How about a better way to make more money, Ebay?

[rugerskick]

Ebay really has no ideas that work to get more money onsite.  Of course they really only have one strategy, finding more ways to take money from sellers.  The site now is a massive pay for play site.  Being skewing this way heavily for years.  

The one overtly stated strategy of desiring more sellers to sell higher cost items (higher value sellers) is failing and will not work the way they think it will.  Because they do not support long term, high reliability, proven for years high quality sellers when buyer fraud occurs to them.  Everyone here on the forum knows this is a problem as the first comments are "dont sell anything you cant afford to lose".  What a great encapsulation of the bias problem here on the site.  But that very statement proves their one idea to save the site won't work, because people who sell high value items will not sell them here because theres no backing by ebay on buyer fraud, really scammer fraud.  So ebay shoots their only vocalized plan to make more money, in the foot, with their massive buyer fraud bias we all know about and regularly acknowledge.

How about something that will really work Ebay.  I have a suggestion.

How about stop the pay for play and unthrottle all sellers here?  Stop all the ads filling up pages buyers don't want to see and continually wade through, for a better buyer experience on site.

Everyone knows you throttle peoples stores traffic.  They know this because they know how they were doing years ago and how they are doing now, and can see the traffic changes as more and more changes were made to the ebay system.  They know if they weren't throttled down, they'd have better numbers that would translate to better sales.  Because many had better sales and more traffic before you mucked with how buyers could find them and how you did and now don't, display their items.

If you didnt throtte them, they could make more sales.  You'd make more money if you let them make more sales. 

If you stopped all the ads all over buyer pages they didn't ask for, they wouldn't grow to hate shopping for stuff here.  If you could pull all that junk out of the sub-par ai search algorithmthats outdone by offsite search engines, search might work better, faster, and buyers could review pages without massive item ad results and not grow frustrated just trying to find the info they did want to see.

[new_spin_boutique]

What eBay needs to do is marketing. If you do a search around popular forums and listen to what people say about eBay, it's mostly negative and it's mostly UNTRUE. Yet, that's the perception. 

I was on a firearms site recently and there was a huge thread from this year mostly about eBay. What they were saying is eBay is nothing by Chinese garbage, and they were talking about how it's scammers paradise. Someone told a story about how they ordered something, never received it, and got screwed out of his money. Other people chimed in supporting his statement. 

All of that is nonsense, obviously, but that's the perception. So, if eBay wanted to meaningfully improve the site in a lasting way, they'd be wise to improve the perception of eBay through a marketing campaign, which they haven't done since the 90's. 

[lakefor94]

The main problem is not the sellers being defrauded.  Sellers are of endless supply. And most of them hang around anyways. It is not the ads. It is not the search tool. Not throttling.

The problem is with the unscrupulous sellers defrauding the buyers. A defrauded buyer hardly ever comes back, especially if they are a new buyer.

Seller fraud is rampant.  

[new_spin_boutique]

Considering eBay covers buyers, I can't imagine that's true. The thousands of items I've purchased off of eBay over the years, never had a issue with fraud... Fraud is rampant? Maybe we use different eBays. 

[chapeau-noir]

They've been launching marketing campaigns throughout this time, but they just seem to miss. The Christmas campaign the last two years has completely missed a huge opportunity and focused on the verticals instead - over-priced sneakers and spendy watches which are not something most people will give for Christmas.  eBay did have a good commercial in Europe a while back that presented the site and what it had to offer in a great light. But here, maybe they're using in-house talent for this stuff and need to take on a good outside marketing firm.

Someone mentioned that advertising on TV was essential, but I think that's old thinking and would simply appeal to the older demographic here, when they're trying to appeal to younger generations.

[new_spin_boutique]

I agree, they need to focus on younger buyers. The perception of eBay among young people is very negative and most of what they believe about eBay is false. It's just rumor-mill conjecture that's totally contradictory to the facts. "eBay's got you covered" should the campaign slogan.........

[luckythewinner]

How about stop the pay for play 

eBay made a quarter of a billion dollars from promoted listings. Why would they stop that, and why would that increase sales?  

Everyone knows you throttle peoples stores traffic. If you didnt throtte them, they could make more sales.  You'd make more money if you let them make more sales. 

If this were the case, then why would eBay throttles store traffic? What would be the benefit to eBay? 

[chapeau-noir]

They seem to consider it a site for grandma and grandpa, kind of like Facebook, despite the fact that plenty of younger people shop here (I have customers of all ages) - generally, though, what brings them here is a specific item that they've been looking for.

