eBay Management Speaks: Is It What You Were Expecting?

by: munson68

Most stressful year listing on Ebay.So many hoops to  jump through tires me out and now feels like I'm just tripping on them

by: eBay Shill Buster

Yes, that seller who responded is an honest broker, so it is just a matter of time before eBay bans him from the official forums for telling the truth and telling it like it is.

eBay executives are detached from reality, they are still talking about that crappy catalog data that does nothing but clog up sellers listings with generic data, so what does eBay do, they put a button on the page so a buyer has to go to a new window to view the full description if it is even possible to find it on the page with all of Devin's cross promoted 'sponsored listings'.

This is nothing but PR from KupBust, they know virtually everything they are doing is a massive flop.

by: Studiolines

I don't know who the theheadphonecompany is but THANK YOU for telling it like it is.  

by: onlinecommerce1

Eh....I would not call this the most stressful year on Ebay ever. That would have been 2008 or so.....when they rolled out the ridiculous 5% seller performance rule, guardrail, etc. Doesn't matter how much or how little traffic Ebay is getting if you are suspended due to some ridiculous and arbitrary policy.

It definitely has been more challenging this year due to all the changes and due to the increased crap competition from China.

I feel Ebay has a chance to make up some ground on Amazon this year if they are smart. I get that Amazon is killing everyone right now....but at least from a 3P seller perspective, they are starting to piss off most all of their 3P sellers with their ridiclous policies, suspensions, claims, bots, shutdowns, poor seller support help, listing hijacks, competition sabotage, etc. etc. This is no different than Ebay back in 2006-2009 when they were killing it and then started to fall when they started to piss sellers off. Amazon is on the way to repeating the same thing.

Personally, it's much more treacherous on Amazon right now....and are the sales that much more than on Ebay to justify putting up with their crap? No, they aren't.

by: toolguy

I can't ask Bob a question because I'm banned from posting on eBay forums. . .

I guess I'm going to Facebook again.

by: Ming the Merciless

What the headphonecompany wrote is just an abbreviated good beginning. At this point an entire thesis could be written explaining why ebafia is #failing and why ebafia is no one's "partner" except possibly for the criminal liar buyers they recruit and encourage.

Kupbens little essay is nothing more than variation of Wenig's "reconnecting with small sellers" meme that turned out be anything but. NONE of these guys can be trusted until such time that we start seeing positive results for the fees we pay and a fair playing field. Lying is, after all, what ebafia does best but stealing money from sellers is a close second.

If this newest lying head really wants to know what needs to be done, he should read the ebay seller forums and these blogs. Fill his cart with FACTS.

by: Silver Ice King

All that will happen with the response from Theheadphonecompany is it will suddenly disappear tomorrow or their sales will suddenly disappear completely instead of only close to completely as Ebay does not want to know the truth.  Unless you cow down and say exactly what Brian and Allen want to hear then you wont be around the community boards much longer.

Ebay is evidently getting tired of seeing all the negative comments on the boards and are probably starting to have to answer tougher questions from the Wall Street guys.  In the past, Wall Street never seemed to hear about all the issues that Ebay has.  But now, with so many posts being made in so many forums and blogs,  Wall street doesn't seem to be able avoid all the negative comments about Ebay as they have for so many years.  

I'm surprised there are not more negative comments under that one, so either Ebay has quietly turned responses off like they did after the big blog announcement when they reimagined the boards back in October of 2016 or The Community Team has already banned all those that had the nerve to not kiss up to the Ebay and the Non Community Team.  

 

by: maxmad

yes, the comment is reality and just the tip of the iceberg

unfortunately ebay couldn't care less about a few million negative opinions, compared to quantity of seller it's meaningless, the only thing that matters is sellers money, and until a lot more sellers wake up and start taking their money to other places, ebay will continue their rage against the seller,

only the sellers can force change,.......

by: pace306

They haven’t banned me YET, just the usual throttling :)

Yes, I am the OP there, and it’s the same stuff I write here when I can (and I’m not dodging eBay cheerleaders).

Bob should call himself HR Fluffnstuff since everything he wrote was outright simple lies.

He won’t respond neither will his staff, but I had to get it out in the open.  

by: The End

This pales in comparison to when Ebay began FORCED PayPal.
Stripe Payments must be an option INSTEAD of PayPal.
Only then will Ebay experience legitimate growth.

by: Rexford

He says....."and remind you that your partnership and the eBay community, is what sets us apart"

He certainly got that right, just not in the way that he thinks that he did.  All of the other places that I sell actually MAKE me feel like a partner.  eBay?  Exactly the opposite.  So yes, they are set apart.....in the worst way.

I am tired of eBay's management's words.  Ming nailed it with his reference to Wenig's "reconnecting with small sellers" lie.

If I have read the comments on ecommercebytes correctly over the last few months, sellers saw sales tank even more after the latest fiasco (Seller Hub) rolled out.  Don't think that for one minute that this wasn't intended to boost enterprise sellers and the Chinese even more, while hiding small sellers even more.  Everything that they have done since Donahoe reared his smug mug  has been for that purpose.  They've pulled the hammer down on small sellers bit by bit. Mission creep at its finest.

