Feedback for eBay after 20+ years on the platform

[mccsolution]

I know this will fall on deaf ears and probably just attract snide remarks from fanboyish users but here is some thinking points for eBay......

Decision making- Its obvious the platform has developed post 2010 or so around the cooperate CRM process in order to maximize profit and mitigate loss. Sounds reasonable right? Well no, not exactly. See if your only process for change is purely profit-result driven you lose your audience eventually and as the other thousands of failed companies demonstrated it is ultimately not a strategy for longevity. 

Current state of affairs- This leads to today, an atmosphere of big partners and marginalized users. What do I mean by that? Well speaking only for myself, my business partners, and my own customers whom I had traditionally recommended the platform; we fell well "Meh". Every thing that once attracted us to eBay in the first place has all but fully eroded.

As a Seller- Well being a traditionally small business owner and my circle also being similar, we find little actual tangible justification to continue to use the platform. Excessive fees have lead to unreasonable margins, "Seller Protection" is well two words strung together. That's about it(Nothing new really though lol). We were forced to abandon several payment methods, including PayPal which ironically eBay absorbed in the first place with many broken promises.  Just when Paypal seemed to fully develop you snatched it away so you can exert your control. Funds are held for excessive amount of times despite promises to consider seller history etc. Your tracking system is dated and has significant delay leading to further delay in funding(USPS tracking to Mexico for example). Already verified bank accounts are asked for verification again for no clear reason(another 24hr delay).  Support personnel outright lie when contacted and seem to have no real decision making ability to resolve issues. 

Market- Sellers now have to compete with eBays partners which is no more than the industries that see an avenue for retail profit making since they have finally recognized that eBay was a utopia of used and refurbished items. Now these big companies partner with eBay directly to list and market the same items that are either also available at normal retailers or were traditionally obtained whole sale and redistributed by small sellers. It has diminished the atmosphere of eBay and affected the small businesses that built this platform. So at this point a good portion of what is listed on eBay can be found easily at several other retailers for similar or even cheaper priced. 

As a Buyer- I have to navigate a landscape of sponsored and partner items, usually skipping a few pages to find real eBay sellers or applying multiple filters to get what I'm really looking for. I also no longer have the real choice of payment. Buyers cannot navigate deals or negotiate with sellers without a lengthy, confusing and delayed process of getting the seller to create a new or buying an additional listing. Previously the invoicing process made this easy. Its almost so much work its not worth it, which I understand is by design in order to reduce the "risk"(PROFIT LOSS) for eBay of transactions occurring outside of eBays buying process. But I can tell you with absolute certainty it still occurs frequently and it will continue to happen more as the process is further restricted for several reasons. 

Loss of appeal- Speaking of profit; with the steady increase of fees and the edging out of small sellers little "appeal of the deal" remains. Naturally as the climate and cost has changed the product landscape has also shifted. Cheap and heavily used items are sparse now, which was a huge chunk of the original appeal eBay had for buyers and sellers. The entire idea was that of an international, interconnected marketplace for the sale of goods and services for individuals, not for large corporations. The shift from small time deals to big business has fostered an equal shift in atmosphere and dynamic that has led to a marketplace that no longer fundamentally aligns with the original and collective ideals that eBay was founded upon. 

In summery, think about it. Sit back and examine as an individual user how often "check eBay" is a thought vs just going to Amazon or any other retailer when your looking for something. It used to be the go-to of sorts, now with the loss of appeal its merely an after thought or last resort. I at one time had built my entire business around the reliability and availability of deals of eBay, a lot has changed. I don't expect anything to get better or anything to really come from this rant other than perhaps closing a book for myself as I swallow the pill of exiting the platform. Though its laughable to see this once free commerce reduced to having folks search out a black market of sorts. But hey maybe ill be proved wrong and I can return in 10 years and eBay not be merely more than a eTailer(But I doubt it.)

