Tuesday, June 24, 2008
From A Former Ebay Employee
FROM A FORMER EBAY EMPLOYEE:
Note : I did'nt write this. I found this on a discussion board in selling on Ebay. For those who do not know , Ebay just had their biggie meeting in Chicago. Read on -
UNBELIEVEABLE!!
I posted this at the feedback forum at eBay but it was killed by staff less than a minute later. I should have known. My ID will be toast soon anyway. This was the only other place I thought where my statement might have an impact. Do with it what you will. After Chicago, my only desire is to be heard.
There will be those who will not believe me and I sympathize. I wish the facts were fiction but to deny what I know would be to live in a fairyland of make-believe. I understand that the bulk of this “manifesto” reveals a plot so against the spirit of eBay that it will be dismissed as lie. So be it. I cannot force the world to accept it. All I can do is state the truth as I know it and leave it to you and to your common sense and experience to judge.
The deck is stacked against me. Aside from the natural resistance to believe I know that the boards are stocked with eBay’s tools. Their goal will be to discredit me. I will be accused of being a “disgruntled”, “paranoid”, and “emotional” seller. Their words will be specially chosen for effect. That is part of the function of the tools and I am not fazed by it. However, to protect my own identity within the corporation, I cannot be too specific lest the details single me out to the powers that be.
What I intend to reveal is common knowledge to many in the management division behind the scenes.
By the way, the tools are not only the mouthpieces that promote the policies. The psychological tactics employed by the powers that be are far deeper and grander than that. The subtlety of the method is remarkable. The tools come in a wide range of flavors with their own, individual “characteristic” rhetoric. From those who are “for” the policy - and spread various degrees of hostility toward the sellers - to those who are “against” the change - and spread panic and further the divide with the buyers. Both serve the same exact purpose: a manipulation designed to remove the more involved and savvy small to large sellers who will not fit into eBay’s future business plan.
First, let me correct the record regarding the concept of sellers extorting positive feedback. While the violation was known to happen, the activity amounted to less than a tenth of a percent of the yearly transactions. Further, it involved sellers whose feedback percentages were below 80%. The absolute majority of sellers did not engage in such practices. Nevertheless, the powers that be could not resist the fact that promoting this notion of feedback extortion as a wide-spread phenomenon would be the perfect cover with which to hide the true intentions of the policy.
The powers that be want to transform eBay into an overstock warehouse venue. A kind of outlet store for the internet much like a cheaper and streamlined version of Amazon. From a strictly business point of view, given the size of eBay and the growing costs of doing business, it makes a certain kind of sense to shift gears. Think about it: when eBay started, sellers were about rare and unique items but here and now the majority of items are common, used counterparts of what can be found new online at retail sites. Truly rare and unique items are sold at real auctions; the “stuff in your attic” isn’t glamorous enough and won’t keep eBay afloat any longer.
The trend away from the rare and unique to the big box retailer is not new. Several years ago the powers that be noticed that the big “powersellers” were simply listing items that existed in their retail stores or inventories. Thus the concept of “buy it now”, “best offer”, and “eBay stores” were created. It was the nascent stage of the plan yet to be. Little by little, without the population noticing, the mechanisms required to replicate the average retail storefront were already in place - and with its rise came the slow, steady downfall of the auction format.
Yet outright pursuit of a retail venue would have led to a major problem that at the time could not have been surmounted. The vast majority of people, on and off line, know eBay as precisely the place for auctions of rare and unique items. The sellers and buyers held onto that perception too but in truth their opinion even involvement in new and improved version of eBay is irrelevant by a certain Machiavellian calculation made by the powers that be. As part of the plan, eBay calculated thus: even if they lost the sellers as part of the change, the buyers will be coming back to buy regardless of who or what operated within the retail-outlet venue.
No, it was the stock holders who the powers that be feared.
Only the stockholders had the power to change the direction set forth by the CEO and the board. So it became imperative to change the equation. Part of the plan is to devalue the stock gradually so that investors merely dumped the stock as opposed to wanting managerial change ala Yahoo. Then to buy back the stock at lower cost and to such a volume that no rebellion against the powers that be were possible.
By the end of July that phase of the plan will be successful and there est of the plan will be revealed without fear of backlash from those who otherwise would have had the power to pull eBay back from the brink.
Indeed, if you believe the current changes are obvious signals that small sellers are not wanted - be prepared - you have seen nothing yet.
So far what have they done? All they have managed to do is silence a seller’s ability to warn others about buyers (half of the purpose behind the original idea of feedback), burden you with higher and higher fees, dangle “treats” like discounts while setting the bar of eligibility so high that the rewards cannot be reached. and, by the way PayPal deals with “complaints” leave you vulnerable to fraud. What if worse was yet to come?
They know if you do not feel safe that you will not use eBay. The changes that have been enacted only eliminates the small sellers. Meanwhile they want to eradicate the mid-sized seller too. And they want to ensure that both do not return.
For the mid-sized seller the DSR became the tool of choice. The powers that be raised the level of what is a good seller artificially high. No manipulation is required; they know exactly the effect of the policy. This is why buyers are told that 4 is a good score and sellers are told that 4.9 yields discounts and higher listing placements. As long as that fractured point of view exists, eBay does not need to interfere with the DSR as has been suggested, the buyers will be killing the sellers naturally.
By August there will be no pretense and the intentions of the new and improved eBay will be clear. The following is only a partial list of the rules that will be imposed. It comes from a memo that circulated within my corner of the managerial department the week before Chicago. I cannot be too specific about certain items and I cannot reveal details of the latest additions without endangering my anonymity.
1. Neutrals will be converted to negatives complete with red icons and reduced feedback scores. Afterward neutrals will not be offered as a choice of feedback.
2. The entire process of feedback will be automated. Buyers and sellers will chose standard feedback from a list. For sellers this operation will be performed automatically upon the buyer winning. For buyers there will be an extra free line with which to add a few comments about the seller without restriction to content. Replies will not be allowed.
