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Internet eBay Hit Hard by Boycott, Refuses to Change
Jason Mick (Blog) - February 25, 2008 12:47 PM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 98 comment(s) - last by P4blo.. on Feb 29 at 7:17 AM
Some sellers have had enough of eBay and call it quits in a massive boycott, others keep coming back to the same abusive system

eBay angered many sellers when it raised its fees and overhauled its feedback system in ways which many perceived to be very anti-seller.  The changes particularly hurt sellers of small, low-priced items like CDs and video games, which were faced with sharp hikes in their fees upon successful sales. 

These sellers had to decide to either put up with it, or take their business elsewhere.  DailyTech's Shane McGlaun wrote in a blog an open letter to eBay, voicing his frustration and the frustration of many others.  He cited that he was not alone -- CNN recently reported that five of eBay's top sellers called it quits after the changes.

Since the blog, the fallout against eBay continued.  A group of angered users called for a complete boycott of buying and selling on eBay until the company makes amends.  The boycott, which ends today, had a devastating effect on the already stagnant eBay.

The total auction listings at eBay.com dropped approximately 13% since the boycott commenced in full on February 18.  This brought listings to a low of roughly 13 million items.  The boycott was made particularly potent by a YouTube video, which was viewed over 143,000 times.  The video helped raise the boycott above other, shorter boycotts, in terms of impact to eBay and helped it win coverage on many online and video media outlets.

The boycott was led by Valerie Lennert, who was flabbergasted by eBay's new bias against sellers.  She remarked, "When I heard the changes, I thought it was April Fool's Day."

Lennart, who sells doll clothes on eBay, unhappily discovered that eBay was not fooling around.  So she took her fight to YouTube and urged sellers to join her.  eBay promptly banned her account.  Throughout the course of Lennart's campaign and other protests, eBay tried to dull the impact by offering special deals on listings to boost sagging listing numbers.  Meanwhile, Lennart continued onward, making many media appearances.

Jim Griffith, dean of eBay Education, refuted news reports that eBay's listings had declined stating the boycott "has had no impact on our listings."  Griffith referenced internal metrics, which eBay refuses to release, and which run counter to the numbers run by major news outlets.

Meanwhile a member of the protest, Nancy Baughman, an eBay PowerSeller who deals in collectibles and antiques, hopes the listing drought worsens with future boycotts.  She says, "If [eBay's listings total] falls below 12 million, we've made a pretty good impact."

According to Griffith, however, eBay will stand firm till the bitter end and will not change its new policies.  Griffith says, "A lot of deliberation went into these decisions."

David Steiner, president of AuctionBytes.com, a publication for online merchants, says that this kind of attitude could be eBay's undoing.   He remarked on the boycott's impact, adding, "The protestors made a loud statement."

eBay has faced fierce competition from Amazon, which charges no listing fees.  Even before the policy changes, growth had stagnated.  The company will also see a changing of the guard as Meg Whitman steps down to make room for John Donahoe as CEO of eBay in March. 

eBay changed its policies in hopes of increasing revenue from listings and reviving sales by making the site more buyer-friendly.  With Donahoe soon to assume control, some tough decisions are in store for eBay's executives which may decide the site's fate. 

Meanwhile, until eBay changes its policy, more boycotts are surely in store, continuing to draw more attention and further punish eBay for its decisions.

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Price is one thing
By Hotdogah on 2/25/2008 1:05:05 PM , Rating: 2
The biggest problem with this change I believe being a seller since 1999, is the new feedback system which is the only thing eBay had kept still useful. With that going away it will be just as safe to sell on any random website.




RE: Price is one thing
By headbox on 2/25/2008 1:19:10 PM , Rating: 5
the massive problem was the feedback rating- sellers wait until a buyer leaves positive feedback even if they paid immediately. Sellers use feedback as a way to retaliate, even when they are in the wrong. I bought an item that was broken, and I paid $30 for shipping- the seller paid only $4 to ship it standard mail. When I complained, I got negative feedback.


