eBay: Doing ‘Whatever is Needed’ to Keep the Seller Entertained.

Following on from eBay Conspiracy Theory Overview : Part 1 I am sure that eBay do what-ever is needed, even if it costs them sales overall to keep sellers entertained on the eBay platform.

Think about it, DSRs, best match, duplication policy being rolled out right before Christmas, numerous other ‘we’ll panic the **** out of sellers’ with these changes right before a holiday season, they have all been released at really awkward times for sellers.

Best match was a monkey last year with it being tweaked into the holiday season, this year, this statement sums it up:

eBay –  eBay continued  to perform well (especially given the softness we saw in the first 10 days of November due to the duplicate listing policy impacts) and came in at 8.1% for November, way above October’s 5.5%.  Like Amazon, eBay has benefited from a strong secular e-commerce holiday selling period in November.
Source: Channel Advisor

Basically US sellers were screwed over (that’s harsh I know, but imagine if you were a US seller and eBay did this to you right before Christmas) just before the busy season started for vast majority sellers. Look at the date, for goodness sake ‘POSTED OCTOBER 26TH, 2010’. The UK had this (although slightly differently) last year, LAST YEAR. Come on, was there any need to do this at the end of October?

Selling on eBay could be a lot simpler, look at Amazon, they have it down pretty well when products exist in their database, barcode or ASIN, quantity and price, what more do you need?

Well you need everything apparently, every single toy and moving goal post to keep sellers entertained on the eBay marketplace and crucially not on other marketplaces, like Amazon for example.

Why else would such stunts be pulled so close to Christmas?

So my point is?

eBay have proven they will do what ever is needed to keep sellers entertained with the eBay market place. I’m not saying this is a bad thing for eBay, its a brilliant coo, but from a sellers perspective, its a minefield, but also a fantastic opportunity for those sellers who can move fast and take these changes on.

I fell into this trap a few years back, stop looking art DSR’s, stop looking at your feedback every 2 seconds, screw it, what counts is sales, profit and converting existing customers into repeat ones. Anything else is peripheral junk.

Be fully aware of the game that is being played. Work the system, rather than bitching about it. As such, I’ll shut up now :)

2 replies

Trackbacks & Pingbacks

  1. […] USA got slapped pretty hard in the October update, see this article eBay: Doing ‘Whatever is Needed’ to Keep the Seller Entertained, while the UK got off quite lightly and at a far better time of the […]

  2. #eBay: Doing Whatever is Needed to Keep the Seller Entertained. – http://t.co/KaDZjmWW

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *