What would you want eBay to do differently?

[comicwiz]

2. Bringing back bidder IDs is a GREAT idea! While auctions are active and after they've ended!

 

This is THE biggest reason I no longer buy on eBay - it's shill-bidder city and I am not going to participate in this nonsense.

 

+1

[Point Five]

Hey everyone...I'm a very long time comic book collector first and foremost, and an eBay employee second.

 

Here's the thing - we'd love to make some changes to the category, especially within sub-categories like Comic Books...I'd love to get all of the comic book enthusiasts involved, so I'd love to use this new post to throw out some (hopefully great) ideas to get your input.

 

Couple things off the bat:

 

1. Who are the primary comic book sites that are getting a big chunk of your $$$?

Comiclink?

Pedigree Comics?

eBay?

Others?

 

2. Why are the above sites the main ones you visit and spend your money on?

 

3. In general, How interested would you be if eBay brought back Bidder Id's so you can track who's bidding on comics (or other Collectibles) across the site?

 

4. How interested would you be in searching for comics on eBay (or anything within Collectibles) by # of bids, rather than or in addition to Best Match, Time Ending Soonest, etc.?

 

Those are good enough for now. Lots more questions and thoughts that I'd love to throw out to the community...but after we work on the above

 

Thx!!

Jeffles

Welcome to the boards!

 

As you can tell from the replies so far, a LOT of frustration has built up over some of the issues discussed here... but there are quality, well-respected sellers and buyers chiming in here, and they definitely know their stuff. Thanks for asking for our input, and hope the conversation will not end here.

 

Jon

 

PS : +1 on bringing back bidder transparency -- sorely needed, as shilling has gotten way out of hand (even compared to before) in the past year or two.

[nocutename]

If this guy really is an eBay employee, chances are he's a drone with no authority, like the thousands of other drones who work there.

 

And that's if he's even an employee.

 

I'll be REALLLLY surprised if he replies to this thread.

 

 

Yeah no changes will be coming out this thread. As long as JD is in charge, he will continue on his bone headed vision of turning Ebay into an Amazon clone. His relentless strategy to remove all the small time sellers is working wondrously to the point where profits took a nosedive according to their last quarterly reports. Trying to get sellers back is definitely not on JD's agenda so I am not sure where the OP is trying to get with this thread.

 

You can`t really blame them, Amazon is the best place on the internet to buy stuff. example my wife wanted to win a WII game for our son on a Ebay auction this week, she watched that auction for seven days only to lose out for a few bucks, I told her to go on Amazon and sure enought there was the exact game for a few dollars less and she bought it. Why bid and and wait seven days for an item you might win when you can buy the same item on Amazon immediately? That is why Ebay had to change,Amazon overtook Ebay as the number one place to sell dvds,video games and books on the internet.

 

I hardly see Amazon as the best place to shop from a buyer point of view. They don't combine shipping charges plus no pictures. I rarely purchase only one book at a time. I just cannot see paying 12 to 16 dollars shipping even if the books are only a buck a pop.

[Escaflown4]

If this guy really is an eBay employee, chances are he's a drone with no authority, like the thousands of other drones who work there.

 

And that's if he's even an employee.

 

I'll be REALLLLY surprised if he replies to this thread.

 

 

Yeah no changes will be coming out this thread. As long as JD is in charge, he will continue on his bone headed vision of turning Ebay into an Amazon clone. His relentless strategy to remove all the small time sellers is working wondrously to the point where profits took a nosedive according to their last quarterly reports. Trying to get sellers back is definitely not on JD's agenda so I am not sure where the OP is trying to get with this thread.

 

You can`t really blame them, Amazon is the best place on the internet to buy stuff. example my wife wanted to win a WII game for our son on a Ebay auction this week, she watched that auction for seven days only to lose out for a few bucks, I told her to go on Amazon and sure enought there was the exact game for a few dollars less and she bought it. Why bid and and wait seven days for an item you might win when you can buy the same item on Amazon immediately? That is why Ebay had to change,Amazon overtook Ebay as the number one place to sell dvds,video games and books on the internet.

 

Don't get me wrong, Amazon is a good place to buy and one of my favorite spots to stop by to see what new deals are for the week. However, Ebay and Amazon are two very different businesses. Ebay built its foundation on flea market auctions. That's what it's known for and that's how most of us want it to stay. The last thing we really need is another Amazon. Instead of addressing the real problems, JD opted the easy way out. Turning it into an Amazon will only lead Ebay crashing and burning like it's doing now.

[mrmitchgro]

I really think ebay is in an impossible position when it comes to customer service. In this thread you've heard two main positions: the straight-shooting seller and the hard-core buyer, but there are many more categories that ebay members fall into. I personally feel like I fit into both of these categories myself, but not everyone on ebay does.

