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The better half said she saw some discussion about this on the ebay Boards a while ago, and the ebay reps were looking into it, but I did a quick look and didn’t see anything.
YES!!! If the opportunity arises, I’ll be sure to tell him that!
Ryanne, Exactly. If ebay had listened to Jordan when he was working there the first time, ebay would probably be in a much better position than it is today. In the Q&A to the podcast (if I remember correctly) Jordan makes it pretty clear that he would love to be moving faster, but he’s right about the current ebay reality: ebay the company is focused on selling off the Classifieds (and just recently announced they are looking to sell off the ebay Korea site as well.) And then there’s Managed Payments….this is the year when that will be pushed out to most all sellers, and that is clearly taking a lot of ebay resources. So, I think we can expect some changes that should have happened years ago (he mentioned a real vacation setting, for example) but some of the bigger changes probably won’t arrive until next year. I’m hoping ebay can hang in there long enough to implement bigger changes.
littleBlueHouse,
I don’t think this is lip service. (Which doesn’t mean I think Jordan will be able to implement everything he’d like….he answers to the CEO, and the CEO answers to the Board.) But here’s why I think this is something more than lip service. Jordan worked at ebay for a number of years before leaving to go to WalMart. Reading between the lines, I think he left because he was tired of banging his head against the wall, trying to convince his superiors that ebay’s focus on competing with Amazon was precisely the wrong way to go. The sort of things he’s talking about now? These are things he wanted ebay to do years ago, but ebay wouldn’t listen and he left. That he is now back, and in a position to (hopefully) implement some of this tells me that at least some on the Board agree with him. When he says:
“And then you want to focus on all the categories that are awesome for eBay, Clearance, shelf pulls, and minus one, refurbished, used. There’s actually more total market volume there than there is in what’s going on in the Amazon, Walmart world. And then, you know, the reality is those segments are growing as fast or faster than the spaces Amazon has been playing. We just kind of weren’t paying attention. So there’s all these startups and competitors playing in space that actually should be eBays. It shouldn’t even exist. They shouldn’t have gotten started, we kind of let that happen.”
He’s basically saying, “if they had listened to me before, we wouldn’t be dealing with Poshmark, Mercari and the rest of them because we would OWN that part of the ecommerce market….they would never have gotten a start.”
So I really think he’s sincere, and I think , like all of us, he may be worried that whatever he does may be too little too late. But I think he’d really love to PROVE that he was right all along….that ebay should not be an Amazon Also Ran, but it should be THE place to go for the clearance stuff, the used stuff, the second hand and refurbished. Our kind of stuff.
Just my opinion, but I think ebay finally has someone who sees what ebay SHOULD be, and who will work to get it there. But then, maybe I’m just a cockeyed optimist.
When you get a chance, try changing the category from Collectibles to Home and Garden > Kitchen Dining & Bar > Kitchen Carts…see if that makes any difference.
OK, I tried a search with the exact title and see what you are saying. Your item, with a title that exactly matches the query , shows up first, but it is found under: No exact matches found
Results matching fewer wordsI think I’ve been seeing this lately but not really paying it much attention. I’d guess either it is a glitch OR ebay is going to do away with drawing a distinction between exact match/fewer words.
It IS a little disconcerting. I’ll try to remember to bring this up at the Weekly Chat next Wed.
also, are you sure you didn’t mean Cosco , not Costco?
what’s your exact title?
Jay, I think that’s exactly it. I think he left ebay because he disagreed with the direction it was going, and he has come back because he thinks ebay needs to realize it has lost the Amazon War but can still win the Mercari/Poshmark War if it can change course. In short, ebay should be THE place to go for used, reconditioned, last season, oddball stuff…..which is what many os us have been saying for years. If you read the Q&A, he seems to be pretty clear that he thinks “no returns” is actually industry standard for some of the types of things we sell, not 30 day free returns.
Of course, a wild card in all this is the “Activist investors”. Do they share his viewpoint? Or are they just waiting to unload the Classifieds so they can then unload ebay itself?
The thing is, and I think he is pretty candid about this, it has taken ebay a long time to lose its mojo, and it will take a while to get it back. (If it’s not already too late).
I do think if ebay goes all in , and revamps not just things like return policies and shipping times, but also its marketing, etc, it could be very good for scavenger sellers. But how long will the window of opportunity remain open? Hard to say.
Just a couple quick notes about the white backgrounds tool. I’ve heard people praising it and I’ve heard people saying it sucks. My Android is an older model and it isn’t available , so I can’t test it until I finally do get the new(er) phone I’ve been promising myself. BUT…for scavengers…I just don’t think the white background is vital. If you are going to try and use it, I suggest doing the gallery photo ONLY. That’s the only one that really matters for Google. Of course, an uncluttered background is still generally a good idea for the other photos, but white certainly isn’t necessary. And I agree with others who say even the white gallery photo is more important for commodity goods.
almasty,
This may have changed, but a few years ago when etsy was lobbying Congress for more recognition of “micro businesses”, I think they said the average seller on etsy made less than $100/month (it might have even been per year, I don’t recall.
Remember, etsy is paying for these ads up front. So, etsy isn’t going to want to pay for ads for really small sellers who probably have only a small selection of stuff to sell. Bigger is better. But bigger also means those sellers are probably already doing OK, and might want to opt out (especially if they have their own site as well, and market that themselves). So I think etsy figures the only way to make sure they have enough sellers, each of them having enough inventory to justify ad cost, is to make it mandatory for those sellers. My guess is, etsy doesn’t care all that much whether the under $10,000 sellers opt out or not, since they aren’t likely to promote them on Google etc anyway. By charging the under $10,000 sellers 15%, etsy can mollify the over $10,000 sellers by saying ” True, you can’t opt out, but you are getting a better deal than those who can opt out.”
02/28/2020 at 1:24 pm in reply to: What to watch today: Dow to drop into correction as global coronavirus concerns #74550almasty, Well, one thing to keep in mind when comparing it to the regular flu….while it isn’t 100& effective, we do have a regular flu vaccine, which is probably one reason the deaths from “regular flu” are less than they might be otherwise….because the vaccine reduces the number of people contracting the regular flu in the first place.
At this point, we have no vaccine for this, and no way to stop the spread except quarantine and other safety measures.
almasty, Sellers selling less than $10,000/year on etsy can opt out. If you sell more than that, you can’t opt out.
I thought etsy required everyone to use etsy’s managed payment system? Are you saying etsy sellers can opt out of that?
02/28/2020 at 9:48 am in reply to: ebay Spring Seller Update is this Wed Feb 26, Town Hall Feb 25 #74532Well, my guess is, that really isn’t going to change. They have 30 days now to initiate, and they’ll have 30 days when this goes into effect. Yes, they have some extra time to now to print the label and ship, but that’s the only difference.
02/28/2020 at 9:02 am in reply to: ebay Spring Seller Update is this Wed Feb 26, Town Hall Feb 25 #74529Atomic Star,
As I said, the 30 day rule isn’t changing. Since you sell clothing, I assume you’ve had some returns. How many have actually waited 30 days to request a return?
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