eBay Takes Advertising to a Whole New Level

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

September 22, 2008

eBay Takes Advertising to a Whole New Level

By: Ina Steiner

Mon Sept 22 2008 12:38:04

eBay is placing advertising on the View Item pages of seller listings. The ads are appearing in listings on the Australian website (regardless of where the seller is located), primarily in the media category. Sellers were already irked at the ads on other areas of the site, including ads at the bottom of search results from sites that compete with paid listings.

Sellers were outraged when eBay first began running ads in 2000, and in recent years, eBay has been more agressive with advertising on the eBay marketplace. When Yahoo began running ads on listing pages in 2005, it first removed all seller fees.

Comments (34) | Permalink

Readers Comments

eBay Takes Advertising to a Whole New Level

by: Ina

Mon Sep 22 13:18:21 2008

It would be interesting to see which categories contain these ads. Here's a listing in Sports Memorabilia: Item number: 160285364732

eBay Takes Advertising to a Whole New Level

by: AC_in_mich

Mon Sep 22 13:32:01 2008

Ina, the listing mentioned in coment 1 did not have an ad when I looked at it

Al

eBay Takes Advertising to a Whole New Level

by: Ed Gadfly

Mon Sep 22 13:38:30 2008

Does it really matter if there is an ad trying to distract the last dollar from your bid?

Nobody finds your items in search anyway!

Maybe Uncle Griff can write a new bible finally: ''eBay - Pimp My Ad''

Eddie Gadfly

eBay Takes Advertising to a Whole New Level

by: Kal

Mon Sep 22 13:51:26 2008

I've been running an ad blocker for so long (and why isn't everyone?) that I don't see any of the banner ads on eBay or elsewhere. I wonder if the ad blocker will remove these? I suspect not since they are ''one liners'' and not image blocks that come from another server. Guess I'll have to want and see when it comes to the US - and it will.

Welcome to the newer, even greedier eBay.

And, if I may borrow a quote from another regular:

eBay: the most despicable corporation in the world run by the most despicable executives in the world.

eBay Takes Advertising to a Whole New Level

by: kw

Mon Sep 22 15:53:23 2008

Just when you think ebay's unimaginative, greedy executives can't sink any lower, they find a way! Another nail in the coffin of a dying company gasping for air.

Fees are up, Paypal accepted only, DSR's that can destroy low volume sellers in a heartbeat, zero customer service, policies that change almost daily, technical problems with Best Match that hasn't worked since its inception, and now ads on listings that sellers pay for. What a mess!

Has anyone at ebay ever actually operated a real business in their lives???

eBay Takes Advertising to a Whole New Level

by: Leonard

Mon Sep 22 17:45:54 2008

They don't care about real business. They care about advertising. It is a painless way to increase earnings and ''maximize shareholder value''. They figure they can plaster it anywhere because the sellers' real businesses are captive users, as the vast majority of real businesses have been captive users of Microsoft's Windows and Office for years.

The only way to stop them is for lots of sellers to endure the pain of migrating to other venues where the population of buyers is much lower, and wait 'til it grows.

I doubt you'all can do it. However I do know that Microsoft's execrable Widows Vista has caused such outrage that it has increased the user bas of Mac OSX substantially.

I am a long-time buyer who now hates to go on eBay.

eBay Takes Advertising to a Whole New Level

by: DoneWithEBayLONGago

Mon Sep 22 20:46:17 2008

WHY do people continue to do business with eBay?? How much more does eBay have to poop on them before they get a clue?

eBay Takes Advertising to a Whole New Level

by: Ming the Merciless

Mon Sep 22 21:00:22 2008

This development is analogous to paying for an expensive display ad in "USA Today" and having "USA Today" insert ads within your ad in order to "maximize shareholder value."

This is a massive lawsuit waiting to happen.

Ebay can make all the legally questionable claims and requirements they want to in their user agreement -- that doesn't make ebay bullet proof nor does it make their requirements legal.

In two little reported or complained about policy changes within the last two years, ebay announced:

1. User feedback is the legal property of ebay, not the user, and importing feedback on another website violates their user agreement.

2. Product description narratives once uploaded became the property of ebay.

Those who complained about these egregious policies were harshly retaliated against.

These two changes -- that flew udner the radar of nearly everyone -- set the table for what ebay is now doing to Australian sellers.

Class action lawsuits are most generally taken on by law firms on a fee contingency basis who receive a very generous percentage of the settlement. They are generally making free of charge to plaintiffs.

