What Have We Gained From The eBay Boycott?

There are two comments on my post yesterday, both from eBay sellers who think the eBay boycott has been unproductive. I respectfully disagree.

The initial boycott which ran from February 18th through February 25th was not expected to result in an immediate reversal of eBay's plans. Far from it! We are realists and know from past experience that communicating with eBay is generally one way. We speak, they ignore. The first boycott was intended to let eBay know that they were about to step over the line. Did we achieve that? Yes. Did eBay believe we meant it? No.

The First Gain was Publicity
Because there was a lot of media attention eBay was forced to respond. The response was predictable, exactly like the parent who's four year old child announces they are going to run away from home. This condescending dismissal galvanized already angry sellers, gaining more negative publicity for eBay.

Then came Networking
From publicity came momentum. More eBay sellers became aware of what was going to happen, were angered by it and joined. In turn they generated more publicity. Groups formed, off the censored eBay boards and networked. Boycott eBay on Delphi was and is probably the most active. One of the benefits of networking was that many alternative venues were found and discussed. Sellers created support threads to help each other with the ins and out of learning new venues, setting up Google Checkout etc. This encouraged sellers to branch out, which led directly to the rapid growth of OnlineAuction.com and eCrater, which together with iOffer were voted as having the best prospects of becoming a viable alternative venue. Etsy registered their 1,000,000th user today one week short of their third birthday.

International Solidarity
The power of networking brought us in contact with sellers from Australia, Germany, Italy, France, Spain and the UK. This is amazing. For example US sellers made submissions to the ACCC in Australia so that the ACCC would know that eBay's claims were not universally accepted and that PayPal was problematic in the USA too.

We Prepared & Learned
We learned that we did not ever want to allow another site to achieve the kind of power that WE gave eBay. Other smaller sites than the four mentioned above, also saw growth because sellers quickly realized that there is no 'one site fits all'. We prepared for what we knew was coming in May and that two month hiatus between the initial one week boycott and the May 1st beginning of an open ended boycott gave us time to make a smooth transition with minimal damage.

I personally know one PowerSeller, a good man who is the epitome of anti-boycott and 'nothing will happen to good sellers' sentiment, he has never had a neutral or negative. He made the mistake of believing that eBay was run like a business; that mistake has effectively put him out of business.



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Six Weeks & Where Y'at?

First we asked questions. Sometimes we got answers. Sometimes we got different contradictory answers. Most of the answers we got were of the take it or leave it variety.

Next we tried reason, we explained. We told them why the proposed changes would not work. We gave examples and pointed out contradictions in wording. This had about as much effect as pouring water down a well.

Thousands signed petitions, it made them feel better. I will not sign petitions, I think they are pretty much useless but mainly I object to the word petition. (a request made for something desired, esp. a respectful or humble request, as to a superior or to one of those in authority; a supplication or prayer:)

I ain't no supplicant; I AM A CUSTOMER!

We did get some response, Lorrie Norrington said "I think it’s a great point of learning for us." So comforting, when they are 'learning' at the expense of your livelihood and reputation.

Some of us boycotted, and publicized the fact vigorously. No selling and just as importantly no buying. This led to a lot of less than desirable media attention for eBay, giving the PR department opportunity to be condescending and dismissive about their customers. Some executives stuck their feet in their mouths, Simon Smith with the heroin remark comes to mind. This must have made a good impression on the general public. Some corporate lame-brain opined that there was no noticeable effect from the boycott because there were no demonstrators at eBay's San Jose campus.

Some of us quietly stopped using eBay and moved to alternative, less hostile venues.

So here we are, six weeks down the boycott road and 'Where y'at?' as they say in N'awlins. It is now time to ramp it up. What do you think?

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From an Australian eBay Seller

This came in as a comment, but it is far too good to be buried in comments so I have hijacked it into a guest blog:

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I have been appalled as I have watched what has been happening to so-called "edge case" sellers on eBay UK over recent times, as good sellers with low gross numbers are being purged due to circumstances they have no control over (such as neutral feedback praising the seller but criticising slow postal delivery). For other readers, Tamebay is a good blog to start exploring this nasty phenomenon. I am disappointed to say that the same ruthless treatment of small sellers and low volume livelihoods has started on the Australian site late this week.

Meanwhile this week I read an article published in Business Week titled "Auctions on eBay: A Dying Breed". In this John Donahoe is quoted saying

"As [Web] search has developed, you can get a great deal in a fixed-price format,"

Donahoe said in an Apr. 16 interview after his first earnings call as eBay's top executive.

"We are going to let our buyers choose."