3. The implementation of a stricter rules regarding shipping. From the boxes, packing, labels and tapes to where you can buy postage. Orders have been placed for prototypes of “eBay” boxes. UPS and FedEx will be instructed not to accept “eBay” merchandise if it’s not inside “eBay” boxing. They will know, of course, because when sellers buy the “eBay” postage from the “eBay” source, a detailed list of contents with item numbers will be available to the shippers upon scanning a bar code. As for those who continue to use USPS, another level of quality control will be implemented - buyers will be asked, upon confirmation of delivery, if the seller used “eBay” standard shipping items. Naturally, no verification of the buyer’s truthfulness will be attempted, and continued ‘infractions’ will result in suspension. eBay will have other ways to check if a seller is not using the “eBay” equipment - as they will be required to buy at cost the supplies immediately after items are listed. (This is such a large scale operation behind the scenes that I feel comfortable sharing as much of it as I know.)
4. Sales taxes will be included automatically; shipping cost and sales taxes will be used to determined FVF.
5. Item descriptions will be “standardized” with templates which include the posting of a new, universal return policy. Only yearly subscribers to the retail-outlet venue can opt out of these universal return policies but even they cannot alter the template structures being devised.
6. Strikes against buyers will be eliminated as the whole concept of a buyer and bidding will be altered. FVF will be calculated when payment is submitted.
7. Time to Close will be eliminated entirely. Best Match will be the non-alterable default. Best Match is a system that caters to the needs of shoppers not bidders.
8. Placement within Best Match will be determined by several factors, the most important of which will be the extra display features added onto the listing.
9. DSRs can be removed by retailers and powersellers who pay a certain yearly fee.
10. The end play itself which consists of four phases:
a) the main focus shifts to retail sellers whose fees are on a per listing basis
b) stores will be replaced by a classified section, fees will be based on yearly subscriptions and FVFs
c) occasional auctions will be conducted for unique items (celebrity auctions, items that have been featured on the news, etc.)
d) total elimination of auctions for regular sellers.
From the point of view of eBay’s agenda to change gears these alteration make sense. The powers that be want to turn eBay into a retail venue format. Therefore the “buyer” must be changed - bidding and commitments to buy are part of the past. In a retail venue, the item is either in your cart or not and you only commit to buy when you pay at checkout. The seller is also redefined in the way they will be required to do business. They will be forced to copy the methods of retail stores.
The goal is to become Amazon Lite. Unlike Amazon the merchandise will be stocked by the retailers in their warehouses, eBay will be just an electronic centralized venue for outlet sale - a “trusted” name with a wide customer base and popular name recognition.
That is the future and as I write this I know that it cannot be stopped. There are no investors with enough clout and will to challenge the CEO. Stock holders will simply walk away. eBay will not sink, however, it will be exactly in the position its rulers intend it to be at.
Sellers, my advice is simple. You are not wanted. Leave. If you stay, you will be crushed. Leave. Go away. You cannot win.
I am sorry because for too long I have been a complicit tool behind the scenes. I was part of those teams and think tanks that spearheaded many of the “innovations” you know very well and which will be used to destroy you. I know I will not be believed. I will be mocked and ridiculed by the tools and even those who are real, actual people will be hesitant to accept what I have to say. What has been done to this community, the plots and schemes hatched in meetings and across memos, is far, far worse to endure within my soul than any treatment I will receive at the hands of the tools by posting this. You do not know how much they hate you. It is my conscience that I want to clear going forward. Again I apologize. There should have been a better way for the powers that be to effect the change they wanted for eBay - instead they succumbed to cloak and dagger deception.
RIP eBay
Comment by Misty - June 24, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Note : I did'nt write this. I found this on a discussion board in selling on Ebay. For those who do not know , Ebay just had their biggie meeting in Chicago. Read on -
UNBELIEVEABLE!!
I posted this at the feedback forum at eBay but it was killed by staff less than a minute later. I should have known. My ID will be toast soon anyway. This was the only other place I thought where my statement might have an impact. Do with it what you will. After Chicago, my only desire is to be heard.
There will be those who will not believe me and I sympathize. I wish the facts were fiction but to deny what I know would be to live in a fairyland of make-believe. I understand that the bulk of this “manifesto” reveals a plot so against the spirit of eBay that it will be dismissed as lie. So be it. I cannot force the world to accept it. All I can do is state the truth as I know it and leave it to you and to your common sense and experience to judge.
The deck is stacked against me. Aside from the natural resistance to believe I know that the boards are stocked with eBay’s tools. Their goal will be to discredit me. I will be accused of being a “disgruntled”, “paranoid”, and “emotional” seller. Their words will be specially chosen for effect. That is part of the function of the tools and I am not fazed by it. However, to protect my own identity within the corporation, I cannot be too specific lest the details single me out to the powers that be.
What I intend to reveal is common knowledge to many in the management division behind the scenes.
By the way, the tools are not only the mouthpieces that promote the policies. The psychological tactics employed by the powers that be are far deeper and grander than that. The subtlety of the method is remarkable. The tools come in a wide range of flavors with their own, individual “characteristic” rhetoric. From those who are “for” the policy - and spread various degrees of hostility toward the sellers - to those who are “against” the change - and spread panic and further the divide with the buyers. Both serve the same exact purpose: a manipulation designed to remove the more involved and savvy small to large sellers who will not fit into eBay’s future business plan.
First, let me correct the record regarding the concept of sellers extorting positive feedback. While the violation was known to happen, the activity amounted to less than a tenth of a percent of the yearly transactions. Further, it involved sellers whose feedback percentages were below 80%. The absolute majority of sellers did not engage in such practices. Nevertheless, the powers that be could not resist the fact that promoting this notion of feedback extortion as a wide-spread phenomenon would be the perfect cover with which to hide the true intentions of the policy.
The powers that be want to transform eBay into an overstock warehouse venue. A kind of outlet store for the internet much like a cheaper and streamlined version of Amazon. From a strictly business point of view, given the size of eBay and the growing costs of doing business, it makes a certain kind of sense to shift gears. Think about it: when eBay started, sellers were about rare and unique items but here and now the majority of items are common, used counterparts of what can be found new online at retail sites. Truly rare and unique items are sold at real auctions; the “stuff in your attic” isn’t glamorous enough and won’t keep eBay afloat any longer.
