eBay Elsewhere : Links for 16th November 2008

November 16, 2008

A Denbighshire mother is changing her name to Pudsey Bear to raise money for Children in Need. 37 year old Ellen de Bont had put her name up for sale on eBay, saying that she would donate 80% of the money raised to charity. She made several suggestions of names she was willing to adopt, including Semi-Detached House, Piccadilly Circus and Scunthorpe Travelodge (Paris Hilton, eat your heart out).

A Guardian reader asked for advice on his plan to buy from charity shops and resell on eBay: a couple of the usual suspects replied ;-)

There’s speculation about Meg Whitman’s next move now she won’t have a place in a McCain government: California here we come?

eBay Ink watches PayPal blog a bug:

the fact that the issue was proactively blogged about from within is fairly significant. … PayPal identified a problem, communicated it publicly, and got back to trying to fix it as quickly and as seamlessly as possible.

Richard’s right, but the fact that eBay’s official blog is trumpeting this single post as such a triumph only goes to show how far the company has still to go. One blog post doesn’t overcome the decade of non-communication and inertia that surrounds eBay bugs: it doesn’t alter the denial and disbelief that those reporting bugs have to deal with from eBay staff. Lets hope this is the beginning of a sea change.

Auctionbytes and “an eBay employee” (she means Griff) have a little disagreement over just how Google is using eBay data. What’s really interesting here, I think, is Griff referring to eBay listings syndicated via Googlebase as “listing on a competitive site”. As sellers, we tend to think of Googlebase as “advertising our eBay listings”; clearly, eBay think of it rather differently.

“And finally”, Dan has a very naughty suggestion on how to beat Best Match.

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under News | 5 Comments 

eBay Elsewhere : links for 19th October 2008

October 19, 2008

If you only read one eBay-related post this week, make it the one that Alan Lewis wrote:

One of the ideas that I had voiced many times was to add each employee’s eBay user ID in the company web directory. When eBay bought Skype, it added everyone’s Skype ID to the directory, making the omission of eBay IDs all the more striking. This small change would give those who don’t use the site nowhere to hide (and come to think of it, eBay IDs should probably be added to public announcement board posts too). “Oh, Bob, I see you haven’t sold anything for six months… are you sure that the changes you are suggesting to the SYI page are a good idea?” Working at eBay without using the site is like being a chef who won’t eat what they cook.

And if you haven’t already read the Forbes piece that Alan refers to, that’s worth a read too.

Unsurprisingly, the Q3 results and gloomy forecast for Q4 brought about a lot of comment. The Motley Fool calls eBay this morning’s most popular four-letter swear word. CNNMoney asks has eBay hit its twilight? And Barron’s, who predicted the eBay staff layoffs a month ahead of time, predicts that more radical moves may be ahead.

Biggest surprise of the week though, is perpetual eBay bad mouther Gary E. Sattler who says he’s not giving up on eBay yet. He calls eBay’s shares “a serious bargain right now”. His one sticking point? Sellers not being able to leave negs for their buyers. Feedback is the least of the issues that eBay sellers, buyers and the company itself face right now: analysts shouldn’t base their opinions on their wives selling off a few of their kids’ old clothes.

Myself, I’m with JPMorgan analyst Imran Khan, quoted on computing.co.uk: “We believe eBay’s biggest challenge is an inferior technology platform, which is making it difficult for the company to compete with other e-commerce platforms, such as Amazon’s.”

‘And finally’, there’s a lively discussion going on in AuctionByte’s comments about who should replace John Donahoe as eBay CEO. I wasn’t aware there was a vacancy.

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under News | 17 Comments 

Third party ads removed from eBay Oz after member complaints

September 23, 2008

eBay.com.auLate yesterday, Australian eBayers began to notice third party ads appearing on their auction listings. A graphic and text link advert for Foxtel digital television was shown directly underneath the “your maximum bid” box on listings in some media and collectables categories: Auctionbytes has a screen shot.

As we might expect, the Australian community boards began to fill up with threads from members incensed that this had been foisted on them unannounced. Several sellers expressed a concern that buyers would assume that this “first month plus installation free” television package was included with the item they were selling, and that they would be left with the customer issues and the negative feedback when buyers discovered it was nothing to do with them.

eBay Support had no information to offer. Members contacting Live Help were told that they had received many complaints and were waiting to hear back from the business unit. Then they were told that the ads were “part of a test being done by our product development department”. Other support staff said they were “the result of a known eBay site issue”. New advertising space, test or glitch? Your guess is as good as mine.

