ebay pulse

How big of a mess was it? Well, get yourself a coffee and let's see if we can find anything even mildly amusing about what happened in 2008. Like the presidential election, the theme seemed to be "Change" at eBay too.

I know a lot of it's depressing, but work with me here...

January

Meg announces plans to leave eBay and announces John Donahoe as her successor on January 23rd. On the 24th, Meg arrives at work to find John in her cubical spinning in her chair and singing "If I Had a Hammer."

John Donahoe's first bold move. After Bill Cobb loses an arm wrestling contest, John makes Bill announce lower fees and higher seller standards. The announcement also includes drastic changes to the eBay Feedback system. His theme is "we upped our standards, now up yours."

In the same announcement, Bill Cobb says he's leaving eBay. Many suspect he want's to devote more time to making his famous salads.

Best Match is introduced as the default sort view in five categories. This immediately results in an increase in sales in five totally unrelated categories.

(Adj stock price $26.89)

February

Sellers organize a February 18th boycott due to changes announced in January. Probably the best organized boycott of eBay to date, due to the fact that John Donahoe evidently supported it. Speaking about the "bold changes" that he intends to make, CEO-elect, John Donahoe indicates he expects some "noise" along the way.
(John was reportedly advised to remove a large hand-painted poster from his office window which read, "Let's make some noise!")

Senior VP of Evolving Policy, Brian Burke, announced buyers and sellers would receive Feedback credit for repeat business.

eBay Motorhead, Rob Chesney announced to the world that over 3900 GM dealers could list their Certified Used inventory on eBay Motors in the U.S.

New category-specific pricing was introduced in media categories. Sellers pay different amounts to list an item based on the item's category. In true eBay form, 3900 GM dealers tried to list their inventory under "Rare Books."

After countless hours, engineering costs, and high expectations, eBay Desktop was finally introduced and deemed "slick and easy to use" and was never heard from again.

(Adj stock price $26.36)

March

Best Match becomes the default method for sorting search results. Sellers inquired just what eBay means by "Best" and found the creator of the concept is from the planet Htrae (Earth spelled backwards) in Bizarro World from the Superman comics. Their Bizarro code explains it all:

"Us do opposite of all Earthly things! Us hate beauty! Us love ugliness! Is big crime to make anything perfect on Bizarro World!"

Senior VP of Evolving Policy, Brian Burke was back with a ban on digital products. The reason stated was that "digital goods are often produced at little or no cost to the seller..." among other things - and this allowed for feedback manipulation. He then had to explain why eBay charges so much for their digital product since it costs so little to make.

As a result of the ban, eBay is responsible for increasing the "carbon footprint" of millions of users. Rather than use the internet as intended, sending information electronically, sellers will have to create CDs, with labels. They will then have to put the packages on exhaust belching trucks and have them delivered by "snail mail." San Jose is not that far above sea level. Hey eBay, when the polar ice caps melt thanks to this stupid policy - well, let's just hope you have a French drain in your basement.

Harking back to the charm of the "old eBay," two sisters from Virginia, Emily and Melissa McIntire, list a Kellogg's Frosted Flake shaped like the State of Illinois. They say they'll use proceeds from the auction to buy more Frosted Flakes. "We like cereal." said the sisters.

The McIntire sisters' Frosted Flake is removed by vigilant eBay staffers after it was determined the auction was in violation of eBay's "food policy."

The intrepid girls re-list the auction by offering a "coupon for a Frosted Flake shaped like Illinois" rather than actually listing the flake itself. The auction ended with a winning bid of $1350. After deducting eBay and PayPal fees the girls were able to buy one new box of Kellogg's Frosted Flakes cereal.

eBay Ink begins it's run as eBay's "blog for the people." Richard Brewer-Hay was hired as eBay's blogger and promised transparency and honesty. The blog's three readers report that he is indeed as promised.

eBay brings it's affiliate program in-house, taking it away from Commission Junction. The new program is called the eBay Partner Network. Affiliates promoting eBay products are forced to migrate all their current links to a new format. In other words, every affiliate link ever used on a website or blog has to be changed - mostly by hand, within one month. Angry affiliates planned to storm eBay's San Jose, California headquarters with pitchforks and clubs, until most had trouble getting them through airport security.

