Survey Says eBay Should Reassure Users Following Hack

by: NetWatch

The mishandling of the hacking should be enough to force CEO Donahoe out. Why hasn't it happened yet? And yet the systemic problems at eBay ran wide and deep BEFORE the hacking. The saddest and sickest part of this whole mess is that eBay/PayPal have so monopolized online sales for so long it's almost to the point where other than Amazon and Etsy there are no viable options with the traffic needed to really move merchandise. Bonanza and Webstore could and should be doing a lot better were it not for the stranglehold eBay has had so long.

by: Ming the Merciless

No worries. This was only a seasonal hack.

by: southwest13

My sales were not great but post-hack they tanked completely.  I'm convinced it and the poor way in which eBay addressed it (or didn't) is the reason...much worse than the normal summer slowdown.  One has only to read the sellers' boards to see it's happened to a great many other sellers. Thanks for this great article.  It's so true.  

by: Philip Cohen

Well, eBay's second quarter results should indicate if Johnny Ho has been able to funnel the remaining buyers to his preferred merchants; otherwise, we should have interesting times ahead ... Ho, Ho, Ho ...

eBay Inc, where the incompetent mingle with the malevolent and the outright criminal, and the just plain stupid ... http://bit.ly/11F2eas

by: Rexford

I'm really sick of hearing that this is due to the summer slow down.  Yes, summer is always slow, but we've always gotten by just fine in the summer.

This summer is different.  It is like someone completely turned the servers off and I blame it on eBay's lack of response after the security breach.  eBay refuses (for whatever reasons) to reassure buyers that eBay is a secure marketplace.

The esteemed CEO is like a cat with nine lives.  What in the hello is wrong with eBay's Board of Directors.  Dying to see how they'll pad the numbers next quarter and come out smelling like a rose.

Ina, please send a copy of this survey to the producer (at the Today Show) of the recent story they did regarding the seller whose sales were devastated.

Here is one thing that I do know.  The "seller noise" will outlast Donahoe.

by: ebay refugee camp

It is not only the hack, it is the way it was handled, calls by sellers were ignored or passed off as other reasons why sales were down. Where was the CEO?
The mishandling was profound as ebay execs sat in a room counting their money from his stock dividends, they could not be bothered by NOISE!
The battle with Google?
Higher prices on ebay buyer are realizing there are other venues with lower prices?
The angst being driven between buyers and sellers because ebay execs believe buyers should be refunded for any reason including the thieves?
How about sellers who are buyers also whom have gotten so angry and frustrated whom will not shop on ebay anymore?
The fall release is looming which will be bad for ebay, a mass exodus will happen. 11main will be in full swing.
The survey says!! Ebay is lying about the sales.
If all sellers would start a social media backlash, complain to their State Attorney general, list on other venues and stop buying on ebay this would be enough to force change.
If ebay's results are bad for the quarter they will come out and say something which will be scripted in a way to lay blame off the horrible job the execs have done.
Kook up the sales trends for e-commerce as a whole has all of John Donahoe's ill conceived policies heled ebay ?
The answer is clearly, NO!
If they were working ebay would be surpassing the trends of people now shipping online, like Amazon, but ebay is barely keeping pace

by: plunge

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the penalties ebay received from Google.  It happened soon after the hack: http://searchengineland.com/google-hits-ebay-manual-penalty-search-res
ults-192454/

Combine the two and you have the perfect storm for lower sales.

I have two ebay ids. One was affected more than the other. Of the two ebay ids, sales declined in one more than the other.  And in the one that was affected more, I sell two things one priced at $19.99 and the other priced at $44.99. Sales dropped a lot more on the $44.99 item.  I would be interested to see if ebay sellers' sales based on fixed listings' price points were affected.  
 

by: charcorvet

Sales have tanked on all 4 ID's use or manage. More impact from the Google slap than the hack I think. BUT I have heard that some folks couldn't sign to bid for up to a week after ebay started saying "Change your password">

I had 19 auctions going in the hack time frame but 1500 FP listings And I got ZIP in compensation.

