Entries Tagged 'eBay News and Talk' ↓
September 4th, 2008 — eBay News and Talk
Randy Smythe mentioned eBay's third quarter for this year, and that layoffs are rumored to be in the works. It's possible.
Linked to the exit of several middle and even upper-middle eBay managers is the term "operational efficiency." Evidently moving some people out makes things more efficient. They've certainly been efficient with their sellers this year.
In any case, eBay has had layoffs before. But they tend to do it very quietly, over a period of time. If people are departing, watch for them to trickle out. And just like in the movie "Office Space," eBay handles the dirty work on Friday.
Peter Gibbons: You're gonna lay off Samir and Michael?
Bob Slydell: Oh yeah, we're gonna bring in some entry-level graduates, farm some work out to Singapore, that's the usual deal.
Bob Porter: Standard operating procedure.
Peter Gibbons: Do they know this yet?
Bob Slydell: No. No, of course not. We find it's always better to fire people on a Friday. Studies have statistically shown that there's less chance of an incident if you do it at the end of the week.
No kidding. If you're an eBay employee, stay home on Fridays - at least get your TPS Reports up to date.
Popularity: 8% [?]
August 21st, 2008 — eBay Announcements
eBay has release the monthly change list, and it's a big one. I'm not going to rehash the announcement. You can read that for yourself. But here are my gut reaction predictions, pros and cons.
Pros
Fees are generally going to be lower. I've already closed my eBay Store. That'll save me $15.95 per month.
Visibility for fixed-price listings will be greater. They will last longer, and if a seller sells multiple items with the new 30-day duration, they'll get indexed by search engines. This will hopefully bring some organic search visibility for your eBay listings.
Another positive, the more recent sales an item has had, the higher that listing will appear in Best Match results.
Cons
Lower upfront fees, and longer durations will likely mean more items on eBay. More items essentially more competition, both in a literal way, and due to eBay's new "Finding" system. Sell-through rates will likely fall across the site.
Small sellers of one-of-a-kind items will benefit the least from these changes. The bigger sellers with multiple items will get the benefit of greater visibility over time.
Automatically suspending sellers with less than a 4.3 DSR. There's not much screaming about this yet. But it will likely lead to more sales of Selling on 'the River'.
Bigger media sellers will be affected by the new fee structure / fixed shipping. Ultimately, it will cost buyers more to buy media items. These large sellers make a little bit on shipping, which they'll now pass on to buyers.
Summary
It's a little harder to pick on these new changes. Overall, I think the changes are positive. I still disagree with some of the other changes made this year, but this set is more positive for the masses.
Maybe eBay's Q4 2008 will not be a bust after all. Time will tell.
Popularity: 27% [?]
August 1st, 2008 — eBay News and Talk
Oh I know, you thought eBay just fiddled around with sellers - well not anymore! eBay announced today they will be changing the way they pay for ACRUs (Active Confirmed Registered User). Up till now, you could up as an eBay affiliate, and send visitors to eBay via ad or link. If that person registers and buys something within 30 days, you'd get $25 flat - easy.
Those days are pretty much gone.
Some people are making a lot of money as eBay affiliates. Most make money by referring users who are already registered. When those people buy something, the affiliate gets a little cut of eBay's commission. ACRUs are not as plentiful as they once were. Lots of people have already registered, and people who aren't registered already - aren't in a hurry to do so.
The new system for ACRUs will be based on the quality of the aggregated traffic sent to eBay. In other words, if you have multiple affiliate sites, sending traffic to eBay, your traffic will be lumped all together to determine your quality level. Quality level will be based on a large part on the revenue generated by the users sent to eBay.
Payouts will now range from $1 to $50 for an ACRU. eBay will decide the quality of referrals, and will place affiliates in "tiers." To move into better payout tiers, an affiliate will need to improve the quality of their traffic. Initially, all new affiliates will automatically be placed in the lowest tier. Their traffic will be reviewed once per month to see if they will move up and get paid more. This new structure only affects ACRU payouts, and will immediately affect new affiliates. If you are already signed up as an active eBay affiliate, the changes will not take place for "a few months."
The bottom line is, eBay is applying the same "carrot on a stick" philosophy here as they do with Powersellers. "Work your tail off to send us traffic, and we MIGHT just throw a few nickels back to you."
Earlier this year, eBay switched the management of their affiliate program from an outside company, Commission Junction, to an in-house program called the eBay Partner Network. The switch was painful for affiliates because they had to migrate existing links from their websites to the new network links. In some cases this meant reworking thousands of links. The eBay Partner Network (EPN) then had problems with reporting, and the dust still hasn't really settled.
Now, in true eBay tradition, they are making changes to the program before the previous changes have had time to set. It's like framing a new building while the concrete foundation is still wet...
You can find the full announcement and all the details here.
Popularity: 41% [?]