The trend away from the rare and unique to the big box retailer is not new. Several years ago the powers that be noticed that the big “powersellers” were simply listing items that existed in their retail stores or inventories. Thus the concept of “buy it now”, “best offer”, and “eBay stores” were created. It was the nascent stage of the plan yet to be. Little by little, without the population noticing, the mechanisms required to replicate the average retail storefront were already in place - and with its rise came the slow, steady downfall of the auction format.
Yet outright pursuit of a retail venue would have led to a major problem that at the time could not have been surmounted. The vast majority of people, on and off line, know eBay as precisely the place for auctions of rare and unique items. The sellers and buyers held onto that perception too but in truth their opinion even involvement in new and improved version of eBay is irrelevant by a certain Machiavellian calculation made by the powers that be. As part of the plan, eBay calculated thus: even if they lost the sellers as part of the change, the buyers will be coming back to buy regardless of who or what operated within the retail-outlet venue.
No, it was the stock holders who the powers that be feared.
Only the stockholders had the power to change the direction set forth by the CEO and the board. So it became imperative to change the equation. Part of the plan is to devalue the stock gradually so that investors merely dumped the stock as opposed to wanting managerial change ala Yahoo. Then to buy back the stock at lower cost and to such a volume that no rebellion against the powers that be were possible.
By the end of July that phase of the plan will be successful and there est of the plan will be revealed without fear of backlash from those who otherwise would have had the power to pull eBay back from the brink.
Indeed, if you believe the current changes are obvious signals that small sellers are not wanted - be prepared - you have seen nothing yet.
So far what have they done? All they have managed to do is silence a seller’s ability to warn others about buyers (half of the purpose behind the original idea of feedback), burden you with higher and higher fees, dangle “treats” like discounts while setting the bar of eligibility so high that the rewards cannot be reached. and, by the way PayPal deals with “complaints” leave you vulnerable to fraud. What if worse was yet to come?
They know if you do not feel safe that you will not use eBay. The changes that have been enacted only eliminates the small sellers. Meanwhile they want to eradicate the mid-sized seller too. And they want to ensure that both do not return.
For the mid-sized seller the DSR became the tool of choice. The powers that be raised the level of what is a good seller artificially high. No manipulation is required; they know exactly the effect of the policy. This is why buyers are told that 4 is a good score and sellers are told that 4.9 yields discounts and higher listing placements. As long as that fractured point of view exists, eBay does not need to interfere with the DSR as has been suggested, the buyers will be killing the sellers naturally.
By August there will be no pretense and the intentions of the new and improved eBay will be clear. The following is only a partial list of the rules that will be imposed. It comes from a memo that circulated within my corner of the managerial department the week before Chicago. I cannot be too specific about certain items and I cannot reveal details of the latest additions without endangering my anonymity.
1. Neutrals will be converted to negatives complete with red icons and reduced feedback scores. Afterward neutrals will not be offered as a choice of feedback.
2. The entire process of feedback will be automated. Buyers and sellers will chose standard feedback from a list. For sellers this operation will be performed automatically upon the buyer winning. For buyers there will be an extra free line with which to add a few comments about the seller without restriction to content. Replies will not be allowed.
3. The implementation of a stricter rules regarding shipping. From the boxes, packing, labels and tapes to where you can buy postage. Orders have been placed for prototypes of “eBay” boxes. UPS and FedEx will be instructed not to accept “eBay” merchandise if it’s not inside “eBay” boxing. They will know, of course, because when sellers buy the “eBay” postage from the “eBay” source, a detailed list of contents with item numbers will be available to the shippers upon scanning a bar code. As for those who continue to use USPS, another level of quality control will be implemented - buyers will be asked, upon confirmation of delivery, if the seller used “eBay” standard shipping items. Naturally, no verification of the buyer’s truthfulness will be attempted, and continued ‘infractions’ will result in suspension. eBay will have other ways to check if a seller is not using the “eBay” equipment - as they will be required to buy at cost the supplies immediately after items are listed. (This is such a large scale operation behind the scenes that I feel comfortable sharing as much of it as I know.)
4. Sales taxes will be included automatically; shipping cost and sales taxes will be used to determined FVF.
5. Item descriptions will be “standardized” with templates which include the posting of a new, universal return policy. Only yearly subscribers to the retail-outlet venue can opt out of these universal return policies but even they cannot alter the template structures being devised.
6. Strikes against buyers will be eliminated as the whole concept of a buyer and bidding will be altered. FVF will be calculated when payment is submitted.
7. Time to Close will be eliminated entirely. Best Match will be the non-alterable default. Best Match is a system that caters to the needs of shoppers not bidders.
8. Placement within Best Match will be determined by several factors, the most important of which will be the extra display features added onto the listing.
9. DSRs can be removed by retailers and powersellers who pay a certain yearly fee.
10. The end play itself which consists of four phases:
a) the main focus shifts to retail sellers whose fees are on a per listing basis
b) stores will be replaced by a classified section, fees will be based on yearly subscriptions and FVFs
c) occasional auctions will be conducted for unique items (celebrity auctions, items that have been featured on the news, etc.)
d) total elimination of auctions for regular sellers.
From the point of view of eBay’s agenda to change gears these alteration make sense. The powers that be want to turn eBay into a retail venue format. Therefore the “buyer” must be changed - bidding and commitments to buy are part of the past. In a retail venue, the item is either in your cart or not and you only commit to buy when you pay at checkout. The seller is also redefined in the way they will be required to do business. They will be forced to copy the methods of retail stores.
The goal is to become Amazon Lite. Unlike Amazon the merchandise will be stocked by the retailers in their warehouses, eBay will be just an electronic centralized venue for outlet sale - a “trusted” name with a wide customer base and popular name recognition.