The family "buyer" who uses an account that's Mine to buy got nothing in terms of a coupon or bribe to buy. he's outta here at the end of the month and ebay will miss his buying.

by: SusansAntiques

eBay has handled the news concerning the security breach in the same manner it handles nearly all communications with their sellers - badly. Now, after over five years of being a TRS seller, I have received the 3 month probation warning due to not achieving the set sales quota for the year. My sales since the breach have been the lowest they have ever been in my time as a seller on eBay.
Rather than place me in the extended "grace" period I believe they should roll back the clock on sale quotas to before the breach. Cut the smaller seller a break! I haven't altered the way I conduct business - the buyers are simply not there!

by: FREDDY

ebay will NOT do any anything regarding the hack. To do so would state that there was a mistake made on ebay part in the security area. Most likely because of cost savings for ebay. ebay and Donohoe DO NOT MAKE MISTAKES>  It's the sellers fault.  

by: comet

I could not get into the survey (no service area)  but I will agree---SALES TANKED and altho I am a very small seller I certainly NOTICED this---and also at the SAME time the very FEW sales I made came almost exclusively from buyers who later tried to EXTORT money from me either via FEEDBACK EXTORTION (forced refunds)  or plain old EXTORTION--"I don't like and either accept a return OR give me a $30 CREDIT on a $34 sale"

This seems too much like the scammers taking advantage of sellers while they KNOW about all of the various factors affecting our sales--The Hack; Google; and the Seller Updates.  

I gotta wonder tho---when these scammers run OUT of sellers to try and steal from---where WILL they go next?  Ebay just made it so much EASIER for them to STEAL!

And---Julia will appreciate this---I just had a sale on an item I forgot I even HAD listed it's been on there so long.  I now have to FIND it and get it out---all the while hoping that an item that should have sold for around $30 but sold for $9.99 won't be going to ANOTHER scammer buyer.

Getting to the point where it is NOT worth it.  

And NO 11Main will NOT save us all--they don't accept a LOT of what I sell--

by: Tornad0sRul

I would say that my business slowed down more after the Google search change than after the hack.  Google's crack down on EBay's "2004" practices is what brought my viewers way down.  I could see the difference in the number of viewers and the number of sales.

by: Redlion

I had reason to call during the the (non)announcement of the breach and CS really down played the entire incident. My questions of why I had to find out about the breach on Ina went unanswered.

My sales are definitely down and it isn't just the summer months.

It appears the CEO has gotten advice from his friends in the white house and is calling this whole thing a phoney scandal. Does anyone remember the Iraqi government official the dubbed Bagdad Bob? He was the one they put out on the media claiming they were winning the war and claims the allied forces had entered Bagdad were all lies. This while all the while the filming was going on you could hear and see bombing going on behind him. People keep calling Donahoe the Ho, I rather prefer Bagdad Bob.

by: brokentoys19

Waiting 2 months before disclosure then having the ceo completely ignore the situation is an industry standard and/or best practice isn't it?  

by: Tornad0sRul

This uncontrolled survey is no indication of reality and should not be considered completely accurate. There are many bad sellers on EBay as well and they are the types of sellers who look for reasons to complain or blame, and this is their perfect opportunity to try to get something for free, or to prevent them from getting "defects" that they deserve.  Even "not-so-bad" sellers will jump on this bandwagon simply because it is a slow time of the year for sales.

Every year for the past 5 years May has been my slowest month for sales and I don't even count on much income because of my clear statistics from the past. I remember last year not getting one single sale all weekend on Memorial weekend and I vowed to remember that.  Not only that but hello, did everyone forget about the Google search changes?  Those changes were huge and really hurt EBays priority as far as stacking on Google searches. I read evidence that EBay items that were customarily on the first page of a Google search were now on the 3rd and 4th page.  That's huge and makes a big difference.  Usually I don't get to the second page of Google searches let alone the 3rd or 4th page, so our items were and are not being seen on Google, and that is crucial.

