adds in our auctions directly for promos and paypal credit etc and customers have to log out and go into their other sites.. they dont come back into our auctions!!

i have written them repeatedly about these problems, but they are too greedy and dont give a damn about the sellers ~
none of the other sites you list get enough business though so the ebay monopoly continues

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Erik Kafrissen

Wed Jul 4 11:56:43 2007

Hi David and all posters.

Great article and fantastic follow up comments.

I have also been selling on eBay since 1998 and have seen the tremendous rise in sales and consequent drop over the past few years.

I also run a business that although not tremendously affected by eBay, sees a fair bit of crossover traffic between our websites.

We have had booths at the past 5 eBay Live shows and have worked directly with eBay execs and employees during the 7 years that our business has been online. Some of these people have been very supportive and helpful, and others have seemed less than accommodating at times. But this is not unique to eBay’s staff, it is this way within any large organization.

I agree with the posts which point out that one of the biggest challenges to eBay today, is the fraud aspect. We are seeing more and more items come through our website (http://www.wiw2u.com) for an Opinion of Authenticity and the vast majority of them are fakes and forgeries. eBay has been treading a thin line in regards to this issue and has maintained the stance that they are not in the business of ensuring that items are real or fake, but simply in the business of providing a venue to sell items through. This is all fine and dandy except when it starts to affect your business model and you have shareholders demanding that you ‘fix the problems’.
That is exactly what is happening right now.

People don’t like to get burned. It has happened to me on eBay, and I’ll bet it has happened to most people who regularly buy on eBay. Being burned once is almost acceptable, especially if it is a .01 DVD or something like that, but being duped into buying a fake is enough to put you off buying online for good.

As we all know, word of mouth can be the best advertisement or a company’s worst nightmare. Since eBay has been growing so large so quickly, the negative word of mouth has not seen a significant impact until recently. With national press coverage marrying the words ‘scam’ and ‘forgery’ with the name eBay, it is no wonder that buyers are looking elsewhere. Where the buyers go, the sellers must also go.

In my opinion, eBay will need to make a concerted effort to pro-actively ensure that items being sold on their site are not fakes or forgeries and not simply give lip service to these policies. They will also need to ensure that there is a quick and easy way for buyers to get their money back without having to jump through 15 hoops in the process.

On a positive note, we have seen this trend developing over the past while and have been aggressively developing products to help ensure stability and security in the marketplace. In addition to our online appraisals we have added the Opinion of Authenticity which allows a seller to get a very inexpensive 3rd party unbiased opinion and attach this opinion to an eBay auction. At the suggestion of Jim from OTWA, we are also building an API right now which will allow us to interface with a seller’s auction listing and automatically attach the Opinion of Authenticity right to the listing. It’s a step in the right direction!

For its part, eBay needs to get off of its high horse and get down and dirty in the trenches. They need to take action to create a safer marketplace and then, and only then, will the ‘fun’ come back into the picture. They need buyers to attract the sellers and buyers will only come if they feel safe and protected.

I look forward to hearing everyone’s comments and please don’t hesitate to contact me should you have any questions about our site and services. Unlike eBay, we publish our phone numbers, email addresses and hours of operation on our website for all to see.

Erik Kafrissen
President
WIW2U Group

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: BeadHappy

Wed Jul 4 12:27:16 2007

I think all the junk (Blogs, Wiki, MyWorld, Express, Matchups, Rent.com, StubHub, ProStores, Shopping.com, Skype, StumbleUpon) just clutters the site and makes it look cheap. eBay should stick to, and make work, their core business.

Search has been broken in many ways for years, and the junk just keeps getting listed over and over and over (think gold rings from China that are really brass, the diet pills or get rich quick schemes on the home page, etc).

And the ''230 million'' users? How many of those are posting IDs? A seller's buying ID? Until eBay only counts actual people and not IDs, the number is going to have no valid meaning. (I had six IDs, each for something different. And no, none of them sell, it's not worth it.)

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: duane

Wed Jul 4 12:53:55 2007

I have a feeling that this thread is going to be or has been read by Ebay eyes. Which is good. Since they probably are, I thought I would mention a couple of other slaps in the face. One is the initial stock offering. The very people that were on here from the beginning were not given the opportunity to buy in on the ground floor. The other is the phony health insurance offering that amounted to nothing more than what anyone can get on their own. I agree with the concerns on the fraud issue. But I disagree with the way that Ebay deals with it currently. Their current methods are rude and very disruptive. And why are they disruptive, because the bottom line is too low and EVERYTHING I list needs to sell in order to try, and I mean try, to keep the ship afloat. And their arrogance on this issue doesnt make much sense to me as a lost listing is lost revenue for them.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Tony P.

Wed Jul 4 13:08:15 2007

I would add my personal theory to all of the excellent, and absolutely correct, posts above.

David's friend, Justonce, states that he knows when ebay was broken and provides the time period. I fully agree - ebay's corporate mindset believed it could dictate, without repercussion.

Besides, IT had done so in the past, suffered through a bit of seller anger and then settled into getting whatever it was that it wanted.

When they did that same thing, Big-Time, in 2004 is where my theory comes in. Mid-summer 2004 they shoved Item Specifics down seller's throats and rolled-up categories.

Look at those charts. See the "summer lows" for all of the years? See how the summer low for 2004 began a Flat Period, from which ebay has never recovered?

Ebay tinkered with some of the major categories and that caused more Buyer Confusion than anything else they have ever done - before or since.

If you look at that Summer of 2004 - REALLY look at those stats - you can see where that constantly-upward progression, stops!

That is when they glued the "Broke" ebay pieces together, backwards. Just like in the Mandatory Checkout decree, ebay relented on the P&G category (and possibly other Cats), but the damage was done.

The true damage can only be understood once you come to the realization that ebay thought that those plans were actually good ideas.

"Buyers don't like to browse" ~ Michael Dearing, VP ebay

He may be gone, but whoever signed off on such DUMBASS ideas still works there. I would use the phrase "manages there", but that's an insult to managers everywhere.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: B. Robert

Wed Jul 4 15:20:49 2007

Why do I spend less time on eBay? Because eBay's sponsored links take me to outside sources to make my purchases.

eBay has lost their way.. Sellers pay high fees to allow the buyer to be sent elsewhere to make purchases..

From a sellers' point of view.. eBay abuses the seller's. From a buyer's view point they are offering more options for sales, however.. as a buyer I searched for my item originally on eBay... why are you sending me to outside vendors?

Why for the money of course.. eBay really is interested (IMHO) in advert fees and not sellers fees. It is secondary to how much they will earn from the sponsored link advertisers.

And, soon eBay will try to compete with YouTube, Google, Yahoo, MetaCafe video sites for advertising fees with their own video community..

How long do you think eBay will continue to send their traffic to other sites with the embedded videos?

eBay.. What is eBay anymore anyway? An auction site? A merchant site? A shopping community? An advertiser of products for sale? You got me.. However, I would bet on saying they are no longer an auction site..

How often do you click on the sponsored links and buy your product outside of eBay?

Another factor that blew me away..
I would write blogs and reviews and guides until I looked at my home page where those reviews and guides are available to read.

What did I see.. The blatant abuse of eBay to advertise others sellers similar products to my items on my reviews and guides..

I as many others have backed off and applying my efforts elsewhere as eBay abuses the hand that feeds them...

eBay lacks quality performance as a company and for the services they offer.. Their intent appears to strike down a seller in the same way a hit and run driver strikes down a pedestrian and then continues their merry way. The seller is disadvantaged, abused and experiences bruising or worse.

B. Robert.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Lewis Simmons

Wed Jul 4 16:36:17 2007

By a collector,

Thanks to all, this has really helped put everything that has happened to my attempts to sell on eBay in perspective!

I first tried eBay as a seller in 1999 and found that it was to hard to list each item at that time. In 2003 I tried again and the changes that had been made over the last 4 years made it possible to list a large amount of items and make money on them, in late 2005, after eBay had solicited me repeatedly, I opened a store and started a new business making mouse pads for collectors. I obtained the press, printers and supplies I needed and by Jan. of 2006 I had about 25 mouse pad designs in the new store and they started to sell the first week, then came Feb and Mar 2006 with about 50 pads and my sales per week where up four fold. I decided to add mugs and framed prints at the end of March and upgraded the store. I started, in April, to buy the press, printer, and mug stock when the bottom fell out, and I did not now why! After I had acquired the mug press, one printer and most of the supplies I put the mugs and frames on hold in July 2006. A LOSS TO ANY COLLECTOR THAT MAY HAVE WANTED TO BUY THE MUGS! I have created over 500 mouse pad designs now and was going to add the mugs in August 2007 to try to get the store going again I have created well over 100 mug designs over the last 2 months.

Over the last year I have tried many deferent ways of listing my items and a few months sales would come up a little but then went right back down, I though that it was something that I was doing wrong or if I could make it work again sales would go up the way they had the 1st quarter of 2006 but I can now see that there isn't anything I did or could do, it’s all eBay's game and they keep changing the rules in the middle of the play!

From what I have read today I can see that adding mugs will not help my eBay store, but will only cost me more time and money to design the auctions for the store and add them!

Thank you again for making this so clear! After a lot of thought I guess the only answer is to close my store over time and find a new, hopefully better, venue!

P.S.
This is the first time that I have posted to anything but you all where so right on that I had to.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Sheila

Wed Jul 4 17:34:02 2007

I just read something on CNet that turns my stomach, one more reason to believe that eBay is nothing but sneaky, sleazy, slime. In 2004 eBay bought a 25% share of Craigslist. They promised to not tinker with the admirable business model that has made Craigslist so wonderful and admired. And they kept their promise. Why? Because they had bigger plans.

Says CNet: ''On Friday, eBay's online classified service, Kijiji, made its U.S. debut. For the past two years, Kijiji has operated overseas but is now available in about 220 U.S. cities, said eBay spokesman Hani Durzy...

...But eBay enjoys an unusual advantage. For three years, executives at eBay have been allowed to peer deep into Craigslist's operations...

...Newmark, Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar once made up the three-person board. Another eBay representative has replaced Omidyar, according to Durzy.

'We've learned a lot from Craigslist,' Durzy said. 'We think this market has room for several classified services.'''

IMHO, it speaks for itself. I do own a very small amount of EBay stock, mistakenly bought after its glory days. I intend to sell it - at a loss - tomorrow.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: FedUp

Wed Jul 4 21:06:04 2007

To the "eBay insider" who says that "amazing" things are coming, I say but one word - YAWN!
Been there, heard that.
They simply don't get it.
It's not about fun. It's not about features. It's about every other person getting ripped off on the site. Until this is addressed, forget about the rest.
How can I be sure that eBay doesn't get it? For one, they spout that .01% fraud malarky. For another, T&S keeps bankers hours. Why is it that account take-overs are most prevalent on the weekend? Because there's a skeleton crew at T&S then! Let's not mention the skill level of the average employee - T&S or elsewhere - their previous employment consisted of flipping burgers at Mickey D's. Until they change these, they don't get it. Until they institute REAL change, not lip-service to mollify the stock analysts, and until they reassure potential buyers that they are truly safe on their site, customers will continue to shop elsewhere.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Marg

Wed Jul 4 23:31:04 2007

I just want to say that it appears obvious from all the comments above that the vast majority of eBayers DO NOT want a ''fun-filled community experience''. All we want is a site which offers a safe, convenient and economical way to purchase or sell items - just like eBay used to be!!

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: BGNW

Thu Jul 5 01:49:44 2007

EBay’s manipulative and shady maneuvers have let sellers know we are dealing with a ruthless and cutthroat business partner. Their entire image worldwide is terrible to say the least. Mention eBay to many folks on the street and you see an immediate frown. Many, if questioned, either have a sad story to tell or knows of someone that does. I stopped selling there in 2005 (after 8 years), and plan to never return. I believe eBay is so deep in trouble that they will not be able to turn it around as they have in the past. No, not this time....They are slowly sinking into the mud, where they certainly belong….