The more class actions that are filed against ebay, the more resources ebay has to expend to fight them which reduces "shareholder value."

I think it was two or three years ago when ebay's BoD exercised their directive prerogative and told Meg Whitman to reduce the number of lawsuits ebay was involved in. This tells us that lawsuits do indeed reduce "shareholder value" and if plaintiffs make enough noise, such lawsuits do get attention from Wall Street. Lawsuits against ebay are likely to receive even more attention as the pandemic corruption on Wall Street gets cleaned up and the jerks hopefully go to prison instead of Dubai or Paraguay.

The majority of the lawsuits ebay's BoD were concerned about involved ebay as a defendant. Among other things, ebay has a history of 'expropriating' patented and copyrighted software from other companies and then daring these smaller companies to sue just as they dare sellers to sue.

As a between your eyes demonstration of just how thoroughly corrupt business and politics have become, courts have found ebay's requirement that they be used in their own backyard legal so anyone wishing to sue should just try to find a law firm the greater San Francisco/San Jose region willing to get rich filing a just and winnable class action against ebay.

Do you know what Ebafia means?

Among other things, it's an amalgam of the words Ebay and Mafia.

The Don Corleone Ho.

eBay Takes Advertising to a Whole New Level

by: Ming the Merciless

Tue Sep 23 00:41:31 2008

Message for those who think the solution is simply to leave ebay and move elsewhere.

What's to prevent any of these other upstart listing venues from doing the same things as ebay has done?

LAWSUITS. Government investigations. HEAT, PEOPLE, HEAT and lots of it all the time.

Take ebay down.

eBay Takes Advertising to a Whole New Level

by: JAMES FRASER

Tue Sep 23 00:43:31 2008

Foxtel have told E Bay Australia to remove the ads. Seems they were inundated by sellers demanding they be removed and it would have become a public relations disaster.

Yet again E Bay have failed to sit down and seriously thought through how their actions will affect their customers - the sellers. The end result is a further erosion of confidence in who is currently steering the Titanic.

eBay Takes Advertising to a Whole New Level

by: Ming the Merciless

Tue Sep 23 02:28:58 2008

Australia, please send any spare testosterone and cojones eastward.

Does anyone remember circa holiday season 2002 oe 2003 when ads for Hallmark cards popped up randomly on seller's listings?

Sellers swamped Hallmark cards (owned by a very conservative Republican family BTW) with emails and they quietly disappeared as well.

I've never bought another Hallmark card since.

Thank you, Aussies, for teaching ebagt another well deserved lesson in the power of NOISE.

eBay Takes Advertising to a Whole New Level

by: Ming the Merciless

Tue Sep 23 02:31:24 2008

After months of thought and computer modeling, I've finally discovered what ebay's business plan for the future is.

Here it is:

eBay Takes Advertising to a Whole New Level

by: The Graduate

Tue Sep 23 04:10:04 2008

Of course eBay puts an ad next to the bid/buy button.

What next? Perhaps when a seller's DSR reaches a certain point they can put an ad in place of the seller's ID or view seller's items link that reads: This seller has low DSR ratings and may not provide you with a greater buying experience. Please visit our sponsors or one of our Diamond Power Sellers [link].

That's customer service, eBay style!

eBay Takes Advertising to a Whole New Level

by: notming

Tue Sep 23 14:10:27 2008

nah, Ebay customer service would read something like this:
"I understand frustration you may have, I also sell on ebay and find this very bad for me too :o(
I feel your pane. DSR 4.5 not good enough, try harder to win back customer with bend over barrel service! I see your account suspended, please try again and keep listing. Make customer happy, only 5 star will prove you are good enough to run successful business. Only diamond level powersellers have snowball chance in oven of selling good product. Hope you feel better knowing I feel your frustration but can offer no real help whatsoever. (insert string of Chinese characters here)"

I guess my real annoyance with ebay these days is the overbearing micromanagment of my business by someone being paid to help me run said business, coupled with a customer service department that makes dealing with any government agency look like a fun filled day at the spa.

I'd definitely fire an employee who refused to show on time, didn't do what they were being paid for and added to the chaos by encouraging their unemployable friends to hang around my place of business.

Fire Ebay.

eBay Takes Advertising to a Whole New Level

by: paul

Tue Sep 23 14:30:39 2008

CEO murdered by mob of sacked Indian workers

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/articl
e4810644.ece

Corporate India is in shock after a mob of sacked workers bludgeoned to death the chief executive who had dismissed them from a factory in a suburb of Delhi.

