Sellers Present Tough Defect Scenarios in eBay Webinar

by: Ric

The last eBay webinar I viewed was an hour of my life lost forever, and absolutely nothing discussed was of any value

Questions seemed preselected and cherry picked to dovetail with the points eBay wanted to cover.

There were zero hard hitting questions and I felt no better informed after than I did before.

Needless to say I chose to skip this one in order to better manage my anger and blood pressure.

by: pace306

So the webinar (as noted by every seller from here to Timbuktu) was really a waste of time, electricity, bandwidth and only something one should contemplate joining right before you jump off that bridge Burke is selling.

They raised some imaginary bar "cause some buyers expectations said so". BS. eBay has hit a wall ... lots of large electronics sellers are leaving and they cant make up the funds. TIme to go back to the 1 and only thing they know - BLAME THE SELLER - it MUST be his/her fault that buyers hate eBay!

Brian Burke knows less then a stray cat about ecommerce, less then that about retailing in 2014, and 1/2 of THAT about what buyers REALLY want.

Buyers of course want to pay less then the seller did, get free shipping, unlimited returns, BOGO, %85 off the next 1/2 dozen they buy, and a $500 referal fee for each friend they can get as an accomplice to file SNADs against sellers - is all that comming too?

Of course they wont disclose the amounts of top rated sellers - its all conjured anyway, Burke has no idea. The %20 he saves may be his salary - so hes gung ho to find reasons to boot people.

All these new "ideas" and the lame @$$ ones before are why people go to Amazon, and Sears, and Newegg, and Barnes & Noble, and all the other platforms.

Instead of embracing sellers and working with the good ones - you blame them for everything and beat them till they leave for other platforms.

What a dummy - YOU SIR (BURKE) are not as described (you were advertised as someonw with ab actual BRAIN) (come sue me please - its a feedback on your service to me as a seller)

by: Mercy the Mingless

Ebay's Burke is responsible for the Detailed Seller Ratings (DSRs), the ''a neutral is a negative because it isn't a positive'' nonsense and many other elements of Ebay feedback that had to be later changed.

Ebay's problem is NOT bad sellers.  It's bad Burke.  

He should not be allowed even close to any seller rating system creation/modification. Burke has repeatedly failed in his attempts at a fair feedback system and has hurt many good sellers with his incompetence.

by: comet

Sooooo---

Lemme get this straight.  Without knowing WHAT the alleged seller had to sell that was "foldable"  etc let's think this thru---according to the ebay rep ALL of the attributes of this item SHOULD be able to FIT in the measly space ebay allows us to head our listing.  The photos SHOULD have whatever info ebay seems to feel--based on what we don't know---in the Number 2 photo slot--yet there is a limited number of photo slots and you might NEED them ALL to tell the story of the item.  Yet the potential customer is too LAZY to go look at ALL of the photos---

And yes the Item Specs are a good thing--but even today I still see MOST listings do NOT have them filled in.  MAybe ebay SHOULD crack down on this.  I constantly get "alerts"  that MY IS are not filled in--when they in fact ARE filled in.  And on a recent case filed against an item of mine I HAD the IS filled in AND mentioned things in the listing AND in the title--fortunately for me this one item fit in that space---and I "won"  the case on those merits.  But---I can also see this being used as a "club"  against the sellers head. How many times have any of us been asked a question that we would NEVER have thought of that NOW ebay will claim SHOULD have been in our home-made Item Specifics?  

And because ebay has "decided"  that OUR customers are only capable of looking at a few words at a time WE should NOT use---words.  Unless they are --in the words of Pooh--"Short easy words".  

I find the mobile app for ebay to be almost useless and I am not new to this.  And if you view the SAME listing on a smart phone, a tablet and or a laptop you see COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS.  So---what---am I now supposed to check on EVERY device ever known?  I have all android here--should I go buy a new iPhone to view my ebay listings--the ones that are not being SHOWN to anyone to BUY????

What drugs IS this guy taking????

by: LasVagueness

eBay - masters of equivocation.

by: Abernathy

''Burke said the seller's item had a key measurement, but it was in the sixth photo. Burke suggested that should be photo number two.''

Just curious--since we're not allowed to put text in photos, how was that key measurement conveyed?

Why bother with a description when even the eBay brass says it doesn't count? And if buyers aren't required to read the description, eBay should change the ''not as described'' terminology to ''not as imagined''.

