My little boy, has at times refused to eat certain foods. He's seven. I expect it. I've learned that when he gets hungry enough though, he'll eat nearly anything on his plate. He can't go earn money for food on his own, so he generally eats what the family eats. The fact is, we have to move him along from baby food to grown-up food. He thinks we're big bullies some times, but as parents we have a little-bit larger picture of life than he does.
You are not the center of the universe
Some [tag]eBay sellers[/tag] are much like my little boy. They get mad and frustrated when [tag]eBay[/tag] feeds them something new. And they seem to think that eBay should base it's entire platform on their individual desires. While there are many sellers sell a tremendous amount of merchandise on the site. Even those that sell hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on eBay are still a drop in the bucket. Like it or not, eBay and its thousands of employees, along with a helpful community, have a bigger picture. If sellers will realize that, and accept certain facts, life gets a lot more pleasant. Fighting eBay, griping, [tag]complaining[/tag] about every new thing eBay does, does not make you happy, and that comes through in your selling. You can always spot sellers who hate eBay. They refuse to take PayPal, they threaten buyers with negative feedback in their descriptions before they even make a purchase! They resent the fact that there is no real choice when it comes to selling online. And they spend a tremendous amount of time on the discussion boards trashing every single thing eBay does in an effort to improve the site instead of improving their businesses.
Remember when?
Does anyone remember when [tag]eBay Motors[/tag] began? People absolutely hated it. But now it's the largest automobile marketplace in the world. Remember BillPoint, eBay's original online payment system? It was clumsy and difficult to use, people had constant complaints with it. And there was virtually zero protection for sellers OR buyers. How 'bout Mr. Lister? It was the free listing tool before Turbo Lister came out. It could not do a fraction of of what Turbo Lister does, but people complain about Turbo Lister all the time. Turbo Lister rocks! Yes, it has had a few bugs, but it will do nearly anything you ask if you work through the occasional problem rather than getting on the boards and throwing a fit.
Do you remember when there was no [tag]Selling Manager[/tag]? No [tag]eBay Stores[/tag]? [tag]Feedback[/tag] had to be left one at a time, emails were totally on your own, there was no My Messages section in your My eBay pages. Remember when feedback was permanent? even if someone accidentally left you a negative? There was no way to remove it. Remember when there was no penalty for non-paying buyers? Yes, it's true.
There are lots of other things eBay has done to try to meet the needs of sellers. In every case above, people whined and griped, threatened to leave eBay, and then embraced the feature quietly when eBay ignored them. eBay is retooling its search methodology now. People are griping and whining again. Good grief. Just stay off the boards and go sell. I suggest complainers take just half the time they spend griping, and teach themselves how to solve problems with applications (such as Turbo Lister), and read some good business books, they'd be much more successful and happy.
Fees - the number 1 challenge?
AuctionBytes just posted the results to their recent survey of eBay sellers. I was not surprised at the results. Of the 988 respondents (there are well over 200 million eBay users worldwide) they sited "[tag]eBay Fees[/tag]" as their biggest challenge. Are fees really a challenge? Did they think they can be in business without a cost? Is there such a business? I think of a "challenge" as an unanticipated situation that I have to overcome. Are eBay fees unanticipated? Generally, costs go up, they always have. A big problem is many of the people who say they are in "business" have never been in business before and so [tag]business expenses[/tag] present a challenge. Fees are predictable, and should be expected.
What are reasonable fees to you? Seriously, start a website, load it up with merchandise, and try to get some traffic, let alone buyers - because only a small percentage of your shoppers are going to buy from you. How much do you think it'll cost? Buy some Google or Yahoo advertising and drive some traffic to your website? Get out your wallet... and do you have the time to design a website, and an advertising campaign? Plus sell and run a business?
It costs money to run a business. If you cannot sell your merchandise and make a profit, then find something else to sell where you can make a profit, or go out of business. [tag]Seth Godin[/tag]'s book "[tag]The Dip[/tag]: A Little Book that Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)" can help you see if you are better off quitting than living in mediocrity. (I've added a link to the book from Amazon - for the eBay haters.) eBay does not owe us anything. I think it's great that people have built businesses from scratch on eBay. If though, you needed to make adjustments in your business to increase your profits, would you stop and think of your customers, scratch your chin and say, "I'd better just keep doing things the way I have been, I'm making enough money." Of course not, why do you think eBay would do the same?
