What would you do if you were the ceo of ebay

[casbit33]

If I were the Ceo of Ebay I would make all items free to list and relist.

Storeholders would have a lower FV fee.

Money back guarantee would be scrapped.

Negative feedback button returned for sellers.

Bad buyers and sellers would have their accounts shut down.

And the whole place would get back to being a fair and equal place for all.

What does everyone else think? any ideas?

[max-power-models]

I'd be looking over my shoulder at Amazon, halve the FVF on postage.sack whomever is responsible for not being able to update the International post dropdown menus.

[springyzone]

 started out that way - listing personal items I no longer wanted or needed, but back then freebies were a rarity (and generally only for 99c auctions), so I pretty much paid 50c for every item I listed because I learned quickly I wasn't going to risk selling for 99c. This is where a lot of my opinion about free listings comes from, for sure, as that resulted in me making more discerning decisions about what and how I chose to list - by which I mean 50c was worth trying once, maybe twice tops, but after that it became clear an item wasn't going to be worth further investment of time and money to try and sell - many other sellers approached it the same way and as a consequence you didn't see the same things perennially listed. 

When the promos did run, most people dreaded them (buyers and sellers alike), as the site would get an influx of listings that - to put it one way - made it more difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff. 

Maybe I'm just too old-school, weird and/or miserly to get the yen for free listings - I would be more inclined to have a system that encourages people to be selective / discerning and strategic, hence my previous suggestion of going back to lower priced insertion fees (after the standard freebies), half-price promos, and volume discounts

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That brought back a lot of memories.

I agree, we also paid for every listing so we were discerning about what we would list.

There were some things then that needed improving though and ebay has since brought in, which is great.

Back in the day we paid extra for a photo to be attached to the ad listing, which i always thought was counter productive. It makes ebay a better forum for buyers to immediately see a photo before they click on an ad to read further, and it is useful for buyers to be able to see a few different photos.

So I think those changes with free photos should stay.

I have noticed the commission rate is now way higher than it was when we paid insertion fees. I think a low insertion fee per ad would be okay if the commission cost went down

[classifieds10]

I would look after Sellers better. presently good sellers are not rewarded,instead they are penalized. I do not know of any business who punishes their good customers they way eBay does. Coles has Flybuys Airlines have their frequent flyer programmes etc etc If you are a good seller with 100 % fb and you have regular sales and sell over a certain amount or volume (and that is not excessive) then you actually never get included in any promotion , eg free listings .When you ring Ebay to ask why I am never getting these promotions, they answer that it is only for new sellers and I am an experienced seller. What a lot of BS is Ebay stupid? Don't they get more fees if the seller sells more, I am prevented from selling more by not receiving the free listings. are they forcing me into an expensive store?? That will not happen It seems that the same sellers get the promotion all the time , I know this from friends who get it and they are not new , they have regular sale. I would treat all sellers the same and no discrimination of who gets the 3 x auto relist or not. That is the most unfair , discriminating system, especially as it says: "New, you can now auto list 3 time if your item does not sell" but in fact it is for selected sellers only. Same stupid answer if you ask eBay, only for new sellers. Is this false advertising? I would say so I would get rid of sellers who get regular negative feed back. I did bring a few very obvious fraudulent crooks ( have proof) to the attention of Ebay, nothing happened , the crooks are still there. I would reintroduce neg fb back for buyers, there are many who deserve it. As a seller you are totally defenseless it is like a bear  fight, the bear will never win as it has its teeth pulled and is tight up ( how unfair is that?

[classifieds10]

I would look after Sellers better.
presently good sellers are not rewarded,instead the are penalised.

i do not know of any business who punishes their customers they way ebay does.

Coles rewards their customers with a loyalty programme "flybuys"
All airlines have their frequent flyer programme to reward their good clients

if you are a good seller on eBay with 100 % fb and you have regular sales and sell over a certain amount or volume (and that is not excessive) then you actually never get included in any promotion , eg free listings .When you ring Ebay to ask why i am never getting these promotions, they answer that it is only for new sellers and i am an experienced seller. What a lot of BS

is Ebay stupid? Dont they get more fees if the seller sells more, I am prevented from selling more by not receiving the free listings.
are they forcing me into an expensive store?? That will not happen

it seems that the same sellers get the promotion all the time , i know this from friends who get it and they are not new , they have regular sales.

I would stop discriminating and have the same rules for all sellers
Such as the auto relist 3x , i am not getting auto relists and when i asked ebay, i got the same stupid answer. It is only for new sellers. So why do they advertise: "New, you can now auto relist up to 3 times if your item does not sell". It does not apply to all sellers,. This would have to classified as false advertising.

I further would stop stealing fees from sellers over postage, which they have no business with, and is an unavoidable item when you sell world wide

I would reinstate neg fb for buyers , as many are fraudulent and deserve neg f/ b
Ebay has virtually open suggestions to buyers as how easy it is to get a refund and keep the item.

Sellers have no defence mechanism and this compares well with a bear fight.
The bear cannot win as his teeth are pulled out and the bear is tied up.

[chameleon54]

What would you do if you where the CEO of ebay ?

The way ebay is performing at the moment, If I was the CEO of ebay I would RESIGN     !!!!!...........

