Ebay "deteriorating" - mass layoffs expected - Any offers?

[CountAllVotes]

Source: The Inquirer

EBAY WORKERS may be in for a shock they didn’t bargain for, with a report claiming the firm is floundering and preparing to lay off about 10 per cent of the company's 15,000 employees.

According to an article in Barron's Weekly which cited a recent report by investment-boffins at Wedge Partners, the online auction giant’s business is " deteriorating".

Current economic hardships - especially weakness in the consumer economy- added to the fact that quite a few Ebay sellers have been severely hacked off by recent changes in fee structures has put Ebay in a tight spot.

"Seller discontent with eEbay is on the rise due to higher fees and other changes, and we believe Ebay has seen numerous sellers migrating away from the Ebay platform and creating their own selling sites," wrote Brian Blair and Ryan Hunter, two Wedge analysts.



Read more: http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/09/15/ebay-deteriorating-mass-layoffs

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Ebay isn't what it once was, that is for sure. Business down this much cannot be good (so goes the economy, so goes eBay and 1500 employees as a starter).

[Ian David]

1. Another Republican-owned business failing. n/t

[phantom power]

2. Their business model takes a huge hit in a world of expensive shipping.

Which is the world we now live in.

[Retrograde]

18. ?? They pass the shipping costs off to the buyers and sellers

but you have a point - shipping has gone up a lot lately. I sell books through Amazon, and the amount they credit me for shipping just covers postage and envelopes - and I ship media mail.

Not to mention that a lot of people don't need more crap, uh, stuff. Discretionary cash is going for things like housing costs, fuel, food and the like.

ETA: they had a great business model: the buyers and sellers do most of the work, and eBay takes a cut. They maintain the site and the machines, but that's pretty much it. Disclaimer: I made a fair amount on their stock during the dotcom boom, more than buy selling on eBay!

[LiberalHeart]

27. I think the point re shipping is that the price of that on top of the bid price is too high.

I started noticing a lot of resistence to shipping costs when the post office raised rates. It just got silly to buy an item for ten bucks and pay double that to ship it. I quit buying ... and selling. The eBay changes didn't help matters. The early eBay was great. Now, not so much.

[Retrograde]

31. yes, "Total Cost of Ownership"

a notion I had drummed into me at an impressionable age when I was doing product rollout planning: you don't just look at the sticker price, you look at all the costs involved - shipping, maintenance, feeding, spare parts, whatever.

I buy a lot of things online, especially when I'm looking for something unusual. Unless a site offers me a substantial discount on the product, or it's something I literally can't find anywhere else, I add up the cost+shipping and compare it to the cost+sales tax if I bought it locally.

There's another reason for high shipping costs: it's a profit center for some businesses. Back in the real old days, catalog companies based shipping costs on weight: i.e., it was related to what it cost to ship. Now it's usually a percentage of the price. Easy to calculate, but it benefits the seller. If a customer complains and returns a product, they refund the product cost but not the shipping costs.

[Oceansaway]

3. ebay screwed themselves...when they

raised the fees for small time sellers...which, imo, was their base...

you reap whatcha sow....fuck ebay....

[yardwork]

24. I agree. Now its dominated by huge foreign wholesalers, mostly selling junk.

I used to buy antiques, collectibles, house wares, and clothes on ebay. It was fun to find bargains and unusual pieces. Now its mostly junk. I might as well shop at Tuesday Morning or TJ Maxx and save the shipping.

[Quantess]

68. Drop shippers from China are all over eBay. That was my experience the last time I shopped there.

And many of them lie and say they are shipping from the USA. Then buyers get surprised when shipping takes a really long time, until they see "HONG KONG" stamped on the package.
But if the buyer leaves a negative feedback for the bad seller, they might leave the buyer a retaliatory feedback...which is why eBay changed their feedback policy.
Sellers got so upset at the feedback changes (sellers can now only leave positive feedback) that a lot of sellers stopped selling. Ebay makes money off the sellers, so that was a mistake to piss off the sellers.

[crossroads]

64. That is true! They got too greedy! nt

[Cosmic Charlie]

4. awwwww, but that's McCrap's favorite company

[Doctor_J]

5. I bid $3 for e-bay

what time does the auction end?

