eBay foresees tough year ahead - Sellers revolt impacted on business?
By Dave Parrack
eBay has been in the news of late, and much of it has been due to users becoming disillusioned with the service. The company has now published an annual report, and it seems it is becoming increasingly worried about the growing risks to its business over the coming year.
eBay recently suffered its first full sellers revolt, as millions of once loyal traders decided to boycott the site after controversial changes were made to fees and policies.
These changes meant that the cost of selling items on eBay had increased across the board, and on the odd (or regular, depending on your luck) occasion that a sale went wrong, a tedious and long winded investigation took place rather than the visual, and very simple feedback system.
Towards the end of the week long boycott, it was reported that the site had experienced at least a 13% drop in auctions due to the boycott, which for a site the size of eBay, would have a huge impact on business.
According to Yahoo! News, eBay has now published its annual shareholder filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and there are a number of concerns already being cited for the health of the business over the coming twelve months.
“We face challenges in the U.S., U.K. and Germany, which are our three largest markets, as growth of listings, active users and GMV on the eBay.com platform in those countries has slowed.”
GMV stands for Gross Merchandise Volume, the total value of goods and services sold on eBay sites, which is clearly taking a downward turn of late. As eBay relies on transactions for its revenue, that is a big threat to its profits.
eBay does acknowledge the policy and fees changes, and realises that they haven’t proven to be popular with the general user.
“If these changes cause sellers to move their business away from our sites or otherwise fail to improve gross merchandise volume or the number of successful listings, our operating results and profitability will be harmed.”
eBay is one of those sites that seemed destined to grow, and add customers for as long as you could imagine, but a combination of viable alternatives for buyers and sellers, and some misguided business decisions, that now seems over. eBay growth is slowing down substantially, and unless the company do something soon to appease current users, as well as entice new users to the site, that will carry on being the case.
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March 1st, 2008
Sure ebay came out with a report like this because they got busted for padding their listing numbers like this ________________> http://blog.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/blog/blog.pl?/comments/2008/3/1204379814.html
March 1st, 2008
MILLIONS of once-loyal traders? How did you arrive at this number exactly? Dozens is a more likely figure.
eBay traffic monitoring sites show no noticeable impact, except a spike due to a promotion that week.
March 1st, 2008
DOZENS? Maybe wishful thinking-there is a noticeable impact. Check the stock prices. Check the sell through stats. And see what sellers items are goping for and what they are saying. The changes ebay has made will eliminate small sellers-and most auction format sellers. Which it sort of appears was the desired result. Welcome to the new Emart
March 2nd, 2008
People for some reason don’t keep up with the real world !!
Padding the numbers was proven once again , ebay is in trouble even though some out there don’t want to face the truth .
As more people learn what the new fees really are and the rights they are losing , they are swarming to the forums where they are being helped by other refugees who have stayed behind to help with the mass exodus that is still taking place to sites like ola,ecrater and countless others !
The full damage may never be known as long as you have a company that feeds the numbers they want their stockholders to see , and admits no guilt , I for one can’t say MILLIONS , but I can say so far , I have seen thousands ! There are off of ebay chat sites where they have gathered , waiting , to see if a change takes place !! But , they are also joining other sites , some are starting to make sales , others are not , but remember one thing , ebay was small once too . You may see another giant build before your eyes , and another fall to it’s knees if it does’nt change it’s evil ways and fire a few people !!!
My stores are closed , I will never trust ebay again , nor should anyone else out there ever put all of their eggs in one basket , It’s time to create your other options people !!!
March 2nd, 2008
It’s time to stop FeeBay - join the revolt:
http://www.ebayboycott.info
May 24th, 2008
I agree -stop ebay now - theiving pirates and charlatans - choose an alternative TODAY!!!!!