eBay Sellers Seething Over Targeted Ads

hoagiecat writes "eBay isn't just an enormous auction site; it's also a publisher of Google and Yahoo targeted ads, which earn eBay money every time a user clicks on them. But those clicks take users to a new page, and lead them away from the auctions — and those who make their living from those auctions are starting to get upset. Is eBay doing the right thing to make some extra cash from the hot advertising market? Or are they cannibalizing their income and hurting the sellers who have been the backbone of their business?"

Re:It isnt' a simple question

[Aladrin]

The WalMart reference is apt, since you have the same basic reason to shop there: It's cheaper and/or they have things nobody else does. (The latter reason applies to all stores, though.)

I only buy on EBay when I can get the item at a significant discount, or I can't find the item at any reputable dealer. At that point, it's worth the potential hassle of having to complain to get your product or money back. And if I get my money back, I -still- have to go find a seller for the product.

It has to be significantly cheaper because of the time I have ot invest for every item I buy on EBay. After having an issue with a seller (who eventually DID send the phone, but with a picture of himself flicking me a bird and scratches) I now have to do more than just glance at the seller's rep. I -always- read through their negative feedback and see if A) it was deserved B) if they responded and C) if the response was friendly and correct.

On top of that, I have to be careful to read the auction several times to make sure it isn't a cardboard cutout of item X or a display model or damaged, and that the item is exactly the same as I have been researching elsewhere. Model numbers, part numbers, clones... Most auctions provide all the info, but you have to be very careful not to assume anything. Yes, I got burned on that once, too. I admitted my mistake and whatever the item turned out to be (I've forgotten since it was only a few dollars) is in a box somewhere.

Returns! They cost money on EBay. The seller isn't going to pay to have it shipped back, that's your money that's going to disappear. In some cases, that might cost as much as the product did. Driving to WalMart costs gas, but not nearly so much as shipping something back to China.

I still use EBay, but since the prices are generally not significantly less than retail any more, I mainly use it for items that aren't sold at any store that I recognize as reputable. Things like European phones (because they don't need to be unlocked), odd video game accessories (Why doesn't Nintendo sell a charging cradle for the ds lite?) and other such things.

Those sellers that complain are crooked.

[gurps_npc]

Look not every thins SHOULD be sold by auction.

There are basically two good reasons to go to an auction instead of a regular internet store:

1. The item you desire is hard to find and you can not find a regular internet store that sells it. This is one of the reasons why art and antiques are often sold at auction. Also what happens when a hot toy (Wii, PSP, etc.) comes out in limited quantities. Typically what happens here is that the seller puts in a minimum price, which is often more expensive than a fair price would be if the item was in reasonable supply (see Wii, etc. early sales). Here you are willing to pay more money because you can not find it on a regular store.

2. You wish to save money and believe the auction site will sell it to you for cheaper.

Now, stop and think about the ads. Let's do issue #2 first. If the guy is trying to save money, then unless he was an idiot, he already checked the commercial sites and is NOT interested in them. He will NOT look at the ads and will NOT click on them. He has already seen them and wants to get it for cheaper. So it is a non-issue for them. Also, the very nature of the fact that it IS being advertised means Issue #1 is NOT PRESENT. Chances are you could have found the item easily enough by doing a google search anyway, because hey, it was being heavily ADVERTISED, by the same people that run internet searches.

So the ebay auction sellers that are upset because they are losing people were in fact ripping them off. They were trying to sell things for MORE than they were worth by using an auction instead of trying to get a fair price. They were falsely trying to pretend the item was in short supply when it was not.

Was it illegal? No. Unethical? Well, let's say it is on the shadier side of the street.

The only time they ever lose a sale is if the buyer was a moron and they were trying to get this idiot to pay more from them for more than the item was worth. Sorry people, Ebay is NOT in the business to help you rip off fools. They are as much out their to help the buyers as to help the sellers, and you are basically complaining about ebay being fair to the buyers.

That can't be all the sellers are mad at....

[TheDrewbert]

When I last tried to sell stuff on e-bay the only bids I got were from the postal money order scam artists. Sold my stuff on craigslist instead.