[quispquake]

6. Their greed will be their undoing...

Between the jacked up fees for listings, a higher percentage when the auction has been won, AND jacking sellers on Paypal, it's no wonder they're unravelling...I've done a lot of selling on eBay, but stopped a year or so ago when it stopped being profitable...

[GoesTo11]

7. Breaking news on CNN - HP to lay off 24,600

Add that to ebay's 10,000, Lehman's 28,000 and some portion of Merrill Lynch's 60,000 and you've got a decent chunk of a nation's new unemployment, in one day. This is going to be a trend too. Once companies get the layoff fever, then consumer power really takes a hit and other companies want to lay off to cut their costs too. Damn.

[XemaSab]

10. Not just the unemployed factory workers and other bluecollar workers

These are all folks used to making 50-100K or more a year.

The ripples will be felt far and wide.

[adamuu]

17. Obama is asking for 50,000 new supporters by Friday n/t

[AnAnonymousDemocrat]

8. maybe Carly Fiorina will want it after McCain loses

She'll be jobless soon, and we know she won't be returning to HP.

[debbierlus]

9. That is because they GOUGED their worker (sellers) with huge fees and removed ability to leave NB

Negative Feedback...Only BUYERS can leave negative feedback, so sellers are left vulnerable to unfair feedback with no recourse.

eBay sellers CREATED eBay. Instead of being treated as valuable co-owners of the business, the Republican model was to price gouge fees (thus the name, fee-bay)...

They changed their model to promote google ads and outside sites instead of promoting seller products.

The CEO said this: "I am going to clean up the place. It looks like a flea-market".

IT IS A FLEA MARKET MORON.

There plans were to turn this incredible site into a mass junk market for Chinese goods. And, it is failing spectacularly. Just as every single seller said it would...

[Hawkeye-X]

15. As a recent eBay seller - I agree

The gouging of the prices had me taking emails from international buyers - in this case, a guy from Spain wanted our high-end tech equipment and my boss reclutantly agreed. The bid ends tomorrow.

Hawkeye-X

[TheCowsCameHome]

34. I haven't sold since they messed with the seller feedback.

What a bunch of idiots they turned out to be.

[SmokingJacket]

62. I used to sell a lot on ebay.

But fees went up and with the feedback thing... forget it.

[Lorien]

70. Precisely. The new management wanted it to be a cheap(er) online Wal-Mart

which was never what it was meant to be. Repugs can't help themselves; hurting the little guy is compulsive for them. Unfortunately, it's the worker and sellers who are paying for feebays greed and brainlessness. The morons at the top have no incentive for good leadership because they all have golden parachutes.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

11. I sold some concert tickets I couldn't use on eBay a few months ago...

and between eBay and Paypal they took almost $40!

[tanyev]

12. Do they have a Buy It Now price?

[kimmerspixelated]

13. I was just about to start selling on ebay,

since my hubby lost his job. This is bad news.

[Retrograde]

20. try craigslist

we sold some surplus bikes within an hour of listing them.

You *might* get more at an auction site, and it might be a better place if you have something rare, but there are other options. See http://auctions.nettop20.com/ for a few more sites.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

22. I just started last winter, and it has been going very well

I have been a buyer since 2000, and have really loved shopping on ebay. As a seller, I'm not happy with the inability to leave neg feedback, but so far haven't had to anyway. As far as the fees go, I add a percentage on to my minimum bid so I am still getting what I want for the items I sell. I am worried though, only that there will be fewer shoppers due to the economic problems

[dysfunctional press]

44. i'm hoping for a good xmas selling season on ebay...since most people won't be able to afford retail

:shrug:

[DrZeeLit]

14. No sweat -- just sell few of those state/gov's jets! Piece of cake (w/lipstick)

[Serial Mom]

16. but, but, but, SHE helped 1,500,000 earn a living!?

