Will User Generated Content Bring Shoppers to eBay?

by: NetWatch

The experiences I had as a small seller on ebay starting back in April triggered by a couple of low DSRs (1's and 2's) destroyed my faith in ebay and left an extremely bad taste in my mouth. Keep in mind I've been selling here since 1999 (14 years) and have 4625 positive feedbacks. After they slapped 21-day holds on my Paypal funds and put Seller Limitations on me, I lost any desire to "comply' "acquiesce" or "cooperate" with them. When I read much much worse accounts on the ebay discussion boards of much worse experiences happening to other ebay sellers, my resolve was cemented. What I experienced was quite mild compared to what some small sellers have experienced, and I simply want ebay to be held accountable for the adverse impact they have had and are having on many good decent honest sellers, and I am far from alone in this sentiment. Peoples lives have been disrupted in many, many cases by egregious unfair ebay actions. While it is true that Michael Moore going to Flint, Michigan and doing a documentary about all of the laid-off General Motors workers did not result in GM coming back to Flint and rehiring them, it served as a public expose of corporate corruption. I think a number of suspended ebay sellers who have suffered unwarranted and severe financial setbacks because of ebay are entitled to see ebay's corporate corruption exposed.

by: Anonymous Annie

Oh, that eBay! Cutting-edge, innovative and trendsetting!

When it comes to original ideas, don't ever accuse eBay of being a ''me-too!'' company.

I'm guessing that the REST of eBay is now in such perfect bug-free condition that they can actually afford to take a break an concentrate on ''vital'' matters like buying guides. (After all, eBay IS the go-to destination when someone wants to research product information, right? Right?)

:^/

by: pace306

Personally, I dont work for FREE ... so until I can do more research and get proven results - call me Ishmael ... I mean skeptical.

eBays catalog and details are incorrect in MANY places - Im not fixing THEM for free either.

Of course, if they are wrong and you use them and you get an SNAD ... YOU ARE SOL!

Until that mentality ends, I think I'll sit this one out.

After all its another hairbrained JD scheme - that means it wont work and/or last long!

by: blaumann2

I went to ebay.com/gds and got page not available. NICE
Where can I go to see some guides that exist?

by: PowerSeller2007

ebay they seller to divulge secret through the buying guides. It is ready to sell your item and kick you out.

by: Ming the Merciless

Hmmm.let me see if I've got this right.

Ebay is removing "unreliable" guides presumably written by rabble rousing, noisy sellers and replacing them new guides written by rabble rousing, noisy sellers.

In the meantime, their platform is collapsing one function at a time.

This must be some of that "excess delivery capacity" between The Ho's ears.

by: Ric

Looks like little more than another eBay distraction.

Here is what will eventually happen with these new guides.

eBay guides will appear first.

Diamond's Guides will appear second.

Anchor stores next.

Then all other sellers will appear under those.

If you are a small seller without a store or TRS, then rest assured your guides will appear with your listings, at the bottom of the list!!.

Sellers have something else to look forward to... Guides will poof when the product they create a guide for is offered by a Diamond or a Branded store.


I can hear JD and his hand picked millionaire yes men saying: "Let the sellers busy themselves making up guides and hopefully it will keep the distracted from the declining marketplace traffic."

by: The End

Totally stupid / useless waste of binary code.

by: FREDDY

ebay is just a waste of time for 90% of the sellers. All by design.
Smoke & Mirrors. Stay distracted while the ship sinks.

by: Ina

I've seen some excellent guides on eBay written by sellers who have indepth knowledge of collectibles and vintage items in particular.

In fact, our collectibles editor Michele Alice has included a number of guides in her compilations of helpful resources at the bottom of her columns, which I can only presume she found through searches on Google etc.

The couple of eBay-commissioned guides I've read are more vanilla - a lot of words, but very generic - and were likely written to be search-engine bait. Putting those reviews before the high-quality user-generated content may prove to be a mistake.

by: Just My Humble View

The eBay guides that I read this morning were also lacking. There were nicely written pretty words, but little substance, and seriously incomplete coverage of even the ''high points''.

To make a comparison, I read a few of the user-written guides in the same category. Not necessarily as pretty, but definitely more substantive -- and far more helpful to a potential buyer.

It would be nice if they would send some of the guides back to the writers for editing, though. No matter how informative, a guide with incomplete sentences, no punctuation, or all caps is annoying and difficult to read. I doubt I would click through to the products offered, expecting the listings to be written the same way.

by: brokentoys19

will there be reviews for ebay's new escort services? They seem very popular on the forums these days. Nice photos too.  

by: mamie14425

We don't have the time to waste on this....give us metrics and show us how this benefits our bottom line.....''Show us the money''.....and time is money!!

by: Ming the Merciless

Giving sellers metrics is verboten heresy.

Long time sellers will remember many marketing claims ebafia regularly made such as using this listing bell or that listing whistle increase sales "on average" of X percent.

Being the curious sort that I am I regularly called them and even emailed Negged Meg once and asked for the marketing studies' results that they used to make these claims.

Of course, being the supreme organization of lies and secrets, they refused every one of my requests under the guise that these  'studies' were "proprietary" information.

Most of you have already learned the drill -- if their lips are moving...

by: WOODJUNGLE! ON EBAY

If was going to try to generate traffic to increase business, it would be to MY SITE.  I pay ebay because THEY are supposed to  be bringing traffic to THEIR site.  They never cease...

by: baconsdozen

Will the last seller leaving ebay please turn off the lights?.

by: elpereles

eBay is just trying to exploit the "blogging" promoting ideas used successfully by sellers in the past few years. It is too bad they have something in the Review/Guide, but never manage to evolve it in something more interesting.