eBay Discontinues AdCommerce Ad Program for Sellers

by: Hardrock Rules

CLARIFICATION I said: "It is my understanding, sometime this fall, or before end of year, Pay Pal/eBay will be contacting us sellers who sell more than $20,000 worth of stuff or 200 transactions per year."

I said my understanding from logic, if they need to report for all of 2011, then is it not logical to assume eBay or Pay Pal will be getting in touch with us sellers who they need sometime before the end of the year ? And since it is summer and I have not been contacted, then fall or late December must be when they will be likely getting the SS# or EIN from who they need to

by: out of sight!

Ebay will still allow anyone but ebay sellers to use adcommerce?

''eBay is not doing away with all sponsored ads - just those for its own sellers. Ali Croft, a spokesperson for eBay, said the two types of sponsored text ads at the bottom of the search results page will remain: AdCommerce ads for external websites and those from third party providers (i.e. Google). Those ads appear below the bar where buyers move from one page of search results to the next, she said.''


The plan is to undercut and compete with google and craigslist by taking all ads from google, yahoo etc. to become sort of like an interactive catalougue/yellowpages.
We'll see.

by: AC_in_Mich

There is also a little known part of the Health Care bill that requires companies starting in 2012 to send 1099's out to EVERY individual or other company they purchase more than $600 in a calender year in goods or services.

Electric Company? - 1099
New Computer? - 1099
The Guy that Snowplows your parking lot and cuts the grass?  He gets a 1099, too.  Just think if he is operating as a sole proprietor using his Social Security number.  He might have to give that info out to 200 companies!  Talk about identity theft risk.  And you need to get that info basically at the time of the transaction, not at the end of the year.  What a nightmare!
So, if you are operating as a business, this is going to increase your paperwork load tremendously.  Estimates range from an additional 150 to 200 1099's you will have to send out.

Of course, the good news is that this rescued the post office - every company in the US sending out another 300-400 pieces of mail (you gotta send one to the IRS, ya know)will help their bottom line!

by: AC_in_mich

Here is one article on what I just talked about

http://www.accountingweb.com/topic/tax/costly-changes-109
9-reporting-health-care-bill

   There is one Representative challenging this

by: question

@Hardrock, thank you for answering my question! I read these  blogs all the time and am surprised I am just hearing about it now. So this will be another death round for ebay sellers. All the ones who never filed taxes--and I would bet there are more than people realize. It would be nice if there was a blog done on this about all the impacts.

Does ebay report it, or just Paypal? Will it be reported for other selling sites too, like bonanzle, ecrater, etc. I suppose if Paypal does the reporting, it wont matter where you sell. And I suppose google checkout will also report, and the total will be $20k between both. Wonder if this is part of the reason ebay did away with checks (besides trying to milk us all through Paypal fees).

Again, thanks for the heads up!

by: Hardrock Rules

@QUESTION: As long as any seller has their expense records of the cost of goods they sell, the eBay , Pay Pal fee's, Shipping expenses you got nothing to worry about.

Like I said, if you get a $560 total Pay Pal payment of $560 but only make $72 for your self, as often has been the case for lots of sellers or even less, you had damn well better have records to prove to the IRS if your audited why it was $72 you made not the $560

It really is no big deal for those who keep their records

But from ebay's point, I think to simplify it on their end that is why they did away with M.O. and Checks, easier to TRULY see what a seller is grossing in payments

And me also thinks eBay is sick of the headache of small sellers, and claims from unhappy buyers, so they just are writing us small and mediums off.


It is easier for eBay to have MEGA LARGE established business sellers that can sell and have tons of stuff to sell

I truly feel eBay wants us small sellers to leave and mediums, there is no way BOD or anyone would of condoned this constant pressure, switches, changes in policy, rules, Best Match etc. that all but exterminated us Mom and Pops, small and Medium

eBay in my opinion is trying to do everything but come right out and say SMALL, MEDIUM, MOM & POPS SELLERS LEAVE !

