Negative Reaction to Harry Temkin, VP of Seller Experience - Good ‘Til Cancelled Update

[rocketman79]

I reviewed the message of Harry Temkin, VP of Seller Experience and found this decision extremely short-sited and inaccurate for my situation and my colleagues.  As someone who has worked hand-in-hand with Jeff Bezos for a number of years, eliminating options that alienates a portion of your company is poor business.

Harry states that statistics suggest more sales occur with Good Til Cancel listing.  As someone with an advanced technical degree, I would suggest these numbers can be made to look differently based on statistical assumptions.  Harry's statement is so broad in nature that even if globally accurate, it is inaccurate for a number of sellers such as myself.  I final my sales dramatically drop with Good Til Cancel listing approach and spent significant time eliminating it for all my listing.  Customers seem to react strongly when a new single item appears listed for the "first" time consistent with a 30-day Fixed Price listing and not a GTC listing.

I have only 1000 free listing and over 1000 items for sale.  Thus, with this change I can no longer

1) See how many views I have on a monthly basis - my items are very seasonal and so this is important to me and am always looking to new niches

2) Eliminate items that are not doing well without taking the time to end a listing early.  This is bad business and takes time.  I am a busy person and enjoy a 30 day listing ending so I can make smart decisions about which items to remove

3) Not give the appearance that an old item is being listed for the 1st time and there is only one to be had.

Furthermore, you Inventory system has significant as many of the quantities listed in Inventory are inconsistent with actual numbers I have listed (which is typically one)

Also, your help desk support is suggesting the once you list an item as GTC, it does not take a free listing each month when it is renewed.  You and your team did a less than acceptable job training your staff.

There is no business case for you eliminating this option.  You are driving away Sellers like myself who feel that valuable options continue to keep be taking from them.

[juststuffisell]

Unfortunately, you are speaking into a hollow can with a string attached to it running 2000 miles from your tin can. Nobody on the other end can hear you.

Like all of us, you are going to have to adjust how you do business on eBay. At least until they make another change. I can say that the GTC option does work on other platforms. We'll all see if it works on eBay. If it doesn't it will be the small sellers that suffer.

Cheers

[greg5000]

I can hear you @rocketman79 

Which means that eBay Leadership will be hearing you very soon.  I'm working on this and a few other issues that came up last month.  Been here for a while and don't want to the site to devolve further.

If everyone adjusted, there would be no Freedom. 

[twnpopcards]

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@greg5000 wrote:

I can hear you @rocketman79 

Which means that eBay Leadership will be hearing you very soon.  I'm working on this and a few other issues that came up last month.  Been here for a while and don't want to the site to devolve further.

If everyone adjusted, there would be no Freedom. 

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That is Ebays intentions, no freedom nor individuality in how a Seller runs their business.  Ebay feels they know more about how to run our businesses than we do, yet they are the ones who continue to lose market share and flounder around with 1% growth rates.  Ebay feels one size fits all is what is needed for them to be successful but the results that Ebay has shown since the current CEO has taken over seem to prove otherwise.  

Until these changes hit their bottom line this is just how it is going to be on Ebay.   Sellers will continue to move their items to other sites that are more successful and less demanding than Ebay until TPTB either wake up and make the changes or the shareholders say enough is enough and force a change at the top.  Ebay has gotten very good at trying to put a positive spin on all these changes that are really nothing more than another money grab from their current sellers, without anything ever being sold on Ebay.  Ebay no longer has the answers on how to bring the buyers and sellers they keep chasing away with their one size fits all changes, so they have to find creative ways to charge their current sellers more and more while their sellers are selling less and less.

[mczombies]

Absolutely...

You keep on telling the truth--you are spot on, every time.

[willyb15020]

I agree with you. I have had listings in GTC and 30 days and The GTc listings did not do very well. All thats going to happen is we are going to just keep racking up ebay fees and making no profit. I ended 300 listings and will only keep a few here till I get established somewhere else. I just simply cannot afford to pay more fees nor do I have the time to constantly keep track of all my listings so I can end them before 30 days to avoid the fees. This decision on ebays part is horrid!

[fern*wood]

I wonder if this move doesn't bring in the hoped for additional revenue, will the next move be higher final value fees...

