eBay Rant: I want BLUE WIDGETS, not USED CARS

You hear a lot of complaints about eBay's "Best Match" algorithm if you watch much eBay news. It's one of the biggest mistakes (and there have been many) they've made under the new--and some say frightening--administration since Meg, who is now eying the California Governor's seat (Lord help us all)--left and took all of her then-decently-valued stock with her. Okay, so stock prices are relative. They had already started to nosedive under The Megster, but that's another story.

And to think I used to be a stockholder. It's a pretty sad reflection on a company when you "partner" with them (if anyone can be said to "partner" with eBay, with the possible exception of Buy and the other "Titaniums," who pay no listing fees and get a cut on everything else...lest they, too, bail out and jump ship because of the outrageous fees, poor management, and low sell-through rate). Gads.

But I digress.

Most sellers are also buyers on eBay. That seems to be something eBay neglected to consider in their analysis before they started (oh, yes they did) encouraging sellers to leave. They didn't just encourage them by "showing them the door" through their policies and treatment, mind you. The actually said they didn't really want a lot of the smaller sellers. Called them something like a pain in the butt. Said they wanted to get rid of a lot of them. They preferred the bigger sellers. Unbelievable. Logic would dictate that the only way to become a "bigger" seller is to first be a "smaller" seller. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Logic is not one of eBay's strong points these days.

But I digress again. Bear with me, here.

Okay, so most sellers are also buyers. When eBay started "encouraging" thousands upon thousands of sellers to leave, lots of them did. Gone. Poof. No more seller. And when you lose sellers who also buy, you lose buyers. That means losing sales, and that means losing income. Duh. But--and I fear in explaining I start to digress, so I'll get to the point already--in catering to the buyers (apparently to those who do not sell, given their actions and statements about sellers), they have implemented many changes that are allegedly in the buyers' "best interests."

I, for one, hate it when other people think they can determine what is and what is not in my best interests. Don't you?

So, one of the biggest changes was their much-touted "Best Match" (and that should be in quotes for obvius reasons) algorithm. Best Match is absolute trash. Just trash. It doesn't work, it's a pain in the butt, and eBay has made it so buyers cannot change the default search results presentation. How's that for idiotic?

For instance, say I want to find "blue widgets." The default Best Match algorithm kicks in, and I get a mess of search results, maybe 10% of which have anything to do with actual blue widgets. I get red widgets, faux widgets, blue kitchenware, purple wonkers, large plastic bananas, used cars, mystery mayo jars filled with air and who knows what else. It just gets worse and worse and worse.

What I used to do, as many buyers did, was to sort by "ending soonest." Particularly when you're looking for a good buy at auction, that's the thing to do. Trust me. I've been doing it for years, and I buy a ton of stuff on eBay (that started out of necessity when I was in chemo with broken bones and casts and barfing all day and bone marrow failure and all of that and absolutely could not drive to the store, let alone shop without dropping...literally). So, I got pretty good at buying everything I needed online, from clothing for my son to school supplies to groceries to medical supplies to you-name-it.

I am The Queen of The Bargain. And eBay used to be the place to shop. Plus, it used to be fun. Used to be.

I've been scouring for supplies for the new jewelry line on eBay. And I am so frustrated I could scream. Every time I search for someting, I have to change the default from Best Match to "ending soonest." Plus, I have to mark "include store inventory" to see store listings (and I'll tell you, auctions are a dying breed on eBay since they clobbered the heck out of their bread and butter on that one). Plus, I most often literally search all over the world, so I have to mark "search worldwide," too. Every time.

You just can't set your options to what you want as far as search anymore. And that's plain wrong. And bad. And frustrating.

It's one thing to screw it all up and implement somebody's idiotic brainchild like Best Match. But it's another thing entirely to not allow buyers to search for what they want, how they want, and where they want. Oh, you can change the options--one at a time (and the system is slooooow, so it takes a few seconds to mark and implement each search option, then refresh the search). And it will stay the way you want it for a couple of searches, but then, after a few minutes, you're seeing purple widgets and used cars and mystery auctions again when what you're searching for is blue widgets.

