It's not only the counterfitting, but the scammers the distruction of the core business (Auctions). The lopsided polocies and the fee increases. Sellers are leaving in droves. He's trying to have a "Big Sale" by raising prices and sell the same old junk you can buy anywhere. (Never works). The CEO may have an MBA in Business (which I do respect) but he doesn't know "People". He's pissed off thousands of sellers, who speak to thousands of buyers, who speak to thousands more.

eBay's war on sellers is their biggest mistake (imo) I've been a seller for over 10 years and will continue, until i can't make it work anymore. I sell unique items that can't be counterfited, so thats not a problem for me, but the increased fees and the lopsided treatment (i can no longer leave negative feedbacks for buyers who refuse to pay .... but they can neg me ... even though they never even paid) means it's just not as much fun as it used to be.

Earlier comments said it best. Ebay is SCREWING their sellers. You cant "find it on ebay" anymore, because the potential sellers are being turned. Not being able to leave feedback for bad buyers is just idiotic.

If you think their stock price is a hoot just wait until you see their quarterly report LOL Ebay is dying by its own arrogant overstuffed hand!

Hey - if Donahoe is trying to blame the downturn on frauds and fakes that's only the very tip of the iceberg. Any seller can tell you why Ebay is failing. Basically, Donahoe is treating sellers like dirt in favor of his diamond retail sellers. He's trying to turn Ebay into a cheap cheesy Amazon clone and nobody is buying it! Sellers are leaving - in fact, Ebay is hemmoraghing sellers and they just happen to be BUYERS too! ;-)

While there is some validity to others comments here, this article is ridiculous. 99.99% of eBays transactions are just fine. There are no more counterfeits on ebay than anywhere else. You can buy knock off bags at any flea market, you can buy fake razor blades at flea markets.
At one time a survey of sterling silver jewelry/chains at major retail chains showed over 25% wasnt even silver.

The problem is Ebay has not had anything positive coming out of them. Their marketing has been inneffective and recently stopped. They have irritated sellers who are also buyers. They have mucked up the site, plastered ads all over and changed so much people are having a hard time.

They banned checks and money orders, just when credit card usage is down, they banned ebooks (while Amazon pushes them) , they banned Live auctions so no more nice NASA space stuff.

This site could be hopping with a reversal of some of the silly decisions, development of a local site, some good marketing and a program to really appreciate both sellers and buyers.

I am not sure they seem to be micromanaged into oblivion lately.

But I have confidence in the good people (employees) of Ebay and hope that people rise to the occasion and bring this site back to a new glory

Marty

Well I think the argument about counterfeiters is not the issue here, or scammers for that matter.

Just take a look at the forums or articles here and the comments.

I have never seen a company implode from its policies as eBay has.

This company has alienated so many people it is actually very hard to find one good comment about them.

The sentiment is as strong going down as it was going up.

It is actually becoming quite hard to see the light for this company.

One day you see the stock inching up a little and you say OK maybe they are gonna pull out of this. Then wham they are in the 10s again.

The only positive light this company has seen is its court win against Rolex. But then that light is darkened by the two law suits in the us charging them with being a monopoly.

I didn't really think this a month ago but I truly see them entering single digits.

Patricia is absolutely correct. Counterfeits is simply the tip of this ice-berg that is sinking the ebay titanic.
Marty is also probably correct, in stating ebay is not the only venue where a plethora of fakes are available. The problem here is, eBay denies liability. France determined that since they charged on a per transaction basis, they have liability and obligation.
At issue here is something eBay is refusing to acknowledge, and it is not going to go away. That is, the eBay community is boycotting eBay and boycotting hard.
We boycotted last Feb. and hit again in May, with that being the first ever open-ended boycott.
When that was suggested, I expected a murmur from people stating that would be too long, and that they could not commit to a boycott of that proportion. Boy was I wrong.
To counter this, eBay has spent, or more accurately, waived millions of dollars in listing fees, and created a new tier in the powerseller structure, called Diamond. Here sellers listing $500,000 a month will receive free listings, and can negotiate fees AND policy. Last year, from March 2nd-May 31st, Terapeak.com stats for eBay showed that based on the absolute minimum listing fee of 10 cents, Buy.com would have spent close to $25 MILLION in fees, while generating approximately $165,000 in un-negotiated Final Value Fees.
I'd say that is bad business. Eliminate $25M to gain $165K while ignoring the thousands and thousands of sellers and buyers boycotting eBay.
And they wonder why they are doing badly?
Would YOU trust YOUR money with a company that would allow a $25 MILLION loss compensate for $165K and the millions of lost revenue from the people they angered?
I wouldn't. Why should you?

Tim
http://forums.delphiforums.com/boycottebay/start
http://myspace.com/boycottebay

I have to ditto the comments above re eBay screwing up their site for sellers (which also BUY) -- so they have decided to try and reach for the echelons Amazon rests in e-commerce-wise. I spoke with an eBay rep running their LiveHelp and he agreed eBay is courting big volume sellers and is not concerned with "average joe and jane" sellers anymore. Their decision to cease all paper payments (except for porn) and demanding sellers use PayPal (ebay's way of double-dipping) or some other "approved" credit card merchant plan was the final straw for this seller. I listed weekly and sold over $8K at their site. Not anymore!