Due to the high number of fake Second Chance Offers, eBay masks buyer's user IDs on all auctions. (Ironically, masks are usually used by the perpetrators of crimes in the United States.) This decision causes scammers and phishers around the world to boycott. John Donahoe was told in advance that he should not take part.

eBay Live! registration opened for Chicago.

Shipping Maven, Kristina Klausen announces upcoming changes in shipping requirements that will affect sellers. Shipping charges will be figured into the Best Match equation and will affect where seller's items appear in search results. Additionally, sellers will be required to state shipping prices for their items in the near future.

March 31st - John Donahoe officially takes the reins at eBay. Upon taking the reins he realizes he is not on a horse which causes big laughs around the office.

(Adj stock price $29.84)

April

eBay sues Craigslist for no apparent reason.

theStreet.com reports eBay's growth is flat and listings are only up 4%. Their Q1 earnings call confirmed that PayPal is really keeping them afloat. John Donahoe insists what is needed are more changes. John demands everyone sit in a different cubical every day for a month. He declares this bold change to be disruptive and innovative.

The 3 millionth vehicle is sold on eBay Motors on April 17th. It was sold to a British businessman who offered to send a money order for the full amount + shipping. The seller should deposit the money order, and send the amount for shipping to the U.S. agent...wait a minute...this sounds familiar.

Meg Whitman joins John McCain's campaign team. Craigslist sues John McCain.

Sensing the winds of change...Steve Lindhorst releases
Selling on 'The River' - the eBay Seller's Guide to Amazon.com which sells thousands of copies in 2008. "The River" being a term used on eBay discussion boards to thwart eBay sensors not knowing that the Amazon is a river. Ahhhhh. I get it.

(Adj stock price $31.29)

May

Feedback changes announced in January go into effect. Neutral comments are now counted as negatives and perfect feedback scores are as rare as Diamond Powersellers. Additionally, sellers may no longer leave negative comments for buyers.

As feedback scores plummet, Brian Burke takes the mike and explains. A neutral is not a positive and so is therefore a negative. Get it? It makes perfect sense. He also tries to explain how eBay feedback scores are calculated. The old way looked something like this:

While the new, improved way looked more like this:

Explainer of eBay Policies, Jim Ambach announces the removal of restrictions against choice listings, and multiple listings. On the other hand, he announces changes to eBay's Links Policy - no third party links allowed, and no email address allowed. This even applies to the sacred About Me page.

In Berlin, two parents post their baby on eBay for 1 Euro. It's listed as "nearly new" and "28 inches long." Also it's said to be "too loud" to keep around. Not sensing the humor in this listing, child protective services arrive and take the child and the parents are arrested. Shortly thereafter, the baby was indeed found to be "too loud" and the parents were released to take it back.

On May 5th, President of the United States of eBay, Lorrie Norrington announced there would be no eBay Live! in 2009. Plans were on for eBay Live! 2010 in Orlando, Florida. Based on the 2008 attendance, the event will be held in the local Fridays restaurant, and the entertainment may be Murph and the Magictones. But I digress...

(Adj stock price $30.01)

June

eBay Live! 2008 kicked off in Chicago. Even though it was considered by many to be the least exciting and lowest attended eBay Live! ever - President of the United States of eBay, Lorrie Norrington quipped, "the energy is great, I've never felt more connected to the eBay community!"

I muscled through the crowd and snapped a Polaroid of the action at the registration desks on Thursday morning:

See what I mean? To top it all off, most of the people in the photo are employees. John Donahoe was there but he was out on the front sidewalk getting an orange Alibaba bag.

