Power Sellers Unite

psunite · Joined: 27 Jan 2005 Posts: 6213 Location: Columbus OH

July 20 - eBay is raising fees for online stores that have been diverting traffic from its auctions. The San Jose company did meet Wall Street expectations for earnings. Investors are concerned about growth and the recent executive shuffle.

CEO Meg Whitman tells Bloomberg News she's here to stay.

link to orginal news article

BHWINC · Joined: 20 Jul 2006 Posts: 53

Hey Meg,
Here to stay, Ha.. By the looks of ebay stock, you are going to be on the street, where you belong along with your cronnies.. You can't screw your stock holders as easily as you have your customers!

lhhgbh · Joined: 15 Jul 2006 Posts: 336

I think the next 12 months will be the deciding factor for her job and a few things.. I keep waiting for someone to step forward and take that hero leadership role... Thats all that needs to happen... The community is already whispering.. The folks are getting out their pitchforks... They just need a leader...

envirobay · Joined: 17 Nov 2005 Posts: 624 Location: Boise, Id

I like how she says that this "little" fee increase is going to help the buyer, and in turn help the seller. I like how ebay keeps saying that this is to make things easier for the buyer. What the hell are they talking about? I have never found it difficult to find an item on ebay. And wouldn't more store inventory listings help the buyer have more choices? I just don't follow their logic, I don't see how this is going to help buyers any. IF anything it will hurt the buyers because the sellers are forced to pass the fees along to the buyers.

I was watching her on charlie rose (video.google.com), well I was watching as much as I could stomach. This was back in 2001. Back when ebay motors was only $25 to list. Back when stores were only $9.99 and the store's FVF equalled auction's FVF. Back in the good ol' days. Anyway, Meg was explaining how ebay motors came along, bla bla bla, the main jist was that they are "really good" at "listening to their members." What a bunch of crap. Anyway, I take that statement and project it on ebay's current problem. The store inventory numbers are too dominant over the auction listing numbers. Well if they really did listen to their members, they would not be screwing the stores like this. It is obvious that the members like listing in store format. There must be a reason for that... Gee, could it be that the auction listing fees suck?

kathyscorner · Joined: 28 Apr 2005 Posts: 610

Boy, I sure do wish I had asked the questions. Last time I watched Meg in depth she was all full of the plan to spend 2 billion dollars establishing ebay in China, and that is probably the reason the stocks have tanked so badly. The reporter didn't touch on that.

Now we are paying for the Skype expansion, another loser.

All she ever had to do was focus on maintaining the best auction site network, and it could have gone on growing forever. Instead she focuses on global communications domination, and in the process is killing the core business.

First force everyone into stores, then up those prices to try and force them back into the auctions. She has totally lost a grasp of the basic business she is in.

Apparently the stockholders know. Google, or whatever company takes that core business away from ebay, cannot come soon enough.

LFRYARTGUY · Joined: 01 Feb 2005 Posts: 568 Location: San Antonio, Texas

an old graphic worth a RePosting.. :D

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Pipphoe

Once upon a time there was a company on Long Island called LILCO and they built a nuclear power plant in Shoreham. They promised us the world. They promised that our meters would run backwards electricity would be so cheap. In short, Shoreham never really ran, it was placed in mothballs and thus began the saga of the highest electric rates in the nation and possibly the world on little 'ol Long Island. We have really stopped paying for the Shoreham fiasco even to this date, although we were promised otherwise when NYS bought out LILCO and put in place the new Long Island Power Authority.

What do LIPA and eBAY have in common. They both have big, fat guys at the top of love to smile and tell you about all the great things they're doing to make the companies better and better. No, sorry, guys, there's no Meg-type person at LIPA. The rates keep going up and up as the service goes down and down. Both are conglomerates -- LIPA a/k/a LILCO has a captive audience, they're the only game in town if you want utilities -- and both have made the guys at the bottom pay for their mistakes -- LIPA's customers and eBAY's sellers. eBAY makes billions even though sales have dropped tremendously, LIPA, as far as I've heard, is also doing quite well, thank you!

