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[RobertGT]

edited

[Leon]

They are trying to increase sales by doing it and it could be backfiring. They tinker with things way too much.....

[bobbyw8469]

Donahue just says "naaah...you really don't need to see that, but here's a new flat-screen TV."

Typical way of CEO thinking. Those guys make WAYYYYY too much money for how little they actually know.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by bobbyw8469

Typical way of CEO thinking. Those guys make WAYYYYY too much money for how little they actually know.

A CEO is responsible for making their companies stock price go up. If they do that then they succeed. If they don't then they fail. I had heard what you posted a few months ago. If you do searches on ebay it starts to learn what you look for and steers you that way. At least that is the way it looks to me and I do quite a bit of searching.

[thehoodedcoder]

Originally Posted by Leon

A CEO is responsible for making their companies stock price go up. If they do that then they succeed. If they don't then they fail. I had heard what you posted a few months ago. If you do searches on ebay it starts to learn what you look for and steers you that way. At least that is the way it looks to me and I do quite a bit of searching.

unfortunately that is the thinking in this country. they are successfull if they make the company money. the price of the stock will then follow.

at times the stock can still go up, even if the company is not making more money.

the CEO is successfull if the company makes more money AND the stock price goes up as a result of that.

kevin

[RobertGT]

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[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by bobbyw8469

Typical way of CEO thinking. Those guys make WAYYYYY too much money for how little they actually know.

+1 nail. head.

[npa589]

Originally Posted by Leon

They are trying to increase sales by doing it and it could be backfiring. They tinker with things way too much.....

Absolutely...

There is another change with regard to searches that eBay made a little bit ago that could also be hindering sales. The removal of the * search action definitely had an impact on how many items a prospective buyer will see, and, therefore, how many buyers see a particular item. I surmise that probably hundreds, if not 1000s of buyers/sellers had spent days creating these searches over the course of a few years - and many simply didn't have the time or care to do it all again seeing as how it would probably require 15x more searches, since each set/card/player now becomes it's own search, if not two.

What I am sure many of us used to do was make a search that would find a few different sets, and really limit the amount of junk that we have to sift through (e.g. -20*, -199*, -198*, etc.). Now we can't!

It has probably decreased my purchases on eBay by 50%. So, though I'm a small microcosm of the problem at large, I trust that it is true of many buyers.

[SMPEP]

The * change was a collosally stupid idea for Ebay.

For example if I want to search for the 1952 high numbers (not using the word Hi or High, because some listers might not put it in the title) I used to be able to use the * feature to craft 10 searches (1952 Topps 32*, for example). Now I need 97 searches because I can no longer do this.

And what does this mean? It means I've stopped searching for 1952 Topps high numbers (unless they have High or Hi in them).

So sellers get screwed because I don't bid. (Better for my wallet though!)

But Ebay doesn't really care if I don't bid because like real estate agents, they don't really care what the sales price is. The commission difference between a $50 sale and a $40 sale isn't a big deal. They want a fast sale, and more sales. Getting the highest $ sale is essentially meaningless to them.

Of course following the business model of real estate agents isn't real smart because one day in the not too distant future we'll wake up in a world where real estate agents no longer exist (the computer can completely replace their "service"). Ebay is in danger of a similar fate.

Cheers,
Patrick

[EvilKing00]

Originally Posted by SMPEP

The * change was a collosally stupid idea for Ebay.

For example if I want to search for the 1952 high numbers (not using the word Hi or High, because some listers might not put it in the title) I used to be able to use the * feature to craft 10 searches (1952 Topps 32*, for example). Now I need 97 searches because I can no longer do this.

And what does this mean? It means I've stopped searching for 1952 Topps high numbers (unless they have High or Hi in them).

So sellers get screwed because I don't bid. (Better for my wallet though!)

But Ebay doesn't really care if I don't bid because like real estate agents, they don't really care what the sales price is. The commission difference between a $50 sale and a $40 sale isn't a big deal. They want a fast sale, and more sales. Getting the highest $ sale is essentially meaningless to them.

Of course following the business model of real estate agents isn't real smart because one day in the not too distant future we'll wake up in a world where real estate agents no longer exist (the computer can completely replace their "service"). Ebay is in danger of a similar fate.

Cheers,
Patrick

I would disagree just on the real estate agent part of what your saying.

If an agent dosnt care about prices #1 yes their commission is lower, #2 as homes continue to sell for less the comps drop across the board, and in the long run, it will kill their salary as well as destroy the area they work in. Im a real estate Broker, and I can tell you getting the top dollar is very important, in keeping the comps high as well as my commission checks. A home can only sell for what your neighbors sell for comparatively, unless its a cash deal, a bank will not give you a mortgage otherwise. Higher the price the better for everyone in the long run.

[Exhibitman]

I've all but stopped selling via eBay because I can send the items to sterling and not mess with the eBay BS.

[thecatspajamas]

If they would just make a way for an "experienced" user to opt out of whatever new bs "improvement" they've come up with for this quarter, I would feel a lot better about it. Screwing around with the search functionality, on a site where you HAVE TO use the search because there's no way possible to just browse through everything, is the surest way to kill your core group of users. Ebay's problems always seem to come back to them chasing after "new users" and trying to control those new users' "Ebay experience" while taking for granted that all of the old users will muddle through somehow.

New users. Controlled experience. Collect more fees. Be like Amazon.

It's the Ebay mantra.

[prestigecollectibles]

I just found this site that allows you to use the wildcard search on Ebay. http://www.watcheditem.com/search/0.html

[steve B]

Even worse is how they do the ads through doubleclick. usually somewhere around 90 attempts to load an ad, all of which went into the history effectively disabling the back button.

Even after blocking doubleclick, the scripts on the page still make three tries, so getting back from the item to the search results takes three clicks instead of one.

I'm ok with the ads, which I can ignore, but disabling a function of the browser and making it really slow to browse for items is horrible. (Studies show that much more than one or two clicks to get to what people want usually sends them somewhere else, three is too many to go back, and 60-90 is insane.)

Steve B

[CW]

Originally Posted by steve B

Even worse is how they do the ads through doubleclick. usually somewhere around 90 attempts to load an ad, all of which went into the history effectively disabling the back button.

Not sure what browser you're using, but I surf ebay with Firefox (w/ the AdBlock Plus add-on installed) and I never have such issues.

[1880nonsports]

THANK YOU FOR THAT bit-o-honey about the back button being rendered inoperative! It's been happening to me for at least a month when doing my searches and driving me NUTZ...........

[greenmonster66]

Yeah I agree my sales since around beg of May have taken a nose dive big time! Trying to sell on great forum sites like N54 and others to help me out!