That is the future and as I write this I know that it cannot be stopped. There are no investors with enough clout and will to challenge the CEO. Stock holders will simply walk away. eBay will not sink, however, it will be exactly in the position its rulers intend it to be at.
Sellers, my advice is simple. You are not wanted. Leave. If you stay, you will be crushed. Leave. Go away. You cannot win.
I am sorry because for too long I have been a complicit tool behind the scenes. I was part of those teams and think tanks that spearheaded many of the “innovations” you know very well and which will be used to destroy you. I know I will not be believed. I will be mocked and ridiculed by the tools and even those who are real, actual people will be hesitant to accept what I have to say. What has been done to this community, the plots and schemes hatched in meetings and across memos, is far, far worse to endure within my soul than any treatment I will receive at the hands of the tools by posting this. You do not know how much they hate you. It is my conscience that I want to clear going forward. Again I apologize. There should have been a better way for the powers that be to effect the change they wanted for eBay - instead they succumbed to cloak and dagger deception.
RIP eBay
Comment by Misty - June 24, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Comments:
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IT APPEARS THAT A LOT OF THINGS "MISTY" SAID ARE TRUE!
THE RIDDLE OF THE “NON-PERFORMING” EBAY GOLD POWER SELLER!
“There are lies, damn lies, and then there are [eBay] statistics”.
On the night of July 17, 2008, without prior notice, eBay removed from their site all of my company’s 380 listings and sent me an email stating the reason for this action was: “seller non-performance”; this after more than nine years and tens of thousands of perfect selling (and buying) transactions on eBay!
On Friday morning July 18, 2008, after discovering that my listings had all disappeared, I immediately called my personal eBay “Gold Power Seller” representative’s phone number (only available to sellers with sales totaling more than $10,000.00 per month), and asked him how could this be? He said “this looks like a mistake” and said he would call me right back, and within ten minutes he did. He said: “I checked with the trust and safety people here and in the last “rolling” 30-day sample period it appears you had one “negative” and one “neutral” comment in “feedback”, and you dipped too low in one or more of the four categories of your DSR (Detailed Seller Ratings), so that places you in the bottom 1% of all eBay sellers for customer satisfaction, and they have restricted you from listing on the site because of seller non-performance”.
WHAT!!!! eBay made the decision to shutter my business of nine years based on their automated analysis of data from their voluntary buyer satisfaction survey, that they collected over a single 30-day sampling period, and included a total of only 42 of my transactions all of which were completed successfully. How could this be?
Addendum
After eBay’s “trust and safety” department reviewed the letter (printed below) on August 6th, I received two eBay “form” emails the early morning of August 7th: one reinstating my “selling privileges” , the other warning me I would be removed again from the site if my current 95% “customer satisfaction” rating (determined from eBay’s statistics!) deteriorated in any way in the next thirty days. The odds do not look good!
Note: if the following story seems unbelievable, be assured eBay’s trust and safety department reviewed and confirmed that all details relating to the eBay site are correct, and all of my statements can be corroborated.
First a history of who I am, and what I have accomplished using eBay as my business partner:
My name is David Riddle, I have been self employed for thirty six years as an inventor / designer / manufacturer and marketer of technical products in the fields of electronics, optics and mechanical devices, and have been successfully satisfying hundreds of thousands of customers long before eBay existed.
I decided to become a selling “member” of the eBay “community” in December of 1998 under the user name: DAVIDRIDDLE, and have since sold millions of dollars of re-manufactured and fully guaranteed products and services that I call “tools of creativity and productivity” to many thousands of very satisfied individuals and corporations around the world.
With long hours of work from myself and my staff in the past nine years, we have achieved a total eBay “feedback rating” of more than 10,800 customer comments with 99.5% positive responses.
This success is even more astounding when one considers that unlike the majority of eBay sellers that offer their used items for sale “as-is” without any guarantee of any kind, all of our eBay listings and sales are comprised of fully-guaranteed and calibrated specialized high technology equipment supplied to very critical and demanding professional customers.
We not only provide a money back guarantee on every one of our products, but also, more significantly we guarantee “suitability of application”; when our customer receives our products we guarantee the items will function exactly as we described, and will accomplish the task as the customer requires.
Every one of these complex technical products that we offer and deliver in perfect operating condition, requires hours of total hands-on analysis, repair, calibration and testing prior to being expertly packaged for safe shipment through what I call the shipping companies “trail of torture”!
We achieve these results through a commitment to customer support / assistance and guaranteed satisfaction before and after each sale, by providing a toll-free telephone number in multiple places in every eBay listing, in every email and document. This toll-free line is answered by my staff and me personally, nine hours a day, five days a week, from the U.S. and Canada.
This toll-free number is very rarely offered by other eBay sellers and is a direct communication link between potential customers, customers involved in purchases and inquiries of any kind; we vigorously promote “free, expert, customer service”– a rare commodity in today’s society.
Over the last nine plus years on eBay, our phone records indicate that I have personally spoken to and advised more than 45,000 customers, potential customers, and other eBay sellers from whom I have purchased. These “one-on-one” conversations provide invaluable insight into what are my customer’s needs and how they are thinking and feeling about my business practices. In addition, these all important conversations form the basis of my business decisions as to what products and services to provide and to whom I should sell them.
After all of our hard work, unrivaled commitment to our customers and demonstrated responsibility in business dealings, one can only imagine how I might feel being deemed by eBay to be a “non-performing” seller. I can tell you how I feel: disbelief, anger, depression, and finally acceptance. Sound familiar?
These are the emotions of loss and death: the death of my business and the loss of my passion which is happily advising and encouraging my eBay customers to turn their intangible ideas into tangible products and services by providing them with these tools of creativity and productivity while enthusiastically offering free expert engineering solutions and advice, whether they purchased something from me or not.
In addition to ending my business partnership, eBay’s decision has also stopped, something very dear to my heart, my altruistic program of offering a free school for primary and secondary “at risk” students (as I was in school) where I along with other volunteers will demonstrate and guide these students through the real-world process of “Invention and Entrepreneurship”.
