"eBay Shoppers Jump Ship"

Hey hey!! It looks like analysts are finally catching up with the rest of us, and the spin is slowing down!
Compete.com is reporting what the rest of us already knew last year? Congratulations compete for coming to age. Congratulations auctiva for discovering this fact as well.
And hey; maybe one day soon, these guys will discover the other thing we've known for about a year now: eBay has been manipulating listing numbers.
but, hey? Does it matter when someone discovers the truth about ebay? As long as they discover the truth. Of course, it is still frustrating to those of us who have been shouting this for over a year now!
Tim
http://forums.delphiforums.com/boycottebay/start

Thanks for that report Auctiva. I thought I was doing something wrong. My sales on Ebay are slowing down and do not know why. The caliber of customers seems to also be getting worse. I think Ebay got way to complex for the type of buyers they have. And they do not seem to be attracting the better buyers. And the no paper payments has driven away many of my buyers. I think they have created the perfect storm of demise for both sellers and buyers at a time when the economy is in a tailspin. Amazon her I come!

I have noticed the tend to fewer customers and poorer ones on eBay as well and after 10 years on the site I am sure I know some of the reasons why. EBay is trying to control OUR customers! Not allowing them to pay as they choose and slowing down the site with ads and other stuff. The new format is two spacious for PDA buyers (or telephone buyers) and too tedious and confusing for the older ones. Too slow...too much junk and not the old variety. It is not cost effective to sell on eBay anymore. Very sad but true. And if it's only use is to fins customers then be unable to connect with them, in the stamp business this is vital, what;s the point? We should all profit reasonably not just eBay cleaning us out! Just like the past governments allowing the greedy to siphon off most if not all the profits and leaving the little guy hanging. This site was to bring out all the little guys with their variety and enthusiasm. Too bad it's going downhill with the new people at the helm!

BEST MATCH IS ANNOYING!

I cannot stand that option!

Every time I search for something and forget to select "ending first" I kick myself and cuss ebay.

Then I have to search again and it is SOOOOOOOOO dang slow!

My CPU load goes to 100% and just sits there for what feels like forever.

For all the changes to "improve buyer experience" mine has gotten worse as a buyer (I rarely buy anything though and usually because I can't get it somewhere else).

Take a simple search where the seller calculates shipping.

My zip code almost never stays in eBays memory so after I searched twice (best match, cuss out ebay and then search ending soonest) and scrolled 3/4 down the page and actually find something, the "calculate" link is lit up for shipping.

I enter my zip code again and it calculates shipping for all the listings and takes me back to the very top.

Now I have to find the listing that I was interested in again!

SO DANG ANNOYING! I really hate shopping on eBay; thank God for all the other alternatives coming online.

I started buying and selling on eBay years ago. It was easy to do both. I could find what I was looking for and people found what I was selling. With every change they have made the last couple of years it has become increasingly more difficult to both buy and sell.

When they started giving mega wholesalers special deals on listing and selling fees, allowed them to list their products at lower prices and gave them special rankings in the search engine it left the rest of us in the dust.

When a wholesaler can sell a widget on eBay for the same 50 cents that you bought it for, how can you sell it at a profit? Specially when you are paying high fees for the privelage of selling and they are not. The default Best Match search puts 100s of their widgets before yours in the results and customers have to go through many pages to even get to your listings.

The search used to show shoppers how much shipping costs were on each listing but now they have to calculate the cost and are only told if shipping is free. So now we have to sell the widget for 50 cents that we bought for 50 cents, pay enormous fees and also pay for shipping! Why would I want to do that?!?

Thank you Auctiva for creating Auctiva Commerce! I am so happy with the oportunity you have given to us buyers and sellers to have a pleasant shopping and selling oportunity!

I've been using GreedBay for ten years as well, and used to sell many of my trains starting at 99 cents, many of which only sold for that amount. Made little profit at that price, however since the change in CEO, and GreedBay's purchase of PayPal, coupled with all of the on-going restrictions placed on sellers, I was losing more and more as the weeks went by. Now that they are gearing towards large volume commercial sellers to the detriment of small sellers, making eBay a viable home business is GONE! Their so-called fees reduction was nothing more than a scam to ultimately raise fees! Only power sellers with large volumes and 'perfect' seller ratings get any kind of discounts now! The 'little guy' has been shut out! Three years ago, when I started really getting sales going and was a power seller, I averaged $180 - $225 net profit monthly. That steadily went down, even though my sales were increasing! My last month as an active seller netted me a -$32.97 invoice, without ANY sales! It was all listing fees! I have since closed my eBay store and moved to eBid.net where my sales have again picked up!
Like so many others, I only buy anything on eBay now if I can't find it elsewhere! For two months now I've been watching seller's listings in my preferred category, and have seen their listing prices increasing while their sales are dropping. Many formerly 'hot' items aren't selling there any longer, and those that do are bringing fewer bidders. On top of that, my last three purchases were never received, and it took well over a month to finally get a refund from PayPal, one of which resulted in my being sued by a neighbor as the dog training no-bark collar that I should have had within a week never arrived! That seller had a 100% rating, but apparently decided to take everyone's money and go elsewhere.
As far as I'm concerned, eBay is HISTORY!

quote:

Originally posted by penguinsaz:
I have noticed the tend to fewer customers and poorer ones on eBay as well and after 10 years on the site I am sure I know some of the reasons why. EBay is trying to control OUR customers! Not allowing them to pay as they choose and slowing down the site with ads and other stuff. The new format is two spacious for PDA buyers (or telephone buyers) and too tedious and confusing for the older ones. Too slow...too much junk and not the old variety. It is not cost effective to sell on eBay anymore. Very sad but true. And if it's only use is to fins customers then be unable to connect with them, in the stamp business this is vital, what;s the point? We should all profit reasonably not just eBay cleaning us out! Just like the past governments allowing the greedy to siphon off most if not all the profits and leaving the little guy hanging. This site was to bring out all the little guys with their variety and enthusiasm. Too bad it's going downhill with the new people at the helm!

Yes, many of my buyers have jumped ship as well.

http://stores.ebay.com/murillos-marketplace

Go here to join the discussion and gripe about Ebay and its current state:
http://www.bitchaboutebay.com