eb*y write up in the times

[flyingtigercat]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/com...cle6823840.ece


I expect most people here will agree it's accurate

[deltadelta48]

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/sathnam_sanghera/article6823840.ece


I expect most people here will agree it's accurate

Wow, wow, and wow! They hit the nail right on the head!!

Jim Collins' new book How the Mightly Fall, outlines how to make your company smash and burn:

1. become arrogant
2. begin an undisciplined pursuit of more $
3. deny there is any danger is extending too far ("what can happen?")
4. inability to face brutal facts and work on solutions. Optimism is not enough for survival.

Should we take bets when the mightly feebay falls??

.

[moonwitch]

I don't particularly want feebay to fall

I sell most days on there...I reckon I can wait until an alternative site can generate at least the sales I get from there now...and some.

The article doesn't reflect in any way, my feebay trading experiences.

[MagnetsAndHangers]

What a load of absolute tosh.

Quite obviously written by someone who has the IQ of a gnat.

Bear in mind he has stated that knowledge of HTML is needed to list items there.
Garbage.

He has stated that it is complicated to bid for items, or to receive payments.
If you are a buyer....
Umm...click on the ''bid'' button, and put your amount in.
Wow - that was complicated huh?

If you are a seller....
Receive an email from paypal stating you have received a payment.
Still so dang complicated huh?

quote
it offers the most frustrating technological experience this side of trying to load a computer game on to your toaster.
unquote
For some reason, it wouldnt surprise me one bit if he actually tried this.

quote
I am pretty sure that the seller was bidding against me with a fake *Bay account to drive up the price.
unquote
Not only a few cents short of being the full dollar, he appears to be rather paranoid too.

Am not going to go through the rest of it - basically because I believe he took a dose of Exlax, and this is what came out.

Ok - Feebay aint perfect, and it doesnt work for everyone - but - my sales are up this year (and am only a small time seller) and it pays my bills.

The guy sounds like a disgruntled seller or buyer - like many we get in here. No worse - no better.

[moonwitch]

I've posted that link on my Facebook page...it will be interesting what they think of it there.

I think that writer lives in the twilight zone

[westlondoncarparts]

This article has the feel of having been written by somebody who read various forum postings around the internet by way of desk research and letting that influence the shape of the article.

It is incorrect to say that you need to know HTML to draft a listing on the eBay system. You can draft up in a word processing document and then copy and paste into the eBay system. EBay’s WYSIWYG works and really is What You See (as you draft) Is What You Get (when the draft goes live). It is actually rather good.

Not correct to say that eBay has spent so much time worrying about Skype and PayPal that it has taken its eye off the ball with its core business. Whether people like the changes or not that have taken place on eBay over recent years, the uncontrolled growth that eBay experienced earlier resulted in a lot of people selling on eBay who were scammers or whose presentation on listings was inadequate or whose fulfillment and customer care was dreadful. EBay had to do something to get those people off its site otherwise its brand image would have been tarnished forever. I suspect that EBay’s investment in customer service and quality standards on the site whilst it was growing so rapidly was well behind the curve and eBay has had to invest management time subsequently to put things right and to make the site a better place for buyers. EBay senior management are on record as saying that they never expected eBay to grow so fast in those years which means it is likely that they did not have the necessary corporate infrastructure in place to deal with quality control. EBay has got to where it now is by intention of the corporate management, not because of taking its eye off the ball with Skype and Paypal. People can take a view about whether eBay could have done things differently and should be in a much different position now. They can like or dislike where eBay is now. However, eBay is still by far the largest C2C beast in its sector and is growing its B2C business and does deliver buying visitor traffic volume.

Some products are better suited to fixed price listings rather than auction format which has now been recognized by eBay. Also, an increased proportion of fixed price listings helps eBay to compete more effectively with other sites that offer fixed pricing and which were not around during eBay’s years of rapid growth. If eBay ignored the fixed price competition the same people who criticise it for increasing the proportion of fixed price listings would probably criticise eBay the other way round and say that eBay was not recognising the business threat from fixed prices elsewhere on the internet.

[kengillam]

It is interesting that eb*y has seen a decline in auctions as it appears to positions itself to be a sort of retail outfit, trying to emulate Amazon. When it started few people bought on-line, and thus person to person trading had a certain appeal, plus the novelty of bidding on an auction which was probably a new experience for most. As folk have become more relaxed about buying online they are happy to buy from anywhere and instantly as opposed to dipping a toe in the water with an auction where they may not even have to actually buy the item.

Greedbay is a less pleasurable experience than many on line retailers, Amazon for example. It is feeling the pressure, having driven away many of it's smaller users, who used to sell and also buy, hence the decline, the share price is the indication of the trouble it is in.

[Teddyrose54]

Ebay and The Times~ the two words most readers will remember, and probably the only words they will remember~

Any publicity is good publicity~

[klj]

I thought the author sounded exactly like someone who had not been on feebay for some time. It has changed. It is different. There are more steps - especially to the search function - and if you used to use the site, quit, came back, it could be confusing.
The point about it's marketing position seems quite valid to me as well.

[BLOXBOOKS]

Oh what, poor feebay, its terrible a news paper would print anything other than how perfect. honest and stuffed to bursting point with virtue feebay is, maybe feebay need to form their own militia so they can deal with anyone who says they are not perfect, but until then maybe Blackwater could fill the gap........