I have left as many others have. Since I refuse the bogus e-commerce travesty and security/fraud nightmare called PayPal -- I can't sell nor buy there anymore. eBay's CEO is simply NOT thinking and I hope he enjoys watching ebay plummet in oblivion as what he has done is his folly.

Counterfeits, not a problem -- eBay's new policies and fee and its head-in-the-sand CEO, that's the problem.

BTW: I sell all my books/CDs/DVDs via Amazon now where the hassles are ZERO and money is streaming into my account weekly.

I agree, counterfeits are not the reason eBay is losing business.

It is plain and simple. Just look at the following list to easily figure it out:

the high fees charged (listing and FV),

the new DSR's (whereby buyers can smack you down and you do not know who did it or why they did it),

bare minimum of customer service support. I am still waiting for an answer to a question I posed 2 weeks ago!!

the ridiculous feedback system where you cannot leave negative or neutral feedback for they buyer even though they truly deserve it. I understand you cannot even leave a positive FB with a negative comment (have you noticed almost everyone has 100% now?) What purpose does it serve? FB is useless now. It used to be a great tool in dealing with your buyers/sellers, now it is meaningless. Try reading the feedback they have "given," it reveals a lot,

and then the new rule - paperless payments. If eBay wasn't making "money" on all of the Paypal transactions it would be a different story, but when they make approximately 3% on every transaction, it is just plain wrong. I am hoping there will eventually be a CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT that will address this issue. I will be happy to join that one!!

Yes, Ebay management, ever heard the saying "don't bite the hand that feeds you?" Driving all your loyal sellers out of business... Real smart move Ebay. Blame it on whatever you want but the real truth is that Ebay is destroying themselves from the top down. $10.50 a share and still dropping.... Very impressive job by the new CEO... 3 cheers for Jon DonaHOE. Hip hip hoooray!

I stopped selling February '08 (in the original boycott) after 10+ years on ebay. I handle unique vintage tiki ceramics and ephemera. We were an early ebay community (tikiphiles). I won't be back! My stuff only increases w/value as time passes. I'll await the shrewd investors who would like to take advantage of ebay's identity problems.

Who's running eBay? Spanky Alfalfa and Buckweheat?

After eBay's most recent "rolling" adjustment of my feedback score down from 99.9 with 2562 positive sales to 94.5 I am convinced John Donahoe must be a low functioning autistic, six months out of the worst business school in some third world country.

The "rolling adjustment" of my fb score came during my present 3 month boycot when I did not sell or buy - give or receive any fb. (I'll probably leave eBay premantely after I zero my Paypal account out.)

My trust worthyness as a seller has slowly been eroded (1 negative fb in 6 years): due to Donahoe's insane belief that "if it's not broken BRAKE IT!"

Does the idiot actually believe he's doing a service to buyers when they cannot accurately judge the trust worthyness of a seller?

How many potential buyers have passed on a bid because of a seller's fb which does not accurately reflect the many years of wondeful service and moved onto Amazon or another online venue?

The DSR is nothing more than an opinion poll based on the poor proformance of the shipping agent and seller's emails that were blocked by the buyer's spam blocker or simply believing anything over a two is above avearge?

After word got around about the "no negative fb" for sellers the scammers wised up to the fact that after receiving an item all they had to do was ask for a partial or full refund by just saying the item was not as stated or "you get a negative fb." It happen to me at least six times out of twenty sales. Thanks John, you idiot.

After you're finally dumped by the share holders and BOD and eBay stock is trading for $2.00 and skyp takes a crap you'll be uniquely suited to get a job working for terrorist ransacking American embassies. When are you going to come out of the ether moron?

Tom Dee

Who wrote this article? an eBay employee, that is who.

eBay is its own worst enemy, they are suspending sellers for little or no reason, they encourahe scams by the buyers, its the sellers who dont have confidence, not the buyers, how silly is that. Raising fees, breaking commerce laws regarding policing sellers and buyers, as this is clearly against the law, and the feedbacksystem is a joke. the customer service and ebay are a contradiction in terms. They are ruining sellers lives and income, a tradgedy not seen by any US company, never.

I have been a victim of eBay, they are terrible.

read a good document and comentary called "the rise and fall of ebay", it will give stockholders a true and unbiased assessment.

The person that wrote this article no doubt works for eBay, that should tell you what they are about.

eBay has no clue, they sucker small sellers to sign up, promote selling and then pull the plug. Thier should be an investigation into this by the trade commision. Australia as already initiated such a case, why not the USA, State Attorney General of California? Because eBay buys out politicians. They can never be Amazon, please, Amazon is so nice to deal with and appreciates all sellers.

eBay has hurt their own income.

If you dont believe me, sign up as a seller, sell on eBay and you will see why you should not invest. Plus they lie about the number of users they have as many users have multiple accounts.

I spent $300,000 on eBay in one year, bid on over 2000 auctions a month for 18 months, I refused to pay for 9 of them as they where fakes and I told eBay this and they suspended me. THEY PROMOTE FAKES PEOPLE!!!!

so out of 36,000 auction I dont pay for 9 and get suspended, wow, amazing, Good work, the sooner eBay goes doen the better eBid and others can make it.