Lorrie Norrington discussed selling her shoes in front of throngs of people, then investigative eBayers found out she didn't disclose the fact that she was an eBay employee as required. Oh man. She should have also disclosed that the shoes really were ugly.

John Donahoe shared family photos with the crowd, in an attempt to humanize himself before an angry mob. Unfortunately his soft-shoe number was missed by most when eBay Live! attendees rushed out of the room to get collectible pins upon hearing Frank Sinatra sing "Chicago" over the public address system for the 452nd time.

Beginning in June, users can now "watch" up to 200 items on their My eBay page. This was especially helpful since it has become nearly impossible to find the same item twice using Best Match.

Speaking of the My eBay page, a beta test began which consisted of two groups. One group could opt out of testing the new design, and the second group was forced to use it. For those who did opt out - a quick trip to the gulag was all that was needed to make them come to their senses. "We know what's best for you." was repeated over and over.

Hermès wins a lawsuit against eBay claiming eBay doesn't do enough to prevent counterfeits from being listed on the website. So I'm assuming everything you see here is real - buy something today:

eBay's GivingWorks program hit a milestone of $150 million raised for charity. Bravo!

(Adj stock price $27.33)

July

A lot happened in July...

eBay loses a case to Tiffany. Something they weren't all that concerned about until they realized they were not dealing with the 1980's teenage mall-singer.

Around the same time, in France eBay lost another court case due to failure to control counterfeits. The winner was LVMH (Louis Vuitton / Christian Dior) and the judgement was for $61 Million. (Unfortunately, that kind of tempers the celebration over the GivingWorks thing above.)
eBay called the amount "totally ridiculous" and demanded to deal directly with Louis in person, until they were told he died in 1892. They then asked that the case be thrown out on the grounds that they weren't dealing with a genuine Louis Vuitton.

In other legal news, eBay Australia finally dropped the idea of having everyone pay exclusively with PayPal (thanks to pressure from the Australian Competition & Consumer Committee). eBay staffers touched the hearts of their audience at a "Town Hall" meeting in May with this analogy, "We're not allowing people to offer unsafe choices, just like in this democracy you can't go out and buy heroin on the streets." So, not using PayPal is dangerous - like buying heroin on the street.

To make it seem as if the eBay staffers had not made an error in PR judgement, PayPal's new slogan became: "PayPal - the "Methadone Clinic of eCommerce"

After getting a sling and five smooth stones, Craigslist sues eBay in return for eBay suing Craigslist in February.

Buy.com began flooding the eBay marketplace with free listings, becoming the first "Diamond-level" Powerseller. Smaller sellers were outraged that Buy.com was getting a sweetheart deal on listing fees.

President of the United States of eBay, Lorrie Norrington announced that neutral comments in eBay feedback would not count as negatives after all. Unfortunately, this was only obvious to her after she sat in her driveway for three days revving the engine of her car with the transmission in neutral, going neither forward nor backward.

In other backpedaling news: Dinesh (Shore) Lathi chimed in with an announcement for all those sellers who spent two months revising thousands of listings to comply with eBay's new policies. "PSYCH!!! We're not going to require that specified shipping or enforce the new links policy yet! LOL! Sorry if it inconvenienced anyone."

Senior Director of Finding (I did not make that one up), Jeff King announced more people would be "directed" to the new "Search Experience" which is evidently not an amusement park near the Jimmy Hendrix birthplace.

Late in July, Trust and Safety Guy, John McDonald announced that that whole links policy thing was a no-go. "There will be no updates to the links policy at this time" said McDonald, who followed up with "E-I-E-I-O."

Finally, the City of Seattle, Washington listed five used self-cleaning toilets on eBay. They were removed from city streets because they reportedly "attracted drug users and prostitutes." Police departments from around the United States toyed with the idea of placing the toilets just outside their police stations, eliminating the need for dozens of officers and alleviating city budget problems.

