Homepage Letter from eBay CEO Kicks off Holiday Marketing

by: Patricia

Somebody should take Donahoe's iPod away long enough for him to listen....this letter is nice and warm and fuzzy but it doesn't bring one new buyer onto the site and from what I can see a lot of Ebay's present problem is a lack of traffic.  JD!  If they are reading that letter they are already on your site! ;-)

by: powerwheelerchris

(in voice of Neilson from the Simpsons):HA HA!

Trust me? This comes form the same mouth who said there would only be two buckets of changes for sellers per year, then he changed that to 3 but this year there were 4 buckets.

JD also stated that eBay would give sellers 60 days to adjust to changes, last bucket sellers were only given 35 days.

This also comes from a man who's company promised to sellers at eBay Live in 2005 that eBay would NEVER let buyers filter feedback by type )positive, neutral, negative) and guess what buyers can do that now.

The up side is that JD could follow in Whitman's steps and go into politics.

by: Rick1313

I wonder why Mr. Donohoe made no mention of the fact that the BPP conflicts with what eBay,inc. states in the liability section of their site literature with the heading, ''Your User Agreement''.

Specifically, that they do not take part in the transaction process.

If refunding buyer and then getting the money back from the seller is not taking part of the transaction process, I do not know what is.

eBay,inc. (via eBay.com) can refund buyer, but it must be out of their pockets, not mine.

If the do so, they will have to immediately refund my money or I will seek action in a court of law.

Happy Holidays, Mr. Donohoe!

by: powerwheelerchris

Note the "Trust Me" reference is from how this editorial was promoted by AB on Twitter (http://twitter.com/auctionbytes).

by: jojop

Sorry but seeing donahole's face when I opened ebay this morning made me want to throw up. I came here because I knew it would be covered and I will be delighted to hear others reactions! Maybe it should just read "Come here to ebay where you can rip sellers off and we will make them pay for it anyway!" yikes

by: powerwheelerchris

I am selling off all my inventory on eBay by December 31st.  What does not sell I am giving to my church youth group to sell in their annual garage sale to raise funds for their mission projects.

I am leaving eBay at the end of the year.

by: Rick1313

Also, pasting/emblazing it all over the place will have buyers opening up all kinds of minor disputes or perceived wrongs on eBay.com.

And what starts counting (going back 12 months yet) on a sellers account this month?

That's right, open disputes, even unmerited, will go towards taking away your PS/TRS status. eBay.com saves big time on the discount program this holiday season when some sellers sales have an upward spike.

by: A to Z guaranteed

Wouldn't it be great if eBay would have wanted to spend the money on creating buyer trust....oh, say, at least 10 years ago?

Meg, Pierre, and Bill Cobb chose the short term cash cow as opposed to real growth...

Good luck inspiring confidence in the countless buyers who got ripped off on eBay all those years!

by: sweets

Ebay shoplifter protection is old news.

Wonder why they are making it more prominent now?

I guess it will attract more shoplifters to the site that didn't know how easy it was to steal on ebay.

Ebay is changing the way shoplifters all around the world steal. I guess they are still innovating.

Back in the old days of shoplifting, the lifter/booster would have to drag his lazy butt out, drive around town and risk getting humiliated by store security if they got caught.

Now thanks to generous innovative Ebay they can shoplift anything!
Even larger items that were harder to conceal can now be stolen quite easily on Ebay.

I hear it's quick too.

You can steal a Flat screen TV or a diamond ring and have it delivered to your door, get a full refund quicker than a seller can contact ebay customer service.

Shoplifters can't beat that anywhere else on the web!

No limits either. You can steal till you can't fit anymore in your house.

I had a buyer claim empty box from 12 different sellers (one was me) in a 30 day period and he got refunded from all of them.

Paypal and Ebay found nothing fishy at all about this guy receiving 12 empty boxes from 12 different sellers.

Just a coincidence, I guess it happens all the time in groups of 12????