But I heard something interesting in the middle of the Dell stock fiasco yesterday. One of the problems that Dell has -- among many -- is very bad customer service. One of the analysts on CNBC said that while there's a lot of problems that can't be easily solved, the customer service is a place they can start. They made a big deal about this. Customer Service. Ebay will continue to raise fees, a certain amount of sellers will leave as they do research and get smart, others will continue to flock to Ebay and get fleeced just as fast until they go bankrupt or they, too, get smart. This flock-and-fleece thing can keep eBay very wealthy for a long period of time. How long? Who knows? It depends on how long it takes every seller on eBay to take out their calculators and look at their bottom line and realize that eBay doesn't make all this money on STR, they make it on upfront fees. I'll bet that with the millions and millions of items that are on Ebay, only a mere fraction needs to be sold for Ebay to add to the killing. That's like the gravy, because the sale is always the maybe. The upfront fees are solid revenue. Solid as solid can be until sellers gets disgusted after they've relisted that same low-priced item over and over and over again and charged again and again.

So the main way to cut eBay down to a reasonable-size? A giant exodus of sellers, minimal entry of new sellers -- thus, denying eBay of all that steady revenue, and continued incredibly bad customer service. This is the secret to putting a big hurt on eBay.

And that being said, this is not an easy task, because as Barnum said "There's a sucker born every minute." And one reason they're born because of the "How-to-Sell-on-Ebay" schemes.

CompassRose · Joined: 29 Jan 2006 Posts: 79

Every time I hear one of those radio ads for "Get Rich on eBay the Easy Way" schemes, which are all ripoffs as far as I can tell, I wince. People who want a chance but don't know much about business fall for that crap every day. It's really sad.

envirobay · Joined: 17 Nov 2005 Posts: 624 Location: Boise, Id

Kathy, those were some good points you made. I wish you could interview Meg too. I would like to see Meg be held responsible for the blunders she has made. She has really done a lot to stun the growth of ebay and has made some major errors. I just wonder if she is aware of her mistakes? She seems like she is pretty good at pointing the finger at this or that (i.e. the stores). Hopefully if she is blind to her blunders her major stockholder's are not. I would love to see a completely new leadership take over ebay. Maybe they could bring it back to what it used to be? And maybe that money tree I planted in the back yard will start to yield fruit.

Cathy. your post was very well-put. I completely agree. To me, the only upside of ebay's greed is the fact that they are slowly cutting their own throat. Maybe this is the beginning of the end. Sales have dropepd off, it is obvious that sellers prefer the store listings, and it's obvious ebay wants to discourage the method that 83% of their customers prefer. That is a recipe for disaster.

kathyscorner · Joined: 28 Apr 2005 Posts: 610

I don't think Meg even allows herself to think it could be her fault! She comes across as somewhat programmed, and seems pretty good at not hearing the question. She turns each question into an opportunity to pitch a canned response. A direct "What became of the plan to expand into China?" would have been cool.

Cathy, your LILCO story is great! As a JCP&L user who paid for the 3 Mile Island fiasco for 25 years I hear you. And sadly eBay has about the same regard for us that our fine utility companies do.

triplexotica · Joined: 25 Apr 2005 Posts: 286 Location: Ca

What a joke.

I think with one good boycott we can bring them to their knees.

The last boycott cost eBay billions of dollars what was once a near 90B cap company is now less than 33B!

Can we say 33B down to 12B by this time next yeaar?!!?!?!!

Dep-T-Dawg · Joined: 12 Feb 2005 Posts: 6273

It sure COULDN'T HURT (IMHO), LEO!! :lol:

CrystalStar · Joined: 06 Mar 2005 Posts: 3571

I've got my T-shirt and am running ads in a local paper. Got any decals with the Ebay logo marked with Just say NO??? LOL