eBay used to be the site, and now it's not

[ten_o_nine]

who do you blame? management? Yup, that's right. Fire them.

[sumsum70]

eBay management is totally responsible for the current state of eBay and all of their moves seem to indicate they have thrown in the towel.

I'm 99% certain the eBay help chat has no real people at all anymore. Even if it says you are connected to an agent, they are now chatbots. The exchange I just had demonstrated a level of stupidity that could not have been generated by a human. I frustrated it to the point it disconnected the chat.

[sakic92710]

If I use the site at all, it will only occasionally.  Much like how my sales have been - occasional.  1 active listing right now.  Might just use the Canadian site & see if I have luck within these borders instead of relying on expensive cross border S/H.  Also FED UP with buyers getting refunds because there is no tracking.  Although, they get refunds with tracking anyway!!!  eBay is the only site where I've had that kind of difficulty.

[chapeau-noir]

Competition.

[angelno9]

eBay used to be the site, and now it's not

What is the site for dishes and pottery these days? 

[isaiah53-57]

---

@chapeau-noir wrote:

Competition.

---

ALLOWING competition - Not doing anything about it when they still could - Thats on the site managers -  Reduce service, quality and confidence while you raise prices and headaches - Nope - thats not the way to combat competition my friend...

[chapeau-noir]

There's no way to prevent competition, particularly in etailing which was growing exponentially from the mid-90s. If competition could be prevented, we would have one brand of car, one brand of breakfast cereal, etc. and one big monopoly on everything. There is always competition. There were some big failures along the way, but we're fooling ourselves if we ever believed eBay would be the only site getting in on the auction. You may not have been around, but a site called Wagglepop was taking off pretty well in the very early oughts, and had the CEO not been a drama king, probably would have done very well. 

Yes, people were all fed up and mad at eBay even then and going off onto Wagglepop.

[vintagecraze50]

All of the sites. Nobody has the monopoly on anything anymore. Used vintage pottery, can only sell on ebay, Poshmark, etsy, if it is handmade, ruby lane, facebook marketplace on and on.

[isaiah53-57]

---

@chapeau-noir wrote:

There's no way to prevent competition, particularly in etailing which was growing exponentially from the mid-90s. If competition could be prevented, we would have one brand of car, one brand of breakfast cereal, etc. and one big monopoly on everything. There is always competition. There were some big failures along the way, but we're fooling ourselves if we ever believed eBay would be the only site getting in on the auction. You may not have been around, but a site called Wagglepop was taking off pretty well in the very early oughts, and had the CEO not been a drama king, probably would have done very well. 

Yes, people were all fed up and mad at eBay even then and going off onto Wagglepop.

---

I didnt say you could prevent competition - Of course that's impossible - What I did convey was that doing nothing about it, or worse yet, ALLOWING competition to get a leg up on you by having a default strategy of reducing service, quality and confidence while raising prices and headaches is not the way to combat competition in a competitive market...

Has anyone figured out a way to reduce or nullify competition?... ummmm... Amazon?....Thing is, ebay could have very easily been in Amazon's current position - And that goes back to management...

[chapeau-noir]

Donohoe already tried the beating Amazon at its own game thing - neither realistic nor desirable, really. eBay would have to acquire and then build out a huge logistics infrastructure as well as growing organically a catalog for a cohesive search - hard to do with a lot of pre-owned tchotchkes and clothing (you'll remember they tried) - support natively grown brands, white label brands and fulfillment services, develop AWS and cloud services. We're looking at two different beasts.

ETA: I agree though that in general companies fail due to bad management more often than due to lack of capital.

[isaiah53-57]

---

@chapeau-noir wrote:

Donohoe already tried the beating Amazon at its own game thing - neither realistic nor desirable, really. eBay would have to acquire and then build out a huge logistics infrastructure as well as growing organically a catalog for a cohesive search - hard to do with a lot of pre-owned tchotchkes and clothing (you'll remember they tried) - support natively grown brands, white label brands and fulfillment services, develop AWS and cloud services. We're looking at two different beasts.

ETA: I agree though that in general companies fail due to bad management more often than due to lack of capital.

---

Wow...I feel like I am talking to Mam in this conversation between us - You are far beyond some of the talking points you are presenting - You are taking givens and presenting them as gold nuggets... EVERYONE knows you cannot prevent competition - and preventing competition was in no way shape or form the point I was making in my first post - In this response, you miss the point again - I am not saying ebay should try to be like Amazon in its current state - Its too late and its been too late for a long time - I am saying ebay WAS at the top of the heap with Amazon barely a known brand for many years - an online bookstore started out of Bezos garage - If ebay had made the right business decisions, there is no reason they could not have been the venue that has 40% of the domestic online sales market - They had every opportunity - And even today, knowing what it takes to succeed in online sales, with proven formulas, strategies and technology, they continue to cede market share like they have it to spare... seemingly always working within their short-sited revenue generation model of "oh we dont have to give people a reason to come to us, we just have to take more money from those who do"...

[sakic92710]

One of the best comments I've read on the community board.  It is exactly true.  All they do is take & treat seasoned eBay veterans like they are newbies who need restrictions, etc. to prevent scamming.  It started with taking a % of the shipping fees. They got away with that so they can move on to other ways of dipping into sellers' pockets.

[chapeau-noir]

---

@isaiah53-57 wrote:

---

@chapeau-noir wrote:

Donohoe already tried the beating Amazon at its own game thing - neither realistic nor desirable, really. eBay would have to acquire and then build out a huge logistics infrastructure as well as growing organically a catalog for a cohesive search - hard to do with a lot of pre-owned tchotchkes and clothing (you'll remember they tried) - support natively grown brands, white label brands and fulfillment services, develop AWS and cloud services. We're looking at two different beasts.

ETA: I agree though that in general companies fail due to bad management more often than due to lack of capital.

---

Wow...I feel like I am talking to Mam in this conversation between us - You are far beyond some of the talking points you are presenting - You are taking givens and presenting them as gold nuggets... EVERYONE knows you cannot prevent competition - and preventing competition was in no way shape or form the point I was making in my first post - In this response, you miss the point again - I am not saying ebay should try to be like Amazon in its current state - Its too late and its been too late for a long time - I am saying ebay WAS at the top of the heap with Amazon barely a known brand for many years - an online bookstore started out of Bezos garage - If ebay had made the right business decisions, there is no reason they could not have been the venue that has 40% of the domestic online sales market - They had every opportunity - And even today, knowing what it takes to succeed in online sales, with proven formulas, strategies and technology, they continue to cede market share like they have it to spare... seemingly always working within their short-sited revenue generation model of "oh we dont have to give people a reason to come to us, we just have to take more money from those who do"...

---

"Has anyone figured out a way to reduce or nullify competition?... ummmm... Amazon?....Thing is, ebay could have very easily been in Amazon's current position - And that goes back to management..."

I was answering this particular question. Two.different.beasts. Trying to chase Amazon did not work. I'm not sure how to make this more clear.

[stainlessenginecovers]

Just a couple categories

[sakic92710]

These categories & the amount of competition means nothing to a seller like me.  I do not sell any of those.  My best 2 weeks involved 86 sales.  For over 2 years, I was unable to get 10 per month!  How much competition exists has no bearing on the overall downfall of eBay being a great place to sell.  As it has been said in this thread, poor management is to blame for several people trying to earn money here.  Failed decisions after failed decisions.  Nothing has improved on behave of the sellers.