eBay

my-cottage-books-and-antiques · ‎02-24-2023

Here's ebay's CEO, telling stock analysts about some of ebay's plans for 2023. ebay's first "Seller Check-In" of the year is next Thursday, which will give ebay an opportunity to tell sellers about their 2023 plans as well. But for now, here's the CEO:

"Looking to 2023, I'm incredibly excited about the road map ahead of us. Today, I'll offer just a glimpse of a few areas where you should expect to see progress from us this year. We'll continue to innovate for customers in our focus categories and extend to new countries and categories this year.

We will continue our work in P&A by expanding the guaranteed FIT program and fifth-year vehicle badge globally. We'll also grow our tire installation capabilities after we began improving the end-to-end tire shopping experience and broaden our network of installation partners in five markets during Q4.

We'll ramp assets in the vault and extend eligibility for more collectible items. While integrations with TCG player and known Origin will strengthen our value proposition for collectors. We will also continue to iterate next-gen shopping features like live commerce to better engage with enthusiasts. And we will further develop the category landing pages we debut for sneakers, watches and handbags in Q4, which offer trending inventory and personalized recommendations, powered by machine learning."

I don't sell in any of the existing "focus categories", so I confess I don't share the CEO's incredible excitement, now, it seems, does the stock market.

He seems to be saying that they will be adding one or more focus categories this year,(they did not add any last year), but he gives no details.

My interpretation of this is : We have no major innovations planned, just going to add some refinements to stuff we're already doing. In fairness, this isn't an exhaustive list of what is planned, so maybe there are some great changes in the works. And, for those selling in the focus categories, maybe these are great changes.

I'll be watching the Seller Check In, with hopes that they'll have some more details to offer, especially since their target audience is sellers, not stock analysts.

Thoughts?

m60driver · ‎02-24-2023

Thoughts?!?. Just more corporate gobbledygook.

tsme35 · ‎02-24-2023

Makes sense, improve and add high end items, without getting some kind of handle on the constant increases in shipping, that's all with be left.

whatmorefabric · ‎02-24-2023

How can Ebay get a handle on shipping prices? The post office controls those costs. Ebay is by far the cheapest of any of my shipping costs compared to the other sites I sell on.

my-cottage-books-and-antiques · ‎02-24-2023

devon@ebay

ebay's CEO recently said:

"And we will further develop the category landing pages we debuted for sneakers, watches and handbags in Q4, which offer trending inventory and personalized recommendations, powered by machine learning."

Are these landing pages available on PC, or are they currently only on the App? I just looked at what I assume is the Sneaker Landing Page on my phone, but I don't see how to get to it on my PC.

my-cottage-books-and-antiques · ‎02-24-2023

devon@ebay.com

I did find this on my PC, but it doesn't seem to be quite the same as the page on the Phone:

https://www.ebay.com/sneakers/

tsme35 · ‎02-24-2023

ebay and a few other online sites ran a huge campaign about the 1099 but not heard a thing from them about shipping rates. USPS got bailed out last in the billions with our tax dollars, also change their retirement plan. What did we get in return, rate increases twice a year. All the big online companies have lobbyist, why not use them, oh right they'd lose the shipping fees. I'm down to 40% of inventory that I use to sell 5 yrs ago that is not feasible now.

the_fancy_fox · ‎02-24-2023

@whatmorefabric wrote:
How can Ebay get a handle on shipping prices? The post office controls those costs. Ebay is by far the cheapest of any of my shipping costs compared to the other sites I sell on.

It would help if they stopped charging fees on the ship cost. Maybe incentives if some sort for top rated to ship free (which isn’t free).

There’s lots of ways they could help sellers with ship costs or at least lower costs in the name of helping lower the burden of costs.

The Race is over
The Rats won.

iart · ‎02-24-2023

Interpretation: eBay will continue to increase profits by figuring out ways to get more money from its sellers.

duffy4444 · ‎02-24-2023

@the_fancy_fox wrote:
It would help if they stopped charging fees on the ship cost. Maybe incentives if some sort for top rated to ship free...

