Sellers should police 3rd party ad pirates, say eBay

December 30, 2008

Since eBay began running ads in search results, we’ve heard of a few eyebrow-raising things advertised there. There were the weed seeds. There are not-infrequently pirate music CDs, DVDs, knock-off designer clothing and handbags. This week, a poster on the UK PowerSeller Board spotted some Wii games advertised for just £4 each being sold by a Chinese website; he may just be right that these are dodgy.

And he got a response from James, eBay UK’s community manager, who said:

I presume then that after you posted here you reported the link you saw so that we can have it removed? I’m not sure if you’ve seen the previous posts on this (there have been a few though) that set out that we don’t actually provide the links that appear there and when we become aware of links that are unsuitable, we work to get them removed and make sure they don’t reappear.

That’s right: the responsibility for policing eBay’s third party ads for illegal content is not eBay’s, nor that of the company who supply the ads, but that of site users. Even by eBay’s standards, this is astonishingly crass.

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under News | 5 Comments 

eBay UK’s homepage and the GREAT BIG AD

November 24, 2008

click to embiggen

click to embiggen

The transformation of eBay UK from marketplace to advertising hoarding continues, with the appearance of a HUGE advert for Vodaphone on the home page.

At the spendiest time of year, eBay UK are promoting not their sellers, not even something related to their sellers like PayPal buyer protection or some kind of holiday giveaway - they’re promoting an off-site deal for a mobile phone company to, as far as I can tell, every single person who visits the site.

Experienced sellers, I know, will be itching to comment that they never visit the home page but go straight to My eBay. But this is the time when - we hope - new buyers might just be visiting the site, checking it out to see if those tempting ads about eBay being 25% cheaper than the high street are really true. Wouldn’t it have been nice to show them some eBay content rather than sending them straight off to a different site altogether?

Would it have been so much to ask to have had some nice promotional creatives featuring different areas of the site in which Christmas presents might be procured?

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under Featured, Site Changes, eBay.co.uk | 22 Comments 

eBay Australia bring back ads on view item page

September 26, 2008

eBay Australia have announced today that they will continue with their controversial third party adverts on view item pages. Earlier this week, ads beneath the bid box were removed after complaints by eBay members to the advertiser, digital television network Foxtel.

eBay have now said that the trial of these ads will continue, though they will be positioned lower on the page and “will be clearly marked as a sponsored link”. Sellers in the Sports, Movies and Electronics categories can expect to see “sponsored links” appearing on their listings.

eBay Australia add “similar advertisements are already running in a number of markets, including Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy, and the UK.” Well, that’s alright then. Let me tell you, if I need to: the Austrians, the Swiss, the French, the Italians and the British don’t like the ads either.

Foxtel’s online marketing manager left a comment on TameBay, expanding on the company’s position. He said:

being a reputable company we didn’t think they would place them in a way that would annoy their members. As soon as the complaint came in we looked at the placement in question and agreed it was intrusive to the sellers (who like us are online marketers)

Foxtel get it. Don’t annoy your users.

eBay, however, don’t get it. eBay see the ads as purely a revenue spinner, a source of extra cash. They need to look beyond this week’s balance sheet. The message of these ads, on the very page where sellers are trying to sell, is that eBay do not care about your sales. Even though you’ve paid eBay for that page, they still believe they have the right to siphon off your traffic for the sake of a few pence per click. And they do: it’s their site. But how much longer are sellers going to put up with a company that demonstrates its contempt for its paying customers quite so blatantly?

Sellers are already suffering from change fatigue after a year of constant policy, fee and listing strategy change on eBay. Telling us that our sales matter less than flogging their own advertising is really not what eBay should be doing right now.

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under Site Changes, eBay.com.au | 26 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