eBay and Buy accused of artificially inflating auction listing numbers
By Dave Parrack
eBay has had a pretty tumultuous year so far, with a sellers revolt, legal blows, an increased level of competition, and a general downturn in business. However, you wouldn’t know any of this from the listing numbers over the past few months, which are up year after year. That begs this question: is eBay artificially inflating the figures?
Back in February, eBay faced its first seller’s revolt over the changes to listing fees and the feedback system. The result was that millions of once-loyal customers stopped trading on the site for a week, and many never found their way back, instead switching to other services, which though similar, were offering a fairer trading floor to conduct business on..
In March, eBay published its annual shareholder filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and the company admitted growth was slowing down and that there could be tough times ahead.
However, according to an article on Read Write Web, the number of auctions listings at eBay hasn’t actually dropped at all. Independent tracking firm MedVed.net shows that year after year, the numbers are actually up.
There could be an explanation for this staring us in the face, but it’s not one that eBay would be quick to admit, as it shows a certain amount of underhandedness on its part.
eBay recently signed a partnership with Buy.com, which meant that from May onwards, listings for the online retailer appeared on eBay. These aren’t small numbers we’re talking about either, with around 500,000 items thought to be listed on the site at any one time by Buy.
Unfortunately, as some eagle-eyed eBay users over on the company’s forums have noted, not all of these listings actually contain any items. A fair portion of the listings appear in searches labelled as “New”, and though indicating potential buyers would be bidding on a new item, there is actually no indication of what that item is, if indeed it exists at all.
This means that the listing numbers are potentially being manipulated, whether intentionally or otherwise, which would result in any financial reports on the state of the business being incorrect. This could dramatically affect shareholders’ intentions for the site and whether or not they want to hold stock in the company.
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June 14th, 2008
Please also be aware of listing specials. Ebay has had quite a few of those and they always produce listings from those who cant figure out they really cost you more. Also before buy came their were thousands of listings from a Seller who turned out to be shopping dot com. Same problematic listings as buy’s are now. When they were discovered they were immediately removed and denied by ebay as having even existed, then when proof showed up they were there they were called by one had a glitch and the other hand a test that had run it’s course. ebay is playing fast and loose in many ways. Not unlike a child will push you too the limit, they have gotten away with too much for far to long. They just didnt count on their users being every bit as and in most cases smarter than they are.
June 14th, 2008
Dave, that is not the half of it. We have uncoverd tens of thousands more listings that were listed, they were then ended, stating they were “No longer available”, then they immediately relisted them. To find the items, you will need to go to BUY’s completed items list, which you can find here:
http://search-completed.ebay.com/search/search.dll?GetResult&seller=1&dfsp=1&fgtp=&sofocus=unknown&sabfmts=1&saprclo=&saprchi=&sabdlo=&ftrv=1&sabdhi=&fis=2&ftrt=1&fsop=1%26fsoo%3D1&sass=buy&satitle=&sbrftog=1&sacat=-1%26catref%3DC6&guest=1
Once there, you will have to go backwards til you reach the ads, that ended at exactly 19:25 PDT on June 9th and it goes as far back as 14:02 PDT on the same day. Meaning that they were ending listings, for 5 and a half hours and then they were immediately relisting them. We assume they were ending them, so they wouldn’t affect the sell through rate and then relisting them again to up the listing count, two fold.
This is the first batch I found and I will be going through them, to find more and will keep you alerted.
This has to be against the law and if it isn’t, I feel that the stockholders, should at least know, what’s going on.
June 14th, 2008
also look at these test auctions. and if they are legit why so many
http://cgi.liveauctions.ebay.com/03-Test-Auction-DO-NOT-BID_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ28291QQihZ023QQitemZ360060226304QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW
June 15th, 2008
Hammer Time.
What tricks and gimicks are next? Is there a rabbit in eBays hat? Is this a marketing or business arrangement experiment, or is this a very disturbing and sinister version of company value manipulation? Is there going to be yet another secretary document shredding investigation?
It may appear suspicious that eBay would form a business arrangement with Buy.com at the same time as the implementation of the controversial reputation and revenue damaging feedback policies.
Whether or not management is “padding the numbers”, (with questionable Buy listings), in a veiled attempt to keep up appearances, allowing time for new empowered buyers to gather is debatable. Whether or not there is a solid case against eBay for the Better Business Bureau, the FTC, the SEC, the Attorney General or a class action lawsuit, or even a criminal prosecution is a matter to be very seriously pondered. Whether or not John Donohoe will ever face justice, whether or not these policies constitute a criminal act, whether anyone is liable for irreparable harm is yet to be determined.
Seemingly beyond an attempt to “cook the books”, these combined policy decisions may appear to be the opposite of a “pump and dump” investment scheme, - a “bear attack”- (an attempt to drive down the value of company stock,) and bears close scrutiny.
If this is not a clumsily masterminded conspiracy, or misleading and deceptive practices, or some attempt to monopolize certain category sales for under the table profit, then what is it?
Is leadership on the line with an attempt to defraud investors while the company poses to repurchase an announced 1.9 billion dollars worth of company stock, and is this going to become headline news?
If there comes an announcement at the Live! convention of the cancellation of the questionable Buy.com agreement, if there is a sudden rollback of the feedback policies all this will just be coincidence and management comes out smelling like a rose, right?
Wrong.
When the gavel drops, company reputation, member trust and potential revenue have been wasted. The rising global flood of competition grows, steadily eroding this pathetic sand castle.
Obviously at the very least, these decisions will be the focus of investigation and study by students of economics and law, by business law specialists and by media now and for many years to come.
Until proper member safeguards are adopted, from the perspective of countless users, eBay company reputation is no better than that of their worst member.
google this to find it: froliky
June 17th, 2008
eBay management is hypnotizing with one hand while picking pockets with the other.
June 18th, 2008
No rose among thorns now at eBay. 1 hand hypnotizes while the other fleeces. A Venus Flytrap. A Pandoras box. A beautiful horse that bucks the rider. A race car that suddenly goes backwards & the door wont close. A cute new puppy that poos before the leash is on. A beautiful museum and the door is always left open. Member protections, safety, security should be the reins that keep the cart to the horse. To be a great warehouse that holds only promise?
June 18th, 2008
Why does Buy have so much holiday stuff being listed?