Tat bazaar eBay confirms: THOUSANDS of workers will be AXED Loss-making online tat bazaar eBay finally confirmed it will throw thousands of workers overboard and review options to sell or float the Enterprise side of the business. The developments were made public as eBay rolled out calendar Q4 financials with revenues up nine per cent to $4.9bn, and net income rising ten per cent to $ …
If they're not fencing knocked off goods they're allowing D-bags to rip-off honest sellers using their massively flawed 'resolution centre' which is just a by-word for giving a refund no questions asked.
Now that you can't even leave a negative comment for someone who doesn't pay or just plain rips you off - who's going to use that service a second time??
The downside with Amazon is they now require a whole bunch of ID to sell through their marketplace. These are quite onerous and apply to both private individuals and traders. Previously, they were happy that you had an existing Amazon account (linked to your Credit Card and billing address) plus your bank account details to transfer the proceeds of any sales into.
This might help weed out scammers (lets face it scammers won't have access to fake IDs to set up fake accounts with...), but I suspect it has more to do with recent VAT changes and Amazon wanting to keep their Luxembourg tax deal one step ahead of the tax authorities.
I'm not a business trader and I used to use Amazon marketplace to sell unwanted stuff (in preference to Flea Bay it has to be said) but that stopped once they demanded copies of utility bills and a copy of my passport (Driving License not acceptable) to continue using my sellers account.
I'm still bemused why El Reg hasn't done an investigation/article into these Amazon changes (at least not that I've seen!).
I am (or at least work for) a business trader. Go back 6 years and most of what we did was eBay. Today? There's no money to be made on eBay - we just use it for clearing old stock. If I was running the place we'd have closed our eBay account 3 years ago or at least restricted it to selling broken tat.
To put it in perspective, for 2014 just shy of 10000 orders through eBay, the majority at break even or a loss vs 20000 through Amazon and even with their charges, we made money on the vast majority.
What do you mean?
Those clever developers changed "Saved Searches" to read "Followed Searches" to make it sound all funky and happening and 'Web 2,0' and 'Twitter'-like.
OK, in doing so they completely broke the basic functionality of the feature, but c'mon, grandad. Would you use a website which used a daggy word like "Saved" instead of "Followed"?
Don't forget killing the wildcards from searches when they introduced "smartness" into searches.
And killing the smartness out if you try to filter out using a '-'.
Oh, and showing you other users' "collections" based on your search. NIce one fleabay, serving me up a collection market "prezzy ideas" from my wife's account so I can see what she's thinking of buying me.........
Indeed, including the recent ebay iPad app that underwent a downground just before Christmas and turned quite a nice and usable app into a hideous pile of shite. Turns out, Ebay app designers actually know fuck all on how to design user friend apps but do know the quickest way to discourge usage.
exactly. My first though on seeing the headline was "how on earth can a company with that monopoly make a loss!" . Its not like they actually have to produce a product like other less fortunate companies.
Also I'm not sure how "revenues up nine per cent to $4.9bn, and net income rising ten per cent to $936m." amounts to a loss.
Also I'm not sure how "revenues up nine per cent to $4.9bn, and net income rising ten per cent to $936m." amounts to a loss.
The $936m was for the last quarter, the loss was for the full year.
It is mystifying, though, how with an effective monopoly in their "auction" business, high charges in all their business sectors, and a business model that shoves virtually all the risk onto the punters, they still contrive to make a loss.
Who knew!
What do they do exactly?
As one of the many who have headbutted great chunks out of walls in the past –with the sheer frustration of having to deal with their arse-witted...
*"Here's a copy & pasted reply, giving you a list of things to try. All of which you've just painstakingly told us you've already tried and which haven't worked –which we might have realised had we ever bothered to read past the first keyword in the subject line of your emails!"*
...so-called 'Customer Support', I am genuinely astonished to find that eBay actually employs real people.
I always assumed the entire enterprise was automated and ran on a Visual Basic programme with a single "if (but no 'else')" loop.
34285 employees? Doing what? I'm sure that in the 2400 proposed lay-off/firing/redundancy group will be the one and only developer who knows what he's doing and probably the one and only customer service person who gives a crap.
The skim starts at the top... board, c-suite, and then tapers off around middle management. Everyone below that is happy if they can pay the rent and feed their family and due to the mess at the top.. they don't give a crap other than the paycheck.
Hmm.. that sounds like an awful lot of companies.....
It was good when it was a way to sell off stuff that you didn't want to people who would give it a good home. Or find items that weren't in the shops anymore.
But now it's too much cost and hassle for the used stuff market - with better alternatives.
And too much of the new stuff is cheap ( as in nasty) knock offs or plain fakes.
A few weeks back the Beeb had some programme on in which various collectors were showing items they'd bought off Ebay, often for substantial cost, and found they were fakes.
Which was sad for them, though I for one wouldn't have trusted any of it in the first place.
Agree totally - used to be decent, back in the early 2000's, then they stopped allowing most Joe Sellers to accept anything other than PayPal, which was a PITA as an occasional seller of old IT gear. Now it's almost like they force you into their straight-jacket to sell anything. I realize most of that was because of scammers, but geez, it's ridiculous.
But I do want to ask - what are the "better alternatives" you speak of? It would be nice if there were a site that would still allow me to sell stuff and accept money orders as payment...no paper trail like PayPal, so the wife doesn't get wind... ;)
I still use ebay as a buyer, but over the last few years more and more of my purchases are made from amazon, bang good, goodluckbuy, dx extreme.
The ebay sellers, I find are great, but I feel their pain.
1566 rating - as as I say that's me as a buyer only - so you can see I buy a lot of gadgets. Been with ebay since the beginning.
As a seller I have up 10 years ago, after getting stung for a 200 quid cash back or whatever it's called and basically getting told to FO from ebay. That and countless other arseholes complaining about stuff that was just taking the piss.
That and the front to charge paypal fees AND ebay fees from the same f^cking company.
It's a shame nothing has stepped into the gap though for private folk wanting to easily sell their tat - I must have 10 old digital cameras, and countless gadgets that I'd love to punt - but no real internet way of selling em all.
35K folk… jesuz christ - WTF to they all do ? I mean … WTFity F ???
I hope to hell they go titsup - if only to get a good gloat at the 200 quid they shafted me out of. c&nts.
Couldn't agree more in the hope that they go titsup.
I stopped using them about 7 years ago when I left negative feedback for a seller who misrepresented what they were sold me. E-bay gave the seller my home phone number, mobile number and address. The seller then left me several messages threatening legal action for loss of business and other physical threats. According to Ebay he lived several hundred miles north otherwise I'd have fully expected him to turn up at my door in a kilt with a claymore.
E-bay are on a par with Electronic Arts, Microsoft and Ryanair in my book and my choice is not to do business with any of them.
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