MORONS!!!!!!!!!!!

by: summer in the city

Keep on bailing out the Titanic with a coffee can, John.

by: John Donahue

Dear eBay Buyers,

Don't worry, the money you spend on counterfeits and knockoffs is fully protected under our Buyer Protection Plan. That's right, when you buy a Chinese knockoff of a popular product, your transaction is protected. Should your counterfeit item fail to arrive from Thailand (and let's face it, this user has had 100 other selling names, so it's unlikely to arrive), you can buy knowing that you will be able to get your money back. So feel free to continue to buy illegal New York Yankees gear all you want. You can trust that every transaction with an eBay counterfeitter from the Far East is covered. And, we have the biggest selection, too.

by: good boy johnny

I'm suprised it wasnt written in crayon with shiny little stars pasted on it

by: RicRoe

This is not a very positive message.

Only eBay management would consider placing this message on the homepage as being part of a multi million dollar campaign.The homepage is there every day. Placing a message from the CEO on that page cost little more than the time to create the page and crop the smarmy picture of eBay's failed CEO.

Personally, I feel that eBay's frequent plastering of the Buyer Protection Plan like so much graffiti makes eBay appear desperate to attract buyers.

The ''sometimes things do not go right'' message is not attractive to buyers. It sends the message that eBay thinks their sellers do not perform well, especially since there is not one positive thing said about eBay sellers in the message.

Donahoe's message also serves to remind disenfranchised buyers that eBay has failed to rid the site of scam artists.

eBay hawks their buyer protection plan but fails to realize that by the time a buyer needs the protection of eBay's plan, they are already disappointed with eBay. The fact they will get their money back is of minimal consequence given that the buyer has already experienced an unsatisfactory transaction.

eBay should be selling buyers on an improved buying experience, not the protection offered when that experience fails to deliver.

by: Departing seller

Closed the eBay store and switched to listing only on promotions that cost nothing.  

Today I went out buying stuff to list.

I found some pretty cool things...
and put them all on Amazon.

John Donahoe, you know about Amazon, right?  The place where the buyers are.

by: Maddie Schell

Absolutely awful! They might as well change their domain name to www.shoplifterswelcomehere.com and www.stealfromoursellers.com.

Their explanations are actually INSTRUCTIONS on how to steal. Specifically, dishonest buyers now know that buyer's remourse isn't good enough. Instead, they must damage the item intentionally, or simply MAKE-UP some imagined flaw and eBay will cheerfully refund the money AND let you keep the item.

This is WORSE than shoplifting from the sellers!!

Assume a $100 item costs the seller $50 wholesale. If the item was stolen from the seller's B&M store, then the seller only loses $50. (Simple, right?)

At eBay, the math is different. The dishonest buyer gets to keep the item ($50) AND he also gets refunded $100 out of the seller's pocket.

TOTAL LOSS: $150.00

It's a shoplifter's paradise!!

by: Departing seller

Dear eBay buyers,

We want you to know that our site sucks way less now.  We've change the eBay business model from letting sellers rip off buyers while we collect selling fees (Meg Whitman model), to letting buyers rip off sellers while we collect selling fees (John Donahoe model).

We promise not to let you get ripped-off again so much.

You have our word on that!  Every eBay seller is vetted for the ability to stand on his or her own hands, or at the very least have the ability to grab their own ankles.

On behalf of our employees and 25 million ankle grabbers around the world,  thanks for shopping with us.

John Donahole

by: another side of the coin

I totally agree with RicRoe, this is not what should be displayed on the homepage.

JD still thinks his customers are the buyers. If he needs to open his big mouth, he should be talking up the site, the sellers and focusing on making eBay fun again. Oh that's right JD doesn't know anything about fun or entertainment except for his obsession and love fest with his iphone. Hey JD stick it! Even if he did talk about fun on eBay, he would have to mention that dirty word ''auctions''. We can't have that now can we?

Also, mentioned before, the only buyers that see that message are already on the site. I guess he knows it would be difficult to get new buyers. Most sellers were buyers and buyers more often than not became sellers. JD wasn't interested in the majority of users, so both buyers and sellers are LEAVING not coming to eBay. The holidays should be very interesting and if there is any hope in a successful season, eBay needs to start advertising, especially on TV.

by: summer in the city

Yet another stupid move from Genius John: when a shopper sees this, what's the main message?

That Ebay is a risky place to shop.

by: another side of the coin

I guess none of eBay's PR marketing team had the ba@@s or brains to talk JD out of displaying this letter? What a bunch of idiots but par for the course on why eBay is the sad site it is today.

by: Change we can't believe in

Replace his picture on that letter, with a picture of BOZO the Clown