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Candy

Thu Jul 5 02:45:21 2007

Marg, I agree completely. What was fun about eBay was selling stuff for more than you had realized it was worth and buying things for less than you thought possible ... and anything in-between was pretty good, too. The friendships on the chat boards and discussion forums was nice also. ''Meeting'' people from all over the world in the process of buying, selling, and chatting was fascinating. I consider all this to have existed up until about 2003. Since then it has increasingly become an absolute disaster. When people asked me what I did for a living, I used to proudly say that I sold things on eBay full-time. I was one of the site's great cheerleaders. Now when I am asked that question, I say, ''I sell online.'' I don't even mention eBay anymore because the reaction is ALWAYS negative. It's so sad.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Candy

Thu Jul 5 02:56:26 2007

Actually, this is how bad it gets ... because I was getting so much negative reaction to eBay itself, I purchased a domain name in order to set up my own website. Realizing that it would be a good while before I was ready to completely move off eBay, I have put a re-direct on my domain in the interim so that it takes people to my eBay store ~ and what I advertise is NOT my eBay store URL, but the domain URL, to both avoid the typical immediate negative reaction to eBay's very name as well as to help build up attention now for the dedicated website that will exist later.

Even at that, I have had 2 customers that I can recall in the past two years email me to say, paraphrasing, ''I saw your posting on XYZ and went to your website to browse, but then I realized it was actually an eBay store so I left. Sorry but I just don't patronize eBay people anymore, I've been burned too often.'' That's only 2 people, but if 2 people bother to email me about it, heaven knows how many just left and went elsewhere without mentioning it.

It makes one want to cry.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: James

Thu Jul 5 03:13:50 2007

Ebay has become more of a sad place to sell then a ''fun'' place and as long as ebay continues to treat sellers unfairly, ebay will continue to spiral downward. I'm not against changes in general, as that is normal for all businesses, but I have never seen so many wacky & manipulative changes as ebay has tried to implement the past two years. I've also never seen a company give so little back to it's core base of sellers (the backbone of ebay) and yet rip-off that same core of sellers by demanding higher fees and even implementing a 5-star rating the only buyers can use?? How much more one-sided and unfair can ebay get?? And then many wonder why auction listings, sales and the reputation of ebay is going downward??

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: gb-in-uk

Thu Jul 5 05:32:33 2007

to the ebay ''insider'', are you a robot or what? It smacks of the typical ''non answers'' from ebay staff. As this blog actually has a link from the UK ebay powersellers message board so its probbaly a ''pink'' (Ebay staff), trying to smooth things over in a very half hearted attempt. Believe me, no one believes you. Us UK powersellers are sick to death of treated as idiots. When people complain loudly enough that they are being treated like dirt, you kick them off the boards! Ebay also removes posts that it doesnt like (Nothing to do with policy either), it would rather PIN a threat about big brother tv show on its boards that PIN a discussion about how ebay is totally wiping out the mnarketplace. When i pay the damn high sellers fees, i expect the whole world to see my listings, not just the UK, and i dont want the USA sellers to be able to flood ebay uk which is what they are now doing. Fees are also cheaper on ebay usa, plus they have special offers which the uk doesnt. R.I.P GLOBAL MARKETPLACE

Ebay IS BROKEN. there is no point at all in constantly pandering to the whims of the buyer, as this is at the expense of the seller. More and more sellers are jumping ship, and pretty soon all that will be left on ebay is a pile of c*** from china in every category. More and more people are starting up their own sites, plus ive discovered quite a good site called delcampe.com which is FREE to list, and one good thing, you can get the BUYER to pay the fees on each sale if you want! Brilliant, although the sites is a bit slow, the search engine isnt brilliant and it is crying out fore more investment and development, but the site ''feels good'' and that soemthing that ebay have lost. With increasing scammers, increasing rubbish items from china (who probably get to list for free), the lack of any customer service, is it a foregon conclusion taht ebay is on the way out? They havent invested in the site, they have raised fees, they dont listen,aaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!

I could go on but i wont, reaidng this board is depressing me! I suggest all ebay sellers jump ship now and list on delcampe instead, its a damn site cheaper too.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Erilyn

Thu Jul 5 06:47:51 2007

I moved my eBay business off eBay due to their never ending glitches, the lack of exposure that I was PAYING for, lack of customer service, even for stores its a joke. Not having my items show up in the UK or Canada, even though I checked WORLDWIDE. Having the .com flooded with listing from the UK, Canada, India, the free listings that the CHina sellers received.

To make matters worse on top of that, they pushed stores on sellers then hit them with a HUGE increase in fees. They messed with SIS which actually worked for me as well as a lot of other sellers, then dropped us like an infectious disease. We get even less exposure for 5x the amount of work.

As a buyer, so far this year I have had to file 4 claims with Paypal because of dishonest sellers. As a seller, I dont take Paypal because of all the scams people like to pull.

Ebay is not what it used to be and its a shame. It used to be fun to get bitten by the eBay bug. Not so anymore. Never ending glitches, billing problems, searches are messed up, non exposure, the list goes on and on and not a word from the eBay team about it.

In all my years I have never met a business that operated like this and were able to get away with it!

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Anonymous

Thu Jul 5 09:09:39 2007

The changes on the site can drive me crazy. Not only because they are ALWAYS in favour of ebay's pocket in against the seller. Mainly because it feels for too long now like an uncertain not safe atmosphere for business making. If the s---theads up the so called management could just let us be for a while, to get used to the new formats and ''offerings'', we could be able to adjust and keep our businesses stable. Now we have to change our selling policies and strategies once a month or even more frequent, so our buyers feel We are the ones who are not to be trusted. Alternatively we can (and this is what I do) sit quietly and see how all our profits go to ebay and all our client base is evaporating to other sites or even worse, to ebay's local sites.
I agree all heartedly with the previous comment about being ashamed of selling on ebay. I am very cinycal now and I know when time comes and I will treat ebay the same way they treat me. Either they will deliver or I am not there. On other free auction sites as stampoffers.com I behave the other way and ocasionally donate money to the site develope.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Al Cole

Thu Jul 5 10:41:14 2007

My problem, I guess, is that there isn't any competition to eBay for the items I sell. I deal in new and used computers and parts and every once in a while, as a test, I type in ''Commodore 64'' into other auction sites. I might get back one or two hits, whereas with eBay I get back 300+. So, even with eBay's problems, I am almost forced to patronize them.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: duane

Thu Jul 5 11:08:43 2007

Yep. I currently HAVE to use them, but I cringe when I do. It is sad. In the beginning you tried to list more so that you could make more. Then you tried to list more so that you could stay even. Now you try to list more and you think you are about to turn the corner and WHAM it is fee time and there goes all of your progress. They have made us squirrels in a cage and it seems that anything that they do only makes us have to run faster.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: duane

Thu Jul 5 11:16:32 2007

There may be some hope. While I would rather see a little guy come from nowhere as a competitor, Google is making some noise. Here is a link to an article I read the other day. http://tinyurl.com/269j33
What is your take on this.

Also, are any of you making a living off of your own web site or having success on sites other than ebay?

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: beachgal707

Thu Jul 5 15:15:55 2007

the top 5 reasons why people spend less time on ebay: 1) too many ads; 2) ebay changes the way it searches for IT as often as we change our undewear; 3) bad programming - nothing works right; 4) the marketing team is clueless; 5) the findings team is a joke!

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: HD

Thu Jul 5 19:57:26 2007

I can voice a survey of one me, I sold on eBay for about 4-5 years then my niche market went dry. I also bought stuff. I still buy stuff online but not from eBay, too many bad apples. The listing fee's killed my eBay business. My profit was small and by the time I paid this & that there was nothing left. I needed to sell 30% of my listed items just to cover costs.
I used to enjoy browsing the web looking for info about a varity of things. Now the web is all about selling stuff. Good old American greed ruined it. eBay used to be a cute little old country 2nd store now its just another boring mall.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Keith

Thu Jul 5 22:57:28 2007

As a seller, I'm wore out with the fee increases. What’s wrong with increasing sellers rather than increasing fees.

I'm for making buyers feel comfortable to buy with buyer protections, but not at the PayPal charge back expense of honest sellers. There has to be a balance.

While eBay has made the process easy for power sellers to list identical item(s), the listing process for sellers such as myself who sell individually unique vintage items remains time consuming. The eBay practice of catering to power sellers selling cookie cutter stuff from China realized larger fee dollars in the short term, but eBay cast off the sellers of individual and unique items that gave eBay charm and long term traffic.

As a buyer, I’m tired of eBay allowing Jesse James sellers robbing buyers with outlandish shipping & handling fees. The sellers argue that the buyer doesn’t have to buy, but that’s not the point. A buyer wants to buy and have fun doing it on eBay, but soon becomes burnt-out being robbed.

And finally, I’m sure at the root of every biased rule and fee increase leak on eBay’s ship are numerous highly self-important, know-it-all, return demanding investors with hand drills.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Katie

Fri Jul 6 10:02:32 2007

Sellers of counterfeit items are taking over too many parts of Ebay and driving legitimate sellers out. Just in Womens Clothing and Accessories, ninety oercent of the Coach wallets listed are fakes, and as much as ninety-five percent of Coach keychains. One recent check of 300 listings for "Coach keychain" found three legitimate sellers and 26 peddlers of counterfeit junk. These listings have been reported by myself and many others until our fingers bleed but are never removed, and the sellers continue to fleece buyers. Ebay dooesn't care as long as they collect their fees.

Sellers who buy genuine keychains even on sale for $15 or $20 are competing with crooks who buy fakes in bulk for three dollars each from SE Asia. A Coach wallet that even on sale still costs the buyer one hundred dollars isn't going to attract the attention of the typical Ebay bargain shopper when there are lookalike fakes purchased from Chinese websites for fifty or sixty dollars. Sellers of genuine items are fed up with the proliferation of fakes sellers, and potential buyers who have been fooled once by a cheap fake are much less likely to come back.

Ebay's disregard for obvious frauds is even more blatant, as anyone who remembers last summer's flood of one-day BIN auctions will tell you. Ebay did NOTHING to block those obviously fraudulent and easily tracable listings until it finally got to the point where fully one-third of the weekend listings for things like designer handbags and brand-name golf clubs were frauds.

Buying AND selling on Ebay has become about as enjoyable as walking blindfolded through a minefield.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Mindy

Fri Jul 6 10:22:01 2007

Everyone's comments are so head on, excellent, and so important for ebay to hear, can someone send them this link? Or would it fall on deaf ears?

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Anonymous

Fri Jul 6 12:27:54 2007

Mindy: I can only assume that if ebay people will read these comments they will do exactly what they did so far with sellers comments: ignore them and raise the fees once again.....

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: BB

Fri Jul 6 17:07:02 2007

I stopped selling on eBay in 2006. Here are just a few reasons:

EBay’s never ending fee increases: I will never again use a web site that charges a listing fee or take money off the top before I make a sale. However, I am willing to pay for a final value fee, but it must be very low…under 3 percent. This obviously excludes eBay.

Countless site glitches: One glitch that still has me fuming even today is that from 1999-2006 I was always contacting eBay about erroneous month end billing charges. After 7 years I don’t consider it a glitch but felt it was intentionally designed to function as a part of their regular running program, whose purpose was to squeeze every drop of revenue from sellers.

Capricious policy changes from both EBay and PayPal; so many changes that I could not keep up with them. Many of these changes I suspect were even bordering on illegal.

Deceitful, secretive, and unprofessional behavior from eBay’s management that eventually trickled down to their staff. Staff will yell at you and even hang the phone up in your face! Some of these employees should have been terminated. PayPal staff was just as bad. I have been lied to numerous times.

Search engine problems: I was a small mom/pop seller who primarily listed my items in auction, but eBay was manipulating the search engine in core auctions too. Many times my listing would disappear and re-appear a day or so later. In other words, I never received the full 7 days listing exposure I paid for. And because my items were receiving less exposure I had to re-list it 3-4 times which in the long run eroded my profit, but fattened EBay’s. Because of this, I decided at the beginning of 2006 to open a store (strongly encouraged by eBay), but now they are hitting stores with high fee increases and the same search engine problems exist with both stores and core.

Pacific Rim countries (China, Taiwan etc.) were not even charged listing fees!! This was eBay’s attempt to enter the Asian market, but now it has really backfired because these countries have now flooded the site with many cheap and fraudulent goods; so many in fact that I think it has overwhelmed even eBay.

Devious buyers that disrupted my auctions, because they did not like the prices I charged and when I reported them to EBay, little or nothing was done. Chargeback’s from corrupt buyers who keep both the item and money is growing phenomenally.

Pornography: Sometimes I would go to list an item, and somehow, someway some web savvy idiot managed to insert pornographic material on the web page. But to eBay’s credit, when I reported it, eBay took immediate action (within 15-30 minutes).

