eBay's Turnaround Stalls, Along with Stock's Upward Mobility

You're seeing more auction results, rather than fixed-price items, due to ebay realizing what most of its "enraged" sellers have been saying for quite some time:

"The serendipity and fun of ebay lies within its diverse offering of Collectible and Antique goods, which are ideally suited to the AUCTION format. Once that particular genre is suppressed, so too will the constant flood of potential buyers be suppressed."

Auctions were ebay's forte. The Unusual and Unique were its core. The Fun of the Quest, the Excitement of the Win and the sheer Curiosity of what may lay ahead, all drove the buying ebayer to return, again and again and again.

What you can witness on the site currently is management's re-direction of intent, to promote the auction format, but you will NOT hear that that is their intention. You will not hear a single word from them. They are in scramble mode at the moment and they hope that no one from The Street gazes in their direction.

They will silently change some of their previous changes and silently manipulate / adjust various functions on the site because.. things have gone very astray. They have finally gone one mis-guided step too far and driven away a critical amount of sellers and buyers.

Let me be the first to say IT.. Told ya so! Tune in around three weeks from now and their quarterly report will say IT as well.

My perspective and opinion on the matter are well documented on this internet. Meanwhile, my wife has become an eBay power seller by doing exactly what originally made eBay great.

Oh, by the way, it appears that eBay is still padding it's listing volume numbers.

Shame, shame, shame.

Not only has eBay enraged sellers with fee hikes, they have also enraged sellers with a huge drop in traffic -- views, visitors AND sales. Long time sellers are reporting drops of up to 80 percent YOY sales in the past three months. Millions of eBay Store listings (a different category from the core marketplace listings) have overwhelmed the site. The number of listings almost doubled from 60 million to 109 million today. Many long time sellers have had to close up shop. Sellers who supported their families with their eBay sales have had to get out and seek greener pastures.

Too many listings, too few buyers, very little advertising.

Additionally, buyers have been turned off by the overwhelming numbers of listings. They can't find anything. The search is broken. Buyers just move on and shop somewhere else. I am an eBay seller and buyer. I can't take looking for items on eBay anymore. The deluge of Chinese-made products has flooded the site.

Sellers and buyers are leaving in droves. What will it take for the eBay BOD and stockholders to wake up and smell the coffee?

Ebay has created it's appeal based on 2 things... The collectibles market, and Paypal.

They better hope that Amazon doesn't wake up to the idea of organizing their "everything else" category which is where sellers there are placing their collectibles items for sale.

And as for Paypal, they'd better also hope that VISA's recent billion dollar investment in the World of on line payments doesn't have a master plan to make them nothing more than a leaf blowing in the wind.

From the research that I have done, between what I have found to be a very in depth(a little lengthy, but that's OK) yet VERY informative article written on bloggernewsnetwork at the following link...
http://www.bloggernews.net/124457

along with what has now become quite the talk of the town at Ebay on their forum with well over 5,000 posts(mostly upset sellers) at this following link...
http://forums.ebay.com/db2/topic/Seller-Central/5-Days-Straight/520194234&start=0

I'd say, it's fairly easy to see that the new CEO's plan is not working. Or, maybe it is. ;)

These TWO links above will tell you MORE than any one person will ever tell you about Ebay/Paypal's current situation. Please read and find out for yourself!

John Donothole bites the big one.

From the very first day when John Donahoe referred to the sellers as "noise" he was doomed to fail - his failed "turnarnound" started from that point on. The sellers depended and loved Ebay and every day they were turned off a little more as Donahoe and his team kicked them around and squeezed them for the revenue Ebay could not earn on its own anymore! Every day the sellers got less and less for their fees - they got draconian policies and were treated like criminals - that got buyers who Ebay so empowered that any buyer could destroy a small seller on a whim. What kind of management do you call this? Whatever is holding Donahoe in his chair? His compensation was slashed by 55 percednt yet why has he not been shown the door and let the healing begin before its too late? The sellers are also buyers and through leaving the site and through continuous word of mouth they will bring down the "new ebay" and Donahoe and his team with it! They will not allow this site to prosper and would rather see it die then succeed without them! In the past 2 1/2 years the "noise" is more deafening then ever - it will not go away! Wake up Ebay board of directors....wake up!

Donahoe just sold 16667 more ebay shares on 07-02-2010
What does that tell us?

eBay and Donothole both bite the big one.