 

Let's talk about the seller that is interested in getting maximum exposure for his listings no matter the cost. Why wouldn't he put "CGC ready" in the title to get more views? It's incredibly annoying for one group (hard-core buyers), but there's an advantage for the sellers who want to do that. I'm obviously not advocating the views of unscrupulous sellers who commit fraud, but my point is that there is some gray area here.

 

If you're ebay, who's side do you come down on? Do you ban "CGC ready" and off sellers, or let it go and anger buyers? I know what I'd like them to do personally, but I also realize that doesn't work for everyone.

 

I think their problem over the last decade (I've been a buyer and seller for over 10 years) is that they continually flip flop between different sides. They pursued small seller-friendly policies for their first few years, then switched to focus on large sellers. They were all about auctions at the beginning, now it's all fixed price. On the buying side, as cool as ebay was at the beginning, it was the wild west when it came to buyer protections. They've gone more buyer-friendly, but they've done it at the cost of chasing off many major sellers.

 

Bottom line: there's no way ebay will ever satisfy all (or even most) of their customers at once, but they've done themselves a disservice by not having a coherent and consistent strategy for dealing with these problems. If they said, "we're an auction site that protects buyers first and foremost," at least everyone would know where they stand. But even if they gave us a mission statement like that now, no one would believe them.

 

Just my

 

[Jeffro.]

Don't get me wrong, Amazon is a good place to buy and one of my favorite spots to stop by to see what new deals are for the week. However, Ebay and Amazon are two very different businesses. Ebay built its foundation on flea market auctions. That's what it's known for and that's how most of us want it to stay. The last thing we really need is another Amazon.

 

I really like this. (thumbs u

 

[rjrjr]

Allowing sellers to leave negative feedback, In fact, maybe a more thorough buyer feedback system in general. A point scale like seller feedback has. Maybe they EVENTUALLY paid up after three or four weeks of hassle? I can grade my sellers speed shipping an item, but not my buyers speed paying for an item.

 

Better protection from freaky buyers that threaten to neg when you ask them politely to pay up after weeks of waiting.

 

When sellers were allowed to leave negative feedback, there was no way for you as a buyer to leave a negative (or a neutral) and not get one in return. Didn't matter if the seller sent you an empty box filled with dog and you negged him for it - you'd get an automatic retalitory neg right back. I'm not saying the new system is perfect - but as a buyer it's much better than it was before.

 

I'd still love to see it changed so if a buyer hasn't paid they can't leave feedback at all, though - it makes zero sense to me that that's possible right now.

 

As a buyer, I agree about with the above. The best system would be:

 

1. If buyer does not pay for the item via PayPal, the seller can leave a negative for the buyer. The buyer cannot leave any feedback.

 

2. If the buyer does pay via PayPal, the seller can leave only a neutral or positive for the buyer. The buyer can leave negative, neutral, or positive.

 

Since E-Bay controls the payment methods, this seems very doable to me.

 

As a buyer, to get a negative if I leave a justified negative for a buyer after I paid for the item is wrong. The seller, if they need to "retaliate" can simply block the buyer for bidding on future items. (If I leave a negative, I won't be bidding on future auctions with the seller.)

 

[trmoore54]

Hey everyone...I'm a very long time comic book collector first and foremost, and an eBay employee second.

 

Here's the thing - we'd love to make some changes to the category, especially within sub-categories like Comic Books...I'd love to get all of the comic book enthusiasts involved, so I'd love to use this new post to throw out some (hopefully great) ideas to get your input.

 

Couple things off the bat:

 

1. Who are the primary comic book sites that are getting a big chunk of your $$$?

Comiclink?

Pedigree Comics?

eBay?

Others?

 

2. Why are the above sites the main ones you visit and spend your money on?

 

3. In general, How interested would you be if eBay brought back Bidder Id's so you can track who's bidding on comics (or other Collectibles) across the site?

 

4. How interested would you be in searching for comics on eBay (or anything within Collectibles) by # of bids, rather than or in addition to Best Match, Time Ending Soonest, etc.?

 

Those are good enough for now. Lots more questions and thoughts that I'd love to throw out to the community...but after we work on the above

 

Thx!!

Jeffles

Welcome to the boards!

 

As you can tell from the replies so far, a LOT of frustration has built up over some of the issues discussed here... but there are quality, well-respected sellers and buyers chiming in here, and they definitely know their stuff. Thanks for asking for our input, and hope the conversation will not end here.

 

Jon

 

PS : +1 on bringing back bidder transparency -- sorely needed, as shilling has gotten way out of hand (even compared to before) in the past year or two.

