if customer service is the cornerstone of businesses, how was ebay succesful?

[oomalikoo]

This is by far the worst company to deal with. The phone number is impossible to find. I had to get a verification email to get the number. I dont think its listed anywhere on the website.


The holding time was atrocious, the estimation was 6 minutes i lasted half an hour.

and I had to call again now im waiting again, estimation this time is 26 minutes. I beleive it'll take an hour.


But how come another company didnt take marktet share from ebay or competed aggressively? How could they hold a monopoly so big the way they treat sellers?

[pod]

Right place, right time. They were there when some things on the net exploded. Just blind luck really. They were so dominating by the time others tried it was just too late.

Not unlike Microsoft. Just there when there grew a huge need.

Bill Gates was reported to have told his roommate when he seen a home built computer on the cover of Science America "were too late"

When it started it was fun and fair too....If eBay was a start up today they wouldn't stand a chance.

[jeffweico]

Exactly right. And, back in the day, eBay was GREAT FUN! Now it is a nightmare....

[SaiJin]

Well, just an opinion on the subject.
THere are companies that rely on either customer service or Price deals.
As there are customers who cares about manners / quality of service or money / price deals.

I for one prefer the good customer service and pay a little bit more. And usually even get a better deal as a regular customer. It makes it very positive mentally and both customer and company are happy. Plus the company gets a returning customer who spends more.

eBay just wants to make money, but at the same time... it was the bad apples that ruin it for us. So in a way 1/2 of the what made eBay what they are now... are those real scammers.
Now they just turn into a company that has good deals and disloyal customers because
some of us just want to get the best prices then leave.

Me... I haven't bought anything off eBay for at least a year and I bring my business elsewhere.
So far... much less issues and headaches.

[pod]

Originally Posted by SaiJin

THere are companies that rely on either customer service or Price deals.

Most do. You cant get away with bad service these days. People just move on and shop somewhere else. But eBay has the only restaurant in town right now. And if you want to eat...

Sometimes, and this is certainly the case with eBay, you have to put up with it because there is no other option.

I have a supplier I absolutely despise dealing with. I actually hate him he is so brutal to deal with. Rude and zero customer service. IE: "I do not communicate with customers on orders. There will be no tracking sent, you just have to wait for it" > Parts are sent UPS. So there is tracking, but he just refuses to do anything. Even simply emailing tracking. No order confirmations, no nothing. You pay, and a couple weeks later UPS shows up. You ask any questions about order and you get "Soup Nazi" type replies.

Why do I deal with this ass? He is the only one in the world I can get these parts from at his price. Its half what I normally pay. I have spent years looking and the jack ass is unbeatable.... like eBay, only game in town. So I put up with it.

If there were 3 or 4 viable auction sites out there crawling all over each other for a chunk of the billions you can bet your ass people would be treated better! A LOT better

[jamblix]

I agree with pod, I also think that it's got to do with competition. eBay does not have any valid online auction platform competitors. People still need the service so they will use it, supply and demand. In essence, if there were only one grocery store in the neighborhood and that grocery store had bad customer service, people would still go there because well...there is no other choice.

(edit: should have read the thread above mine before I posted , basically said the same thing)

[slapped]

That is EXACTLY Correct,,for MANY,,MANY,,Years Ebay was THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN,,,,,,,,,,,,,Now-a-days they have Amazom to compete with,,But they are Just as Bad,,or Worse,,,That is Only Because there is still Not enough Competion,,,99% of all potential Buyers Only trust Buying on one of these two sites,,,therefore thats where all the Sellers want to be and,,,,,,, Hence where ALL the action/Money is,,,,That WILL Change someday,,,

[jeffweico]

It is tought to see who could emerge as a VIABLE competitor.

