eBay: What's behind the 20 cents promotion?

Melly-

It's eBay management's smoke and mirrors for investors; online cooking of the books, per say.

It might also be an idea to check that Ebay have 'updated' their totals for the amount of shops they 'claim' are still open. ;)

It would seem lots of (ex)shop owners are still receving mail from their 'shop' subscriptions even though they closed them weeks ago.

That very subscription list is the one that provides the official figures for the total number of 'shops'.

I was watching the stock price today, bouncing up and down, and it looked to me as if there was an effort to shore the price up. Stocks are not really my thing but that's the impression I had.

The boycott and clean up ebay campaign has in many ways been a great success, not least because it brought together sellers from across the globe into a concerted effort to get the message over to eBay that we just can't tolerate such ill-thought out changes as those they implemented 4 weeks ago.

Ebay seems to have thought the small and not so small people they were putting out of business would let off steam for a while and then go away. Yet another miscalculation on their part.

We have found some very interesting facts over the four day campaign which definitely need further investigation and it has been most frustrating to find that eBay have removed a proportion of the bad listings and scams reported to them, only for us to see them reappear within hours on the site, still with the violations intact.

There is something rotten in the state of eBay and I, for one, want to get to the bottom of it.

I think this calls for a longer boycott.

Thank you, for once again, stating the obvious, without eBay spin.

Melly, thank you so much for verifying what we sellers have been saying all along...eBay North America doesn't give a flying flip about the U.S. sellers...

I truly hope the investors in eBay will finally sit up and notice...

Thanks again!

"With all the negative sentiment among sellers these days, it is sometimes hard to decipher between what is said as an angry comment 'in the heat of moment' and what should be taken as real reason for concern."

All the negative sentiment, even stated as angry comments from someone letting off some steam, is in itself a real reason for concern. It's not anger of one or two bigmouths who just can't stop complaining, it's a worldwide outcry of rage and disappointment, and people wanting answers, and wanting ebay to simply clean up it's act!

As for ebay wanting to keep their numbers up....I am involved in the boycott. We've reported thousands of listings. I myself have reported exactly 287 auctions so far since the boycott began. NOT ONE of those auctions have been removed. Every one I reported was in direct violation of fee avoidance (1 cent to 10 cent bid, 25 to 45.00 shipping, small items with no weight.) None of my 287 reports have been removed. May I also note that these sellers I reported are big time operators on ebay, hundreds to thousands of feeback comments (are they real or from 1 cent ebooks to build feedback to make the seller look reputable?), with hundreds (some over a thousand) of listings in violation. And none of them have been removed? Ebay wouldn't be allowing those auctions to remain on the site to keep their numbers up, would they? It would take a pretty naive person to believe ebay is not capable of doing exactly that.

If I was an investor or ebay stockholder, I'd take a Saturday afternoon and do some serious looking at the site, because these scammers and such are what's damaging ebay, not us sellers who are crying out for ebay to clean up it's act. Also go into the discussion boards and see what the buyers and sellers are saying, it's certainly an eye opener. Ebay can tell you all the happy things you want to hear, but if you want the truth, go to the discussion boards.

We don't want ebay to fall, that's why we're going to all this trouble, but current ebay management may bring itself down in spite of us.

So maybe the penny is starting to drop now? Does anyone need more clues about the way things are done on Ebay?

Look at this publicly available eBay feedback record:

http://tinyurl.com/jam8s

Now look at every item this pillar (powerseller) of the Ebay community has sold. Fantastic sales numbers aren't they? But check every item sold and ask how much eBay has actually earned from all these sales? Look at the typical feedback of the average buyer. Notice anything? Why would people - mostly with low feedback ratings - buy this kind of thing in such numbers? Notice anything else inyeresting the further you go back in this record? Why would all those buyers suddenly be 'no longer a registered user'?

If you so called 'analysts' out there can't see what sellers are talking about and, at last, have begun fighting then I will have to consider voting for Michael Moore next time round. Is this what you think of when you hear about year on year listings growth? Is this what comes to mind when you hear about a bad balance between store and core listings?

Possible this link wont work for very long but if it does vanish for some strange reason then, no worries, how many more examples would you like posted here?

Yes, management definitely could have chosen a better time than now for this "unique" move. But this is the ebay way.

I am questioning the listing counts being published by Medved, who has been having troubles getting the counts lately. They usually do have troubles when ebay makes "changes". And this has "conveniently" happened in the past during crucial times.

Also Dealscart (auction and store counts), Power Sellers Unite and the numbers given out by analysts. Where and how are they getting their numbers and percentages..?

