Ina Steiner EcommerceBytes Blog
News and insight focusing on ecommerce.
by Ina Steiner, Editor of EcommerceBytes.com
Sun June 30 2019 21:30:03

eBay Lets Big Brands Screw Up in a Big Way

By: Ina Steiner

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Customers are turning to social media to complain that Reebok is failing to fulfill items they purchased on eBay, and the brand is racking up negative feedback that has dropped its score to a measly 88.5%. It's the second major incident in the past 2 months in which big brands have gotten negative attention for failing to honor orders made through their eBay stores.

On Thursday, Reebok blamed its failure to ship orders on a technical error that caused some of its listings to be "offered for lower than anticipated prices," responding from its main Twitter account. "For the inconvenience, we're extending an extra 35% off your next order from the Reebok eBay Store."

‏Reebok customer service's account (@ReebokUSHelp) also fielded complaints - in one post it tweeted that customers would have to contact eBay customer service, "as we do not have access to Ebay's orders."

A buyer clearly furious at Reebok's failure to honor his purchases told us, "They owe me 7 pairs of shoes they will not ship!"

Some buyers heard about the incredibly low prices Reebok was offering on its eBay store through alerts on deal sites. One such site wrote, "These are sold and shipped directly from Adidas via eBay." (Reebok is a subsidiary of Adidas.) "Play around with the sizes/color if you don't get the glitch price. You'll even get an additional 30% off when you add 2 to cart!" The reference to "glitch price" indicates *some* shoppers may have gone on their shopping sprees with the understanding that a glitch might have been the reason for the absurdly low prices, with some even speculating as to whether their orders would be honored. 

Some of the prices that one deals site pointed to:

Reebok Men's Training Essentials Woven Pant Only $2.38 + Free Shipping

Reebok Men's Ridgerider Leather Shoes $3.76 + Free Shipping

Reebok Men's Speed TR Flexweave Shoes $3.96 + Free Shipping Sold Out

Reebok Men's Speedwick Knit Trackster $3.96 + Free Shipping

One participant of the TJBDeals.com website wrote, "3 shoes, hoodies and sweatpants for $12.64 shipped! Now hope they honor it! Thanks guys!"

A similar incident occurred in May when Hasbro's eBay store oversold thousands of special edition Magic: The Gathering cards and had to cancel orders. eBay tweeted to @wizards_magic fans "we unfortunately sold out of the War of the Spark Mythic Edition exclusive earlier today. We are working to ensure all subsequent orders are canceled and refunded. Any direct inquires please reach out to us." 

Hasbro tweeted: "Hi, we recognize there was an issue with eBay orders for Magic: The Gathering: War of the Spark Mythic Edition. We're working closely with eBay to remedy & anyone affected will receive an email notification from eBay. We understand your frustration & appreciate your patience."

Blowback from the Hasbro incident appears to include a lawsuit against Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast alleging breach of contract and negligence, according to Yahoo.

Meanwhile Reebok has been heavily featured as a success story for eBay's Promoted Listings ad program. In an April post on the eBay corporate blog, eBay Vice President of Revenue and Seller Growth Bridget Davies wrote the following:

"A great case study of how brands can also leverage promoted listings is our partnership with Reebok. The company used eBay's trending ad rate guidance to stay competitive and saw a 55 percent lift in overall sales and 142 percent lift in sales for their promoted items. We want our partners to succeed, and results like these make us excited about the future. That's one of the reasons we believe that brands like Adidas, Dyson and KitchenAid choose to be on our platform."

And eBay Vice President of Developer Ecosystem Gail Frederick wrote the following last week, 

"Reebok saw great success in following eBay's Promoted Listings recommendations. They promoted more than 100 items at eBay's trending rate for their multi-quantity inventory. Over the past 5 months, Reebok has seen a 55% lift in overall sales and a 142% lift in sales for the items that were promoted."

The question sellers may be asking themselves is whether eBay would give them the same slack it appears to be giving the brands. While Hasbro-Toy-Store displays an 86.2% eBay feedback rating, it still displays a banner reading "Top Rated: Seller with highest buyer ratings."

