EBay Shows Sellers the exit Door

[BetsySchiffman]

We heard from lots of angry eBay sellers yesterday who passionately argued that the boycott --which began on Feb. 18 -- is delivering a serious blow to the online auction site.

Many commenters pointed to listings data from third-party sites that illustrate a significant decline in activity on eBay over the last four days.  We've also heard a variety of arguments as to why listings aren't down more dramatically -- including several sellers' theory that listings are being artificially inflated by eBay with test bids. (An eBay spokesman refused to comment, calling the notion "absurd.")

Still, it's not clear that a migration of sellers -- even if there are thousands of them -- will lead eBay to reverse the changes made to the fee structure and feedback system.

eBay is already anticipating a modest hit as a result of the changes -- management warned during last quarter's earnings conference call that it expects its margins -- as well as its take from transactions -- to drop as a result of the fee structure change.

"[We] believe the modest take rate reduction will more than pay for itself over time as we stimulate long-term growth in our marketplace," said CFO Bob Swan, during a conference call on Jan. 23.

And as the company grows its business in new directions -- and increases emphasis on fixed-price sales -- it's reasonable to assume that eBay made the conscious choice to scale back on the part of its business it couldn't control, especially since it hopes to replicate the level of customer service provided at Amazon.com.

"My [eBay] account manager told me to evaluate Amazon as an alternative," one seller told us a couple weeks ago.

It may have been a reasonable suggestion.

[wowo]

BULLS**T!
that is right way
I buy a lot of stuff on Ebay and in the past I have come across some really shonky sellers. out of 6 sellers
I gave neutral feedback 5 of them gave me negative feedback just to spite me for not giving them postitive feedback.
Ah and you guessed it -They were ALL from HONG KONG!
So my guess is Don't bid on anything located in China or Hong Kong.

[corbet]

Well Auction site eBay has been suffering at the hands of an online protest over a change in how it charges sellers for listing and selling goods. The change has resulted in a substantial increase in costs for sellers.

The changes lowered the initial fees for sellers to list items on eBay, but increased the commission charged on completed sales. Additionally, the feedback system was altered to eliminate the negative feedback on buyers option, making it tougher to weed out sneaky or dishonest buyers.

eBay has faced boycotts before, but none approaching the scale of the current one. Thanks to protest related activities on sites such as MySpace and Facebook, eBay sellers have been able to better organize and encourage each other to stick with the boycott.

Since the boycott started on February 18,, listings on eBay have dropped 13 percent to about 13 million items. Nancy Baughman, an eBay retailer taking part in the strike, says if she and the other activists can get the number of listings down to 12 million, then they will have made a very significant dent in the online auction house's business.

[debra]

Well not agree with there act, however ebay sellers already reduced 7% which is bad news for ebay and ebay share holders