There are untold thousands of people happily making money on eBay. The silent majority if you will. They don't get on the boards and gripe, they don't file class-action suits against eBay or [tag]PayPal[/tag], they don't answer surveys about eBay. They work hard, are positive and sincere, and that comes through in their listings and they sell. Simple.
The true picture of the 988 respondents came though from two of the questions in the AuctionBytes survey.
The first question I refer to was:
- "What is the best feature eBay has added in the past two years?"
46% responded "none", with the next group being 13% for Markdown Manager, and 10% for Turbo Lister.
The other question was:
- "What is the best policy eBay has implemented in the past two years?"
the largest group, 33% said "none".
Why even bother to take the survey?
These responses are childish and unprofessional. Period. The response to these two questions makes me embarrassed for the eBay community. Like a bunch of little brats with their arms folded, refusing to eat their broccoli...
eBay is run by smart people. The company is one of the most successful in recorded history. Maybe they know what they're doing. Small sellers continue to get mad because this company just "doesn't get it". Sounds very similar to what a seven year-old thinks of his parents for serving up a helping of broccoli at dinner time, "they just don't get it".
Look people, either go do it on your own, or eat your broccoli.
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5 comments ↓
*applauds*
I’ve got to say, those “none” answers to the best feature/best policy questions just disgusted me. Those sellers should get off eBay and leave the buyers to those of us who want to trade there.
Thank you Sue. I appreciate your comment. It seems when the complainers get an opportunity to express themselves, they have nothing truly constructive to add.
Those of that built eBay by selling things in an auction format have every right to complain that eBay sacrificed our sucesses for the mundane fixed priced listings.
We’re the people that actually brought the buyers in. All you fixed price sellers were just leeches determined to muck up something that wasn’t broken.
eBay used to be about more than money - that’s the key point, albeit one that’s probably of little significance to the greedy profiteers that now run the site.
Alexia, Thank you for making my point.
Sue’s entire article is condescending to Ebay sellers upset (and put out of business) by the boneheaded decisions made by upper management this year, and suggests that those decisions are made by intellects far superior to the collective mind of the Ebay community, the very community that made Ebay what it is.
Sure, ol’ Pierre was creative and insightful to have founded Ebay and created the mutual feedback system. It was also a wise move to take the company public in order to provide more operating capital and develop Ebay into a more user-friendly, faster, and more polished site that could handle more traffic and generate more revenue as a result.
But all along the way, Ebay users made the company what it was. These users did the day-to-day work of listing items, packing, shipping, customer interaction, etc. And rather than having to pay these loyal ‘employees’, Ebay was paid by them!!! For the most part, Ebay took a hands-off approach to the individual transactions that took place on its site. Only if somebody engaged in notable abuse or fraud would Ebay step in and terminate his account. The mutual feedback system provided a good system of self-regulation whereas both parties had the chance to rate the other. Sure, retaliatory feedback could happen, but it could only happen just so many times before the entire community would have a good record of what kind of person they’d be dealing with.
As time went on, Ebay became more and more intrusive and forgot their role as a venue provider/collector of fees. Not that they cared so much about anybody committing fraud….after all, they knew that the feedback system worked pretty well.
Still, they got more intrusive in the name of SAFETY and consumer confidence, when it is totally obvious to the long-time Ebay community that each move made was in the pursuit of eaking out every last drop of profit at any cost to their relationship with their customers.
As a result of this reckless policy that hung sellers out to dry, Ebay stock has dropped 70% since this time last year, and in a down economy where Ebay should be thriving, all their numbers are DOWN.
This is evidence of horrible management decisions and the sooner current management can be ousted, the sooner the community may see a reversal of 99% of the idiotic policy changes put into effect this year.
So I say yell and scream at the top of your lungs, and tell Ebay to keep its stinking broccoli.
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