Is Ebay Boycott for real?

Sellers are planning to boycott eBay beginning February 18, 2008, in protest of changes eBay announced January 29, 2008, around feedback, fees, seller standards and Best Match search - changes that, taken in total, many sellers believe will jeopardize their ability to sell successfully on eBay.

eBay took two actions last week that will hinder the ability for outsiders to analyze the impact of a boycott. eBay launched a listing promotion on Wednesday that carries over to the 20th, and it lowered listing fees for media sellers effective the 20th. (Lower insertion fees for all sellers also kick in on February 20th, but that was known before the boycott organizers set the date.) These two actions may make it difficult for outsiders to measure the effect of the boycott, but eBay itself will be able to analyze the full impact.

In the past, sellers considering a boycott worried about two things: non-boycotting sellers benefiting from less competition on eBay, and a desire not to hurt the marketplace on which they depend for a living. This year is different, however. eBay is making changes that cause many sellers to question whether they'll be able to depend on eBay for a living going forward. Many believe the boycott is their one chance to get the attention of eBay management before the changes roll out.

AuctionBytes surveyed readers about eBay's announced changes. 1,640 readers took the survey. 90% of respondents said that, overall, the changes to feedback are bad.

Buyers and sellers have always felt eBay's feedback policy could use improvement, but eBay seriously hurt the system when it introduced the Mutual Feedback Withdrawal (MFW) policy. Members - including subpar sellers - learned to exploit MFW, particularly when eBay rolled out its modified Seller Non Performance Policy in 2007. (eBay Trust & Safety addressed increased use of MFW in this interview.)

While 90 percent of sellers who took the AuctionBytes survey said they believed the changes eBay that will introduce in May are bad overall, it's clear that few are happy with the current system. But rather than take away sellers' ability to leave negative and neutral feedback for buyers, I believe eBay should fix the MFW policy and do more to vet buyers and sellers before allowing them to transact on the site.

Sellers have complained to eBay about their poorly performing colleagues for years and asked eBay to implement a system of seller verification. eBay's full Board of Directors, including eBay Founder and Chairperson of the Board Pierre Omidyar, heard those requests at eBay's 2006 annual meeting.

Now, eBay is finally acknowledging the problem of bad sellers on its site, but its solution throws the baby out with the bathwater, punishing good sellers as well as bad. As usual, good eBay sellers take the full brunt of the changes.

What I'm hearing from a sellers is not, can we afford to boycott eBay for a week, but rather, can we afford to continue selling on eBay once these changes roll out?

look at the year. it happened in 2008

and I would recommend to anyone to also run a fully independent online store beside Ebay. Ebay can block your account from one moment to another for no reason at all.

laki88 said:

look at the year. it happened in 2008

and I would recommend to anyone to also run a fully independent online store beside Ebay. Ebay can block your account from one moment to another for no reason at all.

Click to expand...

That's why using multiple accounts and covering your tracks will help you stay under their radar.

Their ever renewing policies are not at all friendly to the sellers, paypal and ebay fees are exhorbinent. They did bad compared to Amazon last year, seriously they really have to do something right.

Yet another reason to only use ebay as supplemental sales, not your main method of sales.

invisibleme said:

Their ever renewing policies are not at all friendly to the sellers, paypal and ebay fees are exhorbinent. They did bad compared to Amazon last year, seriously they really have to do something right.

Click to expand...

Indeed ebay needs to turn things around, the worse they do financially, the more the raise fees, and the more they raise fees, the worse the do financially.
memo to ebay: raising fees is not always the answer.

Yet they're still manage to dominate the online auctions market. I guess brand name is everything nowadays :/

Its all been part of a plan to eliminate the smaller sellers folks. They cant make as much money servicing millions of sales transactions as they can for the big sellers doing huge volumnes... Same way in the real world and that is why you do not see many little
Mom and Pop stores on Main Street anymore. Its all about making money and being profitable. eBay originally sounded so great that the little guy could compete with the giants.. but the trend now is.. too bad small seller your gonna die the similar death of the brick and mortar stores of the world.

ebay sucks balls, hate it and paypal hope it goes down and google comes out with something to blow it out the water.