Then you know. The Best Match has taken over again. You don't even need to look at the search parameters. It's clear from the fact that you're seeing totally unrelated garbage. Your options have been overriden. They're gone.

eBay thinks they know what's best for you. You say no, no, I don't want purple widgets or used cars and they say yes, yes you do. At least that's what we want you to want, and we have made sure that that's what you're going to see, even if you tell us several times a day that no, you don't want that. No blue widgets for you, buyer.

Well, I'm getting tired of it.

I want blue widgets, eBay. And that's what I want to search for. Blue widgets (even if they are not auction items, since you killed the Golden Auction Goose and now it's just plain hard to find blue widgets on auction). And not just blue widgets from the United States. I buy French and German and African and Asian widgets, too.

Blue widgets.

Why do you have to make that so difficult?

InnerCityGoods.com | eBay

10,000th eBay sale tonight (and a lot of problems along the way)

We started our "little" eBay business back in August, 2007. Today, one year and eight months later, we hit our 10,000th eBay sale. Woohoo!

We've been working hard from day one, going from about 10 listings twenty months ago to over 22,000 listings today. We carry thousands of exclusive items that can't be found anywhere else on eBay--and today, most of our items include FREE shipping.

There's been a learning curve, of course, and there's been some trial and error along the way as we've learned the system and learned how to make our business work. With the economy the way it is these days, and with the ever-declining eBay "top-dog" position in the online marketplace, it simply isn't easy to be successful right now. But I'm proud of what we've been able to accomplish. We've seen business--on eBay and off--start (or continue their established presence) during this time. And we've seen them falter.

So much has been said in so many places about what is or is not to blame. Certainly, one can't deny the effect the economy has had on a global scale. But the downturn for so many eBay sellers (and PowerSellers) was marked even before the effects of the economy hit the average buyer's pocket. Were I running eBay (and I'm glad I'm not, or there'd be a lynch mob out to get me, for one), there are many thing I'd do differently. Okay, that's an understatement. Most things I'd do differently. Maybe I'll go into more of that later. Simply though, I think it's a distinct failing of eBay top management, a loss of vision, an identity crisis, and a whole string of just bad decisions. And to top it all off, eBay has an uncanny lack of ability to admit when it's made a mistake--and to correct said mistake.

That's a mistake.

One thing we've certainly done along the way is make mistakes. Anyone out there who runs a business and never says they've made a mistake (or even simply admitted they'd have been better off doing "A' rather than "B" after they've already done "B"...or worse yet, done all of the above, then refused to go back and do "A" while they still have a fighting chance...you know, lile John Donohoe) is not telling the truth. Simple as that.

So, mistakes and all, we survive in what has become, at best, a "challenging" marketplace for sellers. We've expanded and are expanding still. We're adding new products all the time, we have would-be vendors asking if we'd like to carry their products, we're developing a whole new line (it's a surprise...we'll be announcing it soon!), we're expanding into more and more online marketplaces, and so on. I cna honestly say that, if it weren't for the mistakes we've made along the way and how we've dealt with them, we woudn't be blogging this now. And we'd probably be out of business.

That's something I'll expand upon in upcoming posts, these strategies that have worked for us. But how about this: mistakes can be a strategy. In a future post, we'll go into more detail on how to turn those mistakes into successes. For now, though, if I were to come up wth some advice off the top of my head about mistakes and what to do about them, I'd say this:

Whenever and wherever possible

Admit your mistakes.
Apologize for your mistakes.
Correct your mistakes.
Learn from your mistakes.

I remember taking some of those managerial training courses years ago at work. One thing that seemed to be in vogue at the time was not using the word "problem." "There are no problems, thee are only opportunities." It was pounded into our heads. Do not use the word "problem." Umm, okay.

How does this sound to you if you're a customer: "I'm so sorry to hear about your opportunity. What can I do to help?" Okay, that's bit over-the-top, but you get the idea. I'd be more likely to say, "I'm sorry to hear about the problem you had with our widget. I'm going to do what I can to fix it for you..." and then I'd go on to take concrete steps to do just that.

One thing you'll notice about our eBay feedback is that the number currently sits at 4,673. That means that, with 10,000 sales (and a good number of "buying feedback" mixed in there), there are a lot of customers in there who buy more than one item and/or come back again to buy from us. I think it's the latter that makes such a big difference.