However, tweets from the brands indicate they may have been leaving it to eBay to manage their stores; if that was the case, how would (or should) eBay handle those stores' seller performance standards?



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Perminate Link for eBay Lets Big Brands Screw Up in a Big Way   eBay Lets Big Brands Screw Up in a Big Way

This user has validated their user name. by: NoMoreEbay

Sun Jun 30 21:56:51 2019

ebay = unfair dirty company. We all already know the answers this post's questions.

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This user has validated their user name. by: The End

Sun Jun 30 22:11:18 2019

Hhmmmm......
We're not allowed to do that......
Your Honor.....

Perminate Link for eBay Lets Big Brands Screw Up in a Big Way   eBay Lets Big Brands Screw Up in a Big Way

by: Disgruntled_Seller This user has validated their user name.

Sun Jun 30 22:59:48 2019

Isn't this what eBay terms success?  

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by: Freeeeeeeee This user has validated their user name.

Sun Jun 30 23:49:56 2019

I have no idea why a real company like reebok would waste it's time on eBay.

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by: dander This user has validated their user name.

Mon Jul 1 00:01:36 2019

Fair is fair ebay dings us if we are out of stock even when they screw up. If a mom and pop gets dinged so should the big stores.

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by: Silver Ice King This user has validated their user name.

Mon Jul 1 00:04:55 2019

I think i see another lawsuit in the making as soon as Reebok cancels all the orders just as another shoe company did not to long ago as i remember.  If you are going to sell online then you better make sure that you see what you put up for sale and at what prices. None of us would ever get away with all of those cancellations and I am sure the only reason that Reebok is getting away with it is because they are paying Ebay so much in promoted listings.  

This is just another indicator that Ebay does not want anything but big brand name sellers and the Chinese on their site.  Manufacturers can afford to pay Ebay an additional 7-10% for selling their items on Ebay and that is what Ebay pushes out at all the buyers.  But when these big brands screw up Ebay allows them to just walk away from it with no harm no foul.  None of us would ever be allowed to do such a thing to ebays Prized Customers - their buyers!!

I wonder how many more Buyers Ebay will now lose because of this and how they handled it.  No wonder all the other sites are growing so much faster than Ebay, Ebay just pushes their Buyers away with this type of fiasco which just makes all Ebay sellers look bad.

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by: AngelaTC This user has validated their user name.

Mon Jul 1 00:15:01 2019

If I make that mistake, and I call eBay asking them to help, they would tell me to honor the rates as just a cost of doing business.   I guess some playing fields are more level than others....

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by: Sierra This user has validated their user name.

Mon Jul 1 00:41:58 2019

If any of us ''small'' sellers suffered an eBay glitch, we'd still be expected to fulfill the orders ... even if we lost money!

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by: Chicago48 This user has validated their user name.

Mon Jul 1 00:59:33 2019

If you go to downdetector.com, there are complaints all over about the Reebok screw-up.

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This user has validated their user name. by: DeathFromAbove

Mon Jul 1 01:00:54 2019

HOly smokes....they have a 2 to 1 negative to positive feedback ratio in the last month.  Almost 10K negs!   It appears they had 700 negs for the prior YEAR until the last month.  eBay botched this one big time.

So surely we will come back in a month or less, and their FB will be wiped clean?

If most of us fail at a mere 3 orders, we would be insta-suspended.  It's almost like some sort of sad joke that they were touting how they "elevated" reebok barely a week ago, then have basically allowed their account to be decimated.  Who priced the items?  That's who is ultimately responsible.  I want to know.  Somehow I doubt "ebay" was "managing" anything at all here.

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by: pace306 This user has validated their user name.

Mon Jul 1 06:56:31 2019

“Sun Jun 30 23:49:56 2019
I have no idea why a real company like reebok would waste it's time on eBay.”


Because they don’t want smaller sellers selling Reebok on eBay- so you open a platinum store, vero every one else, sell the outlet stuff on eBay and make customers.

The why is easy - but eBay will never punish a platinum - just like don’t when they make false vero claims.

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by: DingDong This user has validated their user name.

Mon Jul 1 09:15:41 2019

It's earlier : CRASH SALE

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by: Troy Stiffler This user has validated their user name.