From Saddleback Civil Forum

Warren asked mclame
Warren: Who were the three wisest people that you know, that you would rely on heavily in an administration?

mclame's third wiseest person
Meg Whitman. Meg Whitman, the CEO of E-Bay. Meg Whitman, 12 years ago there were five employees. Today there are one and a half million people that make a living off eBay in America in the world. It’s one of these great American success stories. And in these economic challenging times we need to call on the wisdom and knowledge, background of people like Meg Whitman who have been able to make such a great America success story part of the world’s folklore.


Hahahahaha - make a living off eBay? suppliment income maybe, but his response!?!?!?

[victordrazen]

19. I stopped using ebay

because there is no real protection against people who cheat you, and the shipping costs are so high, it swallows the savings on lower priced items. As a seller I had a series of people claim they didn't receive items, which I didn't believe, but was forced to give them a refund or get bad feedback. The only way to keep your high feedback is to be a doormat.

[Inkyfuzzbottom]

21. The original concept of ebay was terrific...

Then they got too big and too greedy and ruined it. The small sellers were cast aside for the big, high volume sellers. I used to buy and sell on ebay all the time. Not any more. Now they blow!

[Uben]

23. Craigslist?

Ebay owns part of that, too!

[Geek_Girl]

25. I had a store front on Ebay I shut it down after the fee structure change

The store front was mainly for fun/hobby. But I was starting to build up a small business making a slim profit. After the fee structure changed, I canceled the storefront.

[ogneopasno]

26. Oh NOES! And Dick Cheney said eBay was the answer to all our employment problems!

Now what, Dick? NOW WHAT?

[glinda]

30. I agree with all of the above plus

the fact that the Post Office keeps loosing our packages.

[LiberalHeart]

28. Has anyone listed it on eBay yet? n/t

[MadMaddie]

69. Ha, ha..ha.. that's funny!

:rofl:

[Doremus]

29. Meg Whitman is a pisspoor manager who happened to be in the right place at the right time.

She rode the wave, that's it. A grade school dropout could have accomplished what she did. In fact, the grade school dropout would have done a better job. Whitman mucked so many things up that ebay succeeded in SPITE of her, not because of her.

Like all other repukes, she is an imposter, a bloviator and a dim-witted egotist. For being in the right place at the right time, she now has more money than she could spend in 30 lifetimes.

And like so many of her brethren, she abandoned ship when she saw things going south. There aren't enough epithets in the dictionary to adequately describe cowards of her ilk.

[arikara]

32. I stopped selling on ebay nearly a year ago

shipping has gone up way too high, buyers want it for nothing, and to add insult to injury ebay & paypal raised their rates and take all the profit. I'm not surprised they are going down the tubes with the free local buy and sell sites. Unless there is something really special its simply not worth the money, time or effort to list on ebay.

Also, people are into simplifying these days and everyone is getting rid of their junk, not buying more.

[TheCowsCameHome]

33. They have no one to blame but themselves.

They made a mess of what was a good thing once upon a time.

Their new feedback and fee policies are too much to deal with anymore.

Tough shit, guys.

[FormerOstrich]

35. 15000 Employees!?!

Fifteen Thousand Employees? 1 5 0 0 0???

What in the world do these employees do? I just cannot imagine why they would need 15,000 employees. No wonder they have to charge so damn much. Seriously, is anyone else shocked by that number?

[CountAllVotes]

36. this is a worldwide figure

remember, they have operations all over the world. I guess they have real people working at these other locations it seems.

In any event, yes, I agree with you. If they have 15,000 employees, :wtf: do they do?

I have an account with eBay but I no longer sell things. It was just too difficult and not profitable. I buy certain items on eBay that I cannot find anywhere else.

It is too bad that some of these 15,000 employees don't do something to shore up the reputation of eBay. It has gone to hell in a handbasket IMO.

:dem:

[Lithos]

41. Yeah, 15,000 sounds right

You have more than just the engineers running the website. In addition to Paypal and Skype who probably total about 5,000 of those 15,000, you have marketing, governance (accounting/legal/hr/executive), operations (call centers/administration) and of course engineering. Engineering includes infrastructure (those who run the website), but also those who are working on new technologies (sales, optimizations, etc.), website design (usability), research, network (both website and company), etc. It adds up quickly.

Rumors are 10% or, 1500 people. This would likely be people at the call centers, HR, and probably a random 20% of engineers.

