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eBay used to be awesome! I think we can all agree. Granted, awesome does not mean “perfect.” But it was good for selling merchandise. But not anymore! BusinessWeek.com reported eBay has just announced pretty crappy sales.

I thought I would write this article to help all the idiots at eBay understand why. So here is a list that I am dedicating to anyone at eBay.com that may have a brain cell left, and also this is a tribute to all sellers (former and current) who remember the joy (and money) that used to come from selling on eBay.

How to Fix eBay and Make it Awesome Again:

I hope someone at eBay reads this (preferably on the board of directors). Want to fix eBay? Here is how:

1. Keep insertion fees a flat rate. It makes it easier on everyone. They should be slightly lowered. Maybe $0.20 would be good. But if not at least keep them the way they are now and NEVER raise them again- at least not in the next 5 years.
2. Lower final value fees by at least 20% – and way lower for items less than $10. I know they are hurting right now, but if a seller can’t make money listing an item, they won’t list it. Make it profitable for them first, then your profit will rise.
3. Use More Ads to Compensate the lower fees that I mentioned above. This way, you still make money, but you don’t charge too much to the seller to list an item. Place ad units in the seller & buyer’s “My Summary” home page for all I care. Just don’t raise fees. You could put an ad section up, and allow sellers to advertise there. Make it contextual like Adwords. In fact, they might as well use adwords, unless they are going to make it cheaper for the advertisers. If not, just use that!
4. Bring back stuff – Bring back digital delivery, feedback, old search engine, paper payments. Digital delivery was awesome- a person could go and list items in multiple countries, and the buyers could get it instantly. Feedback needs to be fixed back. Search engine needs to completely go back to the old way. Allow sellers to accept paper payments if they wish. Granted, you can add some restrictions for new/untrusted sellers. But bring that back too.
5. Focus on YOUR business plan -eBay is not amazon. eBay is an online site specializing in used items, some new items, homemade items, rare items, etc. That is eBay’s specialty. You wouldn’t turn Walmart into Macy’s and expect it to stay in business would you? No, you would lose your customers. Walmart is low price- not fancy items. eBay is not amazon. eBay is cheap, rare, “flea market” unique merchandise at a low price. Focus on that. That is what makes eBay different. Don’t lose that, or you lose  your entire business model.
6. Keep working on making it secure and reducing hacking to people’s account. It is good that they have made a few changes to make it a little more secure. I at least don’t get spammed like I used to, which is great. Keep making it more secure to build trust again.
7.Eliminate the failures – one being DSR. I ship all items free (for the last 2 months) and still don’t have 5 stars!! DSR was a pointless feature. If you keep it, fine. But don’t base anything on it for the sellers. Just have it there as a guide to buyers, and don’t factor it in and prevent sellers from listing and so forth. Eliminate other failures too, such as the failed search, etc.
8. Continue to improve how eBay works – send buyer auto information when shipped via Paypal. I know paypal is supposed to do it, but half of my time is wasted getting those darn, “has my item shipped” emails. Help sellers automate feedback free. Help improve the listing and editing process for listings. Make it dynamic with better advertising (placing ads in an eBay home page). P.S. the new design sucks! I don’t like it at all. It needs to be fixed back to the same as well. It is way to slow and glitchy.

9. Market more aggressively -when you do those changes above, send out a press release to let everyone know eBay is eBay again. If you made those changes alone, and announced eBay was back to normal, you would see a HUGE rush in listings, sales, and more. People will come back if you hurry and correct these mistakes and failures now. Admit defeat, listen to the sellers (your customer), and do those changes before it is too late. If you linger on this another year or two, sellers will get used to another site, and leave you in the dust. Or another big fish will move into the auction market (Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft maybe??).

Continue on the same path as you have been on the last year, and you will fail miserably. It will be a slow death, but a death nonetheless.

Make the changes above (and I am sure so many sellers agree with that), and eBay will be awesome again and sellers will flock to it. You will probably see a huge boost within just 1 quarter.

This is a bad economy- Last time I checked, the places with lower prices usually did okay or better. It was the “luxury” based businesses that hurt. eBay should be doing fine, or even better, in a bad economy since you can get items cheap. But that isn’t the case right now.

Don’t forget the saying of Sam Walton (walmart founder)–Only one person can fire every single person in the company, including the CEO/owner, board of directors, etc.—-and that is the customer, and they simply do it by not using your service. Make eBay “amazon” and keep screwing over your sellers, and you will literally be fired! Many sellers have already begun firing you! And many more will too if you don’t make the changes above.

Take 1 minute to actually listen to your customers! Your customers are the seller- NOT the buyer. The buyer’s are the seller’s customer. The seller’s are eBay’s customer. Get the drift! If you attract sellers, they will come with loads of merchandise and cheap deals. They will have unique items you can’t get on Amazon. They buyers will soon follow, and you will see your business getting better and better.

