I completely agree! As an eBay vendor/seller/buyer - eBay is lame! It should be dominating the marketplace and bringing millions more into the online buying process. They basically have sat back and watched revenues decrease at the same time basically done nothing to assist and raise the brand!

Steve

I've given up on E-Bay where most prices are full retail and E-bay itself is not good any more. Prices on shipping are also outrageous. E-Bay is full of mistakes and no way to communicate to get anything straightened out.

Forget it - I quit

You're right Ebay has really dropped the ball. I was a seller. We had a little Ebay "store". We made money Ebay made money and it was fun. We struggled with the tax issues and it worked. Between Ebay's rate hikes and the cost of Paypal it ceased to be fun and we closed. Strange, they were making quite a bit of money off of us with little effort...

Saw the hour long eBay special report last week on CNBC. Good review of eBay history and the personalities involved with this enterprise. Now eBay needs to get some new management who realize what makes eBay work best. Maybe the current Ms. CEO should have taken the Disney Company offer when she had the chance to do so. Remember David and Goliath? Or how about the Liliputians? Wake up eBay and smell the profits.

As a "hard-to-find" resource, eBay still rules. But there is nothing exciting about them for marketers, no "feel good" communications, and as a seller of copyright products I feel eBay by default encourages piracy. Why don't they require dvd/cd/vhs sellers to verify the authenticity of the product? Because they would lose profit. Hopefully "old fashioned" ethics will still be needed by not only eBay, but any virtual or brick and mortar store for success, and not just "lowest prices" claims like Wal-Mart. As consumers and marketers, we must realize the potential harm of piracy and "low cost" marketing schemes for not only retailers but consumers as well.

I HAVE BEEN AN EBAY SELLER FOR 7 YEARS. I USED TO MAKE A LIVING SELLING ON EBAY. EBAY IS ABOUT EBAY! THEY HAVE RAISED THERE RATES EVERY OTHER MONTH. NOW ALL YOU HAVE LEFT ON EBAY IS THE HUGE SELLERS THAT BRING EBAY THE MOST CHANGE. YOU CAN ACTUALLY TALK TO GEORGE BUSH EASIER THAN YOU CAN TALK TO AN UPPER TIER EBAY MANAGER. THEY HAVE ISOLATED THEMSELVES SO AS NOT TO HAVE TO ANSWER THE HARD QUESTIONS THAT IS BEING ASKED. WITH THERE LATEST PRICE INCREASE,YOU HAVE TO START EVERY ITEM AT $.99 AND MAKE YOUR MONEY ON SHIPPING. EBAY HAS ALSO LOST THE TRUST OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. THERE IS'NT A DAY THAT PASSES THAT WE ARE NOT TOLD OF A HORROR STORY ON EBAY. AND HOW THEY CAN NOT TALK TO ANYONE AT EBAY ABOUT IT. I DON'T THINK EBAY IS CAPABLE OF RE-INVENTING IT'S SELF. I THINK YOUR GOING TO SEE HUGE COMPETITION COME ABOARD IN THE MANNER OF YOU TUBE AND OTHER START-UP'S THAT ARE TAKING NOTE OF WHAT HAPPENED TO EBAY. IT IS REALLY SAD WHAT THE MANAGEMENT OF THIS COMPANY HAS DONE. TAKE A LOOK AT THE STOCK EXCHANGE AND SEE WHAT THE TOP 200 PEOPLE ARE BEING PAID! AFTER 7 YEARS OF FIGHTING IT,WE HAVE ELECTED TO SELL OUR ITEM'S ON WHOLESALECENTRAL.COM. NO COMMISSIONS,NO PICTURE FEE'S,NO LISTING FEE'S AND YOUR OWN STORE SITE. COST $299.00 FOR 6 MONTH'S. KEEP 500 ITEMS LISTED AT ALL TIMES! AS THE WAL MARTS,LOWES,TARGETS AND OTHER BIG BOXES START TO REALLY GO AFTER THE NET,IT WILL FINALLY SQUEEZE EBAY OUT. AT THE RATE THEY ARE GOING,THEY WILL BE 1/2 THERE PRESENT SIZE IN 5 YEARS.