Also has anyone been watching the news?  GM has recalled cars going back to the 1970's now because of faulty parts and the lawsuit about all of the deaths that occurred because of the poor workmanship and unsafe mechanics. GM is supposedly sorry and trying to make it up to the families but they knew long before now that this was happening and they did nothing about it.  Will all of you stop buying GM automobiles?  Doubtful, because GM will put in extra precautions now because of the lawsuit, and other manufacturers will do the same, so the cars will be safer.

Target also put in place extra protections regarding their security breach and EBay will be forced to do the same.  Any successful business will see these things in the press and media as learning tools and change their own methods and procedures to better protect the consumer and themselves from lawsuit.  EBay is not the first to have a security breach and will not be the last.  Media and publicity is what drives most of the scandals and the simple fact that you are on the internet puts you at risk of a security breach every single day.  Most of you have probably already had your private information leaked or stolen and you don't even know about it.  That's how it is these days because everyone is on the internet.  The crooks are always ahead of the law and that's how it will always be because we are reactionary and many of these things cannot be predicted.

I am guessing that these security breaches are going to become less and less as businesses get sick of being sued and losing money because of inept IT departments.

by: Cassie

The true test will be August - January. If sales are less than last year. eBay must place serious consumer confidence back.The real concern this hack is in parts or sequence diversions. Meaning a visual that surfaces while several reserves in place that lie dormant till primary selling season hits- Black Friday & Cyber Monday.

As precaution upgrading all my accounts, computers and diversifying my accounts plus utilizing more than one merchant gateway accounts. eBay thinks they can coupon, discount or offer free features to engage sellers or buyers alike ''Nope'' as word of advise, ''Serious price tag I.D. Fraud $50,000 court costs & 2 years unemployment''

Any seller & buyer should demand a independent contact line for fraud or suspicious activity hotline and at least some form reduced rate''Business Recovery Insurance''for sellers and ''Data Loss Insurance''. I'm sure eBay is collecting on their ''Errors and Omission Insurance'' & Data Loss Insurance'' due the Hack.  

by: The End

I'll say it Louder this time :
EBAY MUST BE ENTIRELY SECURED under the EV-SSL umbrella:
There must be NO LINKS to outside sites WHATSOEVER. NONE. NADA.
The only reason Ebay links to outside websites is the Greed for ad money. Ebay has absolutely NO CONCERN about the safety of its clients.
EV-SSL insures that our information is secured.
If you don't see the GREEN EV-SSL bar at EVERY POINT during your Ebay transaction, including the item listing page, CANCEL THE TRANSACTION !
This only applies to Ebay.

by: ebay refugee camp

It may not make a difference to ebay but my sales off ebay are sky rocketing.
After years of buying my supplies on ebay today I went to Amazon and bought them
I am not going to support idiots

by: Philip Cohen

@Tornad0sRul,

There seems to be some suggestion that eBay was “gaming” the Google search system; I simply cannot believe that; a fine upstanding corporation like eBay Inc., led by that fine, upstanding Stanford/Bain graduate, Johnny Ho, a trusted advisor to the POTUS; no, sorry, I could not possibly believe that …

Yes, most people/corporations eventually learn from their mistakes, but this does not apply to eBay or Johnny Ho; Johnny Ho has never made a mistake; you only have to compare the stock prices of eBay and Amazon over the past seven years that the Ho has been at the helm of eBay to appreciate that—Ho, Ho, Ho …

eBay Inc, where the incompetent mingle with the malevolent and the outright criminal, and the just plain stupid ... http://bit.ly/11F2eas

by: Puck

I bet all the increased sales and no impact responses came from San Jose ISPs.