So instead of continuing your dumb business ideas, listen to them, bring it back like it was, ad more ads if you need to (and let eBay members advertise on your “my ebay” section instead of the search page-duh).

Can I get an Amen? lol. Rant over. I just want it to come back. I rarely sell there now, and the reason is the changes they have made this past year.

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Posted under Making Money, eBay

eBay is really starting to annoy me! I know I am not alone either. Business week just wrote an article on eBay’s declining sales. It was a great article, and the write hit the nail on the head by attributing much of the problems to eBay’s new “hotshot” CEO.

Ever since Mr. Donahue (eBay’s new CEO) has taken over, eBay has went from a great “free fleamarket” we all loved, to a crappy version of Amazon.com. While Amazon’s sales continue to grow (despite a recession), eBay’s continue to decline.

I have posted before about how tired I am getting of eBay. They took away digital delivery. They took away feedback for bad buyers. They took away paper payments (not that I used them that much-but still). They added DSR’s. They totally messed up the search. They have changed so many things for the worse! But now, this is even more frustrating, they have limits on how many items you can list for a particular keyword or category.

eBay’s Seller Restrictions for Certain Categories & Keywords

Just last night I was trying to create a new listing and list it for sale. Everything went well, until on the first sales page (you know, where it allows you to enter the details). Then I clicked to the next page to review the listing and submit. There was just one problem. I had a big warning from eBay that said the following:

“You can not submit your listing due to the following problems

Attention Seller

Thank you for choosing eBay.

In order to help maintain a safe trading environment, selling limits are occasionally placed on listings. At this time, you are limited in the number of certain items you may list and/or revise in a 30 day period.

Sellers who have built a long-standing and consistent positive history of selling items may be eligible to have their selling limits raised. If you believe that you would qualify, please click here for more information.

We sincerely value you as a member of our trading Community and look forward to a continued successful relationship with you.

Click here for a window with more information on eBay’s listing guidelines.”

This was really frustrating since I had just spent time creating a listing, adding a title, etc. They provided a link and said eBay can review your account and possibly raise this limit. So I thought to myself, “okay, I better just email them to fix this little issue.” So I shot off an email telling them about the restriction, saved the listing for later, and went to bed.

I thought I would wake up and everything would be resolved. Boy was I wrong! I had an email reply from eBay when I woke up (I know, shocking that it didn’t take them a week). This is basically what is said (just a summary):

“Thanks for choosing eBay, blah blah,

We reviewed your account, and unfortunately we cannot raise this selling restriction limit at this time. We consider many factors when choosing whether or not to raise the limit. You may try to request this again in 90 days. Thanks, blah blah”

Needless to say, I was in complete shock that they would not “raise” my limits of the items I can sell. Here is why.

Why eBay Should Not Have Restricted My Selling Activity:

1. I am a Silver PowerSeller (business-the point is to sell as much as possible and make money)

2. I have no policy violations AT ALL in the past year (ZERO).

3. I always pay my fees on time (ALWAYS).

4. I always maintain at least 99.9% positive feedback (sometimes 100%). Plus I have thousands of feedbacks.

5. All of my DSR’s are above 4.7, usually 4.8 or above.

6. I have been on there for nearly 8 years (2 years on this account alone).

7. All of the items I sell are 100% authentic, and comply with all eBay policies.

8. They shouldn’t have done it, simply because it inspired me to write this post (negative publicity), and I am already getting plans together to starting my own site to market my inventory, and also taking advantage of other online selling sites. I hope to eventually phase eBay out completely, unless they repent and fire this terrible management.

Can you believe it! All of that, and they still are limiting the number of items I can list in certain categories! GET REAL EBAY!!!

Eventually, I just changed the category but kept everything else the same. It worked and I was able to list my item (but not in the category I originally chose). So it all worked out in the end anyways. The point is, eBay is really going crazy with all the restrictions. It is nothing but a hassle. It is a hassle dealing with the occasional pain-in-the-you-know-what customers I get from time to time. It is pain dealing with feedback. It is a pain shipping. It is a pain dealing with all the new policies they come up with weekly. And now it is even a pain to list an item!

Gee, I wonder why poor eBay keeps going down in traffic, listings, and revenue? Poor eBay. Not.

The truth is, it has terrible management right now. If a proven Silver PowerSeller who obeys all the “rules” can’t list an item because I have “too many similar items in a category”, when they are a business, who in the world can? Sheesh!

Anyways, just thought I would share. I am going to work on spreading my inventory across several selling sites. eBay is just getting worse and worse, and they don’t even realize the problems!

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Posted under Making Money, Policies, eBay