[everard6920]

Remove FVF on postage:

- Work with Australia Post to devise a system where ALL of their postage methods can be printed/used via eBay (including letters).

- Sellers can then use this to print their postage, and eBay knows that the seller is not overcharging, so no need to charge FVFs on postage. If you don't use the system, then you pay the FVFs on your postage.

- This would discourage overseas sellers pretending they're in Australia, because the only postage options they'd have would be Australia Post's (and they would have to be in Australia to use those). Of course, they could still use their own country's postage methods, but they would have to pay FVFs on it.

- Handling fees would either have to be included in the item cost (and have FVFs applied) OR you could allow the seller to charge a reasonable handling fee and not apply FVFs to that eg: a percentage of the sale price (eg: handling fees cannot be more than 5% of the total sale price, or something like that). I have to give this point some more thought.

I've got to get ready for work, but I might be back later with more ideas 🙂

[everard6920]

Oh, before I go - I would also look at ways to integrate social media advertising/presence with eBay. Currently, sellers are not allowed to include links to social media anywhere on their listings.

Social media has become one of the most valuable tools for companies and businesses to promote themselves with, and sellers on eBay are forbidden from taking advantage of that.

I understand why, but it's an outdated policy. I'm not sure exactly what the solution would be, but it's something I'd definitely look at.

[springyzone]

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@classifieds10 wrote:

I would look after Sellers better. presently good sellers are not rewarded,instead they are penalized. I do not know of any business who punishes their good customers they way eBay does. Coles has Flybuys Airlines have their frequent flyer programmes etc etc If you are a good seller with 100 % fb and you have regular sales and sell over a certain amount or volume (and that is not excessive) then you actually never get included in any promotion , eg free listings .When you ring Ebay to ask why I am never getting these promotions, they answer that it is only for new sellers and I am an experienced seller. What a lot of BS is Ebay stupid? Don't they get more fees if the seller sells more, I am prevented from selling more by not receiving the free listings. are they forcing me into an expensive store?? That will not happen It seems that the same sellers get the promotion all the time , I know this from friends who get it and they are not new , they have regular sale. I would treat all sellers the same and no discrimination of who gets the 3 x auto relist or not. That is the most unfair , discriminating system, especially as it says: "New, you can now auto list 3 time if your item does not sell" but in fact it is for selected sellers only. Same stupid answer if you ask eBay, only for new sellers. Is this false advertising? I would say so I would get rid of sellers who get regular negative feed back. I did bring a few very obvious fraudulent crooks ( have proof) to the attention of Ebay, nothing happened , the crooks are still there. I would reintroduce neg fb back for buyers, there are many who deserve it. As a seller you are totally defenseless it is like a bear  fight, the bear will never win as it has its teeth pulled and is tight up ( how unfair is that?

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Unfortunately several businesses do this-they don't reward loyalty at all. have a look at companies such as telstra where they will leave customers on older, more expensive plans with less data & never tell them they could switch.

Have a look at ancestry. com. If you want international plan you can get it half price if you are new. Keep it for a couple of years though and you can expect to pay full price.

It would make sense for ebay and some others to build in some sort of reward system for loyalty (long time sellers) as it would be an incentive for people to build up an account.

Maybe they could do the same for buyers somehow. For accounts that have been registered for longer eg over 5 years, a slightly better promotional offer discount when they come around. It wouldn't be hard to automate and need not cost extra money.

[chameleon54]

Devise a system so that ebay stores can be easily sold and transferred to new owners. Yes I get the feedback problem, but maybe ebay could leave the existing feedback, put a clear dividing line indicating, " store under new management" and use the new store owners feedback score from that point on. This would show a high feedback score for a long established business, but reflect the new owners ebay practices.

This along with reviewing the policy on throttling would be two of the biggest ways ebay could encourage long term businesses to build and plan for the future.

Unfortunately this relies on the expectation that ebay actually values and wants small to medium sized businesses on the platform. I fear small to medium sized stores are probably not part of ebays long term plans, so maybe thats something I would look at if CEO. The present strategy of chasing large brand name businesses and Chinese $2 shops is not delivering expected growth to ebay at the moment so maybe it is time to review this strategy..

[lyndal1838]

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@everard6920 wrote:

Remove FVF on postage:

- Sellers can then use this to print their postage, and eBay knows that the seller is not overcharging, so no need to charge FVFs on postage. If you don't use the system, then you pay the FVFs on your postage.

- This would discourage overseas sellers pretending they're in Australia, because the only postage options they'd have would be Australia Post's (and they would have to be in Australia to use those). Of course, they could still use their own country's postage methods, but they would have to pay FVFs on it.

- Handling fees would either have to be included in the item cost (and have FVFs applied) OR you could allow the seller to charge a reasonable handling fee and not apply FVFs to that eg: a percentage of the sale price (eg: handling fees cannot be more than 5% of the total sale price, or something like that). I have to give this point some more thought.

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This presupposes that all sellers use Australia Post.   What about sellers who use couriers, even for small items that could go with AP and not just for large items that cannot be sent with AP?

Also, you are working on the assumption that overseas sellers are all being hit with the fees on postage in the same way as Australian sellers.  The American sellers definitely are not affected in the same way and I doubt that it would worry the Asian sellers either.  Their postage is so heavily subsidised that most of them send items with no outlay to themselves....10% of $0 is still $0.