RE: Price is one thing
By jskirwin on 2/25/08, Rating: 0
RE: Price is one thing
By geeg on 2/25/2008 3:10:49 PM , Rating: 2
instead of changing the feedback system, ebay should have overhauled its pricing system first. For example getting rid of those ridiculous shipping fees. Oh, by the way why are you not checking how much you will pay for the shipping dear jskirwin? So you thought you could get that item for $1 where the cheapest you could find was around $25? ebay promised many times to prevent such listings but instead they shoot their own foot.
Second, IMHO, buyers generally do not care about the feedback, as long as they can buy it cheaper.
ebay is a very inefficient system, managed badly. I see no reason to be charged around 10% for cheap items and around 5% for expensive items. What for? For a web page? The buyers in ebay already are proficient enough to have their research and get it dirt cheap. So we do not need fancy advertisements or fancy web pages.
I wonder where is the money going in terms of cost-wise? advertisements? manager salaries? A web page and a broadband access should be costing less than 1%.
After 10 years of ebay experience, I quit and started using amazon. It might be more expensive but at least I am happier for now.


RE: Price is one thing
By FITCamaro on 2/25/2008 3:22:21 PM , Rating: 3
Shipping fees are set by the seller. Not by Ebay. That's what the problem is. Sellers will lower their selling price so people think they're getting a great deal. But then they'll charge you $30 to ship it. So the $15 you saved on the item disappears in the shipping and in the end, you wind up paying more than if you'd gone to newegg.

I've emailed sellers a few times saying their shipping price is BS. I've shipping an entire steel, full tower computer from Milwaukee to Orlando for around $35. And some of these guys try to charge that much to ship you a graphics card.


RE: Price is one thing
By AnnihilatorX on 2/25/2008 3:35:05 PM , Rating: 5
I think the high shipping charge is not to confuse but to get a cheaper listing fee (commission).


RE: Price is one thing
By mcnabney on 2/25/2008 11:04:36 PM , Rating: 3
This is exactly why shipping is high. To screw eBay.

And wow, it turns out that eBay isn't stupid. The changes to listing fees is to combat that exact issue.

Also, I too have wanted to leave negative feedback about sellers who bend the truth in listings - but in order to protect my perfect rating I did not.

My solution. Not by junk off eBay anymore.


RE: Price is one thing
By geeg on 2/26/2008 10:53:08 AM , Rating: 3
I had no idea about that.. I would do the exact same thing for my auctions. Imagine this: $1 item "computer notebook core 2 250gb hd" with $400 shipping charges.


RE: Price is one thing
By guy007 on 2/26/08, Rating: -1
RE: Price is one thing
By P4blo on 2/29/2008 7:17:43 AM , Rating: 2
The other thing is eBay are surfing off the back of the tax avoidance scams sellers are pulling. In many countries (UK included) there are problems with the ebay sales being off the tax radar and so sellers can undercut the hell out of other online sellers. eBay is probably enjoying creaming much of this tax margin with their fees.


RE: Price is one thing
By PandaBear on 2/25/2008 3:46:31 PM , Rating: 4
It depends. If you offer priority shipping in half.ebay.com, then they force you to accept only $2 more when it actually cost $7 more. I got burn a couple times when I forgot to disable that.

They are making things more affordable at the seller's expense and mistakes.


RE: Price is one thing
By Oregonian2 on 2/25/2008 6:48:51 PM , Rating: 5
I think that's only a valid complaint if the shipping charges are kept secret until the auction is won. I've purchased a number of things knowing that the shipping charges were absurdly high -- but on those the winning price was also absurdly low. Likewise, the total cost (known up front) had to be low as well to make up for the risk of a problem resulting in a refund of only the purchase price. Or at least low commensurate with the seller's feedback rating.