(Adj stock price $25.17)

August

eBay tested a new item page design that gave the dozen or so sellers left a bigger picture of their item. They also allowed much more space to advertise other websites and items on sale by other eBay sellers.

A new pricing structure was announced that would allow sellers to list an item for 30 days, at a fixed-price, for only $.35. Evidently this was to celebrate the rollback of so many policy changes. Just in case anyone gets too excited though, Lorrie Norrington also announced that sellers who offer free shipping will get incentives. This puts even more pressure on sellers who cannot afford to offer free shipping, leading to more unhappy sellers. Additionally, Norrington announced shipping charge limits on media products.

(Adj stock price $24.93)

September

Barron's weekly reports eBay's business is "deteriorating" and predicts layoffs of up to 10% of eBay's employees. John Donahoe deflects questions about the report by suggesting that it came from the actual Red Baron and muttered something about Snoopy taking care of him.

In a symbolic move, eBay Pulse was updated, completely removing any usefulness from that great tool. After a week or so of complaints from the eBay community, a defibrillator was wheeled in and Pulse was returned to normal.

(Adj stock price $22.38)

October

Approximately 1500 people lost their eBay jobs in early October. Nearly 10% of eBay's entire workforce. It seemed a common thread in the layoffs had something to do with the number of bagels ingested on Wednesday mornings. What to do with all that money saved? Buy another company! In the same breath Captain John Donahoe announced the acquisition of Bill Me Later for $820 million.

In the Q3 earnings call, John Donahoe sets the tone for the Christmas season. Crummy. In an interview with the San Jose Mercury News on October 17, "eBay Chief Executive John Donahoe told analysts this probably would be a grim holiday quarter for the company. "These are turbulent times for which no one has the perfect playbook," Donahoe said, according to a Merc report."
While things are definitely bad and it seems Donahoe doesn't know what the heck he's doing, he should at least be commended for not ending a sentence with a preposition.

(Three days later, in an interview with theStreet.com, eBay CEO John Donahoe said he’s confident the company is "on the right path.")

In happier news, after an incredible number of rancorous meetings at eBay, the Dispute Console will now be known as the Resolution Center.

And for those sellers who dutifully jumped on their listings to revise their Return Policy and add the now mandatory Handling Time to their listings - PSYCH!!!! Again!! You got punk'd!!! You don't really have to do that until early 2009!

In new policy news, sellers will only be allowed to offer electronic payments. Checks, cash, and money orders are no longer permitted in listings as a form of payment. Does that mean Paypal only? Nope, sellers are allowed to use a service nearly no one has ever heard of called ProPay. That should satisfy the legal technicality of not allowing sellers a choice in payments, other than eBay's own company, PayPal. But ProPay is only open to certain sellers, there's a hefty monthly fee, and you can always hear people snickering in the background when you call them.

(Adj stock price $15.27)

November

eBay AdCommerce was introduced to allow eBay sellers to advertise their listings and eBay Stores via a text ad on eBay search result pages. Based on the success of eBay's new "finding experience," AdCommerce may be the only chance you have of getting people to see your listings.*

*It should be mentioned however that an elderly lady in New Hampshire was able to locate the Ark of the Covenant while searching for an electric ice crusher.

(Adj stock price $13.13)

December

eBay mercifully restrained themselves during the 2008 holiday season and didn't make any really big changes. Rumors are that the big changes for sellers are mostly over. Well of course they are. With so many sellers having "left the building" how many problems could there be?

The last policy change of the year came from Senior VP of Evolving Policy, Brian Burke. No more ivory on the site. That is unless you're selling a piano, or an antique with ivory inlays that was made before 1900.

How long will it be before we hear a story of a seller having their listing for vintage Ivory Soap ended due to

policy violations?

(Adj stock price $13.96)

Summary

As Obama takes office and John Donahoe learns to use a mouse, we look forward to 2009. Many have started their own website, many have moved over to the "River" - Amazon.com. Supposedly the big painful changes are over for sellers and there's a bright future ahead for all six of them.

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