I have closely watched over the years, the numerous crazy changes eBay forced sellers to comply with and it just seemed they were treating us like rats in a maze; do this, do that, jump here, no there… What?? I thought you were just a “venue.” For my sanity, I had to stop selling on eBay, and I have decreased “buying” by at least 95 percent. Most days I do not even visit the site and my blood pressure has now returned to normal.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: sherrygilson

Fri Jul 6 17:12:55 2007

Why not just KEEP DUMPING more doubt and garbage into everyones mind, so that they get discouraged and QUIT!!!!!

Ok with me leaves me more room without competition!!

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Violette

Fri Jul 6 17:16:44 2007

I'm an eBay buyer, seller, and shareholder, so I have 3 different POVs. As a buyer, I want fair treatment from seller: Reasonable S&H, decent packing of items, decent shipping times, quality product, and polite communication. As a seller, I want reasonable speed of payment (I allow 10 days), reasonable listing fees, and good visibility for my items. As a shareholder, I want eBay to make money. These things are not mutually exclusive. I think eBay could make as much, if not more money by cutting listing fees. I'd happily pay a little more in FVF (not a lot more, 1% max) if they'd eliminate most listing fees. I'd like to see gallery be free for those of us who host photos off-eBay and perhaps a larger number of free relists. I sell relatively low-cost, low margin vintage items and the listing fees are wiping out all of my profit. My sell through is horrible and I have to relist several times to get a sale. It's hard enough to convince buyers to pay the shipping costs without having to increase my minimum prices just to break even. I think eBay could really increase listing volume by lowering listing fees. They seem to have decided that we smaller sellers aren't worth their time and effort anymore, which doesn't make sense according to their "back to core" philosophy. I agree with most of the other posters about the flood of cheap knockoffs and just general crap that's flooding eBay. I've been buying there for years, but I won't buy electronics, jewelry, or designer stuff there, since you can't trust that it's legit. I'm going to be investigating other venues and setting my own web site for selling, since I'm not able to make much profit on eBay anymore due to the listing fees. I'll still sell on eBay, but I sincerely hope they do something, so I won't lose money as a seller, can trust them as a buyer, and make money as a shareholder :-)

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Prentissg

Fri Jul 6 21:39:46 2007

As an eBay seller for 7 years, I usually adapt to the changes. However, one thing that has not been referred to from the unique items sellers - i.e. antiques, collectibles, one of a king items - is the effect of eBay Live Auctions. I have repeatedly let eBay AND any auction house I deal with know that the advent of eBay Live has seriously compromised the sales price of these items on eBay due to the poor pictures, non-descriptions, and presentation of these items in the auction house listings. In addition, this has virtually eliminated the eBay seller from the auction house floor. In most cases, not all, but most items sell on eBay Live for no more than they sell on the auction house floor - previously, they would sell higher from that individual seller who purchased it on the floor. PLUS the price of the item becomes an historical price on eBay EVEN WHEN PURCHASED BY A FLOOR BIDDER. This is ridiculous. The auction houses justify doing Live by saying it helps their obtaining estates, that approx. 15% of their sales are from eBay Live - but not that it increases their actual bottom dollar except for the additional fees they generate to post eBay Live. eBay Live charges their ''auction house'' listers much less - package pricing - and this cuts eBay's income also, so the little guy gets hit with the fee increases. They actually actively telephoned most of the auction houses in the country to encourage them to be ''an eBay Partner.'' So much for loyalty to their original core antique and collectible sellers.... Of course, this portion of eBay is shrinking - maybe due to the fact that many auction houses are no longer a viable venue to obtain product to sell ....

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: kissmyebay

Sat Jul 7 02:17:15 2007

I'm an 8th year eBay member and a frequent buyer/seller. My selling ID is over 4000+ feedback with 100% positive rating from buyers. I'm a powerseller. That said, I want to say that selling on eBay has been unprofitible for me over the last two years. Last year the business, which is incorporated and sells exclusively on Ebay lost $3000.00. This year we are down about $100 for January to July. The eBay fees average over 20% of gross sales. We've had to raise prices on our auctions but the result so far has been only to almost break even for the year. I agree wholeheartedly with the vast majority of eBayers and former eBayers who posted their insights and opinions on this message board. Ebay is greedy, shortsighted, arrogant and controlling - and those are the GOOD things I can think of about eBay. Furthermore they are crooked - all the things said about eBay's sneaky and illegal business methods mentioned on this message board are true. And yes, as one UK seller mentioned, if you complain about eBay on its own message boards you will be suspended from posting on the boards. To the so-called ''eBay insider'' who posted above I offer this: kissmyebay! You people don't have a clue about what is right or wrong, neither do you care. Search the Internet for ''Ebay monopoly'' and you'll find the truth about how eBay has bought out and shut down dozens of competitors, and how the entry cost to truly competing against eBay and its 94% marketshare makes it impossible for a startup company to make headway against eBay. Much like Microsoft and it's operating system monopoly, eBay holds a firm monopoly on the online auction market. When eBay raised fees for the 3rd year in a row in 2005 its CEO Meg Whitman received $42 Million dollars in salary and stocks (she has since sold the stocks). Is there a single eBay seller who has made even 1% of that amount in one year of selling on eBay? I think that says it all about eBay and its one and only true concern - making money for the managers and owners of eBay. In conclusion I want to say thank you for the sellers who've mentioned their personal success in creating their own web sites, or in utilizing the few niche auction sites that eBay hasn't yet purchased and closed. I'll be going the route of creating my own web site. While other auction sites will likely be bought and closed by eBay (or bartered out of existence by eBay as with Yahoo Auctions this June) I'll never sell out my web site. Thanks again to all who posted here. I no longer feel alone in my dismay and disgust with eBay.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: GB-IN-UK

Sat Jul 7 06:16:54 2007

to mindy above, ...........i have sent this link to pierre omidyar's personal email address (I have spoken with him breifly once before), wether he reads it and does anything is anyones guess, but its worth a try..............
Ebay, lets face it, stinks! but it IS repairable, but based on everyones experience, i am skeptical it will happen, but we shall see

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: J Bennett

Sat Jul 7 11:35:41 2007

I have come to dread the annual ''news'' that eBay has a new crop of MBAscoming on board.

5-6 months later all hell breaks loose with new ideas to change the system.

They constantly break whats not broke.

I almost wish the eBay economy was regulated like the Fed regulates the US economy.

By this I am really wishing they would recognize that this thing is no longer just a bulletin board for auctions. Its a dynamic marketplace and changes have consequences both intended and unintended.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: larryst

Sat Jul 7 16:02:25 2007

I have had to adjust my business plan to accommodate ebay's poor plan - I have gone from 75% ebay sales to 25%. Ebay does not listen to sellers or care about them so I support them with my ''feet'' - I go elsewhere. MY web sites, etc are doing great and sources of sales are 90% off ebay. Their idea of blogs, widgets, etc. totally misses the target audience. Ebay was fun while it lasted but it is an Enron waiting to implode.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Frank Ross

Sat Jul 7 17:20:52 2007

I wonder how much the increase in available Broadband ISP connections have to do with this? We are talking about time spent so the more Broadband the faster people are going to get in and out of there? Just a thought.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: suzy

Sat Jul 7 22:57:39 2007

eBay forgets the sellers they have upset with fee hikes, glitches and search issues are also buyers.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: kathy

Sun Jul 8 00:40:09 2007

In no particular order:

It's not the ''powers that be''....it's ''the powers that think they be''!!!

One of eBay's biggest mistakes....no intelligent, real-time customer support. Can you imagine Microsoft, IBM, Dell, JC Pennys, WalMart, DrugStore.com or any other online entity NOT having telephone support? Or a real-person response to emails?

2,000 folks looking for fraudulent listings? Where are they looking? Under their ''seats''?

Increased/additional fees every time you turn around.

Social networking on a site that IS NOT a social network.

Excessive shipping and handling that eBay does absolutely nothing about. Report a s/h powersell 100 times and they WILL NOT be shut down or forced to adjust their s/h.

Report a powersell for much of anything and absolutely nothing gets done. Ever. Excessive shipping and handling. Erroneous location information (auction lists US but seller in foreign country). Fee avoidance. Ad nauseum.

Corporate buying of online/real world entities just to spend money that is accumulating faster than freckles on a redhead in summer....and the failure of a large number of those enterprises. Wanna throw money away in an attempt to fool investors? Throw it at me!

Constant changes that are the result of urgings of the ''member community''....blogs, MY World, wikis, Skype. Hey! I'm a member of the community and I didn't ask for any of that crap and don't know of a single eBay who did.

eBay wants to be everyone's answer to every type of merchandise. They can't. And they shouldn't. They can't control the seller corruption on high-ticket items or protect their members from Nigerian scams.

eBay's Live Help that is totally useless. In fact, so useless that they send users to the 24/7 VOLUNTEER eBay Q&A Board for problem resolution.

A Help/Site Map that is more muddled than molasses in January. Try and find an answer to a question on the site map. No don't bother. Go to the Q&A Board.

Stores in Search. Stores outta Search. eBay Express.

No ID verification for ALL eBay users.

eBay has HOW MANY registered users? 17 kabillion??? I've got about 16.5 kabillion of those myself. Limit CREDIT CARD/BANK VERIFICATION registration to a set number of buying/selling/posting accounts. No credit card/bank account? Either get one or you can't register.

Wanna shill your own item? Set the price over $200 and no one will be able to catch you. We know eBay sure as hell ain't.

eBay won't get involved in much of anything because they are just a listing venue. My fat Aunt Fanny! eBay wants a gallon of my blood and my firstborn child. Well, they can't have either!

I started here almost 10 years ago with a sell-thru rate of 85%-95%. I always had multiple clear photos and detailed descriptions of each item including all dings and flaws. Yet suddenly my sales started slipping about 3 years ago. 60%, 45%. Now less than 30%.

100% positive FB of over 1900. I was doing something right at some point.

I used keywords....but didn't spam.

My s/h/i were exact with no gouging.

My packing is constantly mentioned in my FB as being superb along with fast shipping.

I used to use gallery until eBay started gouging the price.

I used to use BIN until eBay gouged that, too.

I had a store until eBay gouged the living beejeebers outta the monthly fee in one fell swoop and then took store items out of search.

I used to be able to contact my customers via email until eBay decided that en masse folks were making off-eBay deals and depriving them of much-needed income. Hey! If my item doesn't sell and I've already paid my listing fee and someone comes along wanting to buy it, I'll be damned if I am going to be forced to give eBay another shot at the fee. It's my item. I'll sell it to anyone who will cough up the $$$$$.

I used to sell on eBay.

I don't any more.

Meg is cashing in her stocks and getting ready for the ''big run''. I'm keeping my nickels and dimes. Meg doesn't need 'em.

Where's a good investigative reporter when you need one?

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: anonymous

Sun Jul 8 20:37:29 2007

Most people would quit walking into a particular room if they were hit with a baseball bat every time they walked into that particular room.

Who wants to spend long hours writing ads and having to pay to post them on top of that when they can no longer feel confident that they will sell what they are listing?

You can apply this theory to any of the aspects that we are discussing here and come up with a conclusion....DISTASTE.

People would rather be broke with time on their hands than to be overworked and broke.