There are vast discrepancies.. and even contradictions in their posts and reports. If the numbers are coming from ebay.. shouldn't that be questioned? It seems that ebay is lousy at their math and they don't include all the factors. They announce a "6% fee increase".. ?? Meg says she received about 15 emails on this latest fee hike..??.. 200 million users..? Rather misleading as many users have multiple user ID's.. some have at least more than one registered ID just to post on the discussion boards and maintain an anonymous state.
I can understand that they choose to play down some numbers. But do they also play UP some numbers?

Points well made Joyce.

ANOTHER discounted listing day in the UK on Wednesday I see. I can't help but wonder why they feel the need to be discounting so heavily at the moment? But at least they are letting UK residents join in on this one!

On the point about the listing numbers I did my own research. I chose the DVD category on the eBay UK site. Not long before the 4 day boycott begun in the UK last Thursday there were 324,739 items listed for sale when I searched the category. Roughly 3 hours before the end of the boycott on Monday there were 207,751 items using exactly the same search criteria.

I appreciate this probably isn't a particularly fair or scientific way of judging things but make of those numbers whatever you will.

Oh! Did I mention the discounted listing day in the UK on Wednesday?

Graham

My support and admiration to all the "patriots" in unified support of a restored and healthy Ebay under membership direction.

Let us not forget the fact that eBay dropped a big bundle on advertising during the college football broadcasts this weekend... see the stock today?

So who's in charge of eBay PR?

WE ARE.

So who holds sway over eBay stock?

WE DO.

So who deserves to be in charge of Ebays future?

I leave you to draw your own conclusions.


The boycott may not be done yet.

On to phase two.


Oh, and in response to the blog about schooling,

My Alma mater:
Gateway Technical College, Racine/Kenosha, Wisconsin

Criminal Law, Constitutional Law, Merchandising and yes, Creative Writing. 4.0 GPA

Just in case you wondered.

Gary E. Sattler

Oh, here comes another promo from ebay!

50c listing fees for ebay motors set for Sept 19.

They're rolling out one promo after another.

Would it be because they're trying to keep their numbers up for the end of the 3rd quarter? Ebay is hoping this string of promos they've been offering will offset the effect of the boycott, as well as the finality of the store's fee increase.

It'll be interesting to see how the next few days go, Sept 21 is the cut off date for anyone who wanted to get one more month of the cheaper listing fees, by the 22nd all store listings will be charged the new fees. Wonder how many stores will close now? And take their auction listings with them?

It's amazingly arrogant that ebay thought they could force sellers to move their inventory to auction style listings by implementing the fee increase. Any CEO worth their salt would know better than that.

Ebay's downfall is due to the reported Shill-bidding Rings that exist on/are supported by Ebay & are being reported to the FTC!

Tick-Tock-Tick-Tock Ebay!!!

Ebay's downfall is due to the reported Shill-bidding Rings that exist on/are supported by Ebay & are being reported to the FTC!

Tick-Tock-Tick-Tock Ebay!!!

"eBay North America doesn't give a flying flip about the U.S. sellers"

They also don't give a flying fig about Australian sellers, either. That much is absolutely crystal clear to Aussies (thousands of whom have abandoned eBay for other local alternatives).

Heck, they haven't even tried to bribe us with any juicy listing sales! We're too small of a market to skew their numbers, you see, as the total population of Australia is only the about that of greater London.

No surprise that they're going for India, with India's enormous population, and the UK, which is also a sizable market. They need to pump up the "look how many listings we have!" organ in order to make it all look nice on paper so that the analysts will glace at the numbers and declare eBay to be sound and a good investment.

"eBay North America doesn't give a flying flip about the U.S. sellers"

They also don't give a flying fig about Australian sellers, either. That much is absolutely crystal clear to Aussies (thousands of whom have abandoned eBay for other local alternatives).

Heck, they haven't even tried to bribe us with any juicy listing sales! We're too small of a market to skew their numbers, you see, as the total population of Australia is only the about that of greater London.

No surprise that they're going for India, with India's enormous population, and the UK, which is also a sizable market. They need to pump up the "look how many listings we have!" organ in order to make it all look nice on paper so that the analysts will glace at the numbers and declare eBay to be sound and a good investment.

Melly,

It is SO obvious what is going on here. Here are the two most populated countries in the world:

1 China 1,298,847,624
2 India 1,065,070,607

China gets to list for FREE; India gets discounted listing days. Need I say more?

It is no secret that there is an exodus of native sellers on the US, UK, OZ and other European sites due to the excessive seller's fees. Ebay's management cannot be so blind not to recognise this. So its left to good old China and India to fill that void.

This leaves a couple of problems:

1) Ebay China is RIFE with scammers, phishers etc. I'm guessing Ebay want more of them.
2) Nobody actually buys from either of these two countries. Would you want to wait 3 weeks for something to be delivered (if at all)?
3) Are buyers going to want to wade through these type of listings in auctions to find what they want?

The only winnner here is the High St.

