Power Sellers Unite

elgato · Joined: 24 Feb 2005 Posts: 16923 Location: Texas

As a publicly traded company, eBay presents risk factors in its U.S. Securities and Exchange (SEC) filings, including legal matters, and describes how they could impact the business going forward. In its current 10K filed with the SEC this week, eBay discusses the impact of its campaign of changes to the Marketplaces unit:

We have announced changes to our Marketplaces business intended to drive more sales and improve seller efficiency.

The company goes on to say that its mix of sales would continue to shift towards a fixed-price format.

"We expect that our costs associated with resolutions will increase as we make these changes to our resolutions policies and process.

more.. link to news article

RatherRuss · Joined: 05 Mar 2008 Posts: 113

Hey, anyone else find the ending the story that Donohue will be addressing Goldman Sachs ironic, nothing but major corporation whores (not to demean that profession, as it at least gives service) stick together like the proverbial birds....RatherRuss, no fan of either corp. at www.dedicatedfool.com

pie4himm · Joined: 21 Mar 2007 Posts: 372

it sounds like eBay is saying it will cost them more to charge the sellers more? or rather maybe they mean to enable all products to be in core search it will cost more since more bandwidth will be required thus more servers, router,s equipment , will need to be purchased at a cost?

Stockmiser · Joined: 03 Jun 2006 Posts: 1146

RatherRuss wrote (View Post): › docWrite("quote")Hey, anyone else find the ending the story that Donohue will be addressing Goldman Sachs ironic, nothing but major corporation whores (not to demean that profession, as it at least gives service) stick together like the proverbial birds....RatherRuss, no fan of either corp. at www.dedicatedfool.com

Let us not forget....Goldman Sachs was the original underwriter of Ebay's initial public offering back in 1998. Goldman acquired 3.5 million shares for $63 million dollars. Which they sold in one day for $165 million dollars.

elgato · Joined: 24 Feb 2005 Posts: 16923 Location: Texas

Stockmiser wrote (View Post): › docWrite("quote")RatherRuss wrote (View Post): › docWrite("quote")Hey, anyone else find the ending the story that Donohue will be addressing Goldman Sachs ironic, nothing but major corporation whores (not to demean that profession, as it at least gives service) stick together like the proverbial birds....RatherRuss, no fan of either corp. at www.dedicatedfool.com

Let us not forget....Goldman Sachs was the original underwriter of Ebay's initial public offering back in 1998. Goldman acquired 3.5 million shares for $63 million dollars. Which they sold in one day for $165 million dollars.

I'd say that was a nice investment at the time!

wphamilton · Joined: 01 May 2005 Posts: 1940 Location: Georgia

"We expect that our costs associated with resolutions will increase as we make these changes to our resolutions policies and process. These changes, together with any further changes that we may make to our resolutions process in the future, may be negatively received by, and lead to dissatisfaction on the part of, our sellers. These changes may also result in an increase in buyer fraud and associated transaction losses.

That bears analyzing.

1) Higher cost means either more dispute resolutions, more intrusive disputes, or both.

2) If they expect sellers to dislike it, that probably means at the very least that they expect a greater burden placed on sellers.

3) They anticipate possibly greater buyer fraud as a result, with an associated loss in transaction revenue. Presumably final value fees.

From what he's said there, is there any reasoning possible that doesn't end with the possibility of: sellers generally being involved in more disputes, in greater detail, and at greater risk, and paying higher fees for the privilege, while suffering greater amounts of buyer fraud as a direct result?

It's odd that a more detailed and intensive dispute resolution might carry a risk of increased fraud. It's also curious that they'd roll this out if they expect it to drive their customers off, it's expensive and might be exploited to increase fraud rates. It makes no sense that I can see unless something else is at play here: either there is a significant fault in their seller community which urgently needs to be addressed, or there is some kind of negative trend among the buyers which must be corrected regardless of the impact on their direct customers (sellers).

A fault in the seller community requiring a pervasive dispute resolution, for the purposes of reversing negative buyer sentiment, implies an urgent problem of unscrupulous or non-performing sellers. A growing problem which threatens to swamp the marketplace - as nothing less that that would encourage let alone require a draconian intervention into disputes.

Have I missed something here?

DaLizardsLair · Joined: 15 Feb 2009 Posts: 4782

Of course they expect sellers to dislike it. Having the FVF increase in auctions by as much as 141% isn't going to make sellers feel good.

Once again, they seem intent on driving the small to medium sized store away from eBay altogether. Eventually, JD will realize his dream and eBay will look like a second hand Big Lots.

Add to that the fact that their message boards are deleting and pinkslapping anyone who even mentions going somewhere else, regardless of whether they mention another place by name or not.