Today Sees the Start of Protest Action Against eBay in the UK
Interview with leader of Campaign of Rebuffed eBayers (CORE)
The protest in the UK is being led by a group calling themselves CORE, standing for Campaign Of Rebuffed Ebayers. Few members are willing to identify themselves fully to the media as they suspect their eBay account listings are being targeted for malicious reports and their postings in the eBay forums censored. Despite this I was determined to find one of the CORE organisers and discover more about the group's motivation.
It didn't take me long to follow the clues laid out in eBay forums to find a contact email address and, having explained my interest, I was put in touch with 'John', the Administrator of the groups off eBay forum where group policy and plans are discussed and organised.
Having seen inside this forum I can confirm there are more than 160 individual member activists in CORE and, among their number, there are some high volume eBay sellers. A few representatives are also present from North America and elsewhere and it seems likely that future protest plans will be more internationally coordinated.
John sells collectables from his home in Cleveland in north east England and has been an eBay Store owner for over a year. I began by asking him what effect the eBay fee increases will have on him. He replied; "Obviously I will have to pay more of my revenue to eBay now and, to counter this, I will have no choice but pass these costs, at least in part, on to buyers. Ultimately it is always buyers on eBay that will bear the cost of increased fees."
While obviously not happy at this prospect, John became more animated when I asked if the fees were more important than the decision to remove Store items from most searches done on the site; "Let me put it this way, if you had a high street shop and your landlord put the rent up you'd be upset, yes? But what if he also boarded up your windows so nobody knows you are open or what you are selling?"
I asked if he accepted eBays justification for the changes and he laughingly replied; "Hike your fees and hide your shop to justify what? The message I hear is eBay want us to close our shops because the concept doesn't fit any more with someone's plans. I also think it was a panic measure to help their share price. They knew investors would like the simple 'do less for more money' message and their arrogance means they didn't expect a backlash from users. Funny thing is the stock price is still way down to what it was at the beginning of the year. Why?"
We then discussed the protest that starts later today. CORE is asking both sellers and buyers to stop trading on the site for four days over this weekend and donate some of the time saved to seek out scam listings and report them.
John was realistic about their aims; "Yes we've undoubtedly enough support to make a difference to eBay but we don't expect to shut eBay down by this action. Ultimately the sad paradox is that we are all genuinely great fans of eBay and what it does. We don't want to cause lasting damage to a site we believe in and support."
His thoughts widened; "We just want eBay to listen to their customers now. We're fed up with constant changes in pricing, software systems, listing rules and so on. How can anyone build a successful business with eBay as a partner if they don't know what their costs will be next month, whether their shop will be in the high street or on a piece of wasteland tomorrow or even if they have to update their listing templates today to cater for new listing rules or revised software systems? We need a degree of consistency to build successful businesses."
After much talk and numerous examples, John summed up his thoughts; "We appreciate eBay has grown and we understand growth causes problems. But customer satisfaction is something every business ignores at their peril no matter what stage they are at. Right now we aren't being listened to and we are becoming more dissatisfied day by day."
I came away from this discussion with a feeling that the protesters were actually fighting for eBay. They, more than any shareholder or analyst, know what the real value of eBay is to a user and what it was that made it the king of auction sites. I sense they feel the value is weakening for users at a time when internet trading becomes ever easier and cheaper while eBay itself becomes more convoluted and challenging to its users, not to mention, more expensive too.
I have come to see these widespread protests and complaints as a symptom of a problem that I'm struggling to diagnose.
After all, where do you start examining something so big? At the top or the bottom?
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- Hike your fees and hide your shop to justify what?
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25 Comments
Post a CommentThere is a group of so called ebayers who are the ones affecting ebays community, the rules and responsable for many members who are being suspended even thought they have done nothing wrong which is confirmed in the members feedback of good successful transactions with other genuine members
These people are easy to identify and QUAD or MS Quad used in any form is a tell tale sign that they are active on a post
Urban75 is one of the main influences on the forums on ebay and one od MS QUAD Mike Slocome QAUD
as you will see on his website he likes to get peole together to take action on many issues and incourages people
to cause proboems and this is whats happening on ebay
Everyone who comes to veiw the topic Protest Action Against ebay have issues with ebay
we should unite as CORE activists to distroy MS QUAD in the ebay forums
the ebay member urban75 has his own forum he knows the forum rules, therfore uses the ebay forums as a tool to get members susspended wi
I believe ebay needs us more than we need them. It's a disgrace how they have treated their customers that have used them for years.
well done to all the strikers! I've closed all three of my shops for the strike and shall be shutting them completely come mid November.
"Wow, this has been enlightening. I've been a past eBay buyer, but after what I've learned about how they are treating all you sellers, I'm no longer going to shop there."
What I mean is, I'll support alternative auction sites instead. :-)
Wow, this has been enlightening. I've been a past eBay buyer, but after what I've learned about how they are treating all you sellers, I'm no longer going to shop there.
Here's what I see happening on Ebay: New buyers will come by, get defrauded or completely disgusted with the cheap, overseas trash they have to wade thru and will never come back.
Reputable sellers will get tired of paying for stores that Ebay has deliberately burieds and go elsewhere.
End Result: No Buyers, No reputable Sellers, no one left on Ebay but Meg, Bill, the Mod. Squad and a bunch of Chinese, laughing at the stupid Westerners!
I see the comments being made by ebay customers as "corrective criticism". I have worked for companies that have hired experts to evaluate their operations.. PAID "troubleshooters" to find where and how the company can improve itself.. for the benefit of all.. customers, shareholders and management. They do this because they care about the business and are responsible for it's health. EBAY is getting this troubleshooting for FREE from customers who have to work on the site and with the current management. But these "messengers" are being abused.. censured, discredited.. and ignored. If ebay management publically says they are listening to their customers (as they do say), they are misleading people. All this dissatisfaction from customers that we are hearing.. and it includes more than just fee increases... makes that fact quite obvious.
My husband and I have been on Ebay since April of 1997. We have participated in over 9,000 auctions as buyers and sellers, under various IDs.
Because he collects Olympic pins and I collect Lord of the Rings movie memorabilia ((both of which are international in scope) we have been privileged, and I do mean privileged, to buy, sell, and trade with Ebayers in nearly fifty countries, ranging from Myanmar to Greece, Chile to the Czech Republic. We make an effort to be good international Ebay citizens, and have found that people are just people, regardless of who or where they are, and it has been a joy to make this discovery.
After the fee hike was announced, I found the boards, and was surprised to find that the fee hikes had occurred all over the world. I began watching threads in several countries, and protest petitions in several languages.(Thanks to my Ebay activities, I've picked up a smattering of foreign languages-as long as it is auction related, lol!!!!!), and I have
As for me CORE is substantially wrong, because they haven't still understooden that ebay is the users main enemy: therefore it looks like the cows asking for the butcher to be tender when he cuts up them... Open your eyes, free you minds instead, and look at what ebay exactly is!
It doesn't surprise me. Anybody who has ever expressed any anti fee-hike opinion have had their posts pulled today in Ebay Forums, for no reason at all. Some of them were not even talking about the strike. Other people who hope to use Ebay's actions in putting others out of business to their own gain have been able to threaten other people but had their posts left in. Well Ebay's actions today are disgusting BUT they most be worried about "this handful of shop sellers" to react this way, mustn't they!