eBay Jumped The Shark
Mostly, I haven't covered the changes because it is a bit of old news--eBay making inexplicable changes that the sellers (and many buyers!) don't want. Partly, it is because the changes occurred at the height of my reporting on new dolls from IDEX and Toy Fair. But, mostly, it is because, for me, eBay "jumped the shark" back in 2006 when, instead of embracing eBay Stores as the direction of eBay and it's future (which was evident) they instead desperately tried to go back to the past and pump up their dying auction format.
As a casual observer (and not someone paid a few hundred thousand or million dollars to actually run eBay) it was completely evident to me (and many others) that this was the wrong direction. It was, and here we are, two years later, and eBay is again making a hash of things, much of it to help correct their self-inflicted wounds that have festered since 2006.
More Misguided Changes
Of course, eBay being eBay, they've added even more misguided changes this time, so if they hadn't officially jumped the shark in 2006, I think they've truly gone and done it this time. The worst of the changes is Best Match, their new default search which will enable you to find absolutely nothing if you are a doll collector interested in vintage or antique dolls, and a mess of stuff you may or may not be interested in if you collect modern dolls. Best Match was created by an eBay management that thinks buyers are idiots--that we can't use a perfectly good keyword search to find exactly what we want. On top of that, eBay is making it so sellers cannot leave negative feedback (buyers may like that now, but they won't when they see how it will overall tear down sellers reputations, leaving them confused, and also leaving them with much less satisfaction in their own feedback ratings). Finally, eBay is continuing to rely on their flawed DSR (Detailed Star Rating) system to rank and reward sellers. Did I mention another fee increase disguised as a fee decrease? If eBay REALLY wanted to decrease fees, they would have lowered their ridiculous insertion fees (a correct and needed move, with so many auctions not selling) and NOT raised the back-end fees paid by a seller when an item sells--often now close to 10% of a sale.
The eBay Boycott Was Doomed To Failure
Predictably, eBay sellers went wild in reaction to the new round of changes. Many of them boycotted by not selling items for a week. It was a given that the boycott would have "no impact" on eBay thanks to eBay's refusal to release true listing totals, and thanks to a fee sale that would overlap the boycott PLUS a reduction in media sellers fees that coincided with the boycott. The eBay Forum Boards plus most media articles with comments have also been ablaze with criticism since the changes were announced.
A Less Robust Community of Buyers and Sellers
Where does this leave eBay? With an increasingly less and less robust community of sellers and therefore, an increasingly less and less robust (and profitable) company. As an eBay seller and buyer myself, I never fully recovered from the 2006 changes, and I have not felt the same about eBay, or the same sense of community (and fun) on eBay since. These 2008 changes continue the wrong path for eBay, as management, from its ivory towers, continue to tear down and destroy the greatest eCommerce site in the history of the Internet. What made eBay great? The community. Plus, the fact, that if you collected anything at all, eBay was THE place to be. The ONLY place to be.
Is It Too Late For eBay To Change?
So, as you can see, with such strong feelings, not to mention my attitude of "more of the same" from my poor, shark-jumped eBay, I decided to wait a good month before making my editorial comments, hoping, somewhere, that eBay would recant even one of these bad decisions (Best Match? No Negative Feedback? DSRs? Fee Increase?...) so that, instead of an article expressing sadness that eBay still continues down the wrong garden path, I could have reported that they were heading down the right path once again.
Unfortunately, that didn't happen, so here I am, feeling like a broken record reporting the same type of bad news I reported in 2006.
In The Interest of Full Disclosure
In the interest of full disclosure, I am a current PowerSeller on eBay, as well as an active eBay buyer. I've been a registered user on eBay since 1996, and I have conducted many seminars for doll sellers and buyers around the nation on how to use eBay.