Ebay based their claims of growth from the rewards they stole from the very people that built them.....the sellers. In the long run they are stealing from the buyers too.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: De-De

Mon Jul 9 10:17:00 2007

There is one thing I've not seen mentioned here, and it's something that affected me greatly. Certainly I'm not the only one... I'm a small scale seller - reselling great yard sale finds, occasional things picked up at auctions, odds and ends I no longer need, stuff like that. Over the course of the last five years, I've received several thousand feedbacks - all positive - buying and selling carefully and honestly. Because of my small ebay income, I was able to function just fine with a personal paypal account (limited to receiving just a few hundred dollars a month), accepting cash payments only. Two years ago in August, that came to an end when ebay announced that everyone who would accept paypal payments on ebay MUST accept credit cards or face suspension or worse, and they painstakingly closed every single loophole. (Found myself wondering if they would actually stage phony auction buys by employees to test whether a seller might mention the cash only option privately!) The problem with this is that the upgrade to accept credit cards meant that EVERY payment I receive on paypal is charged a transaction fee now. Can you imagine the uproar if a kid walked into your local grocery, bought a 50 cent candy bar, and the bank was able to claim a percentage of that cash transaction? Complaints to ebay/paypal were answered with comments that they were just trying to keep it from being so confusing for buyers - make everyone just alike. However, there is little doubt that the truth of the matter lies in the fact that ebay figured out how much money they were missing out on and wanted to get their share of that, too. If they wanted to really hurt the proverbial ''little guy,'' they sure did it with that move! I primarily sell for what I call ''butter and egg money'' - often making just a couple of dollars on an item - but it was fun. I met some really neat people and had the pleasure of making a lot of them very happy with my odds and ends. And I pretty much turned every penny I made right back around and into someone else's odds and ends. The change in the paypal rule has made a dramatic difference in how much I list, what I list, and how much I profit - and ultimately, how much I buy. It's also left me with a major pile of things that I used to be able to list and see fly out the door, but now after ebay sticks their hand in my pocket three times for the same listing, might easily cost me more in fees than I get as a closing bid - and if I don't offer paypal on the auctions, I don't get bids at all. And I don't think I'm the only person holding back on listing the little treasures, because I find the listings for such things very sparse these days, too. I'm not on ebay to purchase what I can easily find at Walmart (with less risk), and my pocketbook isn't deep enough for the high end stuff (sporting its new shill protecting ''Bidder 1'' status) - which I'd probably prefer to see in person anyway. I'm on ebay looking for the smaller, unique, ''wherever did you find that?'' sort of stuff, and quite frankly, there's just not near so much of that out there these days. My favorite search is turning up only a third of what it was showing daily two years ago. Apparently I'm not the only seller who has decided she can't afford listing stuff like that. I used to do ALL my Christmas shopping on ebay; last year, I did it all online and NONE on ebay. I just couldn't find the right stuff. The less I am rewarded, the less time I will spend on the site - and the less likely I will turn to ebay first when I'm looking for something. That hurts everyone selling. Maybe I'm mistaken, but I sort of thought that back in the beginning it was the small sellers who made ebay work. Now I feel more like I was just a rung on their ladder.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: anonymous

Mon Jul 9 14:02:22 2007

If Ebay doesnt want antiques and uniques on their site...then they should quit shutting down alternates and/or do a spinoff.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: ex-Powerseller

Mon Jul 9 15:28:15 2007

We are one of the top 10 sellers on eBay. We have experienced a dramatic decline in both successful auctions and price. eBay beleives the sellers come to eBay for the buyers. The fact is, the buyers come for the deals. Sellers are leaving at an alarming rate. The buyers will leave because the deals dis-appearing.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Ken

Mon Jul 9 16:31:42 2007

I am a small, but regular Ebay seller. Listing one or two antique or collectible items each week for the last four years. I have been wondering why my sell through rate and final sale price have steadily declined. Reading these comments, I now know why. My question is this, specifically what other auction sites are out there where people are actually having success at selling items?

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: anonymous

Mon Jul 9 20:35:24 2007

This question has been asked numerous times through this thread with no answer back....is that because there is nowhere else to sell? Who is having any luck out there?

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: gb-in-uk

Tue Jul 10 04:51:16 2007

dear anon, no, there doesnt seem to be abywhere else to sell. although it depends on WHAT you sell, as there are some specialist auction sites for certain types of items, but for the "mom and pop" seller (the basis of ebay, and the people that BUILT ebay into what it is, or was), there isnt anything, although if anyone finds something, please post it on this board! ...and I think this is the main problem, if there was somewhere else to go, people would abandon ebay in droves, and i hope they do. i no longer feel "good" about ebay and i know i'm not alone! Just like the chap above said, if you constantly feel that you are being ripped off an beaten about the head with a stick, how much longer do you stay? Does anyone think that google will open up an alternative? They are probbaly the only people who could possibly do this................

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: anonymous

Wed Jul 11 11:04:01 2007

T H E E N D ?

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Anonymous

Wed Jul 11 11:55:07 2007

anonymous: We havn't even started yet...

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Bill

Wed Jul 11 21:11:29 2007

Summation of over 150 postings.
Ebay has many, many problems.
Sellers have no where else to go.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: John

Wed Jul 11 22:27:55 2007

Bill,
I think you said it all.
Oh well. Ebay was a good run while it lasted. Some day we can tell our grand kids about the good old days when we used to make money by selling on auctions over the internet.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Alan

Thu Jul 12 03:58:42 2007

Many sellers that have left eBay are trying other auction sites in addition to setting up their own web sites. Though there is no site as large as eBay, sellers are determined to try something else (however small the site). Even eBay had to start somewhere…

Here is a list of some of the auctions from PowersellersUnite.com

1) http://tinyurl.com/hs6q4

2) http://tinyurl.com/2szbkb

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: gb-in-uk

Thu Jul 12 06:22:31 2007

.....yes its a shame, and with a heavy heart I have to admit defeat, i cant win with ebay. Even moving all my listings to ebay.com, which is what ebay uk suggested that we all do (daft eh?), sales are still poor and its getting to be a waste of time. ANother problem with that is that you cant enter the correct shipping costs. As i mentioned in another post, no matter where you live in the world, whatever ebay you list on, it should show up on ALL ebay sites, which is what used to happen! Why change it? Whenever you complain to ebay, they either ignore it, or as in my case, removed my postings!

My sales are now so ridiculously low that i will probably lose my powerseller status (big deal). As I often sell vintage and antique toys, we usually (well up until last xmas anyway), do quite well at christmas time, but we shall see. Its a right b*****r though as every year what we sold on ebay paid for everyones xmas presents, I only hope this will be the case this year.
Lots of people have come up with a few suggestions on this board, to which i am very grateful, and yes ''alan'', your right, ebay had to start somewhere, but for another auction site to really work, it would have to have a MASS EXODUS of ebay sellers flood onto it. Anyone think that could or will happen? I even tinkered with the idea myself, but it would take a long time to get going, and it would need a lot of INVESTMENT from someone, so really I could only see major players like google being the people most able to do it, does anyone think they would, or for that matter, should they do this? I mean google has the power, if it wanted to , to BAN ebay from its listings, ha ha ha, now THAT would make ebay sit up and take note. Boy, i hope they do that. Kick ebay where it hurts eh?

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: G Urban

Thu Jul 12 07:17:28 2007

I am an owner of Christmas online stores selling holiday merchandise since 1996 on the web and since 1989. Our volume should exceed $1,000,000 this year. Luckily we have aligned ourselves with Google and since our online stores predate Google we enjoy #1 position on all or most of the Google Search terms for our products.

I used to use eBay to source our products. I no longer buy on eBay. Since we source in high end categories, we find a disturbingly large percentage of items listed on eBay being fake or outright fraud. It is not safe to buy on eBay if you are looking to purchase in item categories priced in hundreds or thousands of dollars. I have spent $60,000 plus last year on equipment for our business, my first choice was to go to eBay but seeing that most of the items in industrial embroidery machines and commercial printers were fake auctions published by scammers on hijacked accounts, turned me off eBay entirely.

As a buyer, I will not waste my time to try to sort the scammers from honest sellers on eBay. It is just not worth the risk. EBay does not realize they are loosing power-buyers in large numbers by permitting rampant scam on their site.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: JoeS

Thu Jul 12 18:18:14 2007

Is Ebay that desperate to have an insider post on here? How can we believe anything from them when they’ve ignored their core customers for so long? My guess it’s damage control and keeps investors from panicking who read these comments.

I do have a B&M store. I still sell a little on Ebay but not near as much as I used to. Sell-through seems to be terrible these days on there. I closed my Ebay store during that debacle (yeah right, I was going to move it all to auction, I’m not a fool) and opened my own site for much cheaper. I’ve made some good sales on there and it gets better the more it gets established. I’ve diversified with other niche sites and another offline selling venue. I plan to use eCrater and I use Craigslist. I got tired of Ebay ignoring their customers and now they are my selling channel of last resort.

I encourage others to have a plan to diversify. There are plenty of cheaper solutions without the headaches. Read and learn from others on how to make them work. It can be done. Don’t forget about the offline solutions. There were mostly offline solutions before the internet got big. Craigslist works very well integrating it with local offline solutions. Don’t forget about the local area internet, they spend money too. It’s actually safer since local customers can see an item before they buy. Don’t let Ebay get you down because they won’t listen. Give them the boot or decrease what you do with them while you implement your plan to diversify.

Most of all, stay positive!

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Irma Saffell

Fri Jul 13 00:06:45 2007

I've been selling on Ebay for a long time, officially since Feb-15-98, but I started with Ebay a couple years before Pierre the original creator took his company public on the Stock Market. Once the company went public and he hired Meg Whitman from Disney as the over all company president things have quickly gone down hill ever since because of plain old greed and keeping the stock price rising, buyers were coddled and sellers we're forgotten about and our sales have suffered ever since! There was a great auction program you could buy many years ago and own with no additional cost called Auction Assist, Ebay bought it up and it's now Blackthorn Seller's Assist or something like that? Now I have to pay a monthly fees to Ebay for the auction software usage. Then there was this great thing called PayPal credit card service which allowed us little (people) sellers to have our buyers pay for their collectibles on Ebay with a credit card, guess what? Ebay bought the PayPal company, now I'm paying more money than ever for the usage and Ebay's PayPal service is extremely not seller friendly to put it mildly, just lately my PayPal account has had 2 charge backs wrongly levied against it, the buyers stated the collectibles weren't as described, the requested and got their money back from my PayPal account and kept my merchandise totaling over $1,200, I'm out the money and PayPal just can't seem to fix the situation??? Ebay's broke because their constantly proving they don't give a you know what? S - - - ! other than profits! I and thousands of fellow Ebay sellers are leaving their so called service because of just plain old greed and rotten service.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Petitioner

Fri Jul 13 17:04:17 2007

There are two noteworthy links to look at

DEMAND
eBay users: buyers and sellers demand an alternative to eBay. This resonates so obviously here as well as other places on the internet.
Look at the numbers of signatures on this Petition to Google to start online auctions
http://www.petitiononline.com/ga05/petition.html

SU
PPLY
Google wants to supply such alternative. It appears it will supply it in it's own Google way:

Get ready for a showdown in cyberspace that's going to change how you shop . . . again. The contest pits Google against eBay.

When the dust settles, at least three things will look very different in the world of retail.

* Google will have moved beyond search and morphed into a major intermediary -- efficiently connecting shoppers and sellers in a way that makes it look a lot more like, well, eBay.

* A new search technology that it's refining -- dubbed ''programmable search'' -- will make it easier for consumers to dig into store inventories and find exactly what they are looking for both on and off line, at the best price.

* Ebay and its shareholders will suffer as buyers and sellers migrate away from eBay's platform and set up their own storefronts on the Web.

HTTP://TINYURL.COM/2PJLJK

... hint ... hint ... if you have not setup your own website store and integrated Google Checkout and other Google widgets into it... the time is now!

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: anonymous

Sat Jul 14 02:03:51 2007

Ok. So how about some advice as to the best way to start a web site? Anyone have any?

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Jolene

Sat Jul 14 11:00:13 2007

Sadly, Ebay has moved against the tide online, rather than with it...Auctions were fadishly successful so now they are waning fast in popularity - just like fads predictably do. Rather than nurture an instant buying environment, Ebay readjusts via a 6% rate increase that is actually about 100-150% for most sellers. The corporate double-speak there cost Ebay a lot in terms of seller satisfaction. No one like to be treated as though they are a fool - don't sell me a poodle and tell me its a pony.

The truth is, its a lot less expensive now to run your own site or use other instant buy communities like Etsy or Ecrater than it is to list on Ebay. The justification of the expense (the mighty traffic provided) has been dwindling down while the price of doing business on Ebay has been increasing. That along with a growing negative reputation make it a no-brainer: If you are serious about online merchandising, its time to move on to the wider web and use Ebay in a much smaller capacity (to keep the $$ paid in line with the service provided).

Well, back to removing my store stock off of Ebay and placing it were it serves my business better. Thanks for the article!

