UPDATE eBay to Hold Sitewide Sale on Wednesday June 6

by: FidoMaster

In response to a question about Walmart's competition, Cutler responded in a truly bizarre manner that illustrated just how disconnected eBay execs are from the actual (frequently awful) customer experience buyers and sellers encounter on their platform.

In spite of the daily bugs, glitches, non-functional promotions, and general broken eBay site functionality (often of a significant nature, not mere UI quirks), as reported here on ECB, eBay's on community forums, and elsewhere,  Cutler touted eBay as a technology company _better than anyone else out there_.

I kid you not.

Here's a rough transcription:

CUTLER: ''We’re also really confident about the technology experience you’re gonna have coming in, buying or selling, on eBay versus any other retailer.

We are a technology company at heart, and we think that the technology and the user experience is better than at any of those other sites.''

by: Silver Ice King

Cutler is in the wrong field of work.  He needs to get into Stand Up comedy as that is the funniest routine i have heard in years.  I buy on Walmart, Amazon and many others and i do not know of any others that have all the distractions that Ebay now seems to have on an almost daily basis.

Wow, another sitewide sale, I guess all these instant changes that everybody is complaining about are having a major effect on Ebays numbers for the month already.  I wonder just how many of these we will have this month as Ebay tries to not have lower sales this quarter than the last one??

What a joke Ebay has become !!!

by: iheartjacksparrow

eBay must know that they are going to have less than 6% this quarter and are trying whatever they can think up to boost revenue.

by: ebayout

@iheartjacksparrow

Conventional wisdom says that Kroger will be handing out ebay coupons in the 3rd quarter...and ebay will be paying them.

by: ebayout

June 6th...D-Day

Not to be confused with Devin-Day

by: Marie

It will be interesting if this "flash sale" has any positive impact.  Hopefully it will.  I think it is good that Ebay is trying different marketing ideas and hopefully will land on one that works for the sellers.

by: FidoMaster

''hopefully will land on one that works for the sellers.''

Chances are good you are going to have a great sales day if you sell $499.99 XBOX One X's, iPhones/Androids, PC's, Laptops, Dyson vacuums, designer handbags etc or basically any items priced around 500 bucks (already fairly priced).

Hopefully _all_ sellers realize a measurable lift, but you're much more likely to get a significant advantage over other sellers if your average inventory price is in the couple-hundred dollar range with $500 being the optimal buyer 'sweet-spot' for the 20% off the $100 cap. Or, you took guidance from the past couple sales and stocked at least a few items in that range.

Sellers with lower priced items (or even those will much higher priced items) will derive less of an overall benefit as the bell-curve will drop off on either side of the favored $500 apex delivering the max value to to buyers.

Of course a few buyers will load their carts with a multitude of lower-cost items, but the vast majority of sellers that significantly benefit from the site-wide sales (which _all_ sellers pay for) will be the ones with merchandise items in the ~$500 range.

Many forums and social media platforms have numerous examples of buyers stating their intent on deferring significant purchases (and encouraging others)  expressly waiting for another eBay site-wide coupon sale (guilty).

It'll be interesting to see what eBay turns out for 2Q S&M expense figures, as there is no doubt this particular sale is to be their costliest coupon event so far this year (certainly tens of millions of dollars, perhaps even $100 million+).

by: Ming the Merciless

@ Marie

Ebafia isn't interested in transforming their site into something that works for sellers.

Their ONLY interest is transforming the site into whatever is profitable for them regardless of whether the changes are profitable for sellers.

Two illustrative examples out of dozens:

1. Free returns: at least double FVFs for their grossly inflated GMV report and a percentage of the return shipping labels.

2. ANY kind of shipping: 10% FVF

If sellers push back hard enough and long enough against this ebafia tyranny, things might change for the better.

by: Shane

Bunch of mumbo jumbo from Cutler. eBay wouldn't have to be ''leveraging different levers'' and chasing after buyers if they had only treated sellers well throughout the years. Their adversarial stance, incessant changes, price hikes etc. drove sellers away. Management never understood that sellers we're buyers too. They spit in the face of their biggest fans and now wonder where the buyers are.

by: Snapped

''Cutler responded in a truly bizarre manner....''

