Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : eBay - Superb Internet Business Model -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Glenn Petersen who wrote (7631)	1/18/2009 5:46:24 PM
From: Thomas A Watson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7772

Glenn, the deterioration of ebay numbers is also caused by the fact that ebay sellers all despise ebay more and more every day. As of few days ago it became forbidden to put in one's listing one would accept checks or money orders. And if you do and ebay finds it, they remove the listing. This will eliminate some number of folks from using ebay. 2% currenly pay with money orders from my almost 1000 sales. But the con game of detailed seller ratings(DSR) which are a way to dupe buyers into creating data to ebay can deny promised discounts off the 11% final values on sale price is really dirtbag. I am a power seller and this is my tracking of DSRs given me. ebay.homeip.net I created a DSR spread sheet and html file to compute DSR ratings as buyers withhold stars. ebay.homeip.net DSR are obscene, an anonymous rating system where someone for no reason ever given the seller withholds stars whose average is used to give priority to where and if one's listing will show up in searches and also for ebay to deny the promised 40% discounts on final value fees. That for me was 200 bucks for the month of December. It is also used to revoke an ebay member listing privileges thus preventing them from selling at all. Truth being stranger then fiction. In November while I had about 25 listings in my store all that had free USPS priority shipping in the price, my listing privilege was suspended as my DSR for Shipping and handling costs fell below the suspension threshold. The other day a buyer gave my 3 out of 5 stars for shipping and handling costs for and item that had free priority mail shipping in the price. Now that is abject stupidity running ebay.

To: Glenn Petersen who wrote (7631)	1/22/2009 4:23:36 PM
From: Doren	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 7772

Some of the decline is likely the result of the declining economy. NONSENSE - The economy should be HELPING ebay. It's due to screwing it's customers and associates. It claims fixed pricing is killing it. NOPE. Half.com, once the king of used music and books, has been decimated due to mismanagement. Meg started this. It's been a long time coming. Message #7632 from Thomas A Watson at 1/18/2009 5:46:24 PM Glenn, the deterioration of ebay numbers is also caused by the fact that ebay sellers all despise ebay more and more every day. Totally agree but it's also buyers who hate them. Hate and despise are not strong enough words for ebay management. They HAVE made one very large improvement in bidding but they are so INCOMPETENT that it's hard for even intelligent people to understand what they did. Message #7633 from Glenn Petersen at 1/21/2009 5:20:38 PM In the meantime, Amazon continues to hit on all cylinders: NOPE. Sorry to say Amazon has new management in the IS department. In the past few months they've made some incredibly bone headed decisions. So far the results have not shown themselves but it only a matter of time like it was with ebay. - They've hired arrogant Web 2.0 coders and recoded the site so now it runs like molasses on a cold day. If you doubt their arrogance download the code from a page and look at the last comment in the file. I downloaded a page of code and pasted it into a word file... it was 250 pages of 12pt for ONE page of web code. Crashes or locks up my Firefox browser with circular code all the time. There is no appreciable advantages to the code change to sellers or buyers. - They've switched to Flash 9 for music previews... for no apparent reason except it's "the latest." I, and many others, cannot install Flash 9 at this time due to incompatibility. This effectively prevents 10% of their clients from previewing music. THIS IS PROGRESS? Duh. - All feedback 1 - 4 is now counted as negative. Only feedback with a 5 is counted as positive. I've gotten ROSY feedback from clients with a 4 rating counted as negative. Great just make all your good sellers look bad for no reason. - Here is the main reason you should be wary. The lower echelon people are playing the "See No Evil" game. In other words complaints are handled with "that's not happening" replies. They claim the new feedback rules have made no change. This means that management is not willing to listen at all. In fact employees IMHO are afraid to report anything negative to management. How stupid can you get? There are more problems. Suffice it to say, the management change is not working well. Sigh. Same with Google! CRAIGS is working well.