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: PC

Sat Jul 14 14:20:31 2007

I came to the conclusion that the day eBay starts to seriously reduce insertion fees or final value fees would mean that eBay believes there is no use in raising fees anymore because the ride is over. Ebay is now reducing final value fees. They are desperate now, and realize they are going down slowly. Lower fees means they know that sales will not increase. It"s over folks. Time to get a job in the real world.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: hal lutsky

Sat Jul 14 17:01:05 2007

ebay has consistently falied to understand the value of goodwill. every business needs goodwill even though it's an intangible. after ebay put the stores in search many of us went out and spent small fortunes on inventory. then ebay changed it back & we got stuck. at that point, they needed to make a goodwill gesture to all the people they hurt. instead, they did the opposite and more than doubled the store insertion fees. it showed pure contempt for the sellers.

i am a promoter of antiquarian paper shows. 80% of my income is from dealers. my philosophy has always been that if the dealers are happy, everything's ok so i take care of my dealers. if the dealers are happy, that means they're making money which means the collectors are finding stuff so if the dealers are happy, by default, everyone's happy. ebay's got it backwards trying to take care of the buyers when 100% of their income is from sellers.

they've also gone off on too many tangents with too many acquisitions. they forgot what made them successful.

i've been on ebay 10 years and have seen many changes. it used to feel like a community & we loved ebay. now it feels like an oil company. just another multinational corporation out to screw you.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: PC

Sat Jul 14 17:38:30 2007

Maybe fee hikes are eBay's way of trying to tell us THEY plan on going out of business, and they are gradually giving us the brush-off by weening us away from listing....

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Chairman

Sun Jul 15 15:36:34 2007

I concur I have seen the slide in business go along with the chart. Its been a drastic and messy decline into inactive sales on eBay when just last summer things were still going strong.

Certainly the economy has not helped but eBay has also made it far worse by increasing the pain on sellers as well as cluttering thier own site with broken features and confusing changes in strategy.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: kay

Sun Jul 15 17:30:14 2007

It may be that all of us are looking for someplace else to go... as simple as that...maybe we should go outside of ebay and start our own autions site with people we trust.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: duane

Sun Jul 15 18:30:59 2007

I am interested in that option. But there have been many try and not get anywhere. Why have they all failed?

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Bill

Sun Jul 15 20:23:12 2007

What can I add your all right

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Debbie

Mon Jul 16 02:55:03 2007

I can only echo what others have said, i started selling on ebay in apr 2004 and built myself a very succesful shop - too sucessful, when they increased the visability for SIF in the UK my sales for SIF dropped ! but then they eventually stablised and now they are back to normal - my problem is the increase in fees, yes i did what ebay said i built my shop and i marketed it well, i must still hve the ability to market my shop well as over 70% of my sales are SIF, but the higher FVF fees are killing me, my profit margins are down by about 15%, i cant up my prices as im pricing myself out the market if i do. I'm in limbo, i feel like ebay have done me over, im paying the price for being good at what i do - i didnt want SIF featured in searches but i was made to pay for it anyway, they took it away but im still left the the higher FVF.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: John

Mon Jul 16 04:20:52 2007

eBay's problem is simple. They pay too much attention to what I call the ''e-tards'', bad buyers who fail to read. And Paypal protects them at our expense. eBay needs a comeuppance. We the cadre of professional sellers butter eBay's bread, yet we have very poor representation. Want to make ebay a better place - simple - start listening to the sellers. We are the ones that drive eBay's profits, not the casual buyers.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Larry

Mon Jul 16 14:08:33 2007

ebay's shear size, transparency and need to grow to satisfy investors is now causing a downward spiral in all areas of the operation.

In the beginning, eBay was an auction house, plain and simple. An item was put up at auction, no matter rare or not, a few people were interested and the bidding fun AND ANTICIPATION of winning began. Of course it was no less exciting for the seller waiting to see what the item would sell for, how many bidders were interested and so on.

For eBay to re-invigorate this site-wide excitement, the following must be understood. The core purposes of any purchase is the hunt for the special item and the final purchase. Without a doubt, the hunt is the most exciting part of the process.

Now, this search could be for, let's say, a sofa. A pretty mundane purchase but a purchase nonetheless.

Most people would keep that sofa for many years but now let's say a week later you want another sofa and still wish to hang on to the first sofa purchase. Now you have moved into the realm of a "Collector" and in this case of sofas.

First consideration for eBay - two distinct buyer/seller groups. The general purchase/sell and the collector purchase/sell.

eBay evolved from the auction of Pez dispensers and for years was an online venue for items at auction. Unfortunately eBay lost it's focus of an online auction house of collectibles in trying to sustain quick growth and investor pressure and and became a general merchandise auction house which overwhelmed the collector area. Oh sure, there are keywords to bring you to your area of interest but in many cases, you are still faced with sub-catagories. Which increases the tediousness factor.

Now from a purely business point of view, eBay had to take steps and fast to cope with exploding growth and to attract and keep investors. However what should have been done is to split the two purchase interest groups (general and collector) and then apply changes to enhance the overall experience in each segment.
Just how this would be done is for a future discussion.

In the collector area, eBay should eliminate stores which allow parking and discounting of collectibles at relatively low cost.

The feature "Watch This Item" should be eliminated. "Why?" you say. Well, if you can't watch the item, then you will have to make a bid or remmeber to go back at a later time(and how many will do this?) to check.

Sellers hate to wait until the end of the auction for most of the action, if any, to occur. This would also eliminate the "Bottom Feeders", those who want to acquire everything for next to nothing.

If you are serious, one would have to place a bid, however small, to ensure at least a chance of winning, then move on to other things.

This process is of particular importance in teaching any bidder to bid the maximum you have allowed for that item. There are no regrets or wall-punching when you have bid your maximum and lost especially when it could be only as little as .50¢. Arrrg!

Lastly (for lack of discussion time, as there are far more things to do), allow auction time extensions to prevent sniping.

eBay's so-called transparency has also hurt the collector area by allowing time for considerable research on a particular item up at auction.

At any live auction, large or small, there is only a small amount of time for pre-viewing, usually about 1½ hours before the auction (of course, with larger specialized aucions, advance information is forwarded via electronic or paper to registered collectors).

eBay is simply not much "Fun" anymore. Many sellers of collectibles feel, for the time and cost, it's just not worth it. This collector area will be lost to eBay and it will evolve into simply a mass-merchandise low budget online auction site. Even now many manufacturers have this opinion of eBay!

eBay would do well to re-evaluate their business model. One important aspect is the collecting area. As the population
ages, and even the younger generation for that matter, collecting is seen as a great pastime and in many cases, investment.

L.Lemieux

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: JoeS

Mon Jul 16 15:06:40 2007

To Anon and all who asked about setting up your own site,

Everyone’s situation is different so it’s good to investigate the alternatives. One of the best places to investigate your alternatives is www.powersellersunite.com . There are plenty of testimonials of what works for some sellers. I’ve personally researched what others were saying quite a bit on there. You can also ask questions on their forum. As I pointed out in a post earlier is that I am diversified in several places including offline. I do believe fixed-price formats are going to be more of the future of e-commerce because of the convenience factor.

I’m currently building a niche site on eCrater. I love the simplicity of selling on there and no fees for now. They are growing tremendously over the last year. They definitely have applied the K.I.S.S. principle to their site. This has been lost on Ebay. My only knock on eCrater is their search and not being able to search for stores but I’m sure it will get more advanced as it gets more popular. I have friends who already have their eCrater stores up and running and claim to get quite a bit of traffic coming in from Google. I believe when Google renamed Froogle to Google Product Search that will help all sites that feed to Google.

When I first started my website I started advertising it on the local level. The reach was anywhere from a 300 to 400 mile radius. I sold items right away and continue to do so. This has helped in getting the website established on a national level and the national sales continue to progress. I also have other support websites for my main site to help draw traffic to it. It all also helps drive traffic to my B&M store. Craigslist is also good for your local market although you can’t advertise your website on there but you can still draw in local customers.

As I said earlier, don’t forget the local area customers because they spend money too. One other thing about the local markets is it may be possibly a safer environment to conduct trade. Whether you operate your online business from your home, a storage unit, or a B&M store, a buyer can always drive a short distance to conduct business if they choose so. They can look over the item before they decide to buy. Even if they purchase the product without looking and a small dispute arises, they don’t have far to drive to get it resolved. Since Ebay bungled trust & safety so bad on their site buyers are going to be much more cautious with online purchase in the future. A local area internet offers a little more trust and safety for the buyer. I’ve actually started seeing more people at trade shows, flea markets, etc.

While I like the local area internet market I’m not saying to give up on the national market. Good testimonials on your website can help national buyers decide whether it’s safe to purchase from you. This is just some things that have worked for me. What works for me may not work for others but I do invite sellers to check out www.powersellersunite.com for alternatives that may work for you. Like I said earlier, don’t let Ebay get you down because there are alternatives.

Research is the key and good luck.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Martin

Mon Jul 16 18:19:54 2007

This pretty much mirrors my own business also. It was building nicely until the eBay stores fiasco last year. I've managed to get my sales up a bit recently but I am paying far more in eBay and paypal fees. It is a real struggle.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: cara

Wed Jul 18 01:50:02 2007

Just received a survey from eBay -- a 'loyalty and satisfaction' survey. Interesting timing, eh?

And a new eBay 2-day promotion has appeared in my inbox, so we have that along with the promotional reduction in FVFs going on. Hmmmm. Summer is always slow, but I don't recall these types of promotions ever before.

Have appreciated the many solid posts to this thread. Am wondering if we'll see some kind of follow-up article, perhaps summarizing the basic points raised by so many here? It would certainly round things out.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: anonymous

Thu Jul 19 15:04:52 2007

I was just looking at the Q2 2007 report. Is it possible Meg is right and we are wrong? How come eaby was so successful while most of us reporting we have reduced our presence on the site as sellers as well as buyers?

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Les

Fri Jul 20 01:00:06 2007

Discrepancy between 2007 eBay reports and Seller's experience

I was also surprised by the increase in the total eBay revenue. I can think of following reasons:

1. Although many existing sellers are experiencing lower sales volume, there are always new sellers coming in, and some of them may be quite successful (at least in the initial stage of their market segment).

2. The international market is still gowing faster then the eBay.com, Canada, UK, Australia. Coupled with lower dollar value, this portion of eBay revenue has significantly increased.

3. Of course, Paypal which is used also on many websites, is doing very well, and this improves eBay's bottom line.

4. Skype - I'm not sure. It brings some revenue, but we don't know the related expenses and liabilities.

5. eBay ads, selling of the auction data, and some other auxilliary companies, are probably growing, too.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Katherine

Fri Jul 20 01:15:37 2007

I am so relieved to read these comments!

I thought I was part of an extremely small minority of disgruntled ebay sellers!

Reading this gives me hope that ebay will FINALLY get a meaningful competitor!

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: John

Fri Jul 20 19:29:11 2007

I've been buying and selling for 8 years. I think people spend less time on eBay b/c it hasn't gotten appreciably easier to do anything. With the option creep, it is actually more of a pain now. Hence, those who do eBay are getting tired of the effort. Those who have tired of the novelty aren't anxious to deal with the hassle.

I've recently discovered Craigslist and it's awesome. Everyone I meet (customers and seller) think it's the best thing since sliced bread. I've sold 20 things and bought 5 in 2 weeks...and there are no fees and no shipping/not complex to complete a transaction.

I love it. I can no longer say that about eBay.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: battybatty

Sat Jul 21 14:00:32 2007

Keep good service on your customers.

Some non sense tool. Would can sweep out?
They may reduce waste time on meeting in ballroom.
Blogs
EBay Express
eBay to Go widget
Markdown Manager for eBay Stores
MyWorld
New Auction Counters
Reduced Store Visibility In Search
Reviews & Guides

That not good idea to explained your self in front of Mirrors.
Many more useless help tools.
Market in Market strategy are diect to reduce maketshare on main auction site.

Reduce search items. Ebay.com has default to search only USA listing items.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: katie

Sun Jul 22 09:37:47 2007

Folks mention Craigslist. It works. And you can list all over the country and the world. I've begun experimenting with payment and shipping using PayPal on Craigslist and it's working!!! I'm selling all over the world again....for free. :)

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Frank

Sun Jul 22 09:57:39 2007

My two cents are this. This has been one scary summer. I sell clothing and shoes (new) in July 2005 I had $22,000 in sales. In July 2006 I had 14,000 in sales. This July I'll be lucky if I make $5000 in sales. This is a big drop-off. It's so slow that I've actually gone 3 days in a row without a single question from a buyer? It's like an atom bomb hit. I have 600 items listed,spread out in store and auctions. I even put ''Best Offers'' on loads of my store items. I thought I would at least be inundated with ridiculous offers nope. It was only 2 years ago if I had $22,000 in sales my listings were $2200 per month. Now my lising fees are $2200 for about $14,000 in sales??? Yes gas is $3 a gallon but it was last summer also? It's really bad I wish I had the answers. Help

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Clyde

Sun Jul 22 11:02:55 2007

Users are spending less time on eBay for two reasons in my opinion: (1) price, and (2) volume.

