I recently took part in an open house for my town's new community center. I was promoting my [tag]eBay classes[/tag] by handing out flyers and engaging people in conversation. I asked them if they use [tag]eBay[/tag] and listened to their responses. Some did not use eBay but would like to. Those are the people I want to teach. But a disturbing number of the people in this small California town gave me an answer that was quite negative. They told me that they used to sell on eBay, but it became too expensive and complicated. Many said they also use to buy on eBay, but they had so many negative experiences that they will never go back. Whether the common complaints about eBay are true or not - the perception is growing that eBay is just too much trouble to deal with - and [tag]perception[/tag] is what matters.
What happened to eBay?
eBay was once the darling of the internet. It seemed the sky was the limit for [tag]sellers[/tag] and [tag]buyers[/tag] too. The eBay platform was regularly described as "strictly a venue" by eBay staff. This was in response to occasional complaints about activity on the site, such as Nazi-related items. In the early days, eBay had a very "hands off" approach to buyers and sellers alike. The idea was that this vast marketplace would eventually balance itself. For example, if people didn't like Nazi items, they wouldn't buy them, and the sellers would go away. If a seller cheats a buyer somehow, the buyer would leave negative feedback and eventually the seller would go away. If a person overcharged for shipping, people would decide not to buy from that person. But then things began to change. As the [tag]eBay community[/tag] grew, the staff grew, resulting in a "too many chefs in the kitchen" situation. The characteristics of eBay today, are very similar to the characteristics of the U.S. government. This is part one of a five part series. I encourage your comments below.
Five ways eBay is like the U.S. Government
#1 - [tag]Bureaucracy[/tag]
According to the US Government Printing Office, Title 26 of the United States Code (the part of the [tag]tax code[/tag] written by Congress), and Title 26 of the US Code of Federal Regulations (the part written by the IRS) is a total of 16,845 pages long. One congressman said taxpayers spend over 5.4 billion hours per year trying to comply with these complicated regulations. It's symbolic of the bulky, bloated, Federal government. There are expensive programs added each year, often unneeded and unwanted, by people who are out of touch with the common citizen. In some cases, the most benefits are available for people who put the least into the system. It is confusing and frustrating to deal with. Trying to get answers to a specific problem is near impossible for average users.
Sound familiar? eBay has become a behemoth. The company is far from nimble. eBay has lost its scrappy agility. Sellers have listings ended for reasons that are at best hard to find, and in some cases, not stated anywhere. The rules for sellers are so ambiguous that at times, even eBay staffers can't explain them. Difficulty receiving customer service has been a concern for years. Changes take forever and are often implemented with significant bugs, and with poor timing. Just as with the government, there is a feeling that eBay is out of touch with its community of buyers and sellers. A common perception is that eBay has moved away from the organic balancing of the [tag]marketplace[/tag] and toward "[tag]social engineering[/tag]" of the eBay marketplace.
An example of this is the recent announcement that eBay is now going to tinker with search results, based on [tag]Detailed Seller Ratings[/tag] among other things. This has many sellers up in arms since these ratings are anonymous and tilted in favor of the buyer. Sellers feel they have no comparable mechanism to flag bad buyers. To be fair, eBay has for years allowed sellers to leave Unpaid Item Strikes against buyers who don't pay for items ordered. Multiple strikes can get the buyer suspended. In fact, most sellers won't be hurt by Detailed Seller Ratings, but it's perception. While people seem to hate Best Match sorted search results already, my prediction is [tag]Best Match[/tag] is here to stay and we had better figure out how to it work for us.
eBay won't get smaller. It won't get simpler. It is getting more complicated, not less. Imagine the day when the tax man gets more directly involved in the relationship between eBay and its sellers. That day is coming.
In part two of this series, I'll discuss the similarity between eBay Fees and taxes.
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