Well, the first thing that occurs to me, right off the top, is digitally-delivered items, a particular soapbox of mine I'm afraid.
Had eBay been more creative in finding ways to allow sellers to deal with these sorts of items easily and effectively, they would not have lost thousands of experienced and successful sellers, or at least a good portion of those sellers' sales, to other venues. I happen to be one of them.
I had hoped to expand my business here into the digital world, but alas. EBay's solution? Relegate those types of items to the darkest back corner of the site they could find(Classifieds), which prompted sellers like me to look elsewhere to list our products -- and do well selling them. On another site on which I sell, delivery of digital items to customers is a thing of beauty: simple, easy, clear and immediate, no shipping or delivery issues, and the site has terrific, well thought out features to help sellers take advantage of that market. That is what I call forward-thinking.
In this context I found it odd that eBay turned its back almost entirely on digitally-delivered commerce, given their hype over mobile phone sales. Yes, I do realize there were problems with permitting such products to be sold, but huge potential that surely eBay could have realized had they not simply reacted by essentially banishing them from the site. That was not a creative solution.
A few other areas off the top of my head where I think eBay dropped the ball (or missed the game entirely):
- Immediate Payment Required -- how many buyers has this turned off? How many lost sales?
- Lack of site management and sloppy/delayed response to cyber attacks and/or serious site issues -- how many buyers leave forever as a result?
- Cart disconnect being allowed to continue for over a year -- need I elaborate?
- Downgrading sellers' and buyers' ability to simply and directly communicate with each other?
- Focus on an adversarial, policy-heavy punishment-based system to evaluate sellers -- how many sellers have left as a result?
- Too much time and effort spent on re-configuring the site rather than ensuring features actually work properly most of the time -- how many sellers and buyers both have given up on eBay as a result? I constantly wonder whether buyers are getting sick of seeing things in different places or unfamiliar-looking things suddenly pop up. We sellers have to deal with the shape-shifting, but for buyers there are other more consistent and stable sites to visit.
I could go on and on if I actually gave it some thought, but I have other things I must accomplish today. I don't think there's any rush, as I don't expect to be invited to eBay HQ's boardroom anytime soon.
Enjoy your game... 
@73rhc wrote:Actually, it does make sense. Sellers have been adding more listings than they normally would have, sans promos. Now these sellers gave a ton of listings in their unsold area. So what's a seller to do if no new promo is forthcoming?
So are you saying that it was a positive and creative marketing concept for eBay to basically upset, frustrate and even anger a whole lot of non-store buyers in order to somehow entice them into store ownership, i.e. by dangling the carrot in front of them and then snatching it away when they most need it?
If that is eBay's deliberate motive in the way they've organized these promos for the past year or so, then it's certainly a very odd way to encourage seller loyalty and satisfaction with their selling venue, and not the kind of top-flight, professional thinking I'd expect of a company this big.
I suppose what I'm saying is that it's so unbelievably bad a concept that I feel there has to be another motive (whatever that may be) behind these endless bait and switch promo techniques, keeping sellers perpetually on edge. Or just plain dumb-as-doorknobs corporate thinking.
As an aside, I've noticed that for a few months now eBay hasn't been sending me those seller surveys to find out how I rate selling here. Gee, don't they care anymore?? 
"Well, the first thing that occurs to me, right off the top, is digitally-delivered items, a particular soapbox of mine I'm afraid. "
Over seven years ago (March 2008) management at eBay decided to lose millions of dollars in fees by banning sale of digital items on their main site. The folks making that decision were not stupid - they knew what they were doing. They were prepared to sacrifice millions in revenue to clean up many abuses by sellers using digital delivery including feedback buying (remember those selling recipes for a penny), etc... There is simply no protection available to buyers and sellers in case of dispute. It was also way too easy for some to circumvent copyright issues.
Many sellers of course did not agree with the decision. You were one of them. I understand that.
But the folks running eBay had to look at the "big picture" and time has proven they were right. Their income has kept on increasing year after year and sales by sellers selling tangible goods has also increased year after year on average.
eBay adheres to the Chicago School of Economics theories of maximizing shareholder value. Any mention of sellers in that? Anywhere?
If they could make an extra dollar bottling sewage, we would be gone in a heartbeat.
- Immediate Payment Required -- how many buyers has this turned off? How many lost sales?"