Prices are generally higher because the expense associated with procuring products, listing, selling and shipping have gone up. At one point, one could buy something for less on eBay as compared to brick and mortar stores. That has encouraged lower prices in stores via discounts and coupons on one hand, and on the other, S&H has increased as USPS rates have risen. All that brings the decision to shop in a "real" store much more enticing given the instant gratification of carrying the product home when one buys it. (2) Volume in terms of the total number of listings one must search to find what one wants. If often find that an item I offer for $.99 one week that doesn't sell, sells for several times that a couple of weeks later when I relist it for $.01 (actually that occurs for me 67% of the time and the average price sold is $2.57). What that tells me is a lot of people start out browsing for the lowest starting price and never get thru all the $.01 items before they log off.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Paul

Sun Jul 22 11:26:54 2007

The phenomenon of "Bidding Frenzy" is over. EBay keeps trying to build a fancier Hula Hoop but nobody cares.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Linda

Sun Jul 22 11:46:01 2007

I don't understand Ebay. When they saw the success of putting Ebays Stores in Search, business grew like crazy. People were happy and probably would list a ton more of stuff because of increased sales. Its funny to me as Ebay at the same time was also trying to develop a similar concept in Ebay Express, where people can just buy it now. But instead they dissapointed alot of sellers who now closed their stores or list less because of the higher fees and no search option. Auctions no longer work, or at least not like they used to in the past. They only work for collectibles that start off at an attractive low price. Fixed auctions is where its at. Rather than focusing on lowering Summer final value fees, Ebay should be promoting lower listing fees and doing it regularly so that more and more people get back to listing more stuff. Rather than preserving the past (Auctions) look at developing what the market is telling Ebay to do. The more stuff that people can find on Ebay the better for everyone. Imagine doing a serch for what ever interests you and it comes back with say 50 items. Then doing that same search and it returns 500 items. Would you not spend more time on Ebay looking at all of the 500 items of interest rather than reading wiki, blogs or discussion groups. The simple answer to Ebays issues is start listing to your customer.....Sellers. If you can make them happy you will in turn enhance the buying experience for buyers. Its a win win. I am not saying that this is easy and not with out challenges. But its the way to go. Instead Ebay focus is on changing the market to what they want it to be. Auctions, Stores but only with good items (Quality not quantity). Yes Ebay I know that the Stores in search mode will kill the auction theory that you so desperatly want to keep alive and well. But you need to find and develop new ideas that would make it work, rather than preserving the past with the onld concept of classic auction listings.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Nancy

Sun Jul 22 12:02:11 2007

I have been both a seller and buyer on ebay but mostly a buyer. Personally I stopped spending so much time on ebay after automated bidding became so pervasive. As a result of this, all significant activity takes place in the last few minutes of most auctions. What is the point in logging on to see what is going on when any bid will immediately be overbid. May as well wait until those last few minutes. This seems to have raised the prices paid for many items but has significantly reduced the time I used to spend on ebay browsing for interesting items after I made a bid. When I see something I like, I just make a note of when its auction will end and place my bids then.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Harold

Sun Jul 22 12:35:30 2007

Ebay killed their own success by trying to be everything to everyone. Auctions was the foundation to their success. Then someone at Ebay started to think about other ways to make more money. Stores, Express, Fixed Auctions, Buy it Now, Best Offer, Markdown Manager and so on. In that complicated array of offerings it caused one major error. It killed Ebays classic auctions. Ebay is always spending hords of money on what they call Marketing to enhance this and that to make the Buyer experience exceptional. Instead what they should do is to boldly go to the next generation of Ebay Sales. Put the stores back into the search engine. I know I can just hear it now Ebays executives crying.....''but that will kill our classic auctions''. As an Ebay Executive you get paid the big bucks to figure that out. Develope a new selling strategy to increase sales (more listings and more exposure to the items), make sellers happy (listen to them as they are the key and Ebays biggest reason for success and stock prices) Here is the big shocker ''Stop wasting time and money on the so called buyer experience''. Don't get me wrong I am not talking about promoting listings on TV or adverting. I am talking about the Buyer experience that Ebay talks about by limiting the search function, getting rid of the crap listed in stores, spending money and development time on Blogs, wiki, My world, Feedback V2....and so on. Leave the Buyers experience on Ebay to the sellers. Its their job and their customer not Ebays. Let me reapeat that.....Buyers experience is the job of the seller not Ebays. (Note I am not talking about site navigation) Ebays customer is the Seller. You need to focus on making the sellers happy. Ebays job is to figure out a way to make it happen and for it to all work. Yes its a tough tall order but if all of Ebays resources are pointed in that one common goal it can be achived. Formula: Happy Sellers with more listings = More Buyer time spent on site

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Linda

Sun Jul 22 13:30:24 2007

As a seller for 9-1/2 years, I can attest to the fact that Ebay was way simpler to use, and much more fun "way back when". Ebay's current attempts to add that "fun" back in just clutters the site and makes it more cumbersome and difficult. It would be more fun if they just went back to the "less is more" concept. They are trying to be all things to all people. That never is a very sound business plan. Niche marketing will beat it every time. They need to hone in on what they originally intended to be and leave it at that.

The downward spike began when they started messing with the search, and trying to make everything fit the Ebay Express mold. Trust me, Ebay Motors DOES NOT fit that mold. The current re-design of the EBM site, and specically the exclusion of the "search by title and descsription" was a huge mistake. Exclusion of the "Advanced Search", and "Completed Search" was also a bad mistake. Fortunately rather than roll it out permanently, they retracted it after a huge outcry from the motors community. They are working on a second "trial" phase, with hopefully some of those crucial elements of the site added back. But what remains is a site that requires many more clicks to hoepfully find the same things that previously (on the old site) could be found in one click. Why do they feel that they somehow have to "keep up with the Joneses" when THEY ARE THE JONESES! They are the leader of the pack, and set the standard. They should not feel the need to change when they have an efficient fast site with a great search. Most of us have had declining sales since we know for a fact that some of our listings are not showing up in EBM search. It is sad to me that a company will mess with their client's bottom line while they play around testing new (un-needed and un-requested)methods and tactics, resulting in less sales for the seller, and frustrated buyers because they no longer can find what they once could on the site.

I could go on about the Customer Service, (or lack there of)but I think they just have their head in the sand about needing to provide it. Until it severly affects THEIR bottom line, and they can prove that is the problem, nothing will change.

It used to be truly "a venue" for selling/trading in the community of users. Now it is a highly regulated, politcally correct, entity that does what it wants. If it has taught me anything, it is that things can change overnight that make your present Ebay business non-profitable,(through no change or fault of your own) so don't put ALL of your eggs in the Ebay basket!

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: John Marzy

Sun Jul 22 14:01:03 2007

I became an eBay member in 1998.

As I read these posts it reminds me of a loved one that we are concerned with.

If it were a pet, we would go to a vet.
A person, a doctor.

We have no vet or doctor to go to. We have all read hundreds of threads of issues with eBay. But no comment from eBay, no customer service.

My own short reply reflects my own overall apathy, that other then you my fellow buyers and sellers that eBay does not care.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Isabella

Sun Jul 22 15:00:04 2007

I'm a Power Seller who shares the general disenchantment with eBay. My two cents:

eBay has lost its novelty and those who like to spend lots of time online have moved onto MySpace, YouTube and other sites.

Buyers are getting tired of the auction format. They don't want to wait a week to see if they win the item, they would rather purchase immediately.

Because buyers are spending less time on the site, and logging on less often, 7-day (even 10-day) auctions are becoming a risky proposition for sellers. I've had many times where an item I've listed at auction has had no takers at a reasonable opening bid; I then put it in my store at a higher price and it sells rather quickly. Why would I want to pay more for an auction listing?

The perception of fraud is increasing. Buyers are increasingly reluctant to buy high-ticket items on eBay because they feel there's such a great likelihood of either never getting the item at all, finding it's not as misrepresented, or just being disappointed.

All of these coupled with a generally sluggish economy have made these tough times for eBay sellers.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Gary

Sun Jul 22 19:28:32 2007

One commenter hit it on the head when they said "eBay's conceit and arrogance are its downfall.". There are dozens, if not hundreds, of examples of this mindset, but it all boils down to a basic character flaw.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: VINCENT LIMONGELLI

Sun Jul 22 21:10:57 2007

BEEN SELLING ON EBAY SINCE FEB 1999 AND IN MY OPINION EBAY HAS RUN AGROUND! WHENEVER EBAY CAN IT HAS IT'S HAND OUT TRYING TO SQUEEZE EVERY LAST DROP OUT OF THE SELLER! I ASK, WHY THE SELLER! WITH EBAY DOWN LIKE IT IS AND WITH FRAUD EVERYWHERE'S, TRUTHFULLY I DO NOT EVEN KNOW WHO IS HONEST OR DISHONEST ON THE SITE ANYMORE, REALLY YOU CANNOT BE SURE, ALSO WHEN CAN YOU REMEMBER EBAY DOING A FULL BLOWN WORLD WIDE MARKETING CAMPAIGN TO ENLIST, SECURE AND GUARANTEE NEW BUYERS? WE NEED NEW BUYERS, NEW LIFE BLOOD!! EBAY, STOP TRYING TO BLEED YOUR SEASONED SELLERS, WHEN WILL THEY GET THAT CONCEPT, WHEN IT'S TOO LATE?

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Anna Lenihan

Mon Jul 23 02:49:38 2007

Been a member and selling since 3/99. With all of these new additions to the site such as blogs, wiki, reviews & guides, My World, etc. I can't help but wonder if they have a bunch of teenagers running things over there.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Fred Murphy

Mon Jul 23 03:46:20 2007

[quote]...and I know when it broke. The day that eBay announced Check Out and made it mandatory. After about three weeks they relented on the mandatory part, but Check Out was the first time that eBay said to its seller's "We are going to take control of a very important part of your business...and there's nothing you can do about it."[/quote]
When I attended ebaY U (about the time they rolled out stores) they said that they couldn't legally tell people what payment forms they could accept. They couldn't prevent people from accepting PayEnemy (which they didn't own yet) for example.

But they can now tell us we can't accept money (or google payments).

We had one of the first stores. We closed it after ebaY decided that they should make more money for moving a few electrons around than we did for taking all the risk and making all the investment.

Partcularly amazing was that while the costs of everything from computer parts to bandwidth nosedived, they felt they should get 20-5,000% increases every year. Not because they needed them to continue, simply because they could get them. An increase of $20 per unit in FVF for absolutely no additional help in selling that unit was the last straw. Big deal, save $4.75 in listing fees, but if you sell one, pay enough in additional FVF to list it for 40 days!

Equally amazing is that ebaY raised store fees because they were losing money on items that were slow moving. Yet Amazon would allow 40,000 store items plus unlimited Marketplace items for a flat $40 a month, which would only get you 800 store items on ebaY.

Is it any wonder that the top five stores collectively pulled over 3 million listings?

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Julie

Mon Jul 23 06:32:05 2007

hank you for writing eBay in regard to providing a suggestion to eBay.

I realize the importance of this issue and would like to assist you.

Please allow me to apologize for the delay in our response.

Please understand that eBay welcomes comments from members of our
Community, and we appreciate your suggestions. This type of
communication helps us improve our services and meet your needs.

However, our company policy doesn't allow us to accept suggestions
unless we specifically request them. We hope that you understand that
this policy can avoid future misunderstandings if new products,
services, and features developed internally by eBay employees seem
similar or even identical to a member's idea.

***Important***
Any comments or materials (including questions, technical or creative
suggestions, and ideas) that you send to us aren't considered
confidential or proprietary. To learn more about eBay's policy on
submitting unsolicited ideas, go to:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/unsolicited-ideas.html<
BR>
For more information about sending suggestions to eBay, go to:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/newtoebay/suggest.html

We are committed to making your eBay experiences pleasant and
fulfilling.