The basis of this program depended on using eBay as a pivotal component in test-marketing student’s product ideas at low cost all over the world, then manufacturing only their successful creations and using the EBay site to sell these products, allowing these young entrepreneurs to personally profit from their ideas.
The facility plans included a fully outfitted “model shop” for prototype product fabrication, graphic arts / photo studio, video and audio production studio and computer business center all housed in a 2500 square foot portion of my building.
The students were to have used this facility at no charge, and, with the direction of myself and other volunteer mentors, were to experience the hands-on work of: “conception to execution to marketing to sale”-- the process that I and every successful inventor and entrepreneur uses. Now this dream may never be realized.
Now, a description of how eBay uses statistics to determine “buyer satisfaction”
eBay’s original method since 1995 for keeping track of satisfactory transactions on the site is called “feedback” where both the buyer and seller could voluntarily assign a “feedback rating” to each other for every individual “ended” auction listing or “buy-it-now” listing on the site; this feedback is normally non-revocable and accumulates for each buyer and seller from their first transaction to date. The available options are as follow: “Positive” (add one point to feedback score), “Neutral” (no score change), or “Negative” (subtract one point from feedback score)
In 2007, eBay added an additional component to the buyers voluntary feedback reporting; called the “Detailed seller Rating”or DSR. eBay promoted DSR as a way to provide sellers with a more detailed report of their buyers satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) in four categories, each with a 0 to 5 “star” rating selection as shown below in the exact wording the buyer sees if they bother filling out the DSR ratings (remember, there is no requirement or reciprocal benefit for the buyer to fill out this section, as there is for regular feedback):
“Click on the stars to rate more details of the transaction. These ratings will not be seen by the seller.
How accurate was the item description?
* Very inaccurate, ** Inaccurate, *** Neither inaccurate nor accurate, **** Accurate, ***** Very accurate
How satisfied were you with the seller's communication?
* Very unsatisfied, ** Unsatisfied, *** Neither unsatisfied nor satisfied, **** Satisfied, ***** Very satisfied
How quickly did the seller ship the item?
* Very slowly, ** Slowly, *** neither slowly or Quickly, **** Quickly, ***** Very Quickly
How reasonable were the shipping and handling charges?
* Very unreasonable, ** Unreasonable, *** neither unreasonable nor reasonable, **** reasonable,
***** Very reasonable
Remember – these detailed seller ratings are anonymous, so please feel free to leave honest ratings about your buying experience.”
I suggest you should carefully note what phrases and words eBay has chosen to use in the DSR survey shown above: “These ratings will not be seen by the seller”, (and again): “Remember - these detailed ratings are anonymous”, (and the five stars rating choice): “Very accurate”, “Very satisfied”, “Very quickly” (and) “Very reasonable”: I will comment on this in the following text.
My DSR ratings slowly began accumulating, and we were always showing “4+ stars” in all four categories along with our regular feedback running at its usual 99.5%. I naively didn’t pay much attention to this new rating system; I saw this as yet another one of eBay management’s many demonstrations of: “Look were doing our job by improving the eBay experience”– an exercise I’ve seen many times in the past nine years. Why would I care, knowing that our entire focus is on customer satisfaction and the feedback we receive every day is directly from the “customer’s mouth” in those one-on-one conversations through our toll-free help line? In addition, I personally called almost every customer that left a negative feedback to find out why they did?
Then, in May of 2008, eBay announced that they were changing the feedback system in the following ways: sellers and buyers feedback rating (positives divided by total feedback = %) would now be calculated with the data from only the past “rolling” year to date, eBay threw out more than 8-1/2 years of my satisfied customers!
More significantly, now only buyers could leave negative or neutral feedback for sellers, meaning sellers no longer had any means to note unsatisfactory buyers’ actions on the site; the reciprocal component of the original feedback system was lost (eBay claimed this change was to prevent sellers from threatening buyers with “retaliatory feedback” if the buyer decided to give the seller a negative feedback comment). Personally I have never given “non-performing” buyers negative feedback, I just simply called them and asked; what’s wrong?
If none of this seems to make any sense, then eBay’s other change to the feedback system will astound you. eBay decided that the “neutral” choice buyers and sellers typically had used in the past to denote an “average” transaction, not worthy of a positive, but not so bad as to give the seller a negative (and not counted in the feedback score in any way), would now be counted as a “negative”, subtracted from the sellers overall positive score, and without informing the person leaving the neutral it was actually a negative!
My personal feedback score went from 99.5% to 98.6% because of the truncated data points and the “neutrals as negatives”change. Apparently eBay received so much uproar from sellers about all of these changes, and especially this last one, they elected to rescind only the “neutral as negative”component and promised to make any negatives that sellers had received in this manner be removed retroactively “sometime in August”.
I am busy seven days a week meeting my customers needs; I don’t have time to spend perusing the voluminous eBay site for changes and announcements. Because my eBay power seller representative didn’t tell me, I missed the fact that to be a power seller, I would now be required to maintain a minimum DSR rating of 4.5 stars (90%) in all four stated categories. And most importantly; I would be barred from selling on the eBay site if my combined feedback and DSR scores dipped below eBay’s arbitrary threshold now determined from a single rolling 30-day sample period (not the newly announced 12-month period I assumed).
The following is where eBay’s statistics and the vagaries of the human condition (what I call “the ultimate variable”) collide:
Does eBay truly believe that their volunteer feedback and DSR survey can provide a highly accurate assessment of seller performance?
Are they confident enough to terminate long term power sellers using this feedback and DSR data based on so incredibly few samples?
Does eBay not understand that the repeated statements: “....will not be seen by the seller”, and ....”these detailed seller ratings are anonymous” will encourage more severe negative ratings?
Do they believe that people will voluntarily give sellers an all ”A” (5-stars) every time?
Do the buyers know an all “B” (4-stars) score in every category gives the power seller a failing grade?
Will most buyers who were clearly told there would be a two-week delivery time on a custom-made product order remember and give the seller 5-stars (“Very quickly”) on “shipping time”?