But that I think is the goal, or JD could of never gotten away with what he did to the site, when Donahoe said " WE HAVE TO LET GO OF OUR SUCCESSFUL PAST"
I think what he honmestly meant is that EBAY IS LETTING GO OF ITS SUCCESSFUL PAST THE SMALL, MEDIUM AND MON AND POPS SELLERS

The new vision for eBay does not include us, I am certain, because his changes and flip flops, and programs etc, have been complete bullshit to comply with and hop through hoops, they made it ridiculous so we just leave without them telling us to, that is my opinion

by: Hardrock Rules

1 last thing, it does not matter what site you take Pay Pal on, it ALL will be reported as total payments to your SS# or EIN

by: fruity

oh yeah and another thing, I wonder how those advertising customers would feel knowing that you got Hong Kong sellers apparently buy lots of placements on the us dot com and they're shipping out from out of the country. I wonder since its pretty much FREE money for Asia sellers with the way the currency floats, how they're more than happy to bid up PPC costs. and they are asia sellers, but apparently you know that ebay, hence why you over the past year you've been moving to finding new ways to camouflage them to buyers. Now you get another benefit. I HOPE YOU GET SUED and INVESTIGATED LIKE DOUBLECLICK

by: fruity

ebays PPC is alot more like YAHOOs. Remember they "partnered with yahoo" for the PPC. So they either partnered w/yahoo to get the market intelligence for their own (instead of using yahoos) or they pulled a craigslist and just pretended to partner with Yahoo on it.

by: Sayonara eBay

Never forget the #1 modus operandi of eBay:

We will do anything to make money.  If we don't make money on a new idea, we end it so we can replace it with something that does make money.

It IS a business and the dollar IS king, but some of the carp that has been perpetrated on sellers for the past 2 years is egregiously bad business when your business depends on -- SELLERS!!!  And BUYERS!!!

EBay is leaking stores like a sinking ship.  Since this past Monday, ebay has lost 365 premium and anchor stores.  This is according to a poster on seller central, the 5,000+ thread, who is running a count.  These stores are most likely the best-selling stores on eBay and they closed down this week. 130 closed yesterday.

Stores sellers are more difficult to replace than individual sellers are.  They have built their business to the point that it does an amount large enough to warrant the monthly expense. If they don't, they get out. That's what eBay is losing now and their effort to recruit people by telling them to look in the attic and garage ain't gonna fill those Premium and Anchor shoes.

Time for a change of management.  This one is an abject failure.  

by: Donkey

"eBay is not doing away with all sponsored ads - just those for its own sellers. Ali Croft, a spokesperson for eBay,"

WHAT!!!

by: LastGirl

ebay said ''We understand that these AdCommerce ads may have provided an advantage to your business.''

The part they didn't say but meant was ''the ads may have been to your advantage but we do not want you to have the advantage. We want you to fail and this is an additional effort to help you to fail. Go to another site, then we will allow you to use AdCommerce...maybe. Love and Kisses - ebay''

by: ebay nonsense

Since the IRS reporting changes have already been brought up but it's a little off topic I thought I'd add this anyway.

Here's another article on the new IRS reporting and so there's no finger pointing, it started on Bush's watch (part 1 of the bill was signed into law by Bush) and the rest was pushed through (in stealth mode) on the healthcare bill.  

Do take the time to read it or at least print it up for later because it affects everyone.  If you spend more than $600 on anything per year, it affects you.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/21/smallbusiness/1099_deluge/


My main concern is all those SS#'s having to be exchanged. If ID theft wasn't already a problem, it will be even worse now.

by: steve

Geesh, when is the Board going to get rid of that idiot running this company.

You have to wonder if some small seller ticked him off early in his career because eBay's actions always seem to squash the small seller.  They really know how to bite the hand that feeds them.
JD, what do you have against small sellers?   Is it just your insecurity?  Don't want to play with the carny folk?  LOL

by: Golda

Here is my short and humble opinion - F ebay and F add commerce, which was a failure from the start run by idiots. I am selling in other venues and doing much better than I did on ebay within the past 3 months. ebay was a good ride, but it is gone and any business large or small with any self respect will not be there for long. I hate incompetence and dishonesty and sell on venues which have a level of integrity and reliability I expect.

by: old timer

1 - "We understand that these AdCommerce ads may have provided an advantage to your business."

