What’s Up With Ebay?

I agree with the author. Ebay at one time was the bomb, at least for me. Over the past few years however, I go to it only as a last resort. Not many deals on Ebay anymore.

Many of you know that I used to work at eBay, and today seemed like a good day to share some of some thoughts with you on what’s happening over there. For a long time, it was a magical place. There was a special, personal connection between the buyers, the sellers, the website, and the many wonderful people who worked at the company. Big corporations paid the same prices as the little guys and everyone had a fair shot to build their business. Most of all, eBay provided *value* to the buyers and sellers alike — sellers got great traffic to their items, and buyers got the world’s biggest assortment at great prices.

Today’s eBay is something altogether different.

Traffic Generation Blows. eBay is losing share of ecommerce to large and small competitors alike. Their ability to bring you buyers is broken. People I know inside the company despair that they have no idea how to get their mojo back on demand generation given that senior executives think “social commerce” means putting like buttons on ten percent of listings.

Big Sellers Get Special, Back-Room Pricing Deals. Today’s price increases — and make no mistake they are increases — are targeted at small sellers. You can bet that all the name-brand retailers who have special, back-room pricing deals — some of which I am told include zero listing fees of any kind, special placement in search results, and guaranteed sell through percentages — are not paying final value fees on shipping costs. eBay is unleveling the playing field again in a very big way. The worst part? We don’t even know how bad it is: The special, back-room pricing deals with big corporations are closely guarded secrets.

via What’s up with eBay? | VentureBeat.