How can any eBay buyer possibly have any knowledge of what it costs in materials and labor to properly prepare and package products for safe shipment, or keep track of the always increasing actual freight and fuel surcharges and then expect them to select “Very reasonable” for “Shipping and handling charges”?
Did you get all A’s in school? Have you ever filled out a business satisfaction survey, or any survey for that matter, and given all top scores? How many warrantee card surveys did you not fill out when all you wanted to do was use and enjoy the product?
Are you human? Aren’t you more likely to fill out a survey if you are upset and then want to make sure “they” know just how upset you are by filling it out in the most negative way possible?
It’s very hard to imagine that eBay’s management could be so ignorant of basic statistical methods and the guaranteed inaccuracies of voluntary surveys conducted in the manner eBay is doing (for proof, Google “survey accuracy”). eBay’s methodology completely ignores the human condition, assuming that all buyers will behave like a computer, applying a fixed metric to each question. Are they expecting people to always be rational in a society where many of our citizens function mainly on an emotional basis!
Could eBay management possibly be this ignorant of reality and at the same time have such incredible hubris? Or, could this be eBay’s agenda to rid the site of all of the unique individual sellers who have been supporting them all these years, allowing eBay to profit by using its brand-name recognition to help push electronic shopping carts filled with new consumer products supplied by large corporations around the internet?
When I first discovered eBay, I immediately recognized this gathering of individual sellers and buyers as an historic shift for marketing and commerce; “cottage industry can now be global”. I jumped in with both feet, and as my success grew, I became a huge eBay booster, encouraging and helping hundreds of other business people I met to “get on eBay and take advantage of this huge opportunity to expand their market reach”. Many of those people I encouraged are now successful eBay Power Sellers using the site as their sole means of marketing and sales. What do I tell these people now? Many have called to offer support but also to voice their anger about the injustice and absurdity of what eBay has done to me, my employees and my business...
They also voice their fear that it will happen to them, as I am not alone in this: there are thousands of eBay sellers who have recently suffered from eBay’s current managements’ travesty of un-tested “improvement ideas” that produced only misjudgement and unjust actions; further damaging our beloved eBay community.
Is this anyway to treat your business partner? I certainly don’t think so, do you?
Call me toll-free @ 800-544-3746, 9AM-6PM, M-F, PST. Tell me what you think, David Riddle
THE RIDDLE OF THE “NON-PERFORMING” EBAY GOLD POWER SELLER!
“There are lies, damn lies, and then there are [eBay] statistics”.
On the night of July 17, 2008, without prior notice, eBay removed from their site all of my company’s 380 listings and sent me an email stating the reason for this action was: “seller non-performance”; this after more than nine years and tens of thousands of perfect selling (and buying) transactions on eBay!
On Friday morning July 18, 2008, after discovering that my listings had all disappeared, I immediately called my personal eBay “Gold Power Seller” representative’s phone number (only available to sellers with sales totaling more than $10,000.00 per month), and asked him how could this be? He said “this looks like a mistake” and said he would call me right back, and within ten minutes he did. He said: “I checked with the trust and safety people here and in the last “rolling” 30-day sample period it appears you had one “negative” and one “neutral” comment in “feedback”, and you dipped too low in one or more of the four categories of your DSR (Detailed Seller Ratings), so that places you in the bottom 1% of all eBay sellers for customer satisfaction, and they have restricted you from listing on the site because of seller non-performance”.
WHAT!!!! eBay made the decision to shutter my business of nine years based on their automated analysis of data from their voluntary buyer satisfaction survey, that they collected over a single 30-day sampling period, and included a total of only 42 of my transactions all of which were completed successfully. How could this be?
Addendum
After eBay’s “trust and safety” department reviewed the letter (printed below) on August 6th, I received two eBay “form” emails the early morning of August 7th: one reinstating my “selling privileges” , the other warning me I would be removed again from the site if my current 95% “customer satisfaction” rating (determined from eBay’s statistics!) deteriorated in any way in the next thirty days. The odds do not look good!
Note: if the following story seems unbelievable, be assured eBay’s trust and safety department reviewed and confirmed that all details relating to the eBay site are correct, and all of my statements can be corroborated.
First a history of who I am, and what I have accomplished using eBay as my business partner:
My name is David Riddle, I have been self employed for thirty six years as an inventor / designer / manufacturer and marketer of technical products in the fields of electronics, optics and mechanical devices, and have been successfully satisfying hundreds of thousands of customers long before eBay existed.
I decided to become a selling “member” of the eBay “community” in December of 1998 under the user name: DAVIDRIDDLE, and have since sold millions of dollars of re-manufactured and fully guaranteed products and services that I call “tools of creativity and productivity” to many thousands of very satisfied individuals and corporations around the world.
With long hours of work from myself and my staff in the past nine years, we have achieved a total eBay “feedback rating” of more than 10,800 customer comments with 99.5% positive responses.
This success is even more astounding when one considers that unlike the majority of eBay sellers that offer their used items for sale “as-is” without any guarantee of any kind, all of our eBay listings and sales are comprised of fully-guaranteed and calibrated specialized high technology equipment supplied to very critical and demanding professional customers.
We not only provide a money back guarantee on every one of our products, but also, more significantly we guarantee “suitability of application”; when our customer receives our products we guarantee the items will function exactly as we described, and will accomplish the task as the customer requires.
Every one of these complex technical products that we offer and deliver in perfect operating condition, requires hours of total hands-on analysis, repair, calibration and testing prior to being expertly packaged for safe shipment through what I call the shipping companies “trail of torture”!
We achieve these results through a commitment to customer support / assistance and guaranteed satisfaction before and after each sale, by providing a toll-free telephone number in multiple places in every eBay listing, in every email and document. This toll-free line is answered by my staff and me personally, nine hours a day, five days a week, from the U.S. and Canada.
This toll-free number is very rarely offered by other eBay sellers and is a direct communication link between potential customers, customers involved in purchases and inquiries of any kind; we vigorously promote “free, expert, customer service”– a rare commodity in today’s society.