If You Don't Like eBay

[Nom du Keyboard]

If you don't like eBay's policies, the way they take down legal items too far quickly when certain large companies complain, the way they revoke accounts with no legal backing for it, the way they only accept PayPal for electronic payment, their ever higher fees, the difficulty in getting help from them, the way they won't even list some legal items (e.g. concert tickets), the way...

One would think that a better competitor without many of the above problems could come along and steal eBay's business. What was once innovative with them has become old, rigid, formalized, and preying too often on some of their best sellers. Don't think that an alternative can't come along.

Google has the same problem

[Animats]

They're a public company, and it is not sufficient for them to simply make profits. They must actually grow those profits.

Google has the same problem. Having achieved domination of their main market, now what? There's a temptation to enter new markets, but the main market is so good that all the other product lines are less profitable.

The classic answer is to stop growing and pay dividends. Utility companies and railroads used to do that for decade after decade, once they'd maxed out their industry in their area. But a company that pays dividends and doesn't grow is valued by the market like a bond; the market cap is about 20x the dividend. Google currently has a P/E of 52, and doesn't pay dividends at all. eBay has a P/E of 39, and no dividends. Plus, dividends are taxed twice, once when the company pays them and once as income to the recipient.

The modern answer is merger and acquisition activity. Most M&A activity is a lose for shareholders, although a big win for management. eBay's is generally considered to have paid far too much for Skype. Then there's buying back stock, which, again, is overall a lose for shareholders, but a win for management with stock options. Stock buybacks don't usually shrink the float; they just compensate for the dilution of options issued.

Re:middle click.

[TheRaven64]

Off-topic, but this is the reason I never click on flash ads. Since flash does not respect command-click to open in a new tab, I never know where the link will open, and so I simply don't click. While I occasionally click on plain text ads to see if they are actually offering a good deal, flash ones are simply ignored.

Re:It isnt' a simple question

[maxume]

I like to think of it in terms of "The problem with eBay is that it works". That is, it is a fairly well functioning market, so you end up paying market price, so the only reason to go there is the selection, not the auction format. The sooner they realize this and make it a much friendlier experience for casual participants(so, they need to eradicate fraud, not pretend it isn't a problem), the better.

Applause

[ackthpt]

You have quite well summed up my sentiments regarding eBay. You should tweak it a bit and start a petition and send it to the morons who run the company.

Like you I am a logn time eBay user, but less and less all the time. As a seller it has become painful to keep up with all the changes (and bugs) they introduce. One particular bug kept charging customers 9.65 for insurance even though I had no insurance amount typed in. It came from some older listing where I saved the listing for a template. The bloat of pages is making it less usable for a person on a slow connection.

I feel, too, the usability has declined from a buyer standpoint. The searches keep coming up with recommended things like (for some definition of "like") what I'm searching for. I have to login when i want to look up what something sold for (why, so they can track what I'm looking for and point out next time who is all selling it so I can buy it? Sometimes I want some idea what an item sells for to decided if I want to sell one, not to buy it.)

As a buyer and a seller research is often necessary. I search to see what same or similar things have sold for to determine what price range I can expect. The concept of Private feedback is completely sick, I can see who uses Private and steer clear of them as sellers. I don't particularly like these people as buyers, either and wish to have the ability to block certain types of bidders. Further the difficulty one encounters trying to find why some seller or buyer has negative feedback is quite a bother, why? To what purpose do you shield bad news about people if you're going to keep it anyway?

Lastly, I really wish I could screen specific sellers. If I'm looking for a telescope I don't want to see anything from Taximarket -- nothing personal, but they're catering to the low end of the market and flood the listings with GREEN, SILVER, BLUE, whatever colour telescopes they have. I'd like to scan for telescopes without seeing all their offerings because nothing they have I want. This can be carried over to sporting goods and other categories where a lot of inexpensive Chinese commodity goods or knock offs are listing.