[pacer_place]

I agree that eBay is only thinking of their bottom line when it comes to this policy change. Having a fixed price listing with a 30 day duration vs good til cancelled doesn't help sell the item. The change hurts the sellers. The only thing it will do is allow ebay to collect more insertion fees every 30 days. As a seller I have to consider all of the options whether to list or not to relist an item. With the ebay policy, I have to do more work to prevent an automatic relisting. If you're selling thirty or forty items a month, that's not a big deal until 50 items are listed, and when automatically relisted, they use all of the free listings. In my case I have to keep an eye on 200 to 300 items to make sure I don't get hit with a big bill at the end of the month. What about the sellers who have 1000 to 2000 items listed? How many small sellers will look for other options to see items - Craigslist, Facebook, Letgo, ETSY, ....... Is ebay sending a message to small ebay sellers? I'd write more, but I have to start reviewing and downsizing my fixed price listings. 

[sunny_ell]

Maybe their plan is two-fold.

1. Hit all of the unsuspecting (or those that just don't read the updates) sellers for the relisting fees. You know they won't refund when all of those people call and ask WHY they are being charged, as the did tell us. But note how many have come here to the boards asking what's going on. SO many other don't even know about these boards and will be blind-sided.

2. Are they trying to kill BIN listings? Are they trying to go back to only auctions, as this was what started it all and made them a profit? 

Either way, I predict things will not end well. 

I will keep trying, just have to figure it out. I guess 10 day auctions with BIN might be the way I'll go. We'll see...

[monster-deals]

Ebay's one size fits all model is ridiculous at best when dealing with tens of thousands of different markets and millions of users.

I can't even begin to imagine how this got past even an undergraduate marketing student.

That they continue to march down this path is indicative of the fact that the people who run ebay have no idea what ebay is or what ebay does.

[blueeyes88]

Harry explanation is so disingenuous...how he has the audacity to tell sellers like myself that this change is good for us is truly an example of the 1930's BIG LIE technique...Harry should stick to selling razor blades!

As a long time seller on eBay I intend to explore other options available unlike the US post office they are not the only platform available...this is the last straw!

[sunny_ell]

Oh, one more thing. Pretty much the only thing I do online on my cell (old and stuck in my ways, eh) is check ebay in the evening, when I don't want to fire up the desktop pc. I never saw anything about an update of any kind on the cell - I just use goggly and go to ebay.com. All listing, etc I do on the desktop.

Could that be why all these people are unaware? They aren't seeing the updates?

Just a thought.

[dknykrn]

I totally agree about wanting people to go back to auctions. The listing fee is 25 cents and buy it now 10 cents. I have nearly 500 items with a store but still have some high monthly fees. I relist for 7-10 days buy it now which makes my listings come up often for ending soon or newly listed in the search. I thought this was the best for me but now when WILL my listings show up? Doesn't look good.

[weschurch]

I agree, whats mnore disturbing is the historic run of Epic failures running Ebay. You would think somewhere along the line they would screw up and actually get it right. This place has been snowballing down a hill for years and the next guy up is even more incompetent as the clown before him. Get someone that understand the dynamics of what made this place suucessful or keep getting pulverized by the competition. I'm in the camp that its already to late. Ebay has a reputation of being shady. Its a black eye they could have recovered from years ago with the right leadership but the ineptness only continues and the negative perception of Ebay  only grows every year

[monster-deals]

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@weschurch wrote:

I agree, whats mnore disturbing is the historic run of Epic failures running Ebay. You would think somewhere along the line they would screw up and actually get it right. This place has been snowballing down a hill for years and the next guy up is even more incompetent as the clown before him. Get someone that understand the dynamics of what made this place suucessful or keep getting pulverized by the competition. I'm in the camp that its already to late. Ebay has a reputation of being shady. Its a black eye they could have recovered from years ago with the right leadership but the ineptness only continues and the negative perception of Ebay  only grows every year

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They did once make a turn for the better with re-stocking fees, dumping DSRs and feedback as a performance metric but then they threw that goodwill straight out the window with promoted listings and the inability to fight fake SNADs.

Total incompetence.

A