We've been asked before how we get such a high percentage of repeat customers. Some sellers have mentioned that, once they have someone with a "problem" (er, opportunity, that is), they can count not only on bad feedback from that person but the loss of a potential repeat customer. I say that's just not true.

Some of our best customers (and some of the people who most often send little emails and funny pictures to brighten our day, as a matter of fact) started out as customers other sellers would see as "problems." It's all in how you handle the problem, the situation, and the customer--the person on the other end. We use "problems" as the "opportunity" they are--an opportunity to demonstrate our integrity, an opportunity to make someone feel better when they come to us disappointed, an opportunity to make things right, and an opportunity to learn what to change and how to do things better from that point forward.

Are you listening, eBay?

InnerCityGoods.com | eBay

Hitler Gets Scammed on eBay

This is really, really funny. I think most eBay buyers and sellers can relate. Enjoy!

InnerCityGoods.com | eBay

eBay Site Problem Report: Feedback Count and Other Errors

Sometimes I get so frustrated with all the little bugs and problems that crop up as a seller on eBay (and no, PowerSellers are not immune by any means!) I could just tear my hair out. I am not alone.

Lately, I've been browsing through some of the eBay discussion boards, particularly since the "boycott eBay call" and all the rest of the "uprising" that's been seen since eBay announced and began to implement their latest round of (and many say the worst ever) changes. Apparently, one must be careful what one posts, as several sellers (and buyers) have taken "mandatory 7-day eBay holidays" for posting anti-eBay sentiments on the boards.

But that aside, I went today looking to see if anyone else had had strange feedback calculation errors and, yes, as I had suspected would be the case, they had. Here's what happened to me: I had a feeback score of 1199 and was anticipating rolling another hundred with my next feedback. Well, the next feedback (positive) came in and my total score went down 5 points instead of up one! More feedback came in and still the error--feedback showing 5 fewer than it should.

Someone did report this to eBay and got the anticipated canned response but no answers. And so far, there is no indication that the error is being fixed. I am guessing that, with all the upcoming IT-related changes at eBay over the next several months, this is only the beginning of the errors and programmatic bugs we'll be seeing.

Oh, joy.

InnerCityGoods

New eBay Feedback System - The Shape of Things to Come

InnerCityGoods

eBay Sellers abandoning ship due to pending changes after Meg's resignation

PowerSellers at eBay are not happy campers these days. No sellers are. The upcoming changes to eBay--including changes to the fee structure and feedback system--have sellers up in arms. No surprise there.

I buy on eBay myself. We buy on eBay. There are a lot of good things about buying on eBay. But just as sellers can't get along without buyers, buyers can't get along without sellers. And eBay is taking action to assure that there are fewer and fewer sellers out there. They claim their actions will benefit buyers (for whom they are generously tipping the scale, here), but their actions are shortsighted at best. Without the good sellers, or with fewer sellers, buyers will be paying more. That's just one thing. Sellers put up with a lot, and eBay isn't helping.

I still have the buyers' perspective at heart, as I'm still a buyer (oh yes, I do spend a ton of money buying all sorts of goodies on eBay). As a seller, though, one becomes exposed to the other side of the story. It's difficult enough to be a successful seller on eBay and, more than that, to be a successful PowerSeller. Difficult as it may be, it's going to become even more so this month when the new changes kick in. Several PowerSellers have left already in protest, and more sellers of all kinds will be leaving over the next days, weeks, and months. Many buyers don't realize (and some do) that both buyers and sellers need to be treated fairly in order for the eBay experience to be a positive one. As the saying goes, it takes two to tango. There are going to be an awful lot of dancers stepping on toes as well as would-be tango partners sitting out dance after dance on the sidelines.

eBay, though, isn't budging. Maybe this is what we get for wishing Meg would leave eBay. We got our wish, alright. And she's being replaced with an even more problematic CEO. What will it take for them to learn to do things differently? One would think the current problem they face with competition from Amazon and other marketplaces would have effected positive and proactive changes, rather than negative and reactive ones. Ah, but then that would be logical. Sigh.

CASH BACK rebates on your eBay purchases

InnerCityGoods