[luckythewinner]

In summery, think about it. Sit back and examine as an individual user how often "check eBay" is a thought vs just going to Amazon or any other retailer when your looking for something. It used to be the go-to of sorts, now with the loss of appeal its merely an after thought or last resort.

I judge eBay using one simply metric:

I divide my net profit by the hours I have invested and figure out my "hourly wage".

If that ever becomes unacceptable, I will probably stop. But it hasn't happened yet.

[pcobra93]

Eventually, everything will be owned and controlled by the One World Government....that is the "end game".

[mccsolution]

I'm no conspiracy theorist but it sure does feel like we are centralizing on a total collapse. A societal black hole of sorts. 

[mccsolution]

I respect that wholly. And I suppose my opinion differs due to my style of selling but it bothers me just as much as a consumer. Its no longer a business centric point of view for me as I have since diversified but that is a positive outlook. 

[ed8108]

An interesting & well reasoned read!

[chapeau-noir]

Thank you for using paragraphs.

ETA:  But there continues to be a fallacy - the thinking that eBay sells exactly what Amazon sells and vice versa.  I'm not sure why people stick on this but it's repeated over and over.  What I sell you cannot get on Amazon, you have to get it from me or people like me.  If one wants to sell what is exactly on Amazon, they get pretty much what they deserve, good or bad.

[soh.maryl]

Excellent post.  For example, my eBay purchases are mostly related to sewing, specifically doll clothing.  I troll the site every few days, checking for vintage patterns.  Show me where to find those on Amazon.  In addition, I have to say that my experiences in that area have been 100% good to outstanding.  

[mccsolution]

I agree but its repeated for a reason, you never heard someone say something similar to this 10+ years ago though right? That isn't without cause, and it cannot be blamed solely on the marketing giant.. And your products have undoubtedly gone from the rule to the exception I'm sure. But that's beside the point if you think about it, the original appeal in my opinion wasn't solely based around the availability or how prolific a product was but the unique buying experience the platform offered. If all I want is a new or "refurbished" product eBay no longer has any advantage over any other eTailer which was not always the case. I suppose it could be the natural progression of things just as mom and pops subside to your local dollar store chain but I wouldn't be to comfortable anymore as a seller if eBay is your main source of income. 

[mccsolution]

Couldn't you make the same argument if you compared your particular product placement to that of what a platform like Etsy has to offer? After all they charge a more modest fee of only 6.5% and they are over 100mil users now so eBay is loosing the market edge there. The mentioning of Amazon seems to be a point of interest but it was just an example....

[sextons-sweet-deals]

agree a little with pcobra93 & mccsolution comments.

The problem I see is more monopolies being created. The U.S. Government keeps approving big companies to either buy up the new little competition or merge to either just shut them down or have more control of the market. Are our politicians being paid off? Dumb question, right?

In my early years of business classes, it was always taught how Government pushed for open competition, so that the U.S. consumer gets a fair price. That is going away if not already!

So many questions, but even the local and national news turn their head and won't even mention it. 

just a few examples:

1. Walmart and similar stores still paying for a lease on their old empty / competitor stores they may have bought out, so competition does not move into those locations. 

2. musk trying to control multiple markets which can influence the markets and prices (auto, social media, space, satellites, and whatever other scam he is into. 

3. Amazon is doing the same thing as #2

4. Kroger grocery also plays the Walmart game and last I read was possibly merging with another grocery chain to become the biggest. Biggest does not mean the best! I see it as the biggest buys from suppliers for even less $$, but the retail prices will not drop for the consumer. They will probably increase in time. 

Sorry for the rant.

[dhbookds]

Every thing that once attracted us to eBay in the first place has all but fully eroded.

Can't speak for anyone else........but what attracted me to ebay in 2004 was the hope to sell stuff at a profit....

I've never not made a profit here.......so the attraction is not eroded for me.  I've seen enough sellers come and go here to recognize there are a myriad of reasons for leaving........most boil down to not being able to adapt to change.  Fees have gone up, the # of items has ballooned exponentially on the platform, resulting in more competition, and off platform competition has gone from almost nothing to numerous ads on every page on the internet.  The consumer"pie" is split many more ways than any of us thought possible 25 years ago. 

