After a Cassini Disappearing Act at eBay, How Will Sellers React?

by: Bloggo

Though they will never admit it, Cassini is a multi-million dollar disaster.  

by: Ric

So once again, we discover that eBay has been intentionally misrepresenting implementation of Cassini. This is most likely due to the fact that eBay has dumped tens of millions into the search engine that isn't, and needed to impress investors about alleged accomplishments resulting from the money they flushed away.

I personally do not believe we are any closer to the truth now than we were when eBay first started telling us Cassini was rolling out.

The first tip off to me came when eBay announced the discontinuation of wild card search functionality. eBay has the only search engine on the planet that can not handle wild card calls. I speculated then that Cassini's inability to handle wild card functionality was the tip of the iceberg and that more disappointments for sellers was to come.

I believe that eBay has learned that Cassini does not work as planned, and that the many shortcomings in Cassini are part of the reason John Donahoe predicted softer than expected Q4 2013 numbers.

Sellers have been very poorly served by the lies, half-truths, deceptive statements, and misleading public releases eBay's various executives and spokespeople keep spewing.
Sellers are entitled to more than the half baked BS that has been rocketing out of the wrong end of eBay with regard to the most the singular important eBay function... search.

Perhaps, Mr Donahoe needs to take an extra thinking day before the end of 2013, and ponder the advantages of coming clean with sellers once and for all as a way to start the New Year, and then dedicating 2014 as the year eBay stops lying to sellers, analysts and investors in a desperate effort to support share values.

This disclosure regarding Cassini points to how the many destructive innovations called for by John Donahoe have failed and why eBay finds it impossible to achieve real transactional sales growth.

The Board Of Directors needs to wake up from their Donahoe induced collective coma and admit that it is time for another purge at eBay... this time aimed at the failed leadership of John Donahoe as well as his hand picked team of yes-men.




 

by: Captain Nemo

So all this blather about how bad Cassini has been is really just a ''vapor-whine'' since it's not been enabled.  

It's can't be much worse than Amazon's search which is always a ''sorta best match'' full of irrelevant items directly mixed with items not even on Amazon.  I truly feel for the 3rd party sellers often demoted to the ''other sellers'' kid's table where they can be ignored.

Or Etsy search with limited options that seems to want to sort based on listing dates.  Forget trying to find something specific.  Pour a glass of wine and wander...

Perhaps Cassini - which no one has actually seen or used - might really be better.

by: Bloggo

When a failed exec or politician  is shown the door, a common public explanation is ''I am taking time off with my family for now'' or some variant.

by: Ed Gadfly

These guys are always patting themselves on the back for stuff that can not be proved. Meanwhile, no one ever gets fired f

by: Ed Gadfly

no one gets fired for the things that never work right, like the Shipping Calculator.

That is why eBay FORCES YOU to let PreyPal TAKE your money for fees each month. Who could sit down month after month and pay good money for this abuse.

by: iheartjacksparrow

If he loves eBay and everyone there, and if he's proud of he work he did, then why did Mr. Williams decide to leave? I would think that if it is such a love fest there, he would stay on.

by: Massachusets Howler

GRRRRREAT story Ina!
Keep digging for us!
This is a critical story and you get coverage.
Good going.
MH

by: Anonymous Annie

Political posturing. He's trying to demonstrate to his NEXT employer that he's a ''team player'' and that he's ''loyal'' even in adversity. His glowing comments have NOTHING to do with reality... he's just setting the stage so that future employment prospects won't see him as being a volatile employee.

''Blather?'' ''Vapor whine?'' Oh, good grief! Give. Me. A. Break.

Everyone knows that eBay lies lies lies. Simply because someone at eBay (or formerly at eBay) claims that Cassini hasn't been rolled-out, doesn't make it true.

I think the more rational explanation is that they HAVE rolled it out, and it's been a FAILURE. So they are faced with trying to figure out how they can plausibly cover-up or make excuses for their failure. So, they've decided to try the ''it's-not-yet-implemented'' excues. And, no matter how absurd it may sound to us, they've decided to run with it and work-it for all it's worth.

Some people are not as clever as they imagine themselves to be. The great care they use in splitting hairs reveal much more about their intentions (and their character) than they probably intended.

by: bitbybit

"So think of search as a back end and a front end. The back end is the infrastructure, the front end is the functionality."

Backass backward describes ebay perfectly

by: Ming the Merciless

REVIEW TIME:

Ming's ebay Law #1:

EBAY LIES. ALWAYS HAS, ALWAYS WILL.

and of course the corollary  

How do you know when ebay is lying?
When their lips are moving.

