Power Sellers Unite

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

eBay has said it does not expect a proposed strike by some of its sellers to cause any major disruption on Tuesday.

As revealed by Web User last Thursday, a group of eBay sellers are threatening to boycott the auction site tomorrow in protest at changes made to the eBay Shops service.

On 19 July, eBay introduced changes to eBay.co.uk Shop fees and Shop item visibility because it said it needed to ensure "the vibrancy of the eBay.co.uk marketplace via the continued success and profitability of our sellers, and our buyers' ability to easily find what they are searching for on the site."

Some Shop sellers believe the changes will have a negative effect on the Shop service and have proposed a strike for Tuesday 15 August. An eBay Community group called "Fee Protest Group for Ebay Sellers and Buyers" has 459 members.
more.. link to news article

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

I don't know how much damage the strike will do to ebay. But the real damage is from the media. Because of the strike the media started writing articles about it. So far I have found lots of articles about the strike. Here is a list just from Google News this morning.

myauction · Joined: 24 Jul 2006 Posts: 277

I am also seeing more articles which is a very
good sign. And their stock was down this
morning for awhile but looks like it is going
back up. Likely because they offered the
two day 10 cent listing day for store owners
to pack the auctions thus the auction counts
go up making the stock holders believe all
is well in eBay land.

So for every action taken against eBay, eBay
is ready to counter back.

zacksavenue · Joined: 05 Sep 2005 Posts: 256

My hubbby was somewhere online about a week ago and he was looking at the sell through rate of DVDs on Greedbay. The sell through rate for them was 29%.

DVDs are the hottest selling item on almost any auction site that we have seen and for it to only have a 29% sell through rate on that site is BAD!

Remember this people, for every item that you take down off of this site, their stocks go down.

Wished almost everyone would strike against Greedbay at one time. If you really want to put a huge dent in Meg's pocket, everyone has to join the fight at one time.

JMHO

2BOYSandTOYS · Joined: 14 Mar 2005 Posts: 10095 Location: Kansas

The listings are 'going up' today - I believe cuz of the 2 day promo where you can convert store listings to auction listings (with a CREDIT provided by end of September.... :roll: :D :wink:

I too hope it's going 'well' - the whole 2-day promo, most likely, was put together last minute to 'adjust the numbers for the press'.

Interesting to see which writers can see the forest for the trees on this one!! :wink:

myauction · Joined: 24 Jul 2006 Posts: 277

someone put this link over there on the stores
board and sure looks like the UK were
successful in getting a lot of press.

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&ie=UTF-8&ncl=http://networks.silicon.com/webwatch/0,39024667,39161420,00.htm

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

NPR has contacted me again to do yet another story.

I'm sure you guys remember my last NPR radio broadcast. Also CNN business has contacted me again. I might take CNN up on their offer, but I much rather do a book with my story.

I have pictures of my last National Public Radio broadcast that I'll post here one of these days.

For a moment I thought I was Howard Stern.

too bad they didn't have a fart button. lmao

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

Hey PSU remember the press we got the last time?

Let's do it all over again, I'm game and I have lots of time on my hands.....

Why do I always feel like I'm alone in this battle?

We all hype up a boycott, I even founded www.boycottebay.org and not much happened after our initial boycott. What we need to do is boycott it hard and do it for a longer time.

I spoke to an eBay (powerkissass) today, he told me in these exact words, a boycott is going to be great for business since my competition is going to be on this "boycott" I told him fine and dandy use your Skype to call your customers and tell them how wonderful eBay is, while you're at it have your client send you $5000 via paypal, have verisign power your security on your web-site. I told him if we hit the eBay shoppers with the idea of a boycott, what are the sellers going to sell if there are no shoppers! I admit I'm very outspoken here so what? this is how I am. If everyone here worked together on this issue, we're now what? 3000 strong, last boycott we were less than 500 strong. 3000 people telling 3000 people telling 3000 people eventually millions and millions will notice. Remember that wedding dress on eBay that got 18 million hits? That all started out as one simple email that traveled around the world in less than 24 hours, I took note of that and was the high bidder for 5 of the 7 days it ran, meaning over 15 million people had to see the "triplexotica" name on eBay. Who's to say if we all worked together we couldn't make a difference.

I agree, we're a small group but we have to start somewhere.

Roundabout926 · Joined: 08 Apr 2005 Posts: 2832

Quote: › docWrite("quote")Likely because they offered the
two day 10 cent listing day for store owners
to pack the auctions thus the auction counts
go up making the stock holders believe all
is well in eBay land

I might question that, as I've read investment articles that actually shun the listing discount days, but regard them as a necessary evil.
Quote: › docWrite("quote")
DVDs are the hottest selling item on almost any auction site that we have seen and for it to only have a 29% sell through rate on that site is BAD!