Seriously... buyers have NO obligation to buy responsibly, because they can just return everything? Another reason to refuse to go along with the 14-day return.

by: Abernathy

The more I think about this, the more I think this guy ought to be dubbed "Brazen Burke".... and he's speaking for eBay. Wow.

by: NullApps

This sounds like 2008 all over again.

For one what's the deal with the item specifics suggestion?  Yes you can customize item specifics and they've been that way for a long time.  And they've been searchable since at least 2010. I don't understand how that is supposed to help you with defect rates.

1)  Buyers aren't going to bother reading your item specifics.  They'll look at the photo and if your lucky, the title. They aren't going to read everything from a list.  The more you add the more likely they are going to misread something anyway.  Saying ''Foldable: no'' is just asking for trouble because they'll see the word ''Foldable''.  And if they search for foldable (which it isn't) it will now come up in search results.

2)  Search doesn't help in this case.  If I say something isn't foldable there is no way to search for that on eBay or any way to exclude my listings from searches that don't explicitly mention it.  Negative keywords drop Item Specifics from search.  And if it is an important part it would be included but it wouldn't be added if it isn't part of it.  So not putting ''foldable'' is the only way to go.  I'm guessing they didn't have the word anywhere anyway.

by: LAbay

LasVagueness: very well put!

by: NetWatch

The entire webinar was an eBay controlled propaganda fest. The new Defect Rate will take out what's left of the good decent small sellers in the most massive purge that has ever happened on eBay...

by: LinneyPinney

This is so eff'd up! They advertise all over the place to let customers know that they are "protected" from the evil sellers. They have created a customer that returns items for any reason and we have to suck it up and take stuff back no matter what the customer does to it.  And now we have this complicated system that further degrades us and penalizes us for these returns. I am moving my listings off of eBay, more and more every day. I will not tolerate this any more. This eBay corporate asshats are nucking futz.

by: sparky

This is complicated, raises the bar so that even the best sellers fail. It also depersonalizes the whole site.  This isn't Amazon and it never will be no matter how much tweaking occurs. It is my opinion that ebay no longer wants any of the collectibles.  They just want a Walmart without investing in 'associates'.  The 'associates' pay the store to be able to sell while commissions are taken and evaluation is so heavy handed that the slightest infraction collapses the section of the 'store'.

by: sparky

Donahoe decided to annihilate his worker bees.  Electronics, Chinese items and a few odds and ends will sustain. New ways to torture and abuse the sustaining unpaid force of the entire ebay engine.  I for one am extremely upset.

by: val2525

Check out page 11 of eBay's own slideshow today.  It states, and I quote, "Open cases will not count if they are escalated to eBay for review and resolved in favor of the buyer."

eBay can't even get their own rules straight.

I really think none of these yahoos have ever sold on eBay or been in business for themselves.

by: sparky

Burke has had to make a name for himself to the company.  This is the best brainchild he could do for his millions? Hammer sellers.  Discourage sellers & inadvertently discourage buyers. The loyal ones will get the vibes fast. Absolutely stupid! Burke, we're doing you the favor.  It's not the other way around. You're blind.

by: vince-q

1. a company's customers are the folks that pay that company.
2. the SELLERS pay eBay, not the buyers.
3. the SELLERS are eBay's customers, not the buyers.

Simple syllogism.
Should be required memory work for every eBay employee.

Don't hold your breath.

by: Marie

This statement goes to show how in touch Burke is.  "He also advised sellers to only open cases when they are confident that eBay will rule in their favor."  

What the heck??  Seller's don't open cases against themselves.  It isn't even a possibility.  So why caution us on something that isn't even possible?

by: Puamelia

"He also advised sellers to only open cases when they are confident that eBay will rule in their favor."

This is a joke, right? Ebay rule in a seller's favor?

by: NullApps

@ Marie

Maybe he means escalating the case so that eBay makes a ruling?  It is common for sellers to escalate when they've exhausted their options speaking to the buyer mistakenly thinking eBay will rule in their favor through common sense.  And then they lose.

by: MLG Jewelry

The two biggest problems.

1. Not all buyers will realize neutral is a negative and ebay fails to explain that.

2. Item as described, is not "do you like the item" its is the item as described. ebay fails to properly convey that to buyers.

Side note, sellers are not the customer buyers are the customer, you effectively pay ebay revenue share, to sell through their site. When a seller burns a buyer we all lose.