Mon Jul 1 09:56:12 2019

"Because they don’t want smaller sellers selling Reebok on eBay- so you open a platinum store, vero every one else, sell the outlet stuff on eBay and make customers."

I believe that is part of the plan. Brands HATE overstock/surplus/thrift. They already work with Amazon to make sure that stuff never sees the market on there. Ebay is normally the place for grey market goods. It's possible Ebay will allow brands to regulate their products on there, the same way Amazon has.

In my industry, the pros call ourselves "independent distributors". If you're in overstock/thrift/etc., my lasting advice is to NEVER rely on Ebay or Amazon. They can pull the rug out of from under you at any moment. They take everything they can with fees (usually equaling more than 50% of your profit). And you mean nothing to them. If you ever think you're a partner, or that your loyalty means something, you're wrong.

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This user has validated their user name. by: iheartjacksparrow

Mon Jul 1 09:56:23 2019

From the article: "as we do not have access to Ebay's orders."

So does that mean that there's a dedicated group at eBay who handles the listings and fulfillment of Reebok merchandise? Because I don't understand why Reebok wouldn't be able to access the records for the sales made and paid for.

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This user has validated their user name. by: epuise

Mon Jul 1 09:58:15 2019

Are you telling me Adidas / Reebok didn't have ONE person MONITORING the eBay Ads ? They got payroll for VERO... no $ for checking THEIR LISTINGS... Typical lack of 'personal responsibility' by a Corp. - Suck it up / chalk it up to Advertising & SHIP THE ORDERS.

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This user has validated their user name. by: NoMoreEbay

Mon Jul 1 10:20:52 2019

Adidas financials 2018

Net sales 21.915 billion euros
Operating profit 2.369 billion euros
Net income from continuing operations 1.709 billion euros

And they couldn't fill these orders? As for ebay, it's a line system with them. If you generate enough fees (cross that line), all buyer protection policies are rendered moot with FB scrubbed.

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This user has validated their user name. by: unsuckEBAY

Mon Jul 1 10:34:45 2019

Not a great look for Wenig to be wrapping-up Q2 with.

Watching this 2nd significant partner-brand related fiasco in 2 months unfold, I couldn't help but wonder which eBay exec Wenig was going to throw under the bus this time for these major brand catastrophes.

Recall a year ago, when ECB posted the scoop about Target stores dumping their eBay store, Wenig bristled when Dae Lee with JPMorgan Chase asked him about it on the earnings call, and then gave his spiel about eBay being all about 'brands', not retailers.

Reebok is redirecting consumers back to eBay (much like Hasbro did) which suggests to me that (in their eyes) they don't have culpability in the matter (but perhaps they're just unconcerned about potential brand damage. Or they just suck with social media support and should hire and train reps who have a clue).

Meanwhile, eBay support had not been entertaining responses from consumer-buyers, @askeBay was simply ignoring them on Twitter.

Also,

1/ The official Reebok eBay store is projected to surpass 10,000 1-month negatives on today.

2/ Some buyers are reporting receiving partial refund through PayPal, when they did not originally even pay through PayPal

-Formerly FidoMaster

Perminate Link for eBay Lets Big Brands Screw Up in a Big Way   eBay Lets Big Brands Screw Up in a Big Way

by: mcposty This user has validated their user name.

Mon Jul 1 11:43:01 2019

Ebay " We treat everyone the same"

Proof positive they are liars and criminal charges need to be filed

How soon before they scrub the negative feedbacks I'm wondering?

Everyone needs to tweet ebay and demand reebok be treated as any other seller.



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by: mcposty This user has validated their user name.

Mon Jul 1 11:45:27 2019

Wait, if Ebay is managing the stores, isn't that Ebay competing with its sellers? Ebay has a vested interest in those sales of the brands they are representing. It behooves them to still give them top rated even with low scores, to undercut competition, and give them special treatment.

Another lie.



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by: RL15 This user has validated their user name.

Mon Jul 1 13:39:56 2019

once again the self proclaimed best tech company proves how idiotic they are.

great job fleecebay, keep up the mediocre work

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