I might question whether or not this is "bad". Considering how many DVD's are probably listed on eBay, and it being an oversaturated market, I might consider 29% good. The only way to tell if this is "bad" is to find out past DVD sell through's for the month of August for previous years. Even then, you'll also want specific numbers. August 2005 might have a 50% sell through on 200 000, where August 2006 could have a 29% on 1 000 000.

pjrcoffee · Joined: 23 Apr 2006 Posts: 634

Roundy, you bring the fresh air of reason to this discussion. Thanks!

HowardH · Joined: 26 Jan 2006 Posts: 159

Ebay is going to yawn at any 'strike'. All those Tuesday 'strikers' will be back on Wednesday anyway. What is needed is some viable competition.

Google may or may not provide an auction site; they won't comment, and my guess is that the 'petition' will have zero effect. Google will do what they want when they want, pretty much in the same style that they have done everything else to date.

Personally, I think that the business model currently in use at eBay is doomed, but eBay is too big to die very quickly. The combination of GoogleBase, Froogle, and Google Checkout (even though not quite ready for prime time) has the potential for sweeping eBay into the dustbin of history, provided eBay doesn't come up with a better business model.

Ebay has become a fraud-magnet, and they've gotten too big to effectively enforce their own rules. They can't seem to find the folks with 1-cent BIN and $200 shipping, although they managed to shut down ALL of the fee-hike protest auctions in less than 24 hours.

About 99% of the stuff currently on eBay is commodity junk sold by large-volume peddlers, so they can't effectively return to their roots (the individual seller looking for a low-friction marketplace). So eBay is going to be associated with the "expensive firewood" violins and other mass-market junk for the foreseeable future. Very little of what is currently on eBay is even suited to the auction format.

I find that even though I sell less on blujay.com, I get to keep more, and it's a lot less work. I'm in the process of shutting down my eBay store, and I will list only one or two items on eBay at a time, just so that I can tell each of my buyers about the better selection and prices on blujay.com. I have a little blurb about blujay that goes out with every order. Word of mouth, one at a time. If you have a favorite non-eBay site, tell your eBay customers about it with every item shipped -- THAT's how to impact eBay.

KikiandFriends · Joined: 11 Aug 2006 Posts: 101

I plan to "Shut Down" My Ebay Store for a Month or Two out of Protest by 11:59 pm EST on August 21, 2006 and I will not sell anything on Ebay in any format in my protest and wish others will join me. I don't understand the Boycott before the 22nd. I think a MONTH LONG Protest USA Wide and if we can get other countries to join us would be like turning the lights out for Ebay! Maybe then they would get the message that Store Sellers PAY THEM MONTHLY and We are NOT HAPPY!! Core sellers can list Whenever they wish, go on vacation, etc and it won't matter...They Pay NOTHING when they list NOTHING! They also don't put the work into the Categories, Colors, Cross-Promotions, etc. that the Store Owners do!
Join Me...BOYCOTT EBAY for ON MONTH by 11:59 PM EST Aug. 21st! spread the WORD......
KikiandFriends

Oninoakuma · Joined: 10 Aug 2006 Posts: 31

KikiandFriends wrote (View Post): › docWrite("quote")I plan to "Shut Down" My Ebay Store for a Month or Two out of Protest by 11:59 pm EST on August 21, 2006 and I will not sell anything on Ebay in any format in my protest and wish others will join me. I don't understand the Boycott before the 22nd. I think a MONTH LONG Protest USA Wide and if we can get other countries to join us would be like turning the lights out for Ebay! Maybe then they would get the message that Store Sellers PAY THEM MONTHLY and We are NOT HAPPY!! Core sellers can list Whenever they wish, go on vacation, etc and it won't matter...They Pay NOTHING when they list NOTHING! They also don't put the work into the Categories, Colors, Cross-Promotions, etc. that the Store Owners do!
Join Me...BOYCOTT EBAY for ON MONTH by 11:59 PM EST Aug. 21st! spread the WORD......
KikiandFriends

kiki if my amazon sales keep up like they have been since i opened my account with them nine days ago. Ill join you on that crusade.

obvious · Joined: 16 Aug 2006 Posts: 1

As posted elsewhere ;-)

Anyone interested in getting google to become a proper eBay competitor should take a look/sign up/comment at :-

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/auctionplease
Big news already :- http://news.google.co.uk/news?hl=en&ned=uk&ie=UTF-8&ncl=http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2006/08/16/ebay_sellers/
http://www.digg.com/tech_news/Traders_boycott_eBay#
http://powersellersunite.com/