A fellow seller asked me the other day "Why do you hate eBay so much?" I could have made a wisecrack answer, but the question was thought provoking and deserved consideration. I have thought about it and this is my response.
I don't hate eBay.
eBay is a corporation and is perfectly entitled to move in whatever direction it's CEO and Board of Directors approve. I am equally at liberty to do likewise.
Consumers always have choice and the most basic of those choices is not to consume. eBay had shown me, personally, in 2006 that it was an unreliable service provider. I am referring to the Stores Inventory in search implementation and subsequent abrupt reversal without warning a few months later. Like many others I had invested a substantial amount in inventory. Unlike many others I have always had a firm policy of not buying on credit. I own my stock and two years later I still own some of it! Strike one for eBay.
Shortly thereafter eBay kicked me while I was down. Store insertion fees doubled. I had begun the (for me) long and difficult process of building a website. My capital was tied up in stock so I could not pay someone to build one for me. I did not want to be at the mercy of another instant e-commerce solution, therefore a stand alone website seemed the intelligent solution. Strike two for eBay.
Auntie May (the fictional dumb small seller of fleamarket junk) & I are fond of aphorisms. You may roll your eyes at this point (although I would bet money you can't do it as well as the Good John does) but there is often a lot of truth in them. this applies to the person who, as Auntie May would say "done me wrong".
Once, shame on you, twice, shame on me.
In the corporate culture employees take their cues from the top. I wrote about this here and here in May. As John Donohoe was preparing to take the reins from Meg Whitman in December 2007 he gave an interview to the Financial Times. There are clear indicators of Donohoe's attitude towards sellers in that article,
Mr Donahoe has cast an outsider's dispassionate eye over some of the site's practices and found them wanting. During an interview at Ebay's headquarters in Silicon Valley, he talks with the clear and untroubled certainties of the consultant, and has the prescriptions to match.John Donohoe subtly conveys an inner certainty of his absolute superiority in every way to the sellers who pay fees to utilize eBay's services. This contemptuous attitude was absorbed and magnified by lower level employees, aided by Usher Lieberman of the PR department, and now it permeates the entire company.
My colleague at the Brews News commented on this last week and again here. Please note that The Brews News are not hysterical noisy boycotting ex-sellers. They are a group of multi identity PowerSellers who are still trying to run their businesses on eBay. Key phrases in the post are
He immediately became belligerent
he was insistent
he was adament
he was rude
asked me what I wanted to discuss with the TSAM
the rep grilled me and told me to explain
Does this sound like a Customer Service Representative assisting a valued and high volume paying customer? No? More like a self important busy junior executive dealing with intolerable interruptions and inefficiencies from an incompetent subordinate?
A monolith like eBay Inc. makes the decision to follow a course of action and implement policies which are contrary to the interests of it's users. When eBay refuses to engage in a two way conversation with it's customers or listen to their concerns ("we hear you" does not mean "we are listening") the only option is to vote with your feet; I made the decision to not use eBay, either as a buyer or seller, and I sold my stock.
I repeat, I do not hate eBay. This blog is a chronicle of eBay's destruction of the brand. How eBay lost ITs groove. It says so right up top on the header.
eBay Inc opened on the Nasdaq exchange this morning at $18.50 and as I write this has dropped to $16.90. Today eBay announced two classified site acquisitions in Europe and the purchase of the US second largest online payments system Bill Me Later; which will merge with PayPal increasing eBay's near monopoly on online payments.
Y'all come back!
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