I said years ago that nothing would change until it hit them in the pocket book.  Of course as arrogant as they all are I think they'd be willing to close the doors before they would throw small sellers a bone.

by: Volvo351

is this what I expected? Boilerplate mumbo jumbo? Sadly, yes; what is there in feeBay's track record that would lead us to expect anything better? When will they learn that we sellers don't want any 'experience' and we sure don't want no stinkin' "partnership!" We want the SERVICE for which we PAY: market exposure of our merchandise to interested buyers. Are we getting that? Absolutely not.

by: Volvo351

Just read that response and it's certainly lengthy enough to cover all the issues that have been discussed on the 'official' forum and on this blog ad nauseum. Yeah, I'm surprised that rather blunt counter punch of a post has survived even this long. Perhaps the [mis-]management team has awoken to the realization that you can't flush this stuff down the Orwellian Memory Hole - it'll be archived somewhere safe from their grubby mitts.

As for 'velocity' - what we used to call simply sell-thru - I have actually made three sales in two weeks but I had to cut price of one item by 25% to move that. After I pay FVF on the item price PLUS the rather heavy shipping I wind up with a rather meager return for my time and trouble. No worries in San Jose, though!

by: eBay Shill Buster

This is how things are 'getting better' on eBay when they are really 'getting worse', but eBay executives have been living in delusion for years under Devin.

These are the improvements Bob is talking about, Seller Hub disaster, leading to Promoted Listings Flop, Catalog data that is worthless clogging up sellers listing pages with all that product data that no buyer even wants to read or look at that has replaced the sellers actual product description, now the buyer has to 'press a button to open up the product description in a new window.

This is the II (idiotic intelligence) Bob talks about that is nothing but augmented reality showing it's face because eBay executives are living in strong delusion thinking all these things are 'improvements' in the marketplace because they are Devin's goofy agenda, not only that they remove the product description with their 'AI' so the idiots can cross promote their sponsored listings all over every page they can.

by: eBay Shill Buster

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-20/apple-s-next-big-th
ing

Apple is doing it, so eBay must pursue 'augmented reality' since it is a buzz word for Wall Street.

Yeah, another eBay innovation from a company that can't serve a web page to users.

by: DingDong

Great job TheHeadPhoneCompany.

Isn't there somewhere, that good postings like TheHeadPhone posted and some very good and to the point sellers posting here, can post where the stockholders go to for information?

Get more of the stockholders informed that eBay could be making a profit without all the worthless changes, rolling black outs and such.
Show them all the faults of management and take away their "umbrellas". since they are lying on much profit is being made.
 

by: blueribbon1844

@Pace good for you for having the courage to stick your neck out like that. That's just the tip of the iceberg, with so many other glitches and issues...

Bob won't respond, and if he does it will be more fluff and canned answers.

by: blueribbon1844

"Thanks to you, eBay grew 9% in the last quarter"

yeh easy-peezy when you take sellers 10% away.

by: pace306

..... blah blah blah .. is there anyone here that expected different from what eBay says/thinks? I know I dont.

The sad part about all this is that once long ago - most of us were "eBay cheerleaders" ourselves. We loved the company and what it stood for - giving the small seller a chance to follow their dreams. Find great items, post them for sale and make money and friends aka good customers. It was simple and thats why it worked.

But then the corporation that we devoted ourselves to, turned its back on us when the greed got too large.

The first warning shot was the crack that "small sellers are an unreliable source of income". That statement spoke volumes about what the new management thinks/thought and continues to think about the majority of its seller base.

It doesnt matter what you sell - be it toys, antiques, electronics or even airplane parts. If you arent "one of the boys" your goose is or will be cooked - all because people in San Jose who make 1000x what you do per year decide that what ever you are doing (or not doing) needs to be "FIXED".

Ive been successful as a small seller because Ive always tried to do the right thing. There are plenty of people here who are just like that - and alot of them are MUCH smarter then I - and I enjoy their posts (Rexford, Ming etc) , and its disheartening that eBay treats them "as bad as they treat me". No one here - regardless of your positions on things, or what you sell deserve such bad treatment.

My parents always told me - to get ahead theres 2 ways - 1 right way and 1 wrong way. The wrong way is to dig a hole under the next guy so that hes lower then you, the right way is for you try hard and get a stool to stand on so you are "higher" then he is (by your own hard work).

eBay seems to always pick choice #1. Always denegrate your sellers, always try to punish them, always tell everyone that YOU NEED programs like GD since "the sellers are obviously NOT doing their jobs and shipping goods on time".

The programs hes put in place wont work - because they are designed to fix problems that dont exist.

1) bring CS in house and get english speaking agents that are empowered to actually make the RIGHT decisions. You'de be suprised how much just this one little fix can and would do to put trust back in your sellers. Telling them to "drop dead because we dont believe in you and what youve done" isnt the way to reconnect with your sellers.

2) %100 reformation of the returns programs. Streamlining things is fine, but when the process is slanted %99 of the time against your selling base - you loose any credibility that you have, Why would you hurt a long time seller with a %100 feedback vs a new buyer with a 3 feedback ? makes zero sense. 60 days is absurd beyond belief, and hidding listings that dont go along with your wacky ideas is just bad form AND bad for business.

There are ALOT of manufacturers that have REPAIR ONLY policies. how do you possibly square that with a 60 day returns program? And why is it a sellers responsibility to be the warranty behind THEIR products?

Sadly - we all could go on for ages - and nothing will change ....

eBay is the 2nd and in most cases only other option for alot of us (since Amazon gates many brands) so we all have to "live with it" ... but it shouldnt have to be this way.

by: pace306

the "..... blah blah blah .." was for eBays post - NOT the responses here ..... (just making sure)