Ebay is rapidly becoming as seedy as many of the flea markets I've visited. There is good stuff there, but there's so much chaff to filter through. If their profitability is hinging upon maximising listings they may find bidders give up and go to other sites because they are fed up with sifting through too many listings to find what they want.

Re:It isnt' a simple question

[AK Marc]

That makes me think of search terms I want. I only want to see things from people who have been members for more than a year and average less than one sale per day (or one sale a week, or whatever). Don't give me the places that sell 10,000 cell phone covers that also sell the charger I want. Just give me the links to people that are people. I have found that stores are easier to do returns with (based on conversations with people doing returns with people and stores), but I've never had to do a return with a actual human. Individuals don't buy 500+ games from an auction and sell them individually when many are scratched-up former rentals (and if they did, they'd not show up in my search). The individuals played the game and are selling it in a working condition. Stores are better at resolving problems because they are used to causing problems.

Oh, and I'd end the feedback blackmail. Count all non-feedback as neutral. But if I'm a buyer and I get screwed, I have the choice of giving bad feedback to warn others (in which case I get retalatory bad feedback, no matter what I did), leaving no feeedback and getting no feedback, or leaving positive feedback and getting posiive feedback. I have no option to leave negative feedback without getting penalized. Though, I haven't had a transaction since the new non-feedback comments can be left.

It is features like that so skewed to protect the sellers and screw the buyer that it's no longer a site I would buy from if I can find the item anywhere else. And they push paypal, and paypal sucks worse.

Re:The shipping thing is a big deal

[Anonymous Coward]

"Shipping" prices are a way to avoid eBay's ever increasing fees. If you've ever placed an auction and used PayPal for payment, you're looking at around 20% off the top from all the fees you pay. If I sell a widget for $100, I end up with $80. I wanted $100 for the item, so I will pad the shipping rate to make up the difference. Effectively, pushing the cost of posting on eBay to the buyer and not the seller. Now, it has gone to extremes lately with a lot of deceptive auctions hoping to rope people into paying high shipping rates.

I used to be a big eBay buyer/seller in the early days but I think I've bought 2 items in the last 5 years and sold nothing. Between scams, shipping ripoffs, power sellers it's not worth it. In fact, most times you can buy the items locally for less and get them faster.

Re:Craigslist

[Damvan]

The last five times I emailed someone on Craigslist about an item they had for sale, the response was to go look at the Ebay auction for the item. Craigslist has become a method for people to advertise their ebay auctions, not actually sell the item directly. In all five cases, the auction was posted before the craiglist ad.

Re:Now & Later

[krbvroc1]

But there's two different shareholders perspectives. The long-term & the short-term.

IMO, the long-term vision shareholders are a minority in this country so the short-term thinking ones are the ones calling the shots, driving many of the analysts, and overall destroying our capitalist system.

Re:Now & Later

[gstoddart]

But there's two different shareholders perspectives. The long-term & the short-term. While putting more ads might make them more money this quarter, if it truly does alienate users, in the long run, it's going to kill their profits.

You make an excellent point.

However, from what I've been able to see over the last bunch of years ... almost all businesses are looking to maximize profits for this quarter, and they don't have any real clear long-term plan. At least, large, publicly traded companies -- I suspect when the owner still runs the business you see a little longer view.

Executives get their bonuses now, which is what they want. The reality is, IMO, that so many companies do things which clearly haven't considered long-term profits and the value of corporate good will that one wonders if they even pretend to care any more. Certainly, by the time you've off-shored some of your core business, you no longer really control it as much as you once did. In the long run, some companies are losing profits and the ability to compete because they've cannibalized operations in terms of short term gains. But, by the time it becomes apparent, you no longer have the ability to bring it back under your control.

By the time the shareholders of the time (there are no long term investors any more) figure out you have screwed up the company, your options have vested, and your golden parachute has taken effect, and you may be gone.

A very large amount of North American companies have relied on globalization to give themselves improved profits. Now, they find themselves at the mercy of foreign markets (eg China) and absolutely no ability to take back any of their core businesses. They've gutted themselves, they just haven't figured out it was a fatal wound yet. :-P

Cheers