It takes a long time to change peoples' perceptions and I think eBay can do a better job of it by having more advertisement (that doesn't smack of "How do you do, fellow kids").

[new_spin_boutique]

Well eBay did just purchase the largest trading card game site, recently, so I'm not so sure they're focused on grandma and grandpa, who are decreasing in number each day. I think this current executive leadership is focused on short term gains, squeezing every penny out of its community in order to increase their bonuses, leaving the mess for the next team that comes in, later. 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

ebay has been very candid about its marketing strategy: it is all based around the Focus Categories and targeting buyers for those Focus Categories. The sort of general, "buy stuff on ebay" marketing campaign many of us would like to see is simply not on ebay's radar---management is convinced they are doing fine with the focused, targeted category approach. 

I think ebay is wrong to take this approach, and I think it is hurting them ---and us---but so far, I've seen no indication that ebay execs are rethinking their approach.

[lakefor94]

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@new_spin_boutique wrote:

Considering eBay covers buyers, I can't imagine that's true. The thousands of items I've purchased off of eBay over the years, never had a issue with fraud... Fraud is rampant? Maybe we use different eBays. 

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We use the same eBay.  We just know the ropes. Your average buyer does not.

[mam98031]

"Ebay really has no ideas that work to get more money onsite."  You have a unique way to describe a company that is about 26 years old and has been profitable most if not all of that time.  They wouldn't still be here if they had no idea of what they are doing.  

Ebay does not raise FVFs on sellers very often at all.  Now that add tools that we can choose to use or not use and sometimes those tools can cost us more in fees.  But we don't have to use them.  It isn't mandatory.  For some reason some like to portray these optional tools as something they aren't.  Don't like the, don't like the additional fee, don't use them.  It is really that simple.

Ebay does not "throttle" anyone's sales.  That is ridiculous.  And it goes against what you are saying here that Ebay is just trying to make more money off of its sellers.  If they throttle a sellers sales, then Ebay isn't going to earn any FVFs on those transactions that could have been.  So it simply makes no sense.  It doesn't benefit the seller or Ebay in any way.

" Everyone here on the forum knows this is a problem as the first comments are "dont sell anything you cant afford to lose"."  You can't speak for "everyone".  None of us can.  This is something sellers say to other sellers, but it has never been said by Ebay.  Some sellers say it and other don't.

Selling here is a choice as well.  No one is forced to use this site.

[pennysdream]

eBay is a business.  Businesses are in business to make money. 

Making money fluctuates, costs go up, services go up, money goes out. 

That money going out must be made back (an up) from the money coming in. 

They make money by providing goods and services to customers.  

Sellers are eBay's customers.  

For eBay to maintain the money coming in, (and make it go up), they must evaluate how to make more money.  

That evaluation included, pay to play.  Not enuf sellers got on the band wagon.

So, the next step was to raise costs for certain categories.  Sellers found other categories. 

And then, because not enuf folks got on the band wagon, eBay raised other service prices. 

Hopefully, covering the costs.  Including the loss of income from scheduled listings. 

If the newest increases do not cover all the costs, one of two things are going to happen...

One.. There will be more increased fees. 

Or Two... There will be no eBay.

Sellers have several choices to make...

Source items at a lower cost.

Raise Prices. 

Find another venue. 

Go out of business. 

eBay is not any different than any other company.  

eBay sellers are in essents a company. Sellers make money from the buyer.

eBay is trying to continue to make money. 

The seller needs to find away to continue to make money

Or we will all be out of business. 

[jman0312]

I agree, buyer fraud is rampant, seller fraud most likely doesn't exist here. Why would a seller even try to commit fraud? They'd lose everytime, right?...Buyer says they didn't get what they ordered, done, enough said, here's your refund(no proof necessary) & now the seller loses $ on return. label.

[mam98031]

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@jman0312 wrote:

I agree, buyer fraud is rampant, seller fraud most likely doesn't exist here. Why would a seller even try to commit fraud? They'd lose everytime, right?...Buyer says they didn't get what they ordered, done, enough said, here's your refund(no proof necessary) & now the seller loses $ on return. label.

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@jman0312 

Seller fraud is all too common here.  Sad but true and they survive somehow.

As for buyers, the vast majority of buyers are responsible people.  We know this is true because so many sellers sell on this site.  And if that weren't true, sellers would not stick around.

The vast majority of transactions go off without a hitch, the more problematic ones are a very small percentage of transactions.  Still frustrating to deal with and they can cost a seller money, but most transactions are just fine.