Sincerely,
Bruce H.

eBay Customer Support
_____________________________________________

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: sewingbonbon38

Mon Jul 23 06:35:11 2007

With the introduction of their new group platform, eBay is going to continue to see a drop in sellers.

Many large successful groups have chosen to move off eBay due to the fact that the new platform is non functional.
And as usual, eBay is not responding to the critical issues with the new platform. If we get any information from them at all, it is of little or no significance. There are serious privacy and security issues with the new platform that are not being addressed by eBay.

Group leaders and moderators are being forced to do the ''deprogramming'' of the new platform for eBay. It is up to the leaders and moderators to find all the glitches, report them or find solutions on their own, instead of having the LiveWorld programmers that are being paid by eBay do this job.

When members have tried to express their concerns to eBay regarding the problems with the new group platform, eBay's response was that they do not accept any comments or suggestions unless they specifically ASK for them

So many leaders have made the choice to move their groups off eBay,
This has caused members to move along with their groups so they can continue to buy and sell from their fellow group members.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Lee W.

Mon Jul 23 07:47:47 2007

It's the beginning of the end for eBay - if you have stock bail out. Too much clutter - not with listings - but with eBay silly business (Express for one). Competition is gaining - sites like iBidFree.com - or similar have a new fresh look and this power seller is jumping ship. Most angry about the Fees, Fees and MORE Fees, less visability of my store, and the star system (too agressive when there is NO ACCOUNTABILITY). Less time on eBay - absolutely.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Alan

Mon Jul 23 09:18:53 2007

Ebay ''should” allow sellers to access & email potential buyers who may be interested in their particular item. Years ago, they banned a software that would extract the emails of customers who recently “bid & lost” on that a particular item. Thus, allowing the seller to email them with a ''letter of introduction'' of yourself & to inform them that you happen to have the same item they lost, up for sale on Ebay right now, along with the link to that auction. My sales increased by over 70% - with my profits increasing by over an astonishing 150%!!! I LOVED THIS SOFTWARE!!! And so did the customers I contacted, letting them know about my auction. After several of my BEST MONTHS on Ebay, Ebay claimed that was spamming & banned the software. In my opinion, they should produce that software themselves & ask all new & current Ebay Buyers if they would like to ''Opt-In'' to emails from sellers like myself, allowing us to email them with links to similar auctions that failed to previously win. This would be HUGE for everyone!!! Why you may ask? (1) The Ebay Seller knows that he will have people of strong interest notified, telling them that, ''Hey...I have this item for sale that you came in 2nd, or 3rd or 4th, etc. recently. Thus, here is a link to it…Happy Bidding!'' (2) The potential client is happy that some is telling them, ''Hey, don't fret or feel like you missed out, I happen to have another one just like it here!'' (3) Ebay will enjoy GREATER PROFITS due to all of the potential clients being notified, coupled with any NEW bidders that participate in that auction. This would be the greatest asset to all 3 parties & should they implement it ASAP! (Hopefully before the holidays!!!)

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Bob

Mon Jul 23 10:46:24 2007

''However, our company policy doesn't allow us to accept suggestions
unless we specifically request them. We hope that you understand that
this policy can avoid future misunderstandings if new products,
services, and features developed internally by eBay employees seem
similar or even identical to a member's idea.''

Now, this is absolutely ABSURD.
They really don't want to hear from us, unless they have already made up their mind and request input on what they have ALREADY decided.
So backward thinking,
and letting the legal dept run the company, all the way into oblivion.

The lights are on, but no one is home..

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: JW

Mon Jul 23 10:46:59 2007

Just want to thank all who have posted here. The insights offered have been very, very helpful. I have already moved to another site and will phase out eBay altogether as soon as I can.

And I don't want to forget the eBay ''insider'' who wrote:

''consider me an ''eBay insider''. the new eBay is pretty amazing. You'll see some amazing features. And the announcement of no fee hikes should be welcomed.
''eBay ''gets it'' and the new ebay will bring back the community and fun that many are used to.
''Be patient, good things are coming...''

I wish to thank this ''insider'' for their ''contributions'' to rational discourse. The shallowness of this comment stands in stark contrast to the depth of virtually all the other comments. In fact, this ''insider's'' comment seems to be emblematic of the whole damned problem.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Skip McGrath

Mon Jul 23 10:53:48 2007

Brilliant article David! My business pretty much mirrors your charts, although I am seeing a slightly higher STR lately --about 5% better.

Besides the store problems there are too many distractions (blogs, reviews,wikis, etc.)and the drop in listings reduce the natural traffic to the site by people looking for products.

I have found that eBay DOES listen to sellers --but that is all they do. They rarely take action on what they learn.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Bob

Mon Jul 23 12:55:08 2007

Ebay has eliminated the very things that made them and sparked their growth. Ebay used to be simple to buy and sell. Read that as ''fun''. Now you need a lawyer and tons of time to navigate the rules and complexities of buying and especially selling on Ebay. Ebay had become so cumbersome for both buyers and sellers, I don't blame anyone for spending less time on Ebay. I don't spend as much time either. Ebay now is like trying to do your own taxes and reading the tax law from IRS from front to back and understanding it.
The second biggest problem on Ebay is the double standard for buyers and sellers. It has always been a problem but with each change Ebay nakes it just reinforces the feeling that the sellers are being judged by increasingly harsh and demanding standards. In most cases we are being judged by standards that are outside of our control. Between feedbacks where the buyers just lie or hold you hostage over a negative feedback which Ebay can use to justify restricting sellers. Show me any other business where punitive actions can be taken over unverified facts. Aside from that, they won't even tell you exactly what standards they are holding you too.
Sellers are trated like criminals, bear the brunt of the increased fees and we can't even offer whatever payment methods WE choose! Is it any wonder that many sellers are abandoning the site? Less sellers means less variety. Less variety means more buyers going elsewhere. That equals less time spent on Ebay.
Not as much fun = not as much time spent . Could it be any simpler?

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Charli

Mon Jul 23 14:20:58 2007

Gene & I left ebay quite a while ago (during the big double billing fiasico that put so many out of business) and opened up a small Mom & Pop shop with a company/person who is geared toward the Whams (work at home Moms). We don't make a huge living but enough and our little business grows each year. We still sell once in a while on ebay but not much. Too much work for too little return and there are other places popping up and making a dent. U-Bid is one.

I still buy on ebay because that's where I find what I collect. If you're a buyer you need to be knowelgable about what you're buying so you don't get ripped off. If you're a seller you need to go the extra mile for your buyers. It's the same everywhere. In any case Ebay has lost what made it great TRUST.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Sandra

Mon Jul 23 14:50:06 2007

i know they aren't-not many sales-then i get buyers who only have a few feedbacks and are powersellers?? or they are not confirmed?? what do i do?? i am afraid to take their payments??

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Fred Murphy

Mon Jul 23 15:58:57 2007

> My question is this, specifically what other auction sites are out there where people are actually having success at selling items?

And my question in reply is why people think the answer to ebaY is a different form of ebaY.

In the real world, auctions are a tiny % of transactions, with most stuff sold at fixed prices.

If a real world auction house only had a 30% sell-thru rate like ebaY does, they'd be out of business in six weeks.

The fact is ebaY is being replaced by many, not just one, fixed-price venues, from web sites to places like Amazon and ecrater.

Rare collectables lend themselves to auctions. Stuff commonly handled in retail stores is fixed price. Who the heck wants to wait a week to see if they "won" a cartridge for their printer, when they need it NOW?

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: JoeS

Mon Jul 23 22:36:40 2007

Lots of great comments here.

I just want to add one more observation. I've been registered on Ebay since 1998 and did quite a bit of selling til the stores debacle of last year. Since then, I've kept a small presence on Ebay for about a year now. Sell through rates have been terrible since then and I'm about to give Ebay up for good. I've been diversifying my business elsewhere and have had some luck. What a waste of an great idea Ebay once was, done in by poor management of the core business.

This management team was never about being there for their customers/users as they have demonstrated time and time again. No, it was all about what they could get away with from their users/customers and now it's coming back to haunt them.

Meg and her team needs to go.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: eeg

Mon Jul 23 23:31:00 2007

GreedBay...FeeBay. The nicknames say it all. The article and the comments are very accurate. I don't need to repeat most of it. Maybe a little fodder to see some things a bit differently?

I have been thru the Wooing stage of the Stores and the consequent letdown. I have not shut down my store as of yet. It is not due to some level of trust, loyalty or sense of community...it is simply because it is still the largest game on the block. They are a marketing means and a tool, until they are not.

As a Buyer, I hate to wade thru the $0.01 listings with $30-$60.00 shipping...so I choose to look at the list from high to low. I check store inventory from the search...my favorite searches are duplicated because I added the same keywords to search stores. However, you need to be familiar with the site to know that you can do things that way. The constant changing of the locations, sizes and colors of buttons, links and tabs must really frustrate those that are trying to learn to navigate eBay. No wonder they are not returning or spending less time there. I have had to spend 0.5 hour in search to find my own listings at times, sometimes never finding them at all.

Not being able to find your own item that you 'know' is there points to the biggest problem facing Sellers at eBay...paying for services not received. eBay is by far the biggest culprit of that kind of fraud online,or anywhere. Fast to give you lip-service, slow to 'implement' policy changes to 'help' us (ie: reduce overcharges on shipping) blah, blah, blah. There is no 'implementing' going on, just documenting what their lips say for the legal department with no intentions of follow-thru or at best, ineffective follow-thru. Every school kid knows that it is only a rule if it is enforcable and IS enforced.

I wonder, if I paid for my fees & subscriptions with Paypal, could I get a refund of my payments thru chargebacks based on services not received? (sense of humor req'd).

As for the numbers being confusing...I just get reminded of Enron, Tyco, WorldCom etc whenever I see conflicting info like this on a stock-driven company. Those guys went on making obscene amounts of money for a long time while playing variations of a shell game to hide losses before the house of cards fell down. I am not saying that is what is happening...just get a moment of De Ja Vu.

To wrap this up, I wanted to whine a minute about why I started buying online in the first place. I could not find a variety of goods, decent competitive pricing or true customer service in the malls, or the chain stores and all the M&Ps were disappearing. Now I see it happening online. I am saddened & frustrated.

C'Mon people...take back your consumerism power. If we don't insist on the basics...we deserve what we get.

Maybe what we are seeing is an ebb & flow that is natural to the marketplace...we went to online because we could not get what we wanted in the B&M world...now the B&M world needs to pick up the slack until they forget and we all have to resort to online stores again until they grow too big for their britches...again. In the meantime, I think I will just try & be a frugal buyer with great items to sell at fair prices, provide excellent customer service, and follow whichever marketplace has the buyers.

Luck to everyone!!

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Violette

Tue Jul 24 16:14:49 2007

One point that has been brought up by others is the decline in buying due to lack of merchandise available. I have to agree with this. Just 2 years ago, I spent over $30,000 buying source materials for my business. But, in the past year, I've only spent a fraction of that. I buy vintage/antique items and my searches are showing a marked decrease in the type of items I want. Where have these sellers gone? I sell unique vintage items and have seen competition in these categories drop, so theoretically, my sell-through should increase, right? Wrong!

I think other buyers are seeing the same things that I am. Ebay is no longer a place to buy unique or antique items and collectibles. Instead, they are just another place to by discounted iPods or DVDs. If they want to bring back the "fun", they need to cut listing fees to bring back these sellers of unique items, who are most likely smaller-scale sellers (since it takes much more effort to list unique items that 100 iPods).

I want to love eBay. I really do. It has a lot of great features, but lately, it's suffering from the kind of bloat we in the software industry call "creeping featurism". They keep adding new gee-whiz doohickeys and so-called "features" and tinkering with things until people get fed up and give up what they're trying to do. Adding new features inevitable leads to new bugs, because nothing ever works right the first time.

eBay needs to take a break and focus on making everything work right before adding new stuff. Give buyers the ability to refine their searches more easily so they can avoid the piles of crap that seem to clog everything. Make everyone -- buyers and sellers alike -- provide valid information prior to be allowed to buy or sell on the site. Verifying identities would eliminate a good portion of the fraud. Make people choose decent passwords or do like banks and have two layers of protection. The new "key" option for Paypal is a start, but it can be confusing to newbies and the less-literate of computer users. Rather than alienating the smaller sellers, they should focus on reining in the high-volume ripoff artists. Steps such as these might entice both buyers and seller back into the eBay world.