I used to buy a lot of stuff on E-Bay,but I haven't for the last year or so. E-Bay had a great idea,but they haven't kept updating it. Let's face it they are dependent on Google. How stupid can you be- fire Google and then crawl bacK? The game is over!

You say Ebay you might as well say PayPal, they are as linked as siamese twins. They might not be making a fortune due to rotten upper management. But their pal PayPal has made over $165.00 off of me in the last few month's for service never received from these equally mismanaged incompentent people. Ebay needs new respopnsible management. The sooner the better, same for PayPal.

I'm an Ebay seller since 1998. Let's make sure we place blame upon the right people.

It's not Ebay's fault that there are bad sellers out there who charge an arm and a leg for shipping, or don't provide quality merchandise.

But, I agree about the fees. It's getting ridiculous! Their customer service should increase along with the fees. Yeah, right!

FOR THE RECORD:

My wife and I are eBay members under user ID bearsvaluebaby.

We have operated an eBay store successfully and profitably. We still pay the $15.95 per month store subscription so that I may blog about eBay retail selling from a "first hand" perspective although we emptied the store of merchandise during the August 2006 fee strike and it remains empty to this day.

We have over 500 feedback on a 100% satisfaction rating and I am a "Top 1000" guide writer on the site. I still participate in some community groups there although many of my formerly attended groups have closed over the past year.

My wife currently does business on HiBidder.com under the same name as our inactive eBay store:

Grand Avenue Treasures LTD

I, too, have been buying and selling on eBay for 5+ years and have a seller rating of over 300, 100%positive, feedbacks as well as a Top 5,000 eBay Reviewer. I think eBay has definitely "peaked". While I have bought some good stuff at extremely good prices, as a Seller, it leaves much to be desired. It seems that eBay, Paypal and the USPS are the only ones making any money. After a seller pays for listing fees, pictures, etc., then you pay an additional percentage after an item sells, as well as a percentage to Paypal, then the USPS had a price increase. Bottomline - no profit left for the seller - so what's the point in the time and effort involved. eBay needs to do something to keep it profitable for the little guy or somebody else is definitely going to take the lead !!

I'm a small seller on fee-bay,,and I feel I'm being pushed out.Its really that simple I think.They are trying to get rid of the small sellers.Everyone knows theres no where else to go for the kind of traffic you get on E-bay.So we stay,,in hopes of someone listening,,(yeah right lol)someone caring about the bread and butter sellers,which keep E-bay going.Yet they are squeezing us out.I've seen this in bussiness so many times.What is this huge greed mode companies get in,where they sacifice the small to bring in the large.They almost always go under soon after.haha,,,I also predit the fall of Wal-mart.You can't get away with shutting down every mom a pop store in the U.S. WITHOUT SUFFERING SOME HUGE PAYBACK,KARMA,,,WHATEVER..Don't laugh I truly believe this.Even in bussiness.

Gary! for once I agree with you! Everything you said is pretty much true about EBay. eBay is not what it used to be. Investors as well as sellers are disgusted with this company.

Ever since the last split this company has gone no-where. And I mean -NO-WHERE...

Meg and company seem to be heading in the wrong direction, away from their roots, and that could cost them in the end.
eBay is supposed to be an auction company. Real auction companies do not charge fees to receive or list merchandise for sale. They make their money of the sale of an item.

So technically EBay is not a real auction company. EBay is an Auction venue of sorts where
people can list their items for sale at a price.

Buyers on the other hand in my opinion who are looking for merchandise can buy better at Amazon.com or Walmart. No Seconds there, as well as a guarantee.
EBay sellers sell factory SECONDS at retail prices.