Yahoo used to have auctions. So did MSN, Excite, Lycos and a few others. Today there is Etsy, Bonanzle, eBid and others. Most of them are nice, they have decent layouts, reasonable fees, responsive customer service and some cool features. What they don't have is TRAFFIC. At least not to the level necessary to be a serious competitor for eBay.

eBay (or AuctionWeb, as it was originally known) was the right idea at the right time. The internet was just starting to attract tons of users. And collectibles were HOT, especially Beanie Babies. There were some other auction sites, but eBay was the first to allow ANYONE to register to buy and sell. And word spread like wildfire. People flocked to eBay to both buy and sell.

Back then eBay was much different from what it is today. There was not much customer service to speak of, but users (sellers especially) didn't face all the issues they face today - so it was not really necessary.

You just registered and started to buy and sell pretty much whatever you wanted to. Relatively few listings were removed, unless they were BLATANLY illegal. You couldn't list body parts, for example. But most things wree just fine. The only big no-no was to list adult materials on the general site - they had to be in their own special section for obvious reasons.

Communicating with buyers and sellers was easy. It was ENCOURAGED. Most people used their email address as their user-id. You really felt like you were part of a community. eBay was cool. It was fun. It was the kind of website you told all your freinds about.

The feedback system was pure genius. Dishonest sellers were gone pretty quickly, as their bad feedback would eventually lose them their accounts. Most transactions went smoothly. Back then, you would send the seller a check or a money order.

You didn't go broke paying the fees, either. The final value fee was around 5%. Several sellers used CCNow to accept credit cards. eBay eventually started their own checkout system for accepting credit cards. But you were not FORCED to use it.

When PayPal arrived on the scene, they were NOT owned by eBay. They were a BLESSING! No more 5%+ fees to CCNow. PayPal took like 2.5% on each sale. There were NO 21 day holds. They NEVER asked for supplier information. If you sent them an email about a problem, you got an ACTUAL RESPONSE that was reasonable and logical.

Then it became "corporatized". New rules were added every week. Whole categories of items were banned. Ironically, at that time, eBay didn't like PayPal very much. In fact they HATED PayPal. They tried everything in their power to coerce users to use their own checkout system. You COULD use PayPal, but you couldn't use the PayPal logo unless it was under a certain size - a very small one.

Then things started turning ugly. You were no longer allowed to use an email address as your user-id. Communicating with other users became difficult. eBay actively discouraged it. They wanted all communication to flow through them.

Fees were raised at least once every six months. They added sub-categories left and right. Then they punished sellers for not using the CORRECT sub-category, even if it did not exist just three days earlier. Rules were changed so often that almost every user ended up violating an eBay rule.

Sellers who had 100% positive feedback were suddenly "No Longer a Registered User" for no obvious reasons.

And eBay sent a SERIES of emails to sellers warning them that it violated eBay's rules to enclose any information about the seller's own website with customer orders. eBay's position was that they were eBay's customers, not the seller's customers.

Lisitng items became an abrasive process. eBay would end your auction and send a form email stating you violated their rules. Of course, they refused to tell you WHICH of their new and ever-changing rules was violated.

I could go on and on, but you all know the rest.

[rsot]

Well thought out and well written post jeffweico - props.

[jkim]

ebay monopoly.... its scary but i think its about time someone steps up to challenge them, i think google should look in to this, with their google checkout system being successful very quickly and preferred by people who had nightmares with paypal, they have a chance. i think they can build an ebay/paypal alternative with some kind of google auction program / google checkout, they can advertise themselves all over the web for free too! lol, but yea i really hope someone can challenege ebay&paypal to make us seller's lives a little easier

[pod]

Originally Posted by jkim

think its about time someone steps up to challenge them

Tons have tried. Its not so simple at this point now

Originally Posted by jkim

i think google should look in to this

They have. Deeply. And decided it was not something they wanted to get into

There are literally billions on the line. If taking them on was easily doable, it would be done by now. It would be nice for someone to take them on. But it would have to be a giant with massive backing. I dont see anyone capable or willing right now.

[oomalikoo]

wow i dont know if any of you, have called ebay recently but oh wow.


I searched two hours for the number and found one.

