redbaron

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  • What Will Become of eBay?
    What happened to Dianah's eBay post on SA? Is SA allowing eBay to delete posts here? And if that is indeed what is happening, where is free speech and dissent going next? Anything negative to eBay has been deleted on their boards for years, but deleting it here in the public arena is something new, at least to me. Perhaps I've not been watching close enough, but I hadn't seen this before. With all the dumb and uninteligent posts that SA allows, it would seem only proper that someone with inside eBay experience should be allowed to post thoughts on what is actually happening within the company. SA, are you listening. IMHO
    Dec 22 09:44 am |Rating: +3 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • What Will Become of eBay?
    Ebay, in my opinion, is broken, but not permamently. All they really need to do is get back to what worked before. I have sold there since the beginning in 1996, and the new management has alieneated both buyers and sellers with their 2008 changes. It is not too late to go back to the model that worked for the previous 12 years, but first one must admit that the most recent changes have been a mistake. One very basic mistake they have most recently made is forgetting that it is sellers who pay all the fees, which, IMHO, makes sellers the customers. Some communication with sellers would go a long way to improving the site, but first management must be willing to do that. Go back to your roots, Ebay, back to basics, and it is not too late to turn this all around.
    Dec 21 20:19 pm |Rating: +4 -1 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Sector Overview: Internet Stocks
    The eBay model is broken, and current management has made it worse. The stock has bounced up a little currently, and this should be used as an opportunity to sell. Again, short this stock if you don't own it, and sell it, if you do. The bottom is not yet in sight.

    No company can succeed using a strategy like they have now implemented, treating their customers like they are now treating theirs.
    Dec 14 06:40 am |Rating: +1 -2 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Amazon vs. EBay: Looking Beyond E-Commerce
    Good article. As a long time (1996) ebay power seller, the new ebay management has really screwed things up badly. There was a time when I would deplete my precious inventory of extremely hard to find items, in order to get them on ebay and sold as quickly as possible. That trend has completely reversed in the current policy situation, and now when I buy something that I know is rare and valuable, my first reaction is to put it away until I can find a better way to sell it. What ebay fails to understand is how difficult it is to find some of this really valuable stuff. Flooding their site with free listings from other mass merchandisers is not going to provide the traffic and hits that selling rare items would provide. They have taken away the traffic that good sellers and good merchandise provided, and replaced it with mass merchandise that one can find anywhere. And in that process, they have replaced paying customers, with customers who they have to offer free listings to get their numbers back up. Some say the sell-through rate is as low as 2 percent for some of these mass merchandisers, but they managed to keep the listing numbers up in the process.

    It is not yet too late to reverse this trend, as ebay power sellers are on-line and watching, but as more and more of them find new homes, and get their own sites, the time to make significant changes is getting critically late. Ebay management is too stubborn to admit what they have done, and I don't see any hint that they would reverse some of these policy decisions. The first thing that would be needed would be management admitting they made a mistake, and I see nothing that would lead one to think that was the case. They are going to 'fiddle, while Rome burns', it looks like to me.

    Sell Ebay, buy Amazon, is the right trade, it looks like to me. Or short ebay, long amazon, as one might prefer to play it. Certainly not long ebay.
    Aug 18 12:02 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article

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