Yes, but we sellers were PAYING additional money to eBay for this "advantage".  Now eBay is telling us that all we have left is Best Match.  Well, most of us have already seen how BM works for us.

2 - "eBay is not doing away with all sponsored ads - just those for its own sellers. Ali Croft, a spokesperson for eBay,"

Not its own sellers????  Yes, why would eBay want to deal with the sellers who are an integral part of the venue!  No, eBay wants to deal with off-site mega sellers.  That makes sense only in the short-run, "got to get the quarterly revenue numbers up in time for reporting to the media and stockholders" mentality.  Don't worry about the long-term effect on the core business.

What a perfect example of the problems than corporations (particularly American managers) create for themselves.  And a perfect example of why every CEO should be required to include a clawback provision in their employment contracts so that bilked stockholders can legally reclaim unscrupulously or ineptly earned CEO salaries and bonuses.

by: corporate flea

1) If your phone rings, and your caller ID says Draper, UT, chances are that you'll be wiretapped, and your private conversation posted as a digital audio file on ebay's internal blog, so why answer the phone ?

2) Ebay has become a characature of itself, and not really ebay anymore, but a spam page for outside links.  When a user clicks the link and a sale is made, ebay gets the commission on that outside sale.

Ebay is appearing more and more like an expired domain with RSS feeds which capture commissions.  This is the last step before imploding a business.

Why is this happening?  Ebay has inside info on what's coming in the way of internet taxation.  The double negative ebay faces is that ebay betrayed its USA domestic sellers by going after Asia Hong Kong, and getting that group rate on DHL, but those asian traders aren't going to pay the upcoming internet tax - ebay will be forced to collect it ?  That's what I see from my metric data measuring...  Ebay brought the wolf into the henhouse to eliminate the USA importers, and suddenly ebay seems to care about the ''small seller'' ?  Sure they do, just ask any small seller!

Tod Cohen, eBay's vice president for government relations said: ''At a time when unemployment rates are high and small businesses across the country are closing shop, we are confident that Congress will protect small Internet retailers and the consumers they serve from another Internet tax scheme.''

Link:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20009603-38.htm
l?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Democrats push for new Internet sales taxes

by: ASeller

I have a small-medium size ebay biz, and employ 2 full time, 1 part time employee. We sell 20-30k per month. AC increased our sales by over 25%. We got the call too, and the letter everyone is posting, but ours had another paragraph ''We do have a pilot program for selected advertisers to drive traffic to their
> websites off eBay. I would love if we can work with you to ''re-launch''
> campaigns in AdCommerce to point to your website. Your account manager will
> be personally calling you over the next week to touch base and answer any
> questions you may have.''

I have talked to my account manager and the new rule will be that a select few sellers will be invited to buy ads, but, and this is a BIG BUT, the ads will point only to their own off-site website.

So, since I have a website apart from ebay, which no matter what I do, cannot hold a candle to the sales on ebay, I now must figure out how to have my website point back to my ebay store (as this is where my customers must feel the most comfortable)

When I questioned the account manager about how ludicrous this sounds, they agreed. I said that the only consistant thing that ebay has is INCONSISTANCY. And again, this manager, who sounded beaten down, agreed.

So, while most e-commerce wants their customers to stay on their site, ebay wants its' customers to click to something else and forget about the sellers who paid to list their items ON EBAY.

Sign me, Dazed and Confused

by: Corporate Free

ASeller writes:
''So, since I have a website apart from ebay, which no matter what I do, cannot hold a candle to the sales on ebay, I now must figure out how to have my website point back to my ebay store (as this is where my customers must feel the most comfortable)''

@ASeller
Your invited to outside link and you point Back to ebay when given the option to point to your domain?  What happens after you do all that work and you're now un-invited overnight?  Would you now call your HR manager at ebay and protest?  How long before your friendly corporate spy steals your business model and your direct competition now swallows all your customers with outside links you can't compete with? Will you still feel 'chosen' ?

by: Allan Kraig

The bottom line is that eBay can get more $$ from that ad space from other venues, Pay per click wasn't profitable enough .. Of course they didn't figure in the related sales in the clicks but HEY, That's eBay management for ya .. AK