Don't forget about the man who invented Voyager. He resigned and later stated that ebay was perverting the original intent of his search engine.

Devil Wenig appears to be the heir apparent and, if anything, this man is more vicious, more sociopathic, and more evil than The Ho.

Secondly it's clear from all the experiences that have been posted here that Cassini did in fact kick in in phases beginning in late winter of 2013 and probably accounted for the even more dismal than usual summer sales and thusfar quite disappointing holiday sales.

The fact is that ebay just doesn't get it. They don't get that despicable treatment of sellers/buyers, inability to distinguish between really good sellers and bad ones, and constant search engine tweaks to favor sellers that buyers aren't much interested in buying from on ebay (Chinese, big boxes) combined with the increasing disappearance of the unique items ebay buyers have always expected to find, and the anti seller, pro criminal policies have contributed to the pitiful, blatantly dishonest platform that is today's ebay.

Ebay management -- including Williams who lies to protect his golden parachute and severance benefits (Remember The Ho's departure mantra? ''Be a good ebay citizen'' which translates as ''Don't reveal any damaging secrets and crimes.'') should be spending all day every day with their families waiting to begin serving their sentences in federal prison.

Lies, secrets, more lies, and more secrets. That's the ebay way.

by: bitbybit

Boy Captain Nemo keep hanging on to that sinking ship. I think you are the only one on board.

Annie, as usual, is spot on.

Me thinks thou ebay doth protest too much

by: Ming the Merciless

One additional chilling thought:

Maybe in the Ho's and Wenig's opinion, Cassini didn't advance The Ho's favored favored Chinese, big box, and haute couture sellers high enough in search.

On the other hand, managers who supervise successful projects don't get invitations to spend more time with families.

Williams is taking the fall for C level management's utter stupidity  and hopeless incompetence.

by: bitbybit

I wonder what the executive hiring process is like on ebay.

''Will you give up your soul, your first born and your life to work for ebay?''

''Yes''

''Okay you are hired until we do not need or want you anymore''

by: Basset

Whoa - I got lost midway through the carefully chosen words & thought I was in the middle of some of last month's healthcare site hearings transcripts.

Even the CMS IT guy who resigned sounded a lot like Mr. Williams.

So maybe the healthcare site repair techs can go to work on Cassini when they finish? They seem to be making SOME headway.

Of course, you have to admit there IS a problem before you can be helped.  

by: bitbybit

Can't wait until I get to the end of this book with an actual booking of JD and all his henchmen.

Yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus.

by: JoyfulA

So eBay is now like 2008 Amazon? Well, ToysRUs was at Amazon then, and now it's at eBay. Interesting.

by: alaska

I've spent many more hours searching on eBay than Hugh Williams has worked for eBay, and I can state for a fact that it used to be much easier to find things on eBay than it is today. The loss of the wild card, the hijacking of our searches (changing our search words), and the swamping of eBay with free listings that are run over and over and over again have made it all but impossible to find any quality items on eBay. Add the fact that eBay has driven away many of the sellers of quality vintage items and replaced them with sellers of junk and imported items, and the future of eBay doesn't look bright. The best thing that eBay could do for search is figure out a way to filter out any auction title that has been delivered to the searcher within the past 6 months. If I've seen an auction title once and was not interested in it, I don't need to see that same auction title a hundred times a week through my various searches.

by: nsc

@basset, don't wish for the health care site techs; they are cobbling together a Potemkin website on the fly. The lack of basic back-end functionality (not to mention nice-to-haves like security) will become obvious to all in January as tens of thousands have their insurance policies lost or garbled, and the identity thieves start to bite. It will become so obvious that even reporters will see it and stop buying administration lies and excuses.

by: Steevo

If cassini is so great, why are all our sales so slow?  It's like no one can find anything.

I have an item I listed myself, for a year or two.  It's very odd and hard to sell with few buyers.  

I searched for it, and I couldn't find it at all.  Did I mention it's been listed a couple years?  It was GONE. INVISIBLE.

I added it to my watchlist on some other accounts and asked some friends to do the same, and then I could see it.

It hasn't sold but it's the type of item that has very few buyers. Quite a specialized, custom made piece of electronic equipment.

So that it has not sold is no surprise to me. But the tests I did went way beyond that.  It was invisible.

I thought that was cassini. Is the whole ebay search broken, cassini or not?  I guess so.