If I focused on what I think is wrong with ebay......I could probably "sell" a book........but that's not my goal........nor do I have enough hubris to think that I understand what problems Ebay, the Marketplace, faces and is trying to solve when they do something.......

[chapeau-noir]

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@mccsolution wrote:

I agree but its repeated for a reason, you never heard someone say something similar to this 10+ years ago though right? That isn't without cause, and it cannot be blamed solely on the marketing giant.. And your products have undoubtedly gone from the rule to the exception I'm sure. But that's beside the point if you think about it, the original appeal in my opinion wasn't solely based around the availability or how prolific a product was but the unique buying experience the platform offered. If all I want is a new or "refurbished" product eBay no longer has any advantage over any other eTailer which was not always the case. I suppose it could be the natural progression of things just as mom and pops subside to your local dollar store chain but I wouldn't be to comfortable anymore as a seller if eBay is your main source of income. 

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eBay has never been my only source of online income - in fact, I was selling on three other platforms before I started here in about 2001, which is where I get a lot of perspective. My experience tells me that there's a second fallacy in a lot of 'reasons' - that etailing somehow would never evolve when in fact for two decades it was maturing at light speed and is unrecognisable to what it was in the early oughts, and all of these changes, good and bad, are packed into this evolution. This includes user experience on the site, which in my view has grown more complicated as etailing has gotten larger.  I will agree that eBay is far too complicated.  However, the natural evolution of commerce is consolidation, and the larger the general market becomes, the larger these companies have to grow in order to keep surviving.  That means attracting bigger players.

Etsy (since it was brought up) is infected with the same ills and has turned into Ali-Express West and a PoD dumping ground, with a heavy emphasis on mass manufacture and an even worse search and ad program than here, plus a CEO with no new ideas.  All of this was developed to increase profits and get bigger to keep competing, not support individual and unique sellers, no matter what their marketing spiel is.

Yet unique and individual continue to sell - it may sell on more sites now, but it still does sell.

TL;DR version: It's all about competition and survival.

[mccsolution]

Agreed, more like incentivizing lol.... Its holistically ironic how big business gets all the cuts under the premise of "economy" and "jobs" when they are at large underpaying their employees' and are at the very center of the demise of the small "local" economy in the first place. Its like big business wiped everyone out and then is rewarded for coming in a saving the day afterwards. Reminds me of a kind....of..... Scheme? 

Government, speaking of the US anyway also use to teach the basics of economics, civics and the fundamentals of governance. But that stopped early in my own generation unfortunately as social crisis took center stage over common sense. 

News is a whole example in its self they are at the very end of what has been an active and unregulated apprehension of every small news and media outlet in the country. Only the large ones remain and they are connected at the hip with the same enterprises and government that endorses this practice so its in their best interest to turn a blind eye. 

Walmart ugh.... our consumers created this. It was a novel idea early on but its morphed into a monster. And speaking of look at all the refurbished and used products on their ecommerce store now, that's another broad shot across the water at eBay no talks about. They are just one of the many cross-commerce stores that are integrated to regurgitate product listings across multiple retailers that rarely retain accuracy or quality but thrive because of the user base. 

[mccsolution]

Im really happy to hear that, I'm not the type of person to burn the house down with me. But I fell we have gone from changing for the good and taking things in strive to doing just that "adapting" its more of a pre-requite that you have to accept that eBay will make many changes through the year every year no matter if its to help or hurt. Or makes any sense at all for that matter. Seems like a regressive outlook to me. 

And eBay is actually in decline. Since Q4 of 2018 actually. We have less users and far less products to a tune of 20 million to be exact. Which goes right along with what people are saying. 

But again not all my points have merit from a business perspective, much of my frustration comes from that of a consumer also.