July 28th, 2008 — eBay News and Talk
Twenty-three years ago this month I was living in New York and the world was all a twitter over "new" Coke. Coca-cola had built a brand, and a unique taste that had lasted through two world wars, and spread to nearly the entire world. Then they decided to tinker with the product. If you remember those days, you'll remember it was a big deal. eBay should take some lessons from what happened back then - I know they won't...but work with me here - I can dream can't I?
The Cola Wars
In the years leading up to 1985 Coca-cola was losing market share. People seemed to like the sweeter taste of Pepsi. Back then you could go into a grocery store in the U.S. and there would be a little stand inviting you you to take the "Pepsi Challenge" - blindly comparing a small sample of Pepsi (product "M") and Coke (product "Q") to see which you liked best. (I always picked Coke.)
Well, Coke figured they'd better do something, even if it meant tampering with a legendary formula that had been nearly unchanged for a century. They did research. They spent over $4,000,000 on research and conducted over 200,000 taste tests. All that served as the basis for the launch of a new, sweeter Coke on April 23, 1985.
The world went mad. Seriously. The launch created a public outcry, Coke headquarters received over 40,000 letters of complaint and over 6,000 calls a day to the company's 1-800-GET-COKE number. A psychiatrist Coke hired to listen in on phone calls to the company hotline, told executives some people sounded as if they were discussing the death of a family member. (Sound familiar eBay people?)
87 days later, on July 10, 1985, the company responded to the public demand and re-introduced the original Coke formula as Coca-cola CLASSIC. ABC News' Peter Jennings interrupted regular programming to share the news with viewers. On the floor of the U.S. Senate, David Pryor called the reintroduction "a meaningful moment in U.S. history".
What went wrong?
Coke spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out where it had made a mistake, ultimately concluding that it had underestimated the public impact of the portion of the customer base that would be alienated by the switch.
The Aftermath
By the end of 1985 Coke CLASSIC was outselling Pepsi three-to-one. It put Coca-cola back in the number one spot over arch-rival Pepsi. (Some conspiracy theorists have even suggested the whole fiasco was a cleverly planned stunt to put Coke back on top. But Coke President Donald Keough answered all speculation by saying "We're not that dumb, and we're not that smart", as Coke Classic was reintroduced.)
Lessons for eBay
eBay's changes over the past year have had obvious effects on sellers in the trenches. The executives can talk about all the research they've done, they can try to spin the New eBay as better for everyone, they can say (which they regularly do) that "this is what we hear you want." But they have underestimated their customer's emotional attachment to eBay. Sellers are leaving, and for those that are staying - it will affect you too.
For sellers who stay on at eBay and say, "Go ahead and leave grouchy sellers, it will just mean more for us!" Consider your local shopping mall or (God forbid) flea market...are you more likely to spend time shopping at a marketplace with LOTS of vendors or just a few? We've all been in those malls on the edge of town that only have a couple of second rate shoe stores and a lot of closed stores - after a time or two of not finding what you came for, you don't go back right?
In examining the aftermath of the "new" Coke fiasco - it was discovered that there was much more to the story than just taste. The Pepsi Challenge was a sip taste or CLT (central location test). The Coke people made their decisions based on this small test. But often the CLT is blown away when a person does a home-use test. In other words, if people took a case of Pepsi home, they may not like it more than Coke.
eBay is doing something similar. They add or change little bits here or there, and they say it's what customers want. But are they actually asking "customers" to look at the whole, new eBay? or just one-off features and changes? Once the customer gets the whole product, with all the changes, they don't seem to like it.
Those Coke executives lost site of the fact that people don't drink soda "blind." They associate the drink with the brand. They have emotional connections with that Coke logo. Coke focused exclusively on the product, and left the brand behind. eBay execs have done the same thing. They're ready to throw out everything that made eBay - eBay in pursuit of a "better product." It seems eBay is trying to be more like Amazon just as Coke wanted to be more like Pepsi.
eBay is letting loyal, emotionally attached customers slip away. eBay was fun, certainly more fun than Amazon, but decision makers at eBay are dispensing with fun. Malcolm Gladwell points out in his book Blink, "Coke's problem is that the guys in the white coats took over." eBay's problem is that the MBAs took over. They don't understand people, and they're losing to Amazon.
Coke is once again the number one soft drink. What would have happened if they had not listened to their customers? Well, it's a pretty good bet you wouldn't be reading this.
PS - Just to make the point - TASTE is not what drives listings like the ones below, it's all emotion for a brand. How are the eBay collectibles doing?
Popularity: 48% [?]
July 17th, 2008 — Amazon Selling, eBay News and Talk
eBay had the Q2 2008 earnings call yesterday. The first one with John Donahoe at the wheel. There were decreases. They were blamed on things such as removal of fakes (what?), the economy (shouldn't eBay do better when people are hunting for bargains?), and added supply, which lowers conversion rates (Buy.com?).
Do you suppose the fact that people are leaving for Amazon in droves may play a part? My eBook which teaches eBay sellers the basics of getting started on Amazon.com is called, "Selling on the River" and it's having great success. That tells me something.