Meg had better take a good look at her company and where it is headed.

She needs to start paying a dividend to her stock holders and buy back more and more stock to save this company.
I agree with others on this board. EBay currently has a bad name and reputation and in five years will be a 25.00 stock unless drastic measures are taken to turn this company around.

I do agree with your idea for the NASCAR car and better marketing and brand awareness. Even as an eBay supporter I have found recent ad campaigns to appeal to existing users and not the general population. Stuff like the "It" campaign, and most recently "Windorphins" . I do try to keep an open mind but I keep thinking of those people I know that do not yet use ebay and those two campaigns wouldnt appeal to them.

In any case eBay has gone through a period of transition and seems to be getting back on track by building its experience around web 2.0. Paypal is second in the world in online payments next to Visa, Skype the most downloaded and most used telecommunications product in the world. Ebay doesnt even have any real auction competition and while they have stumbled in their "message" I have a feeling the turnaround will surprise many people out there.

One thing that really gets me is that noone in the Stock market world seems to understand what is going on with this economy and how that effects stocks like Ebay. The consumer is tapped out, the foreclosure rate is up 90% over last year and the outsourcing of jobs has caused dramatic shifts in the economy. Many of the bread and butter customers of all middle end retailers are hurting. We get these useless Govt statistics about inflation running 3-4% when the price of everything is going up by leaps and bounds, Jobs growth (at Walmart, Target) but not for real jobs, and even the retailers that are selling things are selling things at huge discounts.

THe Govt includes Gasoline sales in its retail sales. So as the prices go up so do retail sales! By the same token , many retailers struggled to hit estimates this past year and I remember reading a record 60% didnt make it despite huge markdowns.

A common saying was "Its the economy stupid" I guess people should get "edumacated" about that and stop buying the BS and blaming eBay for the near collapse of the middle class.

EBay losing market share is a good thing a smaller eBay is better for the seller i.e. Lower fees less arrogant eBay. A big eBay has got us in the mess where in today. I'm London UK and it is now more cost efficient to sell in Camden market then on eBay.

Also I think the solution is to limit the amount of sellers. In the UK we queue yes queue for an eBay shop when one is available you can get it.
At the moment eBay stuffs as many sellers in as can fit. Being virtual can take a infinite amount an of course the price falls. Price has not worked to limit the number of sellers.

As far as the fees go Coke Cola for example does not raise the COST of a coke above the rate of inflation every year to infinity. They would make huge amounts of money but people would in the end drink some other brand of soft drink even if it was only 25% same quality for 75% of the money. Coke is a world brand they are every where even in China and the stock Coke Cola (KO) rose 23% over the last 12 months. On the contrary EBay stock is down 10% since the beginning of the year

Well said again Gary. I've been a seller on eBay for over four years. We closed our store at the end of last year, when it became apparent that eBay had no intention of increasing customer service in exchange for those ever-increasing fees. They also black-listed me, blocked my IP address, for assisting in a listing boycott. I became invisible.

Now, most companies would want to know WHY so many of their customers were unhappy. Not eBay. If you aren't happy, then get the heck out, or we'll assist you out the door our way, by pulling your plug.

Ever since Meggie took over, I have not seen any sort of growth that was aimed at seller satisfaction - only in corporate profits (ie - lining her own pockets). I would imagine that she is not going without anything she desires, while the small sellers who eeked a living on eBay for whatever reason - age, disability, etc - are going without everyday necessities. But hey - as long as she can afford more than one home and vacations a few times a year, why not.

I agree that eBay has missed MANY marketing opportunities. While we've all heard that any publicity is good publicity, I would beg to differ. eBay gets touted on The Tonight Show many times a month, but it is always in reference to a joke, not as a serious business.

However, equally as strange, is how the other auction "venues" responded when eBay offended such a broad seller base last August when they hiked fees yet again, but hid the store listings.