 

+ a zillion! (thumbs u

 

Also no one should be allowed to have private/hidden feedback profile...absolute bull-

 

Like this one... aram321 (private)

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=aram321&ftab=AllFeedback

 

The buyer for the cdpaoli-lexerific-makemeanofferandwin scam-ring!

[Jeffles-migration]

OK, I'm here and after posting this thread, what, 24 hours ago...there are 7 pages of comments I need to sift through!!!!!!!!!

 

I work at eBay, I'm part of a team looking at revisiting the entire Collectibles "strategy" and as a long time comic book guy, I totally get all the frustations everyone is posting. And the word "drone" is not only misleading...but offensive

 

Keep the comments coming. At some point in the next couple of days I'll have the time to synthesize everything and bring it back to the internal team. And I'm hoping to respond to some of you individually throughout the thread to get some clarification in some of your thoughts.

 

Thx everyone!!!!

[Snake Eyes]

OK, I'm here and after posting this thread, what, 24 hours ago...there are 7 pages of comments I need to sift through!!!!!!!!!

 

I work at eBay, I'm part of a team looking at revisiting the entire Collectibles "strategy" and as a long time comic book guy, I totally get all the frustations everyone is posting. And the word "drone" is not only misleading...but offensive

 

Keep the comments coming. At some point in the next couple of days I'll have the time to synthesize everything and bring it back to the internal team. And I'm hoping to respond to some of you individually throughout the thread to get some clarification in some of your thoughts.

 

Thx everyone!!!!

 

Glad to see you were not chased away (thumbs u . I think there is a great deal of anger towards eBay and some of the policy/direction changes that have evolved the past ten years or so. On one hand, it shows you had a fiercely loyal customer base (or else emotions would not be so heated...when did you ever see someone become enraged over Yahoo auctions?). However, on the other hand you have a too little, too late vibe coming from many of these folks who have since moved on [fair disclosure: myself falling in this camp]. For years, people have expressed concerns only to be rebuffed and see those efforts fall on deaf ears...at some point you break up with the neglectful girlfriend, you know? :doh: How many people have to report shilling before an auction is taken down and a seller NARUed? How many times must people complain about the aforementioned Lexarific scams or individuals stealing scans and trying to sell items they do not own? And at each step the complaint is difficult to file accurately and you receive only a form-letter style email in response saying that you will not be informed what action is taken. At some point you just cry uncle and move on.

 

I would love to see you guys fix some of these problems and return to the older model that built up your company and provided it with the competitive moat is has today. Frankly though, the benefit of the doubt is lost now A TON of business has moved to auction sites such as ComicLink, ComicConnect, Heritage, QualityComix, etc.; who are eroding that moat I believe. There I can sell what I want, charge the shipping I want, and the site allows folks to pay how they want. So, 10% commission from Brent at QualityComix and much more freedom and flexibility or eBay with a roughly 18% cut after paypal, listing, and FMV? Seems a simple decision on my end :shrug:

 

Not to be narcissistic but I am the customer you have to worry about, because I honestly do not care anymore. I have largely moved on (maybe buy six to ten times a year only) and I imagine an increasing number are doing so. The problems noted in the above posts are frequent complaints in the community, and I hope to hear progress is made on these fronts

 

SE

 

 

[Lethal_Collector]

My complaint with Ebay is Paypal. It is totally UNRIGHT for you to withhold my money as a seller until the buyer finally gets around to giving me feedback (18 count them 18 days and I had to ask the buyers for feedback multiple times, which I of course come off as a money hungry n00b and thats only half right ), or I have to call in and give a tracking number for the funds to release. THAT needs to stop, ONCE I MARK THE ITEM AS SHIPPED, RELEASE THE FUNDS FROM PENDING. And good luck eliminating the false CGC titles from the real ones without having to look over each auction by hand cause the system won't know the difference : /

 

Everyone else has had great feedback and I think one adjustment is the requirement for sellers to leave buyer feedback within the same time constraints as wanting to get paid (i.i Must pay withing 24 hours = Must leave feedback within 24 hours of payment).

 

Jerome

[the1stfo]

Almost every suggestion in this thread is a good one. I want to chime in on one in particular: ebay needs to bring back buyer feedback. I know someone said that the only time negatives get left for buyers is in a retalitory situation and this is probably true. However, If a buyer has lots of negative feedback, chances are they're not all retalitory and the buyer is just a difficult person to deal. Also, if you actually read the comments in the feedback it's often pretty clear which party is at fault (usually the one using broken english all in caps).

 

 

I do have a couple that I don't think have been mentioned.

 

- Give us the option to filter out listings that did not sell when looking at completed listings. It would help tremendously with researching prices (for both sellers and buyers) and should be trivial from a programming standpoint to implement.