I can't help but getting the niggling feeling that the key to Donahoe's "emerging market segment" lies buried in the context of that quote (and I really hope that I am wrong).

Surely a company that attracted sellers by using the dynamic pricing model that competitive auctions creates, and, importantly does not invest anything in merchandise for their site, is not trying to set themselves up so that they are offering the cheapest mass volume merchandise on the internet. That may explain the shift from treating the seller (who actually pays eBay's fees) as being the customer, to now treating the buyer as their customer. In this environment, the customer is indeed never wrong - they are protected from criticism while being *encouraged* to criticize the seller they have bought merchandise from.

eBay is trying to market to sellers that free shipping is the on-line market expectation, although I have encountered nobody that does not work at eBay who believes this (some buyers may wish it was, but it is not their expectation). Thus eBay encourages cheaper listings, free and restricted shipping charges, and unrealistic customer expectations that are going to knock any seller who does not bend to their will off the site. And, herein lies the marketplace "innovation" that Donahoe is trying to achieve. Seriously discounting merchandise without actually owning or being liable for any of the stock that you sell.

The flaw in this is that it is unsustainable. In my opinion, eBay does indeed have a monopoly in parts of the online market. The sheer size means that as sellers fold and leave, others replace them instantly (in theory at least), and therefore eBay will never run out of the stock that it does not pay for.

I can't help but feeling this is the innovation that Donahoe is aiming at, controlling the market in such a way that you do not have to carry stock, but those that do are forced to offer ruthless discounts to "survive". The eBay model is NOT retail, and thus the only sellers that can survive in this environment are those who are buying liquidation and close out stock for pennies in the dollar and can viably sell below market rates. Other sellers can not survive selling in competition on the same site. This really is an unsustainable direction that eBay is being taken in - but eBay won't go broke, just countless faceless traders that are of so little importance that they are no longer even considered to be eBay's "customers".

It stinks, and it is destroying everything good about the marketplace in the process. And, all the way, while eBay pounds the message that sellers need to lower prices and shipping costs, eBay steadily increases the fees that they are charging successful sellers. Bah!

Kevin T

So Sad, Too Bad, Kijiji

The latest post from corporate blogger Richard on eBayINKBlog is about WalMart's new classified site with a deft little plug for eBay Inc's classified site Kijiji.

Upfront disclosure: as a boycotting eBay user the chances of my using Kijiji are slim to none. I have no intention of registering, I would hate to artificially inflate usage figures, so this is an exterior inspection only. As a long time eBayer this statement in the Terms of Use raised the hairs on the back of my neck. Whoa pony!

Fees and Services. Using Kijiji is free, but we sometimes charge a fee for some of our services. Our fees are quoted in US Dollars, and we may change them from time to time. Our fees are non-refundable, and you are responsible for paying them when they're due. If you don't, we may limit your ability to use the services. If your payment method fails or your account is past due, we may collect fees owed using other collection mechanisms (for accounts over 180 days past due, we may deduct the amount owed from your PayPal account balance).

Now to business, I could not use Kijiji even if I wanted to because it is very limited geographically. The site is beautifully designed, easy to navigate, lots of white space, pretty. eBay/Kijiji has chosen to use a subdomain for each geographic location which makes sense, it should be very easy to add new coverage areas.

It is my personal opinion that Kijiji was born from pique (noun; a feeling of irritation or resentment, as from a wound to pride or self-esteem: to be in a pique.) at Craigslist's rebuff to 'joining the eBay family'. There is no feeling of permanence or even serious development of the concept.

History eBay bought 25% of Craigslist in August 2004. In November 2004 eBay acquired Marktplaats.nl, which operated as Intoko in Spain, Turkey, Germany and Canada. Kijiji was launched in March 2005. Two months later in May 2005 eBay acquired Gumtree, which offers a similar service for cities in Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, and Loquo in Spain. In June 2005 eBay bought another classified site in Germany, OpusForum. After multiple corporate shufflings Kijiji, Gumtree and Loquo remain.

I live in a fairly unpopulated area of the USA, the other place I spend time is equally uncrowded. California has lots of people so I looked at the Sacramento site. Sacramento has a population of almost half a million and I am familiar with the city as my daughter lived there for a while. On Kijiji this morning there were 3872 classifieds, 342 want ads, and 60 ads in 'free stuff'. Chico, a college town with a population of about 85,000 had a pathetic 492 ads, 34 want ads and 10 in 'free stuff'. Checking Chico on Craigslist I stopped counting for sale classifieds at 1000.

A side by side comparison of Alexa.com data tells a lot; Kijiji




scroll down to see the full picture, and Craigslist
eBay shares closed at $29.26 today.

What do you think?

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