L-

[HopeHoops]

50. Yes, but only because there is NO way to get anyone on the phone

[not fooled]

53. Well, they sure aren't providing customer service

having had a couple of problems w/transactions (as a buyer), I can attest to eB's complete and utter disinterest in providing customer service. :mad: Made me cut way way back on my buying (next to nothing at this time). Way to go, 'pukes!

[SmokingJacket]

63. It seems nuts!

That's bigger than my home town!

[Democat]

37. Is Meg Whitman to blame?

Another Republican woman doing her part to destroy the American economy?

[Waiting For Everyman]

38. Aww. Ya mean Meggie screwed it up? Now McC has 3 women failures.

Birds of a feather.

[tabasco]

39. I got ripped off by a seller on eBay. Selling North Face seconds.

Got a copy of the cashed money order to send in for the dispute.

Won my dispute but eBay only paid 50%.

I said fuck 'em after that.

[ThoughtCriminal]

40. We also bailed out of eBay a couple of years ago

How long did they think they could treat their sellers like crap and stay on top?

[AndyTiedye]

42. There's Nothing Like Ebay for Tracking Down Stuff that is Collectable, Rare, or Just Plain Obscure

I'll miss them if they go away.

[mbperrin]

43. We've been selling for 4 years, and all our food and entertainment

expense is paid from our eBay sales. Fees for Powersellers are actually lower than they were, and we're happy with our business there.

We deal in small items, vintage jewelry and watches, so shipping is barely a facto, less than $3 per piece.

We just haven't had any need for negative feedback for a couple years now.

Just my 2 cents worth. Our experience may not be typical, but it sure helps make up a teaching salary.

[JeffR]

45. Palin's plane failing to sell should have been the first clue.

:scared:

[LeftyMom]

46. As a small-time buer and seller, I'm not very happy with them lately.

I'm getting sick of Paypal releasing funds when they damn well feel like it, with barely making enough money to be worth the bother after shipping and fees, and with buyers who try to fuck me over because they know that ebay/paypal will side with them every time and I can't leave them feedback and warn other sellers.

Since I mostly just sell books and textbooks, I think I'll be trying Amazon marketplace instead. I've had pretty good luck there as a buyer.

[heliarc]

47. Buy it Now! nt.

[Vinca]

48. I'm furious with ebay these days and don't sell nearly as much as I did.

They could change course if they really wanted to. Greed got the best of them and now it's ruining the company. Take it back to Pierre's original vision and it will regain the market.

[bedazzled]

49. think it's bad now? wait til they go "paypal only" - no checks or money orders allowed!

i saw an announcement (buried in an innocuous one, like
"reduced listing fees we are so wonderful") that in
october the listings will be payable by paypal only.
haven't got time to look for it now...

i sell quite a bit on ebay (unfortunately) and 1 out of
10 of my collectibles buyers pay by money order. they
are either folks who are lucky they figured out how to
bid on ebay, or folks who are smart enough not to get
involved with paypal. those buyers will be lost.

the excuse ebay floated in their announcement was that
paypal only is "anti-fraud." 80% of money order purchases
are fraudulent or some such rot. i found a new york times
article that says their intent is to go fixed price only
to compete with amazon. com.

it's pointless enough to sell now. i pick up odds and ends
at thrift stores for $4.00 and sell them for $50 and still
hardly make any money.

i hate ebay but i don't know if there are other options for
the stuff i sell...

[LiberalHeart]

51. I limited my sales to people who paid via PayPal and had a verified address.

People still bought my items and I found it was a good way to filter out trouble. Twice I had buyers refuse to use PayPal after winning the auction. I refused to sell to them because it was clearly stated in the auction listing that buyers who didn't comply with my policy would end up with an uncompleted sale. Both items were relisted and they sold for more than they would have the first time around. I also started every auction at 99 cents. Once in a while I got stuck, but generally that made people start bidding early and keep going.

What drove me away was rising shipping costs and increased eBay insertion fees. I didn't mind the PayPal fees because I thought I got value from their screening process for verification. I would have liked to have seen the fees shared by buyers and sellers, though.

