eBay's surveying like crazy and an anecdotal story...

I've received many reports about recent eBay surveying activity that is very interesting.

At Duke recently, eBay paid students (I heard from the MBA folks there) $75 to take a survey. Evidently during the survey they asked many selling questions, specifically asking students what they thought sellers would do with "prominent competitive ads right on listing pages".  They also asked from a buyer perspective if the buyer would find this more or less helpful.

I'm sure 99% of things eBay surveys don't become reality, but this one was kind of scary sounding.  Let's hope it stays in the 'Survey says: Don't do it!!" bucket.

Then in Seattle, I've heard they are looking for the 'recent mom' demographic to do some buyer survey's.

Finally, I'm hearing from sellers that evidently Bain and Co (Donahoe+Meg's alma matter) is calling and doing in-depth Q+A (takes about an hr).  Bain won't identify who they are representing, but the questions are all things like:

"Which channel drives more margin for you?  eBay, Amazon or website?"

Most seller's think it's pretty obvious that eBay has retained B+C to do some kind of strategic analysis on what eBay should do about Amazon.

Finally, an anecdotal story. (Disclaimer: Yes I know this is one random person, but that's the point).

About 2yrs ago, I decided to stop telling people that at ChannelAdvisor we help seller's sell on eBay because I was always hit with some sad tale of fraud.  Given all the changes eBay is making, I've been testing the waters recently to see what the vibe is out there again.

I rented a car earlier in the week and upon seeing the company name on my CC, the very nice rental car lady asked me what we do and I gave her the 'we help people sell on eBay' line.  I could tell the way her eyes popped and nose flared that I was in for an eBay story.

Turns out she bought one time on eBay.  She purchased some expensive perfume at a 10% discount and when it arrived it was a bad knock off.  She said she'll, "never buy anything on eBay again - it's all fakes and frauds."  She was pretty intense on this last part and I tried to break the ice by saying, "oh come on Marilu, we need you back." and she reiterated, "no, never ever again - I learned my lesson."  Where are the active buyers going?  If you talk to enough 'people on the street', you quickly realize there are a LOT of Marilu's out there and they seem to outnumber the people I meet that like buying on eBay 2:1.

While I applaud the increasingly bold changes eBay has taken on the Finding and Fees, I'm still worried that only the tip of the fraud/trust iceberg has been addressed so far.

Comments

[Vicki Neal]

Ebay sellers need to understand that they are running a business and should therefore be professional at all times. The response I received to a recent complaint regarding a purchase was abrupt, incorrect, offensive and full of spelling and grammatical errors. When I responded that the seller should be able to correspond in proper English he told me he was going to report me to the police as I had made a racist comment (I'm still waiting to be arrested for it!). Such a shame - Ebay used to be a great fun alternative way to shop and now it's full of rip off merchants that can't even communicate with their customers effectively - whatever happened to the old saying 'the customer is always right?'

[Tamara Costas]

I tell you, I promise you, I guarantee you, and you have my word!, that Ebay will go downhill sooner or later. It is taking advantage of working poor the way Ebay treats it sellers!! WISE UP EBAY! SELLERS ARE WHAT MAKE YOU MONEY!

[Durene Mies]

I bought a Louis v. purse over a year ago on ebay (big fraud) I could not get my 300.00 back to save my life! The seller insisted it was real when it was a poor knock off at that. Ebay would not do a thing to help me! I will not buy any thing on ebay but I might sell on ebay.

[TSPA]

Scot,
To add to the anecdotes, yesterday I got an e-mail from a friend's wife asking how she could be sure if a piece of clothing she was looking at on eBay was genuine as the seller had said. Sadly, I had to tell her she couldn't. I asked about the listing so I could pass it on to someone in the Internet Merchants Association that might know but other than that, in many categories it is buyer beware which drives out the legitimate sellers.
I enjoyed your presentation to the IMA conference. What are your thoughts on the about the eBay team's presentations? They keep going after high volume seller performance but I don't think they get the Marilu situation. Do you agree with their data that the number one reason folks leave eBay is because of shipping and handling charges? I think the number one is the Marilu anecdote you shared.

[eBayProfits]

The surveying is alright...the thing is what will they do with the results???

I know a few people who've switched to ioffer.com as a result of all this ebay mess. It's sad to see a company slowly go down the drain...perhaps it's Meg's fault???

[HarleyGlasses]

Scot, ebay's wishywashiness and the general public attitude surounding eBay has convinced me to dedicate my ecommerce efforts elsewhere, namely Neweggmall.com, Amazon.com and my own website(s).

We got a call the other day from some eBay drone on behalf of ebay seller developement. I told the lady I didn't have time to discuss changes at ebay, I was too busy selling elswhere and indicated that we would be closing our eBay store soon, if major improvements did not happen NOW on the seller side.

I guess that's why we have decided not to go forward with our plan to use marketplaceadvisor. eBay is too wishywashy to make the investment. I'm sure you've heard 3rd party provider business is down on eBay and it's because of eBay.

Amazon drives more revenue for us now. We have also told our Postmaster and our children to not refer to us as "eBay Sellers". Amazon Merchant has much better socially acceptable ring to it.