I called, said press #2 for customer service. Then it told me to go on ebay.com and press help. lmao.


then on live chat. It was 11:35am when i started and i was still in line until 1:48 and im still waiting for him to help me. which he cant even take off a simple selling limit.

[pod]

Ya, its absurd. Same thing. I spent hours looking for a number and when I got it a recording told me to go to site and hung up on me

[jesseinkaron]

I believe the new policy of selling limits will now drive the price of eBay items so high, that there will be an opening for competition. In the past it has been difficult to compete with eBay because customers knew that they can always get great deals on eBay. I think the days of the great deals could end as sellers are forced out, sellers of low cost items will be effected the most!

New Ebay Selling Limits May Change Ebay Forever

[pod]

Selling limits dont effect the huge sellers. just new ones. So all it does is make it hard for the little guy. They dont like the little guy anymore. Thats what they built their business on, but now they dont care anymore

[kryunn]

Originally Posted by oomalikoo

wow i dont know if any of you, have called ebay recently but oh wow.


I searched two hours for the number and found one.

I called, said press #2 for customer service. Then it told me to go on ebay.com and press help. lmao.


then on live chat. It was 11:35am when i started and i was still in line until 1:48 and im still waiting for him to help me. which he cant even take off a simple selling limit.

If we sellers (= ebay customers) had 10% of this attitude towards our buyers, we would be kicked off within seconds.

ebay tell us how good we must threat our buyers, and they, who should give us the example, do the total opposite.

[jesseinkaron]

Pod ..

Not sure where your getting your info ..

Selling limits are effecting power sellers with years of selling history.

International sellers, Asian sellers in particular are having a hell of a time.

This is not just effecting new sellers

New Ebay Selling Limits May Change Ebay Forever

[jeffweico]

Originally Posted by jesseinkaron

Pod ..

Not sure where your getting your info ..

Selling limits are effecting power sellers with years of selling history.

International sellers, Asian sellers in particular are having a hell of a time.

This is not just effecting new sellers

New Ebay Selling Limits May Change Ebay Forever

I don't mean any offense here to anyone who is Asian.

eBay receives MANY complaints about sellers from Asia. Slow shipping is one problem. Customs seizures are another. China is the Counterfeit Capital of planet Earth.

Of course, not everyone from Asia sells counterfeits. Most are honest sellers just trying to make a living. But the eBay way is to shut down ANY sellers they feel pose a risk. They don't care of they hurt 10 innocent sellers if they can stop the 1 out of 10 that are dishonest.

So sometimes, Asian sellers can have a harder time than sellers from other countries. It is not fair, but that is just the eBay way.

[pod]

Originally Posted by jesseinkaron

Selling limits are effecting power sellers with years of selling history.

I was not aware of that. I assumed sellers with a history could sell as much as they like. I wont take the time to look it up, so I will take your word on it. I find it hard to believe TRS are getting selling limits. But again, I will take your word on that. eBay never surprises me anymore. I stand corrected. Thanks

[jesseinkaron]

Slow shipping ... what does that mean?

It takes longer for items to arrive from Asia than if they were in USA?

Customs seizures are covered by paypal chargeback are they not?

Buyers in the USA want cheap Asian products, but they don't want to wait for them.

This is a total canabalization, buyers complain, eBay acts, sellers are limited and suspended. The result is that the products that buyers want, go up in price or dissapear all together.

[jesseinkaron]

Pod ..

Powersellers are also subject to selling limits..

It is widely covered in the forum and one of my good friends is a TRS with thousands of feedback .. he has been limited to 100 per 30 days.

[pod]

As I noted, I stand corrected

Originally Posted by jesseinkaron

TRS with thousands of feedback .. he has been limited to 100 per 30 days. .

For no reason? no violations or low DSR or complaints? Just "you can only sell 100 items" ? This has to be the dumbest thing eBay has ever done. How do they plan to make any money? Sorry if I sound skeptical. Its truly puzzling that they would slash the fees coming in from big sellers, for no reason [Even for eBay]