A couple of thoughts on the new changes:
1) I don't mind Ebay making changes. Ebay is a business, first and foremost, and needs to evolve to grow.
2) I do mind when such changes are made in secret.
3) I also mind when such changes are not circulated internally, meaning that even Ebay employees would give inaccurate and/or conflicting information about them during the first few weeks after introduction.
4) I also mind that such changes are often vague, and so making the necessary adjustments would be literally impossible. For instance, Ebay says that weak promotions will be placed at the bottom of listings. Fine. But at least give us specific parameters to shoot for so that we could adjust our sales to meet the minimum requirements necessary for a top-of-page placements. Sale A needs to be changed from 10% to 20%, Sale B needs to apply to an additional 50 items at a minimum, etc.
5) Ebay has the right to do whatever they want because we are selling on their platform after all, but a certain level of respect should be universal to any business.
6) It's pretty clear Ebay thinks making unpopular changes on the down low would result in less bad publicity than if they were to be straightforward about them, and maybe that's true due to the nature of social media and people's tendencies to overreact, but in my opinion a lack of trust is FAR more damaging to the Ebay brand than any amount of undesireable changes. The same goes for Amazon.