RE: Price is one thing
By animedude on 2/25/2008 5:14:04 PM , Rating: 4
Give the seller a break. Why high shipping fee? Well, the shipping fee is not factored into the final value fee which eBay charges a whopping 13% of. So when a seller sold an item for $0.01 and shipping fee for $30, the seller only pays for the $0.01 final value fee and the listing fee $0.25 - $0.35. Unfortunately, many buyers are not factoring the shipping fee before buying or bidding.


RE: Price is one thing
By Oregonian2 on 2/25/2008 6:53:07 PM , Rating: 4
What's worse is that I feel as a buyer I'm being <expletive deleted> bye eBay as well. I've been a buyer almost since eBay started and have a fine zero-negative large (for a buyer) feedback rating. That earned great rating is now made worthless in that some slimeball can get a negative-free rating as well.

Ebay is <ED>'ing both buyers and sellers. My opinion of them, even as a long time user and a person who usually defends their methods is currently not good.

I see absolutely no winners. Not even eBay.


RE: Price is one thing
By xphile on 2/26/2008 3:49:54 AM , Rating: 2
This too is a massively important aspect utterly overlooked by the E-dickwits. I don't get to choose my buyers (blocklist and bid frequency rules accepted), but I do get to see I'm dealing with a good or potentially not so good buyer and respond to requests and other aspects of the transaction with regard to trust etc accordingly.

Now every buyer must be treated as fraudulent scum and with the utmost care, because I can no longer rely on their feedback being worth anything but the sum total of all the zeros out of the zeros and ones it is made up of.


RE: Price is one thing
By marvdmartian on 2/26/2008 10:49:30 AM , Rating: 2
I think that instead of just commenting on the shipping fee, you should address his whole comment.

Low listing prices with high shipping fees have been used by sellers to cheat ebay of their fair share of money for a few years now. It's well known, and ebay took steps with the recent change in their fee structure to combat it. Personally, I think they should have just banned the sellers that tried that slick trick.

Insofar as the negative feedback blackmailing goes, I'd have to agree with that. I've been on ebay for over 10 years now, and have built up a feedback rating of over 350 (with over 400 positive and zero negative or neutral ratings). Yet recently, I had a seller with ~30 feedback rating threaten to neg-rep me after I pointed out that his auction listing said he'd ship priority usps, he charged a sufficient amount to do so, yet he shipped the item to me parcel post, which I thought was unfair. His response initially was (basically), "Big deal! You got your item, didn't you?", to which I told him again that if he charges for priority mail, and states in his auction that he'll ship priority mail, that he actually should ship the item with priority mail, as there's plenty of buyers out there that will neg-rep him for something like that.

His response was to tell me to quit harassing him about it, or he'll leave me negative feedback. He then proceeded (after not hearing back from me......I thought it would be easier to just ignore his ignorance than to fight a neg-rep) to not leave me ANY feedback, even though I had paid immediately upon winning the auction.

Ebay's feedback system was broken, and used incorrectly by both sellers and buyers. Now they've swung too far in the opposite direction, which should be fixed as well.


RE: Price is one thing
By Hotdogah on 2/25/2008 1:38:35 PM , Rating: 3
My problem with ebay was people buying things a few years ago and then finding a better deal and breaking my item and demending a refund. I used to leave positive feedback just for paying and this would happen quite frequently for items that were packaged properly and working items. I think that a positive/negitive feedback from a buyer is a recept that that the transaction is complete and then I will leave a feedback how the buyer kept their part of the deal. The point is there is alot more to a transaction than just paying. I do not argue that some sellers have abused the system but not to the scale and cost that buyers have, some things break and need refunded. However when someone frys the processor you sent its upsetting as they just dont break. When one item is broken just to get a refund it costs all profits on many other auctions. So being able to leave feedback to the buyer who demands $50 refund just because on something or they will give you negitive feedback is important as one negitive feedback can cost you much more than that for a small seller so you must do it or fear a negitive feedback and lost profits.


RE: Price is one thing
By frobizzle on 2/25/08, Rating: -1