Anyway, I got to thinking of all the talk of "taking the wheel," "roadmaps", and all that travel talk and imagined all the eBay executives on a road trip to Pittsburgh. I thought it'd be interesting to be a fly on the windshield (the inside) and listen to their conversations. It's all just below this cool graphic I made up just to help you imagine it too:
John Donahoe: See ya Meg! Thanks for everything!
(door slams - everyone giggles) "ROAD TRIP!" they all shout.
The car takes off with John, Lorrie, Rajiv, and Stephanie.
Lorrie Norrington: Pittsburgh here we come! John, you have the roadmap right?
John: Yep. Right here. Rajiv, you'll navigate okay?
Rajiv: I sure will. I have a new navigation system that will get us exactly where we want to go. It's called Best Match Navigation - I type in the city and it picks the right one every time! P-I-T-T-S...Hey! Got it already! Lets lock it in.
John: I'm pulling over for a minute, I should check under the hood.
Stephanie Tilenius: It seems like it's running fine. Are you a mechanic John?
John: No, but I've ridden in cars my whole life. - I'll be right back.
He lifts the hood, and comes back holding a couple of dirty, well-used parts between his index finger and thumb (as if they stink). He seems disgusted.
John: I don't know who left this stuff under the hood, look how dirty! Yuk. Lets toss them out.
Lorrie: Don't we need them? It seemed like the car was running fine.
John: Nawwww! Listen. The car is running, lets go. You know? I think I'm going to make some more changes to this old girl. It might slow us down a little for awhile, but just wait - you'll see. It's gonna be a LOT better once I'm done.
As they go further, they notice the car slowing down. A lot of noise starts coming from the engine. To make matters worse, they don't seem to be getting closer to Pittsburgh.
John: Well just like I said, we're slowing down. But it's going to speed up any time. Why are people waving and yelling at us? They seem mad...is that smoke? Lorrie do you smell anything?
Lorrie: Let's stop for a sec. Stephanie and I are going to look under the hood too. Rajiv, could you double-check the Best Match nav system? Something doesn't look right. Be right Back!
More noises and clunking under the hood. Lorrie comes back with more parts from the engine. Stephanie has masking tape, paint, and a fender.
Stephanie: That did some good. You won't recognize this car by the time we get to Pittsburgh. It's looking great!
Rajiv (annoyed, from the back seat): Didn't I type in Pittsburgh? Because we're heading to PittsFIELD! Crap. Let me try again... P-I-T-T-S...
Lorrie: John, look at all those people - they're waving and yelling at us. They're upset, oh we've driven over their lawns, ooops, I think we hit someone's store too. Well, we don't have time to stop and talk, they'll figure out what happened when they try to open for business tomorrow.
John: Yeah, it's just a lot of noise. Let's keep going. This car is really slowing down. Look at that boat right there on the River - it's passing us!
Rajiv: Grrr! I can't believe this thing! This nav system is not working right at all, we're gonna have to turn up here John, that sign says Pittsville not Pittsburgh. Gheez, this is frustrating! I'll try again...P-I-T-T-S...
John: Whew! It's getting hot in here - and what is that NOISE? Rajiv, where did you get that stupid navigation system? eBay? Hahaha!
(Everyone laughs - except Rajiv.)
Rajiv: No I bought it from you John, remember? You tried selling it on eBay and the buyer never paid. Don't you remember? They left you negative feedback.
(Now no one is laughing...)
John: Well, it seems like the noise is dying down. In fact - a bunch of those people are getting on that boat. Goooood riddance!! Troublemakers. What River is that by the way?...
(Cell phone rings)
Stephanie: Hey John, there is some kind of analyst on the phone - he wants to know why you're going so slow.
John: Tell him, uhhh, tell him we're going slow because of the weather. Things will be picking up very soon though, what we've been doing is working. Tell him that.
(She tells him.)
Stephanie: Ok, he said he thought this car was designed to do good in this weather.
John: Uhhmmmm, tell him we took some of the fake parts off the car, and now it's going a lot slower, it's going to get better. We'll just keep doing what we're doing.
(She tells him.)
Stephanie: He said it seems like the car would do better after removing the fakes. He wants to know if...
Suddenly, John grabs the phone from Stephanie and throws it out the window.
John: There. Too much noise. Lets just hold the course. This thing will pick up. Hey, if we tried getting on the River, maybe we could move a little faster. We need to be more like that boat. Can you even see that boat anymore?
Rajiv: (exasperated) You know what? This is ridiculous! This Best Match doesn't work. This isn't Pittsburgh, it's just the PITTS! I'm getting out. John, stop the car. Nevermind we weren't moving...
I'll see you guys, I'm walking.
As Rajiv walks into the sunset, and traffic increases on the River...John, Lorrie, and Stephanie can be seen asking a passing trucker for a lift. The big truck he's driving says Buy.com on the side...hmmmmm.
Find out more about "the River" - Learn to sell on Amazon.com at www.SellingOnTheRiver.com
Popularity: 79% [?]