I agree with, that policy did not make sense to me. However, it was requested by very large sellers, those with hundreds of thousands of listings who do not care about multiple purchases. They were wasting time waiting for payment, chasing non-paying bidders, etc...
I do not like it but... we all have to live with it.
Overall, I do not think it has any significant effect on eBay's bottom line either way.
"Cart disconnect being allowed to continue for over a year -- need I elaborate?"
With all due respect, this is a very minor minuscule problem as far as eBay is concerned. It may affect you to some degree but, overall, it is meaningless to eBay's bottom line.
"Downgrading sellers' and buyers' ability to simply and directly communicate with each other?"
I agree with you again. However, I can see eBay's point-of-view: protecting their revenue and profit. Many of those direct communications lead to off-eBay transactions.
"...as I don't expect to be invited to eBay HQ's boardroom anytime soon. ..."
A long time ago, I was invited to San Jose to join the "Voices" program on eBay.com. My years of communicating directly with eBay's senior management through that program (and others) somehow allowed me to usually disagree with them (mostly from a Canadian perspective as the only Canadian in the program for years) while having an understanding of their perspective.
I look at eBay the same way I look at my bank or the cable and internet provider or the telephone company, Canada Post, etc... : an important provider of service I use regularly. That is all eBay is: a provider of a venue allowing me to sell some products. They set up their pricing, their rules and policies and I decide if that works for me. Not everything is to my liking, of course, but it has to be my decision weighing the good and the bad. Every seller here makes the same decision regularly.
Overall, despite many frustrating aspects, it still works. I have leaned to adapt to constant changes, many enforced by eBay but required by the marketplace. For example eBay was quick to identify a trend in e-commerce where the novelty of the auction was wearing thin while most online buyers wanted to shop and buy for immediate shipment. There is still a huge market for auction buyers but most sellers know that is no longer where the big money is. eBay has moved towards fixed price where e-commerce is.
Back to the subject of this thread, eBay has experimented with many types of promotions over the last several years, promotions offering sellers the ability to list their products for free. Looking a the "big picture" once again, has it been productive? Not really. Lately eBay made most promotions conditional to "no relist allowed" so buyers would see new "stuff" offered for sale. Smart sellers quickly found ways to relist the same old stuff that did not sell using different functions. What did that prove? Nothing.
There are already more items listed on eBay than most potential buyers can possibly look at. The amount of money these same buyers have available to spend on eBay has not changed. Listing and relisting the same old stuff over and over again is a marginal waste of time when viewed from eBay's perspective.
There is no "free lunch". I wish eBay would simply eliminate those invitational promotions and let sellers make decision to list based on the merit of each item: Is it worth spending $0.30 (or whatever) to list this item on eBay for ten (or whatever) days.
If the answer is yes, then sellers should proceed, list and hope to sell quickly.
If the answer is no, then why should eBay spend their resources and overcrowd their site for products sellers have no confidence in selling?
Let's go back to the original eBay principle for level playing field: everybody (small and large) pay to list their items. No more freebies. Folks looking only for freebies should look elsewhere.
@femmefan1946 wrote:
What would you do?
I know this wasn't directed to me, but I hope you don't mind if I add a postscript to all my babbling above.
You have some very good suggestions, especially with respect to eBay going public. I had a little fantasy in that regard that had I had an opportunity to be at that boardroom table years ago, I might go even further and suggest something that would blow their narrow-minded corporate sock off -- a co-operative (or to put it less terrifyingly for capitalists, a private shareholder consortium of millions). Make sellers stakeholders. Why? As you say, human nature.
Of course, this fantasy would have to take into account the occasional nasty, scamming sellers who came to the old eBay to rip off and run. But perhaps it would be possible to charge a sort of "club membership" fee to list here, then reward successful and top quality sellers with stock options. Now wouldn't that be an incentive!
Many companies do have a version of this scenario that works exceptionally well. Sadly, when eBay needed capitalization, they turned to the same old recipe -- go public, let the high rollers enjoy themselves, and to heck with the consequences.
I don't know about voting rights in my scenario. That could get a bit sticky, although not impossible to solve. However, a company whose board was answerable to the people actually using the site, either directly or indirectly (through user representatives), well, there's my fantasy.
Gimme a break everybody. It's a perfect, sunny, summer day, great for daydreaming.