Ebay's management are clearly on borrowed time, as this blatant attempt to pump their listing figures (and their share price) is sure evidence of a short-term and superficial solution to a long-term and ingrained problem.

Pack your cases Meg. I hear Goa's lovely this time of year for a very extended holiday.

Thanks for the blog Melly.

Could you please look into why the .com (US) site DEFAULTS to showing all English speaking foreign countries listings, to show up in the CORE search results and listing counts - even though they didn't pay a penny to specifically list on .com?

In other words, our core search is "cluttered" with nearly 25% additional international listings that did NOT pay the same price we did to list our widgets here - yet their widget gets the same prime real estate as our widgets - by default. Our widgets do not get the same reciprocal agreement.

Although these listings can be recognized by the italicized price (meaning they were converted to US$), one must really get into a hidden spot in the eBay search to grasp the sheer number of listings I am referring to.

To see this for yourself, go to this link. Look at the # of Listings next to each category. Then use the Location drop down box to change from "Available on .com" to "Listed on .com"

http://listings.ebay.com/_W0QQfclZ3QQfcoZ1QQsocmdZListingCategoryList

That should open your eyes to the sheer volume of listings that appear on .com default search results, but did not originate from .com.

Fair Trade? Fair Competition? What numbers are the analysts given to work with? The true .com listings? Or the bloated .com listings? What numbers do the other sites pull from? Why is my widget listing (at a cost of $1.85 to list for 7 days) sitting right next to someone who paid maybe the equivalent of .10 to list on their countries eBay site?

While I am all for International Trade, I believe the US .com site should default to those who have paid the .com site for a listing - no matter where they are in the world. That is International Fair Trade. The listings from other worldwide EBAY sites should be a click or two away. Not the other way around.

Note: The India promotion is the first of its kind that had to specifically list on the US .com site. Usually, they have the listing sales on their own sites and their widgets get free additional default search inclusion on .com. While I agree with the others that allowing residents of another country to list for reduced rates on our US site is annoying (given the current sentiment), I am still more agitated with the way the current US .com search defaults to all foreign listings that DIDN'T pay to list here.

Ms Whitman's 3Q speech should be interesting. The analysts are getting smarter thanks to blogs like these.

So eBays latest ploy to try and bolster the listing numbers is offers for India now as well as China.

And the prize for "How to annoy your remaining sellers" goes to 'EBAY'...... what no applause!

This is just another attempt by a cynical company that has totally lost the plot, it just seems to keep driving nails into its own coffin. I suggest everyone leaves India, China, and the scammers to play amongst themselves on eBay and we all go off to eBid. You have to feel sorry for the stockholders though, any pension funds with holdings should cut there losses now I reckon.

Great article and right on posts!! Finally the real truth about ebay is coming to light! Ebay's glory days are slowly but surely coming to an end. Sellers and shoppers alike need to move elsewhere! Bye Bye Ebay!!!

Ebay seems to allow auctions that sell fake copies of movies and CDs, forged celebrity autographed merchandise, black market CD and video products from China, Malaysia, Singapore that are contractually forbidden to be reimported, practice fee avoidance (e.g. list an item for 1 cent but charge $20 shipping/handling) and a whole array of other "high volume" practices. But then it comes down hard on small to mid-size legitimate sellers who play by the rules and try to earn a living. There's no explanation for it other than the fact that management is asleep at the wheel, and the right-wing Nebraskans over at PayPal (Ebay owns PayPal) seem to care only about ending auctions and terminating sellers when it concerns listings (even those that comply with the rules) that somehow offend their so-called religious values. Try to sell a gay-themed movie, or offer new underwear for sale and you'll see how they suddenly spring to action. After spending two years slowly building a business and devoting my life to crafting an excellent feedback rating and thousands of customers, PayPal pulled the wool right out from under me by terminating my account "without appeal." Their actions have cost me tens of thousands of dollars and destroyed my hard-earned money and business. My attorney has reviewed all of their terms and there's absolutely no justification for their behavior, yet nobody at PayPal or Ebay cares or can do anything. Even high-level Ebay reps have told me "PayPal runs their own ship - we can't control them." HELLO - EBAY YOU OWN PAYPAL! I'm told that termination of a PayPal account is frequently at the judgement of a sole individual named Eric in PayPal's "AUP Department."

All, in all, I believe that Ebay is unfortunately a company completely out of control, and they can't get control over their PayPal business. From my experience, listings are removed and accounts are terminated when they cause complaints from the "religious right" versus any term violation, legal, rational, or ethical reasons. There appears to be no care to protect a customer. You can more easily get away with listing fake goods than you can trying to list an alternative film.

I would sell off my shares of Ebay if I didn't need to hold onto them to make a shareholder proposal to address these serious corporate flaws. Visit www.nopaypal.com to view some of the many sellers that have been burned by PayPal and Ebay.