[bedazzled]

54. i can understand why you'd do that - most folks use it

but i kind of welcome a money order transaction.
less money in ebay's pocket!

i've not been able to stick with "confirmed addresses"
unfortunately. i can tell the economy's in the tank
because i'm selling a lot to Australia! France!
Germany! i never wanted to, but if they're the only
bid, got to take what you can get, i guess.

[LiberalHeart]

59. I sold outside the country only once; didn't like filling out the paperwork so didn't do it again.

For me, the shipping process was a pain in the rear. Packing, hauling it to the post office, waiting in line. And I was obsessive about mailing immediately after a payment arrived. When an ice storm hit, I went on foot. That was miserable.

[bedazzled]

66. i had a guy spend $50 u.s. to send $50 worth of paperback books to australia

he didn't think anything of it! makes me
nervous to send things overseas. having
been ripped off once myself, i know how
little help either ebay or paypal are when
something goes wrong.

i'm obsessive about shipping immediately,
too. not as good as you, though. ice
storms kept me home when i lived up north!

[grasswire]

52. another former eBayer here

Years ago, it was like a money tree. Wake up in the morning and see how much dough you made overnight -- it was just amazing. I sold thousands of antique and vintage items all over the world. I took checks and money orders and never had a bad check in thousands of transactions. I never had a bad shipping experience, even to places extremely remote.

The opportunity to make that kind of money on eBay is gone. And the fun is gone, too. And I'm gone, too, regretfully.

I don't know why someone hasn't started up a replacement built like the early eBay.

[ThoughtCriminal]

55. No thanks - Hard to even sell executive jets there these days

:P

[azurnoir]

56. It is more than fee's

they have also recently put caps on shipping costs for sellers, in some cases sellers are taking a quite a loss on shipping, I know someone who has lost as much as $50 on a single item, that along with the new "buyer protections" which allows paypal to hold a payment for up to 3 weeks under some circumstances, these things can really screw small sellers an that is who they are aimed at.

[LiberalHeart]

60. How can they cap shipping? n/t

[azurnoir]

65. They are - due to complaints

that some sellers were gouging on shipping, there are variables in the caps things such as weight, size what the item is ect.

[KansDem]

57. self deleted

Someone beat me to it! :D

[lanlady]

58. I'm ebay's worst nightmare

I switched to craigslist last year. Sold tons of stuff for cash, no commission fees, plenty of buyers.

In a sense, I think that ebay is a victim of its own success. For many items, once sellers/buyers move online and get to know each other, there's no need for a middle man like ebay. I used to buy perfume on ebay but now I just go to the seller's website. I get the same price, and the seller is happy because she has no ebay fees to fork over.

Ebay probably works best when you have that rare item or true collectible to sell.

[hyphenate]

61. I find some of the costs of S&H

horrendous, and it's not worth it anymore to buy cheap items when more than $6 is often charged for shipping. A lot of dealers offset their "cheap" price with higher costs in S&H and even if it's only a bracelet charm or something small enough to fit into a regular envelope, they will charge outrageous "shipping" fees.

Nowadays, if you want to pick up something you won close to you, they still charge you a fee!

There are still a few things I get at eBay, but I've been doing far more shopping at Amazon and other sites after doing price comparisons.

As someone who is a seller sometimes, I've really become rather disillusioned with the way eBay works, and find it difficult to deal with when I require a real human being and not a mailbot.

[Captiosus]

67. My recent eBay story.

I had a solid account on eBay for a long time, but since I hadn't had occasion to bother with eBay for the last 3 years, when I went there to try to sell my laptop I found out my original, 11 year old account, was gone.

Not just locked or deactivated.
Gone.

eBay support wouldn't give me a straight answer. They couldn't explain why the account was apparently deleted, and I'm meticulous about keeping records. After several days of frustration I made a new account.

Because the account wasn't highly rated and was new, anything I sold would have to go through Paypal (I was fine with this part), but they wouldn't release any funds from sales for 21 days! I can't sit here and wait 21 days, especially when part of the funds would have been applied to shipping, which I was already planning on taking a loss on just to make the listing more appealing.

eBay can go to hell as far as I'm concerned.