Yeh ebay sucks, they will ban you for anything, and will not even give you a chance to reinstate your case and reopen your account. Why do you think many sellers have po box addresses on ebay? Because their real address has gotten banned in the past with an older account and to register again they had to get different addres (or a po box)

first of all, ebay is so big that even if 1000 people boycott for one day it won't make a difference, they won't even feel it. There making millions and millions of dollars, that one day its pennies to them.

Second, the us economy is so fucked up right now that people will do anything to make money and support their family, right now 10% of american citizens do not have a job.

Third, boycotts on ebay has not worked before and it will not work now, especially in these conditions. They know whats going on and they might raise the fees because they know how desperate so many people are in making money.

DON'T GET ME WRONG, I HATE EBAY JUST AS MUCH AS THE NEXT PERSON, BUT LETS BE REALISTIC HERE
WE LIVE IN A VERY REAL WORLD WITH REAL PROBLEMS....
JUST MY 0.02​

ebay will burn you without so much as bating an eye. My advise to you is to have plan a, plan b, plan c, and plan d in place so when not if that day comes you are prepared.

Multiple accounts is the ticket. one paypal and one ebay for each. you cant half step or you will feel the devils rage. Burn them out of as many fees as you can if they attempt to bring down your empire. make sure the bank accounts you have attached to ebay and or paypal have 2 accounts one saving and one checking this way you can move your money out of the account linked with paypal or ebay from the checking to the savings as soon as the money hits the account (ebay/paypal will only have access to one of them) giving paypal or ebay the shaft if they try to burn you. Never leave anything that you are not willing to loose in your paypal account. ebay/paypal will not try and charge your credit card because you can dispute the charge if they do charge it without your conscent, but they will try and reach into your bank accounts and take what they can get. So NEVER ever keep money in your bank accout thats linked to paypal. and when buying something using paypal ALWAYS fund with a credit card because there buyer protection is a crock of shit!! it is just as bad as the seller protection!!

I suggest to everyone that is an ebay seller and have good credit, get yourself a citibank mastercard. If you don't understand why just do a google search for virtual account numbers and you will understand. Just don't share this info with too many people or it will ruin it.

If this was helpful to you some thanks would be nice. eBay is easy to get back on. there is only 3 or 4 things you need to change and your back up and running.

I love reading about year old boycotts. Just shows how effective they were.

I hope there is another boycott!!!

is ebay dying?

mrpatel786 said:

is ebay dying?

Click to expand...

John Donahoe is pretty much driving the company into the ground...
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10147281-93.html

mrpatel786 said:

is ebay dying?

Click to expand...

Not a chance in hell. They'll own the friggin world before it is over, and try to charge you a breathing fee.

There are so many hardcore powerful man in here, why can't we set up another site that better than eBay? We should grab this chance. We set up something like them, but with better features.

mahfot said:

There are so many hardcore powerful man in here, why can't we set up another site that better than eBay? We should grab this chance. We set up something like them, but with better features.

Click to expand...

lol
there are millions or auction sites out there that thought the same thing, but didn't get to far.

ebay invested millions and millions of dollars into the site, do you have money like that to put up on a site?

It's always the same thing with the competition... Catch-22.

You have to have buyers to get the sellers. The primary problem with that is you need Sellers to have something the buyers want in the first place. With new auction sites neither seemed to happen. Thousands have tried it.

ebay has a monopoly on internet selling for individuals. If you want to sell something online the first thing anyone thinks of is ebay so they can raise thier prices and get away with it. It is completely unfair and ridiculous but then again if i was them I would do the same exact thing.

richkid said:

ebay has a monopoly on internet selling for individuals. If you want to sell something online the first thing anyone thinks of is ebay so they can raise thier prices and get away with it. It is completely unfair and ridiculous but then again if i was them I would do the same exact thing.

Click to expand...

That is the exact mentality that ebay seems to have which is why their income has dropped 30% when amazon has risen 10%. eBay is not the only place for individuals to sell something online to a huge audience. There are two huge alternatives, Amazon Marketplace & Craigslist.

eBay is failing to adapt.