 

- Allow us to sort listings by Seller. This is particularly useful for comic buyers because often the only way to get a really good deal when you need to buy 5-10 $1 books is to take advantage of combined shipping, and the only way to do that is obviously to buy them from the same seller.

 

- Give us the option of selecting more than one sub-category to search at one time. I often want to look at Silver Age and Bronze Age but not Modern. There is currently no way to do this that I am aware of.

 

- If you really want to get hardcore, allow us to enter a CGC grade value (or even serial #) and allow us to filter on that when searching.

 

 

[gaz973]

And the word "drone" is not only misleading...but offensive

 

You'll find that there are people here who let their frustrations get in the way of their manners. You'll also find a whole lot of cynicism here about the chances of actual change and that would include from me. Ebay has gone the route of high fee's/low customer service/scammers paradise and it's going to take a lot to lure people back in. I used ebay loads, years ago and have used it very little in the last three or four years.

[mschmidt]

My complaint with Ebay is Paypal. It is totally UNRIGHT for you to withhold my money as a seller until the buyer finally gets around to giving me feedback (18 count them 18 days and I had to ask the buyers for feedback multiple times, which I of course come off as a money hungry n00b and thats only half right ), or I have to call in and give a tracking number for the funds to release. THAT needs to stop, ONCE I MARK THE ITEM AS SHIPPED, RELEASE THE FUNDS FROM PENDING.

How is marking the item as shipped proof that you actually shipped it?

[Green]

As a constant internet scammer, career criminal and all around dbag I really like ebay just the way it is.

 

Love

 

Robojo33

 

xoxo

[Flaming_Telepath]

Let's talk about the seller that is interested in getting maximum exposure for his listings no matter the cost. Why wouldn't he put "CGC ready" in the title to get more views?

 

Because it's a lie?

 

Because it's unethical?

 

Because he's getting a jump on honest sellers?

 

Because he's an utter tool?

[Beau]

Let's talk about the seller that is interested in getting maximum exposure for his listings no matter the cost. Why wouldn't he put "CGC ready" in the title to get more views?

 

Because it's a lie?

 

Because it's unethical?

 

Because he's getting a jump on honest sellers?

 

Because he's an utter tool?

 

It's also redundant. Any unslabbed comic book is "CGC ready". Adding that to your listing is keyword spamming, period.

[Flaming_Telepath]

OK, I'm here and after posting this thread, what, 24 hours ago...there are 7 pages of comments I need to sift through!!!!!!!!!

 

I work at eBay, I'm part of a team looking at revisiting the entire Collectibles "strategy" and as a long time comic book guy, I totally get all the frustations everyone is posting. And the word "drone" is not only misleading...but offensive

 

Keep the comments coming. At some point in the next couple of days I'll have the time to synthesize everything and bring it back to the internal team. And I'm hoping to respond to some of you individually throughout the thread to get some clarification in some of your thoughts.

 

Thx everyone!!!!

 

OK, forgive our disbelief, but eBay hasn't bothered talking to it's customers for years...even when there have been serious problems involving shilling, fraud and huge sums of money. It hasn't listened to the agony of those who used to love eBay and live and breathe it.

 

For us to genuinely believe that this little sandbox in cyberspace has been selected as a 'focus group' to help put eBay right...

 

Well, let's just say that it's not the easiest thing to swallow.

[gaz973]

Let's talk about the seller that is interested in getting maximum exposure for his listings no matter the cost. Why wouldn't he put "CGC ready" in the title to get more views?

 

Because it's a lie?

 

Because it's unethical?

 

Because he's getting a jump on honest sellers?

 

Because he's an utter tool?

 

You forgot, because he really pizzes off the people who are looking for CGC graded items. My cut off toe nail is CGC ready in my opinion but no er looking for CGC books is gonna want to buy it.

[gaz973]

OK, I'm here and after posting this thread, what, 24 hours ago...there are 7 pages of comments I need to sift through!!!!!!!!!

 

I work at eBay, I'm part of a team looking at revisiting the entire Collectibles "strategy" and as a long time comic book guy, I totally get all the frustations everyone is posting. And the word "drone" is not only misleading...but offensive

 

Keep the comments coming. At some point in the next couple of days I'll have the time to synthesize everything and bring it back to the internal team. And I'm hoping to respond to some of you individually throughout the thread to get some clarification in some of your thoughts.

 

Thx everyone!!!!

 

OK, forgive our disbelief, but eBay hasn't bothered talking to it's customers for years...even when there have been serious problems involving shilling, fraud and huge sums of money. It hasn't listened to the agony of those who used to love eBay and live and breathe it.

 

For us to genuinely believe that this little sandbox in cyberspace has been selected as a 'focus group' to help put eBay right...

 

Well, let's just say that it's not the easiest thing to swallow.

 

It's just Goonchild.