eBay - Who do they think they are??

Linoge

From http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4795761.stm

Unhappy eBay traders boycott site

Ebay says it is "not really seeing any tangible strike action"
Unhappy professional eBay traders have staged a boycott of the online auction site to protest at a rise in fees and a drop in the visibility of their items.
Ebay said about 100 UK traders were involved, although participants said more than 300 took part in the action.

The boycotting traders are all members of eBay's "shop sellers" subscription service, which allows them to run online stores linked to the website.

They are angry that eBay has raised the fee it charges for listing items.

The change takes the fee from a flat 3p to between 3p and 11p.

Some also point to an increase in so-called "final value fees", the percentage of the selling price which must be paid to eBay.

The UK "strikers" formed part of a concerted effort by traders worldwide using the auction site.

'Not worried'

Starting from last month, the new sliding scale of 3p to 11p depends upon the value of what is up for sale.

The shop sellers have also seen a reduction in the visibility of their products to potential buyers.

Their goods now only appear if fewer than 30 items match a users' search criteria.

EBay hopes the change will stop potential buyers from getting swamped with too many available items.

The firm's UK community manager, Dan Wilson, said that while 100 traders were taking part in the boycott, this was a drop in the ocean compared to the tens of thousands of people registered as eBay shop sellers in the UK.

"We are not really seeing any tangible strike action and we are not that worried about it, although I don't want to dismiss the concerns of our customers," he said.

EBay has 15 million UK customers.

eBay are perfectly entitled to charge what they like, but the arrogance of "We are not really seeing any tangible strike action and we are not that worried about it, although I don't want to dismiss the concerns of our customers"

In other words, your strike will not work because eBay are way too big. The spokesman has not lied but at the same time why didn't he just justify the increase in fees rather than commenting on the futility of the strike?

Its sad to see that a Fortune 500 company can still employ utter tools to speak on their behalf.:mad:

majiktripp

Why would he have to justify an increase in fees anyways? Eircom/ESB rape us year after year and what do we as a country do about it?! Do we get explanations for the large % increases? I think not....He's right with what he said,I doubt they lose sleep over a few objectionable users somehow.

Ruu_Old

majiktripp wrote:

Why would he have to justify an increase in fees anyways? Eircom/ESB rape us year after year and what do we as a country do about it?! Do we get explanations for the large % increases? I think not....He's right with what he said,I doubt they lose sleep over a few objectionable users somehow.

What he said, as a regular eBay buyer/seller.

j4vier

its a real pity that there is not a real "valid" alternative to ebay..

Linoge

j4vier wrote:

its a real pity that there is not a real "valid" alternative to ebay..

I think in Japan, eBay have pretty much failed because Yahoo! are firmly placed there. I think the only half decent alternative for us is Amazon, which can be great for some things:)

Duras

j4vier wrote:

its a real pity that there is not a real "valid" alternative to ebay..

When you think that all they did is a crappy site and everyone pays big money to use it...

indiewindy

ebays great for buyers , but whenever I sell on it I get walloped by fees by them and also by paypal( for some reason my paypal sellers account is in dollars while my buyers account is in Euros so I get hit again when I sold something in euros:( )
Just a pity as earlier posters have said that theres no good alternative as ebid is not much cop. I don't know how they are surviving