Lalit Kishore Choudhary, 47, the head of the Indian operations of Graziano Transmissioni, an Italian-headquartered manufacturer of car parts, died of severe head wounds on Monday afternoon after being attacked by scores of laid-off employees, police said.

LOL. So when are those lay-offs coming to eBay? Maybe Donahoe should get that golden parachute ready in case he needs to jump out of a window.

eBay Takes Advertising to a Whole New Level

by: Ming the Merciless

Tue Sep 23 23:36:51 2008

American corporations need to study and emulate the Southwest Airlines business model.

Corporate Wall Street bootlickers view the interests of shareholders and the interests of customers as diametrically opposed. The more resources that are diverted or taken from customers can be directed toward executive and shareholder enrichment. It's another form of wealth redistribution done by those with most wealth against those with the least wealth.

Ebay has always viewed its own financial success as entirely separate from its customers' success. In fact, they have a well documented history of sucking sellers dry, discarding them, and then recruiting an entirely new crop.

Two of ebay's latest sucker efforts include the Video Professor and an alleged powerseller I've never heard of selling his ebay "secrets" in the middle of the night on several cable channels. All manner of alleged ebay sellers testify to the sales miracles they learned by buying his course while bragging about making thousands each month in just no time at all. Imagine!

Only the most uninformed or naive person would start selling on ebay today. No feedback + no DSRs = no visibility.

Big box corporations risking their brand reputation and capital by partnering with a panic stricken, chaotic, undependable, and less than honest corporation will soon learn this lesson.

Southwest Airlines has it right. They believe that if their employees are happy and reflect that satisfaction in customer service, then customers are happy.

If customers are happy and see value in the service they received for their money, they return, tell their friends, and Southwest Airlines makes a profit.

Southwest Airlines is probably the only major U.S. airline making a profit. This corporation is profitable because it understands that its best interests and its customers' best interests dovetail -- something ebay has NEVER understood.

Ebay's $.35 listing structure is a small but I fear largely cosmetic step in the right direction done not to benefit sellers but to send a signal to Wall Street. Now ebay needs to lower FVFs, NOT make them contingent on 'free shipping' or DSRs, stop listening to the Wall Street criminals (remember their favorite, Bear Stearns?), and start empowering good, honest sellers to succeed.

If good succeed, ebay succeeds. It's the kind a solid, long term growth that ebay desperately needs now. But The Don Corleone Ho prefers the little Dutch boy model than he cares about long term viability.

Sayonara, ebay. You've committed suicide, but the body still twitches.

eBay Takes Advertising to a Whole New Level

by: Peter Leeflang/CEO of Leeflang Archives Corporatio

Wed Sep 24 00:02:47 2008

In the online world, an online company which increases its content with third party, non-core advertising, is cannibalising its own site and is doomed to fail eventually.

It means that the site's management cannot offer unique products and services to retain its sellers and buyers, its content contributors and content users, itself.

So the site then becomes sort of a referral site in the short term.

In the long term its advertsing revenues will decline, because it gradually looses its core constituency that made the site attractive enough to generate major traffic.

No sellers -> no buyers -> no traffic -> no ads -> no Ebay.

eBay Takes Advertising to a Whole New Level

by: annon

Wed Sep 24 01:59:44 2008

by: JAMES FRASER
Tue Sep 23 00:43:31 2008
"Foxtel have told E Bay Australia to remove the ads. Seems they were inundated by sellers demanding they be removed and it would have become a public relations disaster."

Excellent! Thank you to our Aussie friends for showing us the way! Now if ebay tries that bull on the core site I think all sellers AND buyers should send nastygrams to the advertisers.
Sellers who PAY for that auction listing space should be making the advertising money, NOT ebay!
Funny how ebay is banning links in listings but it's fine for them to put anything THEY can make more money on inside pages that sellers have paid for!

eBay Takes Advertising to a Whole New Level

by: annon

Wed Sep 24 02:06:04 2008

I think sellers should start putting disclaimers on their auction pages.
Something like:

By allowing this listing to go live on ebay.com, ebay is acknowledging that I the seller am paying for this page and any advertising done within MY listing without my express consent will be billed at fair market value and to be deducted from my ebay monthly statement.

eBay Takes Advertising to a Whole New Level

by: eBay is Scum

Wed Sep 24 04:15:13 2008

How much should sellers charge ebay for attacking their listings with their own fake ads and ads that are not part of the listing? Isnt this malfeasance in the highest degree.
PLEASE SOMEONE SUE eBay.

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