Over the last nine plus years on eBay, our phone records indicate that I have personally spoken to and advised more than 45,000 customers, potential customers, and other eBay sellers from whom I have purchased. These “one-on-one” conversations provide invaluable insight into what are my customer’s needs and how they are thinking and feeling about my business practices. In addition, these all important conversations form the basis of my business decisions as to what products and services to provide and to whom I should sell them.
After all of our hard work, unrivaled commitment to our customers and demonstrated responsibility in business dealings, one can only imagine how I might feel being deemed by eBay to be a “non-performing” seller. I can tell you how I feel: disbelief, anger, depression, and finally acceptance. Sound familiar?
These are the emotions of loss and death: the death of my business and the loss of my passion which is happily advising and encouraging my eBay customers to turn their intangible ideas into tangible products and services by providing them with these tools of creativity and productivity while enthusiastically offering free expert engineering solutions and advice, whether they purchased something from me or not.
In addition to ending my business partnership, eBay’s decision has also stopped, something very dear to my heart, my altruistic program of offering a free school for primary and secondary “at risk” students (as I was in school) where I along with other volunteers will demonstrate and guide these students through the real-world process of “Invention and Entrepreneurship”.
The basis of this program depended on using eBay as a pivotal component in test-marketing student’s product ideas at low cost all over the world, then manufacturing only their successful creations and using the EBay site to sell these products, allowing these young entrepreneurs to personally profit from their ideas.
The facility plans included a fully outfitted “model shop” for prototype product fabrication, graphic arts / photo studio, video and audio production studio and computer business center all housed in a 2500 square foot portion of my building.
The students were to have used this facility at no charge, and, with the direction of myself and other volunteer mentors, were to experience the hands-on work of: “conception to execution to marketing to sale”-- the process that I and every successful inventor and entrepreneur uses. Now this dream may never be realized.
Now, a description of how eBay uses statistics to determine “buyer satisfaction”
eBay’s original method since 1995 for keeping track of satisfactory transactions on the site is called “feedback” where both the buyer and seller could voluntarily assign a “feedback rating” to each other for every individual “ended” auction listing or “buy-it-now” listing on the site; this feedback is normally non-revocable and accumulates for each buyer and seller from their first transaction to date. The available options are as follow: “Positive” (add one point to feedback score), “Neutral” (no score change), or “Negative” (subtract one point from feedback score)
In 2007, eBay added an additional component to the buyers voluntary feedback reporting; called the “Detailed seller Rating”or DSR. eBay promoted DSR as a way to provide sellers with a more detailed report of their buyers satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) in four categories, each with a 0 to 5 “star” rating selection as shown below in the exact wording the buyer sees if they bother filling out the DSR ratings (remember, there is no requirement or reciprocal benefit for the buyer to fill out this section, as there is for regular feedback):
“Click on the stars to rate more details of the transaction. These ratings will not be seen by the seller.
How accurate was the item description?
* Very inaccurate, ** Inaccurate, *** Neither inaccurate nor accurate, **** Accurate, ***** Very accurate
How satisfied were you with the seller's communication?
* Very unsatisfied, ** Unsatisfied, *** Neither unsatisfied nor satisfied, **** Satisfied, ***** Very satisfied
How quickly did the seller ship the item?
* Very slowly, ** Slowly, *** neither slowly or Quickly, **** Quickly, ***** Very Quickly
How reasonable were the shipping and handling charges?
* Very unreasonable, ** Unreasonable, *** neither unreasonable nor reasonable, **** reasonable,
***** Very reasonable
Remember – these detailed seller ratings are anonymous, so please feel free to leave honest ratings about your buying experience.”
I suggest you should carefully note what phrases and words eBay has chosen to use in the DSR survey shown above: “These ratings will not be seen by the seller”, (and again): “Remember - these detailed ratings are anonymous”, (and the five stars rating choice): “Very accurate”, “Very satisfied”, “Very quickly” (and) “Very reasonable”: I will comment on this in the following text.
My DSR ratings slowly began accumulating, and we were always showing “4+ stars” in all four categories along with our regular feedback running at its usual 99.5%. I naively didn’t pay much attention to this new rating system; I saw this as yet another one of eBay management’s many demonstrations of: “Look were doing our job by improving the eBay experience”– an exercise I’ve seen many times in the past nine years. Why would I care, knowing that our entire focus is on customer satisfaction and the feedback we receive every day is directly from the “customer’s mouth” in those one-on-one conversations through our toll-free help line? In addition, I personally called almost every customer that left a negative feedback to find out why they did?
Then, in May of 2008, eBay announced that they were changing the feedback system in the following ways: sellers and buyers feedback rating (positives divided by total feedback = %) would now be calculated with the data from only the past “rolling” year to date, eBay threw out more than 8-1/2 years of my satisfied customers!
More significantly, now only buyers could leave negative or neutral feedback for sellers, meaning sellers no longer had any means to note unsatisfactory buyers’ actions on the site; the reciprocal component of the original feedback system was lost (eBay claimed this change was to prevent sellers from threatening buyers with “retaliatory feedback” if the buyer decided to give the seller a negative feedback comment). Personally I have never given “non-performing” buyers negative feedback, I just simply called them and asked; what’s wrong?
If none of this seems to make any sense, then eBay’s other change to the feedback system will astound you. eBay decided that the “neutral” choice buyers and sellers typically had used in the past to denote an “average” transaction, not worthy of a positive, but not so bad as to give the seller a negative (and not counted in the feedback score in any way), would now be counted as a “negative”, subtracted from the sellers overall positive score, and without informing the person leaving the neutral it was actually a negative!
My personal feedback score went from 99.5% to 98.6% because of the truncated data points and the “neutrals as negatives”change. Apparently eBay received so much uproar from sellers about all of these changes, and especially this last one, they elected to rescind only the “neutral as negative”component and promised to make any negatives that sellers had received in this manner be removed retroactively “sometime in August”.