Where was Wagglepop's advertising? I sure didn't get anything or see any commercials - not even banner ads! They can't live on word of mouth forever, and could have walked up a red carpet, rolled out by eBay themselves, and taken a serious place in the online auction companies.

What about Bidville? uBid bought them out last year, so there were high hopes that things would improve, and a much-needed financial shot in the arm would allow them to offer some much needed advertising as well. Surprise - uBid apparently felt just existing was enough. I saw nothing, including yet again not even a little banner ad on Bidville, right when so many eBay sellers were looking with open minds and open wallets for another place to go.

I'd love some decent, affordable competition. I hope Google gets both their checkout perfected as well as an auction site up and running. I'd be glad to give them a shot.

Do I still shop on eBay myself? Yes, actually, I do. However, the volume of my own shopping has decreased dramatically, and when I do shop, I pay the cost of those higher fees with some pretty outlandish shipping charges. I try to find the items anywhere else first, but sometimes, eBay is the only place I can find that widget.

eBay is spending most of their time in a defensive mode, or pretending to be deaf and blind to the problems on the site. They claim to be putting plenty of money into technology. Well, they might be tracking everything we do a lot more, but I've yet to see much improvement in the actual service that sellers need. They make programming changes and tweaks without announcing it, and sellers find out when things are screwed up on hundreds of listings. The latest was the sales tax checkbox tweak - it left hundreds of sellers having to revise hundreds of listings, because the change was improperly implemented. Surely they can afford programmers who know how to test changes first, can't they?

How about buying a few more servers so things load faster? How about putting some money back into the company and improving what you already have that is broken, before you keep looking outward and buying other unrelated companies? Heck, I rolled all my profits back into my company for the first three years - most owners do, so they can grow. eBay is relying on finding more and more first-time sellers who are not yet jaded on the experience for their growth.

While it might work for some companies, it isn't working for eBay. I wonder if they have hired anyone to plan out the funeral? Oh wait - it wouldn't work right if they did - someone will have overlooked some important tweak. But, look for Meggie's golden parachute to open, and save herself. I am sure that is a priority....

Great article & posts! If you want to know about the REAL eBay & their treatment of customers, go to the eBay discussion boards & read about the massive seller account suspensions currently under way. Here is a link to the Trust & Safety board. It's a good start: http://forums.ebay.com/db2/forum.jspa?forumID=107
Long time sellers with almost perfect feedback are being told they are in the bottom 2% of eBay sellers & having their accounts suspended. Meanwhile, mega bad sellers like bargainland, hum merrily along. It is a major public relations disaster in the making. PS: You might not have to wait 5 years for eBay to be a $25 stock...

An excellent post Gary! I agree with you completely. I've been selling on eBay for over 3 years and have had a store for nearly that long. I loved eBay and did nicely with it for quite a while, but for the last year especially, it's become less and less fun, and much less profitable. I'm not crazy about the fee increases, especially for store owners, but they wouldn't bother me if I saw that eBay was taking the kind of steps you mention, i.e. if I saw that the company was doing something really meaningful (rather than all of the silly things they've done) I'd be cheering them on and not complaining. eBay suffers from a lack of leadership, from a lack of vision, and from incredibly bad technology/software development. I'm not far from giving it up, frankly. And as for the stock? What a joke! Silver Lotus

Ebay will find many many ways to get even better
searching technology and will beat google's
present & google's further searching technology.
In today's world, who will willing to pay top
dollars who will get the best technology. No
one can control whom to belong! It is matter of
time Ebay will get advance in global market.
Look at China, A lot of technology have been
brought through world trade...So can Ebay!

Last time I used ebay was around 2001/2002. Why did I stop using ebay?
1.) Too much fees.
2.) I could find most things I want from other sites like Amazon for about the same price and not worry about being jacked.
3.) Customer service sucked.

Ebay is great for someone looking to buy rare items but I honestly don't find it any longer useful for things for day to day things.