Is it Time for ebay to consider splitting up?

[mopata]

When I started on ebay 20 years ago, it was new and cool. It was a little bit of the wild west and a definite case of "buyer beware". However, with the feedback system allowing both positive and negative feedback for both buyers and sellers, you could get a good idea who the bad actors were, with a little experience. The sellers were mostly small to medium sized operations and service was personal but, a bit inconsistent. Shipping, return and refund policies were completely up to each individual seller so, buyers did have to read the terms carefully and bid or not bid accordingly. However, the 95% of buyers and sellers that were honest liked the system and the bad actors were weeded out through bad feedback fairly quickly. Fast forward 20 years and ebay has become safe, bureaucratic and boring. This is not a reflection on just ebay, it is the natural progression of almost any large, successful organization. Rules get set based on the least honest sellers and the least sophisticated buyers. Unfortunately, these same rules also hamstring the best sellers and buyers that use the site. This particularly applies to those that buy and sell antique, vintage or even 2nd hand items. The majority of sellers of these kinds of items are usually small to medium sized operations who do not sell thousands of items each month. In recent years, ebay's focus has shifted toward large sellers of new items, particularly from overseas. It's understandable, that's where the growth is. The small sellers of unique items who were ebay's original focus seem to be getting lost in the shuffle. I wonder if it would be a good idea for ebay to split off a site dedicated to antique, vintage, second hand and hand made items with a structure better suited to that market with fewer rules and less bureaucracy. I think this would benefit both the buyers and sellers of these types of items and allow ebay to focus the main site on the large sellers of new items that seems to be their future. Who knows, they may even get some of their reputation of being "cool" back.

[Anonymous]

Yes but it was almost all used items if I remember correctly. It had different rules/policies than eBay itself and still would have been a good option for those selling those types of items. But eBay decided to close it probably because their AI/algorithms/bots that run the company now decided Half wasn't profitable enough for them. Now they can control every aspect of a sale on eBay alone.

[hillbillymedia]

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@ittybitnot wrote:

When I started on ebay 20 years ago,....

Then you should remember that ebay tried this already.  eBay touted that consumers were more interested in the NEW and NOW merchandise.  It was called eBay Express.  Without going into the sordid details, eBay discontinued it.  Apparently, NEW and NOW was not as big of a draw for consumers as they thought, and while the used/vintage portion pretty much florished, the Express portion did not. 

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Yet it seems ebay is re-designing the whole site based on new/newer items as we speak and attempting to force sellers into a "one size fits all" format and catalog. I just don`t get it.

[keziak]

I think one good argument would be to get the Chinese sellers out of the site focussing on vintage and secondhand. But apparently they have infiltrated Etsy (correct me if I'm wrong) and would probably just try to dominate a new site, too. 

[lloydsteventaylor]

sounds like you have had alot of bad experiences here on Ebay. i am sorry for that. my experiences here were just the opposite. i checked my buyer feedback and i have had 614 buyer feedbacks since 2002 and before and every one was a positive transaction. i have bought from many good and reputable sellers who i would buy from again. i think there are bad sellers but that is not the general rule i have found. 

" Back then, eBay considered itself a “venue” and pretty much stayed out of the transactions between eBay buyers and eBay sellers. "

i wish it was like this again. Ebay used to be a community of buyers and sellers but it is no longer a community. so sad. imho.

[lloydsteventaylor]

i agree that Ebay should split up its business into different sites for different types of products but i don't think they plan doing that. and this idea isn't new. 

i feel if they did that buyers and sellers would be more satisfied with Ebay as a product. and i feel that Ebay would generate more sales and their bottom line would increase. 

as an example the new product pages are great for new clothing but not so great for items like used coins. 

a diverse Ebay could have product managers responsible for each product with its own site. and with its own set of rules.  

[everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures]

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@keziak wrote:

I think one good argument would be to get the Chinese sellers out of the site focussing on vintage and secondhand. But apparently they have infiltrated Etsy (correct me if I'm wrong) and would probably just try to dominate a new site, too. 

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This would no more happen than removing all US sellers from a site....and no one "infiltrated" anything. Gotta love the misuse of words for dramatic effect..not. These are global sites, this is a global market...maybe keep that in mind. And most of the world no longer discriminates based on where/what country someone lives in......and in certain cases can also be illegal to do so.

[emerald40]

I think what this poster meant is that Chinese sellers should not be allowed to lie and pretend they are in the US, when they are not.

You can just look at their handling and shipping time and know it does not take a month to get a package across the United States.

[everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures]

Ebay is what it has always been...an ecommerce site/marketplace where sellers list and can sell and buyers can buy. It has merely grown and kept current with things like technology etc but it is still the same as it has always been...the function has not changed.
Some people have always tried to make it what it is not or applied other titles to it.....but that should not have been done to begin with...and is usually done when someone doesn't like something now.

[everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures]

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@emerald40 wrote:

I think what this poster meant is that Chinese sellers should not be allowed to lie and pretend they are in the US, when they are not.

You can just look at their handling and shipping time and know it does not take a month to get a package across the United States.

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I think that you should not be making generalization.....some people lie some do not...doesn't matter where they are from, what color they are or anything else.
And it is not your job to say how long something takes.....people often extend handling times for many reasons they do not need to explain to other sellers. It is allowed and they have the options provided to be able to do that. That option is there for all sellers to use.
If someone is going on vacation and doesn't want to take down items...they can extend handling times....is one example. Not all sellers have or choose to use vacation settings.