If things don't change soon, Google will have an all-too-eager audience waiting for whenever they decide to take the plunge into the auction world.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: pc

Tue Jul 24 21:02:30 2007

Almost all comments confirm what has been dawning on me.

1) Ebay has peaked
2) Plan and begin implementation of your exit strategy
4) Build and get your own site up and running
5) Integrate Google tools (Adwords, GooglePay etc.)
6) Build a profitable on-line store and watch with a smile as the Ebay s**t hits the fan

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: JB

Thu Jul 26 15:39:10 2007

Ebay's "indexing" issues is inexcusable. Sellers paying for 7 days and receiving 6. Some sellers are unaware of this problem as ebay places the auctions as listed in our "my ebay" page. Glad someone is filing a lawsuit. Hopefully in time this will get resolved.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: anonymous

Thu Jul 26 21:16:07 2007

Last night I did a search on google..."Ebay is going down". I had a lot of results, but one was very interesting. It was about why Ebay's stock is going down. It turned out to be a thread in a ebay forum that was very comparable to this thread. In fact, someone on that thread even referenced this one. I was surprised to find it on there....I mean it was long and had a lot of great comments. But this morning when I went to check it, it was gone. I had heard that Ebay pulled the bad comments from those forums, but had never seen it happen.

So for those of you who were in doubt, doubt no more.

WE NEED TO FIX THIS SOMEHOW!!!!

I chose to do this for a living and I have been reduced to working 16 to 18 hours a day to not even survive any more...I am just hoping for a streak that will get me enough cash together to get something else going. A squirrel in a cage is all I am any more.

It was so nice back when I thought I could do what I loved to do and make a living at it.

Meg and Bill are the equivalent of great grand kids inheriting Granpas old but low mile car. It lookds and runs great at first, but dont change the oil and maintain it, you run it into the ground. No matter how many horns, lights, bells, whistle you put on it, it wont run till the engine is fixed or replaced.

Those two need to walk the plank. Oh look what I found.....EBAY. What should we do with it Meg? I dont know Bill......uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Frank

Thu Jul 26 21:49:27 2007

Yes I echo your thoughts. This month is wrapping up and it is the WORST ever. I've managed to sell 100 items for the month. This is what I would usually do in a WEEK. I really can't get over how dead it is on ebay. To say it's summer and sales are always slow. (Is just kidding myself) it's just plain dreadful not to mention scary.

Just foood for thought. Ebay has changed it so I can't extend my listing from 7 days to 10 days. I simply did this to save a relisting fee. I had no ulterior motive to get my listing on top of the searches. I just had a fisherman mentality and thought If I let the bait soak for 3 more days perhaps I will get a bite or a straggler. Now it's a 10 day listing or you just relist (or spend more in relisting fees) The reason for this new rule was it was better for the buyers.

I'm lost You mean tirekickers or potential buyers? I thought you were only a buyer when you bought and paid for an item. As it stands now. I buy the merchandise (lay out my cash) take pictures list the items answer all questions and I can't extend my listing for 3 more days??? I have all my money and time invested and ebay is worrying about a tirekicker who has "NOTHING" invested that "Might" buy from me. A real head scratcher.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: dale

Sat Jul 28 12:16:01 2007

It's really simple ... What use to cost me $2200 a month to list on ebay in 2001 now costs $7100. After 30,000 feedback I watched income go from 100K to 12K. Competition and industry changes I could handle. Ebay's odd way of hiring me to work for them was disgusting. Greed wins. Customers who enjoyed great products and great prices lose. Ebay killed what made it great - the sellers.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: BGNW

Sat Jul 28 23:59:57 2007

Quarterly Report to SEC Filed 7/27/07

Very Interesting. Discusses a number of issues, including types of businesses eBay owns, many of the ongoing lawsuits against eBay, declining employee morale, complaints from Attorney Generals Office from various states and much more.

http://investor.ebay.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=950134-0
7-15993

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: ThriftyPeanut

Wed Aug 1 05:16:52 2007

Very interseting data, and some pretty enlightning comments here... I was also a big seller with eBay at one time, but in recent years I have spent ALOT less time on eBay due to higher fees, and most importantly a serious lack of communication on eBay's part. eBay has become nothing more than a big corporation, and their attitudes toward the sellers reflect that.
I primarily deal in used books & videos, and at one time offered all of my inventory on both Amazon, as well as Half.com, but when they got greedy with Half.com a few years ago, we dropped all but a small handful of items from there and went excusively to Amazon for the book & video portion of our business. We have since grown by leaps and bounds, but I still refuse to go back to Half.com because of the corporate greed. My eBay sales have also steadily declined, and as a result I list less & less with them because there doesn't seem to be any point in it when most of the profit is eaten up with fees - I work for myself, NOT eBay.

Sellers are the life blood of eBay, and you would think they would treat them better because of this. I work very hard to run an honest and trustworthy business, and eBay automatically treats me like I'm a criminal. Another big problem I see with eBay is the seemingly huge amount of real crooks out there selling counterfeit items, and ripping people off like crazy. No wonder buyers are spending less time and less money on eBay... If they would do something about the real crooks using multiple user IDs maybe they could start turning "it" all around. In the meantime, I too look for alternatives to eBay - they don't care about me as a seller, so why should I keep generating revenue for them? I was VERY close to opening one of those ProStores last year, but I decided against it based solely on eBay's attitude toward an obviously honest seller. I am proud to say that I have acheived and maintained a feedback on eBay over 2200, and still 100% positive. This may seem like small potatoes to some, but at my current level of business, its a great accomplishment in my eyes. But it really torques me off to just be ignored and have no way to really communicate with eBay, and to be treated like I'm a crook...

For me and my business, the decision is simple: I will move to other venues to sell, and simply treat eBay as I have been treated - like a crook. When they have a change of heart, perhaps I will give them another chance, but only time will tell...

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Patricia

Wed Aug 1 13:55:55 2007

Ebay needs to cut the nonsense. Traffic and revenue will not improve until buyer's feel safe buying on eBay again! They need to weed out the worst sellers and fraudsters and then heavily advertise that eBay is a safe place to shop. They need to give buyers confidence once again!! They are trying to avoid this every way possible and nothing else is working. They have just about milked seller's dry for their needed revenue - its time for them to be honest about the business itself or watch the whole ship slowly sink!

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Ray

Fri Aug 3 19:06:07 2007

As a buyer and shopper I have significantly reduced the time I spend on eBay over the past couple of years. One of the primary reasons is that the merchandise assortment continues to shrink. One of the things that brought me to ebay was the ability to search for specialty and unique items that just could not be found in the typical brick and mortar operations. It seems to me that eBay used to facilitate the ability of sellers to provide those items and today eBay seems to be more interested in the higher listing average and larger volume sellers.

Perhaps eBay's attitude and volumes of rules have chased sellers away. Perhaps times are changing and there are just better options than the eBay experience.

In the past I would shop for my special items on eBay and continue to search for listings for other items I could use. Now, I find that the unique items are disappearing from ebay. There just doesn't seem to be a perceived value in shopping eBay and the uniqueness of a much larger assortment of items is gone.

I don't know if the folks at eBay understand that people don't go to eBay simply because it is eBay. People come to shop and explore the seller's listings. Buyers develop relationships with sellers, not eBay. I could care less about eBay and if all the seller's listings were on another venue I would go there to shop.

With a lack of unique items there just isn't much that is special about the eBay experience anymore. I still find my special items, but it is Google search results that are increasingly beneficial to me. Unfortunately, I am finding my items elsewhere and many of the sellers who once brought refreshing and unique items seem to be gone from eBay.

I have no issues with professional sellers and business flourishing on eBay, but I do miss the atmosphere and wide assortment that once was eBay. If my needs have to be sacrificed in order for eBay to increase it's stock value then I will just have to shop and spend my dollars elsewhere.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Patricia

Wed Aug 8 13:34:43 2007

Thank you Ina and David for the wonderful work you do here. There is such a wealth of useful information coming from the USERS of ebay in columns like this. I can only hope that eBay management reads some of it...but I can see by their actions that they don't. They still think they know what's best (which seems to be to increase their revenue at all costs). Unfortunately that gravy train will come to a halt - the signs of it are already in place! I hope they're smart enough to see it.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: HEIDI

Wed Aug 29 20:00:50 2007

Ebay does get to be much at times and sometimes I have to grit my teeth. I sell children's sterling silver and gold at VERY reasonable prices. I also sell on Blujay.com and on OnlineAuction.com. It's slow everywhere, infact Ebay is still my better marketplace to sell. I just opened my store on Ebay about 18 months ago. Things were slow for me in the beginning, but I expected such. Christmas of 2006 put my name out there and sales stayed steady, $400 to $500 a month after, until June this year. It is my understanding that the economy is bad everywhere. First gas prices went off the board and then your store bought items followed, groceries and all of our other essential needs, due to the truckers having to raise their prices for transporting. I think if we all got together and refused to let whoevers behind this gas situation know that they are not going to get rich off us, you would see gas prices drop and everything else to follow. Meaning, stay home more and plan your outings efficently. Make a list at the first of the week as to what you need to take care of and then plan your outings by grouping these areas together. Instead of making 5 trips during the week, see if you can group it into 2. It's like I told the lady at WalMart, not to think I will increase by spending budget on groceries just because the prices have gone up, I will instead buy less or look to recipes and items that are less expensive to prepare. So, I'll buy ham one week and have tuna salad the next and I'll mend clothing items, if possible, rather than buying new. There's more of us, than there is of the gas greeders and if we all take a stand, well, watch what happens.

Another thing is, I read in our local paper that our malls are looking for ways to bring customers back. Seems they had lost business due to online marketing. For example, shoe stores will run sells as to buy one get one 1/2 off. People come in w/ 3 to 4 kids and they make a big sale. Next stop is the candy store, game room, pet store or food court on the way out, so forth and so forth. It seems we will need to look for ways to compete w/ our malls as well as our greedy gas handlers, but I don't have any advice for that, except stay home and play games w/ the kids, shop online more and save gas. Love the sight. Thanks, Heidi. http://www.stores.ebay.com/HEIDIS-JEWELRY-GEMS-AND-TREASURES

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: John

Fri Nov 9 08:47:44 2007

Simple reason is that the service is really bad. Used to sell alot until I had a problem, tried to get customer service, but ll the employees I dealt with were thick and arrogant.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: mike g

Tue Feb 19 08:30:03 2008

What a great story, especially in the context of what is going on right now -- it truly makes you wonder what the next year or two holds for eBay and how many blows its buyers and sellers can take before it become damaged beyond repair.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: oltxgal

Wed Nov 12 12:09:35 2008

Been doing business on eBay for over 10 years. It was great, until last year, when eBay changed the feedback policy. Something which should have never happened. Instead they whould have properly policed the site, anddealt effectively with both abusive sellers, as well as nonpaying and dishonest buyers. Plenty of problems on both sides, but as mentioned above, ebay didn't want to hear it.

The latest and greatest SNAFU is the Plastic only payment policy, making the use of wholly owned subsidiary, PayPal, the inescapale vehicle. Basically,I consider eBAy to be my landlord, for fees, I use their venue for my independent business. They may require my fee payment by any method they see fit, but golly, what unit of exchange I take for payment is none of their damned business, as long as I pay the appropriate fees. The Australian government recently intervened when they tried to impose this this policy down under. Where the heck is our government?!?! Some of my customers refuse to have any of their credit information online, and insist on payment by check or money order. That should be their choice. Odd thing, in this tough economy, my domestic sales have declined, but international sales have spiked. Most transactions were paid for through PayPal. Those customers who used to pay by check or money order have abandoned the site.

There was a comment above about "apathy" on the part of the eBAy commmunity.... as reflected in the blogs and discussion boards. Good reason for that...not apathy, it's resignation. EBay does not listen to the community. It trots out policies, and lamely "sells" them as "improvements" to the site... increased safety, and more FUN! They sound like Washington politicians, legislating unwelcome regulation and higher taxes "for our own good".

What they're looking at is the bottom line at the expense of just the people who have made this site succeed. Read that eBay made significant layoffs recently.... should have started at the TOP! They've driven many great sellers from the venue, and with this new PayPal only policy, they've driven a significant number of buyers elsewhere.

Don't know what the future holds, but expect the eBay decline to continue, until the distructive policies are repealed, management is replaced, or a leaner, hungrier auction venue emerges.

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