Meg Whitman and eBay clean up--any thoughts?

[Volusion]

I haven't sold anything on eBay in quite some time, but heard they were quite harsh to their bigger sellers. What does eBay need to do to get back on top?

[The Old Sarge]

Sorry, Michelle. I only buy on eBay, never sell.

[BKenn01]

Michelle, I am a Silver Powerseller. Have been for a few years now. Here is how I see it.

Ebay is going to have to learn how strike a balance, not just between buyers and sellers, but between their customers (sellers) and Wall Street.

Ebay is a company driven purely to please Wall Street and stock holders. IMHO, that is not a good thing. Yes you have to keep them in mind, but they should not drive your business. There are successful companies who strike that balance. An example would be Costco. Wall Street hates their margin caps. But it is probably why they are cleaning Sams Club's clock.

As for the balance between buyers and sellers, they have slowly been tilting it to far to the buyer. There is no real penalty for non paying bidder. There is nothing to protect the seller (yes seller) from retalitory feedback. Trust me that will be one of the biggest gripes come May. I have had 2 negatives out of 2300 feedback. 1 was a newbie who eventually mutually withdrew after I fixed her problem (after she gave me the opportunity that is) the other was from a customer in Great Britain who was angry because I did not lie on the customs form and mark his item a gift. ebay takes a hands off approach, that wont work under a system were sellers do not have the ability to leave feedback. I suspect it is going to be worse for trust by buyers because I expect a good seller is going to be around 90% positive. While I dont think 10% of the transactions are bad, the angry negative is more than likely to leave feedback than the happy buyer.

As for fees. The way they handled this was very deceptive. To leak thru prominent Wall Street watchers that they would cut listing fees by as much as 50% probably angered many sellers as much as anything. I expected the amount of increase in the FVF, but I definitley expected a bigger slice off listing fees. Personally I think you will see another round of this. With even more added to the FVF.

ebay just sees sellers as disposable. Until they learn to value them, they are going to continue to have a disgrutled group of sellers. Which damages the overall image of the site.

[Volusion]

http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/...mment-99925694

I have no idea why anyone would sell on eBay now given the fact that dead beat bidders were a bad enough problem when I sold on eBay. Without negative feedback for buyers, it will only get worse.

There are links to petitions in that article.