What started out as a wonderful buy and sell marketplace for the unique and unusual has been tweaked beyond recognition.
Year by year, change by change, small sellers of vintiques and collectibles get squeezed out in favor of high volume sellers selling 50,000 packages of imported socks in a single fixed price listing.
I guess the ultimate goal is to turn eBay into Amazon. But we already have an Amazon … and we really, truly miss the old eBay — the simple to use, fun to browse, easy to buy at old eBay. In my opinion, the high-flying CEO, John Donahoe, took a great thing and broke it.
My past sales on eBay were minimal. I was never a big seller by any stretch, but I enjoyed using it both as a seller and as a buyer. I think this is where Mr. Donahoe made a really bad calculation. All those thousands of small time sellers the company treats so badly, who he wishes would go away? Yeah. We were also shoppers and buyers on eBay who now avoid the site like the plague.
It’s sad to watch a once wonderful business turn into something unrecognizable. However, it’s par for the course, isn’t it? The cool Indiepreneur business sells to – or becomes – a big corporation which then hires a CEO determined (tasked?) to get double-digit growth next quarter … no matter what, and the changes that are made end up destroying the very essence of what made the business successful in the first place. Modern mega-corporations aren’t satisfied with a steady 5% growth each year. Nope. That’s just not good enough for stock prices. Why is that?
What brought on this rant, you ask? Well, I’ve been following this year’s drastic changes at eBay via Auction Bytes and reading the comments of the remaining small sellers. I feel for them, many of whom are just trying to earn a living and/or supplement their incomes.
How long has it been since you just browsed the listings? And how long has it been since you actually bought anything on it?
I wonder because I have remaining inventory from my eshop I had planned to list closer to the holidays. Is it even worth the fees and my time?
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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
I still buy on ebay but its harder to find the little gems. I hope the small sellers stick around.
What I will say is that I find smaller sellers to be the worst offenders of overcharging for shipping. So that is a big turnoff.
Mrslimestone´s last blog ..A little more Brooklyn.