@the_fancy_fox:

You weren't around in the really early days when fees were not charged on shipping costs. Back then, scheming opportunist sellers would sell a $20 item for 99 cents and then charge $19 for shipping, just to avoid fees. Ebay had no choice but to be able to stay in business by also charging fees on shipping costs. If they hadn't done that, eBay probably wouldn't have been around when you joined back in 2000.

Cheers, Duffy

Anonymous · ‎02-24-2023

We'll continue to innovate for customers

eBay has never any original ideas in the history of the company.

eBay was found guilty of stealing early online auction patents - they did not invent online auctions.

All the early innovations that make eBay what is were created by other people or companies such as pictures in listings, eBay's own API, scheduled listings, listing software, electronic payments (X.Com / PayPal) and many others. eBay simply copied the ideas or bought the company that created them and then proceeded to ruin that company such as Skype and Blackthorne. Even when eBay owned PayPal all of its international transactions were actually handled by the Dutch banking giant ING.

Long time eBayers knew when Meg Whitman went to HP it would be a disaster as she would not be able to take other people's ideas as she had done at eBay. Thank God she never was able to win a political office.

The plans of eBay management have always been same. To meet short term sales goals at any cost so they get their bonuses before they leave company as wealthy individuals. They are no interested in the long term health of the company, its buyers or its sellers.

eBay was built by small time sellers and companies. eBay began dumping those in favor of Big Box stores, but those were middlemen so eBay dumped those in favor of partnering with the Communist Party of China. eBay management now is spinning the tale of how luxury goods and collectibles such as sneakers and NFTs are the way to go. Its all a smoke and mirror game to them to keep the stock price up until they can cash out their options.

Much of their income these days is derived form scams such as FVF on shipping, promoted listings, abuse of 1 969 UPU program designed to help poor people, hiding listings, hiding shipping options, double billing, billing for services not ordered, unresponsive habitual lying customer service, selling private insurance. This has all been to prop up their bottom line, which paints a far worse picture than the artificial reality they are trying to project.

worldwide_ship · ‎02-24-2023

I've been selling 20 years. I wish eBay would do away with quaterly site updates and just update it once or twice a year. All the spring/fall/winter update does is tank sales.

the_fancy_fox · ‎02-24-2023

@duffy4444 wrote:
@the_fancy_fox wrote:
It would help if they stopped charging fees on the ship cost. Maybe incentives if some sort for top rated to ship free...
@the_fancy_fox:
You weren't around in the really early days when fees were not charged on shipping costs. Back then, scheming opportunist sellers would sell a $20 item for 99 cents and then charge $19 for shipping, just to avoid fees. Ebay had no choice but to be able to stay in business by also charging fees on shipping costs. If they hadn't done that, eBay probably wouldn't have been around when you joined back in 2000.
Cheers, Duffy

Yeah I was around. I didn’t join in 2000, my first iD was in 1996, this was a second ID for a different product line. The fancy fox used to sell high end womens clothing.

And even back then there were better ways to deal with the shipping gouging problem.

A pop up that compared the same items shipping cost across many sellers.

a fixed rate sellers could charge for shipping say, a bowling ball, or a feather… you get my point I’m sure. Ebay has the data and had it back then to extrapolate what various items weighted.

even perhaps an amount sellers could charge but if they went above that ship cost then they were hit with a fee.

The easiest and most profit generating way (to ebay anyway) was to charge FVF on the total ship costs. And now on the sales tax, sales tax FVF Sure seems like a seller punishing one to me and a pure money grab.

This wasn’t about curbing excessive shipping it was about generating profit for ebay. They did state if was for improving buyer experience, but if that was the case then why do so many problems still exist that directly impact the buyer experience?

The Race is over
The Rats won.

winterpalace25 · ‎02-24-2023

@duffy4444

I have maintained all along that all they had to do was call for calculated shipping on everything with limits on handling fees. Then shipping would have been a wash, and fees on it wouldn't be necessary. But that ship has sailed. I think the real reason was their obsession with Free Shipping (shipping included), and making fees the same for charge shippers and free shippers.

948billy · ‎05-31-2023

I agree. Shipping on items has become way too expensive to the point it hurts sales. I don't sell high end items so offering free shipping coupled with the other fees just doesn't pan out.