Verilly.  And not just in the oxymoronic fantasy aspect so endemic to any eBay attempt at context communication.  Cutler managed to not only spew factually unsupportable performance claims, he did it in such clearly panicked fashion that he nonsensically buzzed his own meaningless buzz, to wit:

''Cutler said eBay was leveraging different levers and new levers in its marketing channels...''

''Cutler told attendees to expect eBay to continue to experiment using different levers and channels.''

Seems as though he may have left out a few of eBay's simple machinations responsible for the awful realities eBay's customer's face daily.  Like how they have actually driven a 'wedge' between sellers and buyers with every ''experiment'', 'screwing' sellers in their 'ramped' up attempt to 'pull(y)' in more take with every 'experiment'..  All the while ignoring how the 'wheels' are literally falling off the 'axles' of this bus.

At least he closed with a joke:

''We are a technology company at heart, and we think that the technology and the user experience is better than at any of those other sites.''

by: futervest

A good example of training the buyers is K-mart. Hardly anybody shops there anymore until they have there big clearance sale then you cant move in the store because there are so many people.

by: pace306

"We are a technology company at heart, and we think that the technology and the user experience is better than at any of those other sites.''

See - right there is the problem.

GOOGLE is a tech company
Apple is a tech company
Samsung, HP, Lenovo, Dell - THEY are tech companies

YOU (STUPID) are an ECOMMERCE COMPANY.

Thats why eBay doesnt work! It doesnt work properly because the people involved have NO IDEA what they hell they doing/saying/thinking.

OUR (all sellers - large and small) future on eBay is in the hands of greedy, no nothing PYROMANIACS who think they are something they are not.

Ive said it 1000x and so have others. Gardeners cut things and so do doctors, but you wouldnt let your gardener do your kids heart transplant.

We dont make sales because eBay brass is more interested in playing with computer software and hardware then they are worrying about making SALES.

Until that changes (and the morons get replaced), nothing will happen (change).  

by: Rexford

Pace, I think that you are right.  The non-stop technical issues that occur, and they think that thinks run smoothly?   Disconnect doesn't even come close to being the descriptor.   Very akin to Wenig thinking that he reconnected with small sellers or that eBay is innovative.  All fallacious thinking.

by: b86fiero

I have used the past site wide sales promo's to purchase needed shipping supplies and show displays which I would have bought any way.  

I have a couple of items sitting in my cart that I may go ahead and purchase.  The discount is an incentive.

No, these site wide discounts will not make me wait to purchase items I need when I need them.  However, I always have items in my cart that I am thinking about buying but have not made the final decision to do so.  

I figure the discount is a tiny return on the money I have added to eBay's coffers over the years.  

by: Ric

eBay IS NOT a technology company....
   1) Their IT infrastructure is antiquated  and fails in one way or another on an almost daily basis.
   2) A technology company would have a search engine that surfaces relevant results without any irrelevant results included.
   3) A technology company would have the server capacity to allow the search engine to surface all available listings not a handful of cherry picked results skewed to favor certain sellers.
   4) A technology company would not implement changes that are incompatible with the existing system resulting in crashes.
   5) A technology company would have an efficiently organized executive staff knowledgeable in IT, not a bloated staff of know nothings who fail to understand the needs of their customers.

eBay IS NOT an eCommerce company....
   1) A successful eCommerce company would be growing at rates nearly equal to their competitors not struggling to achieve single digit growth.
   2) A successful eCommerce company that relies solely on third party sellers to supply product to stock the shelves would treat those sellers like gold and not like something they scrape off the bottom of their shoe.
   3) A successful eCommerce company would not need to make constant system and policy changes that alienate sellers and consistently fail to attract increased numbers of buyers.

The reality is that eBay is a cafeteria after a food fight with so much stuff clinging to the walls they would not pass a health inspection.

by: Ina

Updated post to link to the sale, live now.

by: amazedndazed

PICKDADSGIFT
I just used it & it worked.

by: toolguy

Well, it looks like I'm going to buy something today on eBay!

With 20% off I would be foolish to waste this opportunity to save some money on something I need.

Now I just got to think of what I want that costs $50 or more. . .

by: ebayout

So...they're gonna effectively lose $10 on every $100 (less the shipping FVF).
I hope they sell $1B today.

by: iheartjacksparrow

Maybe DW can use those "levers" to "surface" to the "top of the funnel" all sellers' listings 24/7/365.