eBay: an eCommerce case study in how not to treat your core users

Having followed the eBay story since its early days when in the UK it was a poor man's alternative to Yahoo UK auctions, I am keen to know just what the rest of DP think about recent changes.

It seems as if eBay's policy changes essentially as one commentator put it, "amount to nothing more than reaaranging the deck chairs on the Titanic". Chasing fixed price listings and ignoring its core users with higher fee charges simply begs belief. It is clear they are chasing Amazon's share but going about it with such a contemptuous attitude toward your own members seems suicidal. Would it not have been more prudent to split the business, in some way, thus retaining the core auction model?

 

eBay's growth is stagnated. They are doing any thing they can think of to increase revenue without a long term growth strategy. Also, the auction craze is gone. Final auction prices for new stuff coupled with exorbitant S&H charges are always more than what you will pay at amazon, newegg, or buy.com. People want to buy stuff, they don't want to waste their time watching auctions.

For used stuff, it is still a good option but theire is a limit to its growth. So, they are trying to be another amazon.

 

Would be interesting to see what an innovative player like Google would do with the eBay group. definintely would love to see them do something new with Skype and PayPal.

 

Fees are too high / complex, too much fraud, pain in the ass.

 

Ebay has a lot of scams so you should be very careful in choosing a seller.

 

they may piss some people off, but as of now, where else are you going to go?

 

I think if someone like google or yahoo, started a rival site, and innovated it could be huge, you'd have to have big $$$ to get it launched!