And so some canny eBayers began to complain, not to eBay, but to Foxtel:

Send your complaint to Foxtel. If eBay stick their head in the sand about this, Foxtel certainly won’t, especially if they get lots of negative publicity about their product.

wrote one poster on the Australian PowerSellers Board. And that worked. Members who had complained directly to Foxtel received this email from their Corporate Affairs Co-ordinator:

These ads were placed on eBay by a third party, and it was never FOXTEL’s understanding that they would be placed in this way. We have asked that they be removed immediately.

I’ve got to applaud all those Australian eBayers who made their voices heard on this issue. It’s another appalling example of eBay’s inability to communicate, not only with its members, but internally: anyone could have predicted that 3P ads on the view item page would have resulted in an outcry from sellers, and Support should have been primed with correct information about just what was going on. Better still, eBay Australia should have announced the new ads ahead of time, so that sellers could make an informed decision about whether they wanted to pay for an eBay listing carrying someone else’s promotional material.

We’ve already seen adverts on eBay UK view item pages: I’m sure this won’t be the last time this happens. eBay’s belief is that they own the view item page, and can put what they like on it: but for sellers, it’s the page we’ve paid for and it should be all ours. The way this issue is resolved is going to shape the future of eBay: will it remain a marketplace where individual sellers can shine, or become Amazon Lite where you barely notice who you’re buying from? We’ve won a battle, but the conflict is nowhere near over.

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under Featured, Site Changes, eBay.com.au | 9 Comments 

eBay.com postpone new links policy

July 11, 2008

eBay.com are postponing implementation of their new policy banning links from About Me pages to sellers’ websites. According to the most recent Power Up! email newsletter, which is sent out to PowerSellers registered on .com,

the policy announced in May covering links in sellers’ listings or other eBay pages will not be enforced. Instead, we’ll be announcing a clearer and more comprehensive links policy in mid August.

No corresponding policy was ever announced for eBay UK, so it’s still not clear if there will be a change here, and if so, what it will be.

At eBay Live, Brian Burke stated that the new links policy had probably been announced prematurely: certainly there were many unanswered questions that even eBay staff I talked to seemed to need clarification on. It seems that eBay may have changed their minds, for example, on links to non-transactional pages.

Of course, none of this will be much comfort to sellers who spent hours last month changing their listings to comply with the new policy. eBay have now put out an announcement board post confirming that implementation of the policy is being delayed, and that once the new version goes live, sellers will have a four week grace period to amend their listings. Sellers will also not be required to specify shipping prices until August, when improved bulk editing tools will be available to make changes more easily.

Via Skip.

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under Featured, Site Changes, eBay.com | 4 Comments 

eBay PR clarify blogger’s statement

March 7, 2008

This post was written in March 2008; specific information contained within it may be out of date.

Richard Brewer-Hay’s blog hasn’t even launched yet, but already eBay’s corporate PR are intervening to clarify his statements.

Going back to the original CNN/Fortune Small Business piece, I was surprised to read this sentence:

I’ve been reading external blogs since I got here, too, and I think there’s great dialogue going on there. Scot Wingo’s blog eBay Strategies, Only eBay - all these blogs have a dialogue already, but they’re external. I plan to be linking to those blogs from the corporate blog, because I think that the external discussion is important.

What, no Auctionbytes? And unsurprisingly, Ina, Auctionbytes’ editor, thought the same thing.

A comment from eBay Corporate Communications came pretty quickly:

Richard’s point to Fortune Small Business editors about talking with bloggers was within eBay to coordinate editorial content with those authoring blogs that support eBay, PayPal and Skype; not outside bloggers.

As another commenter says, this clarification could do with some clarification. Is RBH supposed to be talking to other bloggers within the eBay group, as PR seem to think, or with those of us who don’t work for eBay, as he seems to think? I’m pretty sure that Only eBay and Scot Wingo aren’t corporate shills for eBay, but maybe PR think different. I think we should be told.

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under Featured | 14 Comments