I am busy seven days a week meeting my customers needs; I don’t have time to spend perusing the voluminous eBay site for changes and announcements. Because my eBay power seller representative didn’t tell me, I missed the fact that to be a power seller, I would now be required to maintain a minimum DSR rating of 4.5 stars (90%) in all four stated categories. And most importantly; I would be barred from selling on the eBay site if my combined feedback and DSR scores dipped below eBay’s arbitrary threshold now determined from a single rolling 30-day sample period (not the newly announced 12-month period I assumed).
The following is where eBay’s statistics and the vagaries of the human condition (what I call “the ultimate variable”) collide:
Does eBay truly believe that their volunteer feedback and DSR survey can provide a highly accurate assessment of seller performance?
Are they confident enough to terminate long term power sellers using this feedback and DSR data based on so incredibly few samples?
Does eBay not understand that the repeated statements: “....will not be seen by the seller”, and ....”these detailed seller ratings are anonymous” will encourage more severe negative ratings?
Do they believe that people will voluntarily give sellers an all ”A” (5-stars) every time?
Do the buyers know an all “B” (4-stars) score in every category gives the power seller a failing grade?
Will most buyers who were clearly told there would be a two-week delivery time on a custom-made product order remember and give the seller 5-stars (“Very quickly”) on “shipping time”?
How can any eBay buyer possibly have any knowledge of what it costs in materials and labor to properly prepare and package products for safe shipment, or keep track of the always increasing actual freight and fuel surcharges and then expect them to select “Very reasonable” for “Shipping and handling charges”?
Did you get all A’s in school? Have you ever filled out a business satisfaction survey, or any survey for that matter, and given all top scores? How many warrantee card surveys did you not fill out when all you wanted to do was use and enjoy the product?
Are you human? Aren’t you more likely to fill out a survey if you are upset and then want to make sure “they” know just how upset you are by filling it out in the most negative way possible?
It’s very hard to imagine that eBay’s management could be so ignorant of basic statistical methods and the guaranteed inaccuracies of voluntary surveys conducted in the manner eBay is doing (for proof, Google “survey accuracy”). eBay’s methodology completely ignores the human condition, assuming that all buyers will behave like a computer, applying a fixed metric to each question. Are they expecting people to always be rational in a society where many of our citizens function mainly on an emotional basis!
Could eBay management possibly be this ignorant of reality and at the same time have such incredible hubris? Or, could this be eBay’s agenda to rid the site of all of the unique individual sellers who have been supporting them all these years, allowing eBay to profit by using its brand-name recognition to help push electronic shopping carts filled with new consumer products supplied by large corporations around the internet?
When I first discovered eBay, I immediately recognized this gathering of individual sellers and buyers as an historic shift for marketing and commerce; “cottage industry can now be global”. I jumped in with both feet, and as my success grew, I became a huge eBay booster, encouraging and helping hundreds of other business people I met to “get on eBay and take advantage of this huge opportunity to expand their market reach”. Many of those people I encouraged are now successful eBay Power Sellers using the site as their sole means of marketing and sales. What do I tell these people now? Many have called to offer support but also to voice their anger about the injustice and absurdity of what eBay has done to me, my employees and my business...
They also voice their fear that it will happen to them, as I am not alone in this: there are thousands of eBay sellers who have recently suffered from eBay’s current managements’ travesty of un-tested “improvement ideas” that produced only misjudgement and unjust actions; further damaging our beloved eBay community.
Is this anyway to treat your business partner? I certainly don’t think so, do you?
Call me toll-free @ 800-544-3746, 9AM-6PM, M-F, PST. Tell me what you think, David Riddle
without knowing all that -
I definitely saw eaxtly THIS coming.
Makes sense, but is ugly and simply unfair to the small sellers that MADE this place. (Like me... but I'm gone)
I definitely saw eaxtly THIS coming.
Makes sense, but is ugly and simply unfair to the small sellers that MADE this place. (Like me... but I'm gone)
hi jerry
yes your right all ebay is doing making it really hard for us to sell! riseing there prices all the time we are not making much with like you buy now you have to pay more or if you put something on for $15.00 you have to pay $2.00
it's crazy i am looking else where to put my items!
yes your right all ebay is doing making it really hard for us to sell! riseing there prices all the time we are not making much with like you buy now you have to pay more or if you put something on for $15.00 you have to pay $2.00
it's crazy i am looking else where to put my items!
# posted by 
: Wed May 20, 02:50:00 PM PDT
: Wed May 20, 02:50:00 PM PDT
Well I guess we could all try http://www.bonanzle.com/ADSBeauty
and set up a booth there. It is a shame that Ebay is chasing out those who rode from new site to great site and now will be the alone site.
As much as I loved Ebay in the past - Things are just not comfortable and profitable anymore.
Best of luck to all - whatever you may choose.
and set up a booth there. It is a shame that Ebay is chasing out those who rode from new site to great site and now will be the alone site.
As much as I loved Ebay in the past - Things are just not comfortable and profitable anymore.
Best of luck to all - whatever you may choose.
Thanks a ton for the blog, it gives us a better understanding of the manipulation/one-sided policy that goes with using ebay.
# posted by : Sun Mar 21, 08:33:00 PM PDT
: Sun Mar 21, 08:33:00 PM PDT
I just left eBay, having been an employee for a long time and following the company's development closely these last 2 years. 2 years since this post was made and it doesn't seem like any of it at all was true. I talked to people daily with their own theories like this and they all wanted to be heard, all were misinformed.
eBay makes a lot of changes. It has no intention of converting itself to an Amazon setup and this whole post was crazy. Now that so much time has passed, with me being part of the company the entire time. I think it's quite obvious that the original poster was crazy. Just like the members I talked to every day.
(eBay fired me, I have no intent to defend them just out of my own kindness.)
Post a Comment
eBay makes a lot of changes. It has no intention of converting itself to an Amazon setup and this whole post was crazy. Now that so much time has passed, with me being part of the company the entire time. I think it's quite obvious that the original poster was crazy. Just like the members I talked to every day.
(eBay fired me, I have no intent to defend them just out of my own kindness.)
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