Has Griff spilled the beans? Auto-payments & Shopping Cart
By Ed | January 1st, 2009 | Category: eBay | 6 commentsIn an Auctiva Education site post, it would appear that eBay’s Jim “Griff” Griffith has let the cat out of the bag, but is it a planned leak, or a bit of wishful thinking?
In an article reporting an interview with Griff, Brad and Debra Schepp had some interesting quotes from the new “Seller’s Advocate”. I’ve copied the bullet points below, note particularly the last few -
- Before the changes eBay put into place this year, the number of active buyers had been slipping from quarter to quarter.
- In 2009, sellers will absolutely be able to say that 2008 was really tough, but that eBay made things easier with new tools and other changes.
- Now, we’re seeing some ticks that suggest things are getting better for buyers, we’re looking at the situation and can say at least we’ve halted what was something quite discouraging.
- Sellers? You’ve seen, on the policy side, the bulk of whatever changes were necessary to refocus and steer this big ship to protect buyers and improve things for sellers by having more buyers on the site.
OK, that’s the compulsory spin doctoring, but the meat came later in the interview notes -
- In the coming year, eBay will work to eliminate the unpaid items problem that has plagued the lives of eBay sellers. We’re working on eliminating it completely, we are determined to do this.
- All efforts are focused on a smooth, consistent, and safe transaction model that will virtually eliminate unpaid items.
- For fixed-price listings, this will include a shopping cart checkout.
- For the auction format, this will mean money will be automatically taken from the highest bidder’s account or credit card and put into the seller’s account.
Griff’s interview summary explained that, “In 2009, sellers will absolutely be able to say that 2008 was really tough, but that eBay made things easier with new tools and other changes. This is a huge, monumental campaign, but anecdotally, we are seeing buyers that are happier. Sellers will realise some initial benefits right now, but the overall marketplace will recognise that these changes have been all to the good.”
What do you all think?
Ed
If eBay makes users register with a credit card, does that mean they will have to ‘fess up how many users they actually have, instead of all those multiple IDs they have been touting as users for lo, these many years?
I suggest the turned-off bidder problem is potentially far worse than the non-paying bidder problem. Think of all the potential bidders who will not bid if they are denied use of checks, money orders or other non-credit-card options. This may not be an issue for sellers of fixed value, mass-produced objects, but for sellers of unique items — I sell stamps for collectors with most of my business going overseas — this will be a handicap. I have a good number of regular customers who do not use credit cards or PayPal and mail me checks, money orders, and even cash. I think eBay made a big mistake by forcing PayPal as the only option and could make matters worse (for me and sellers like me) if what Griff said in this interview comes to pass. Restricting buyers’ options is not good business.
I think this sounds like more headache and heart ache to come for all of us. eBay is POOR at implementation, POOR at communication and POOR at support!
More changes = More problems….hope I am wrong, but I doubt it.
john (ColderICE)
The elimination of nonpaying bidders would be the single most positive change on the site in years. That is assuming they can implement it correctly.
I’d rather have a nonpaying bidder than one who paid but didn’t want to pay. I’ve had plenty of bidders over the years that bid and then demand I cancel their bid hours or minutes before closing. Once they’ve submitted payment mutual cancellation is the only way out and they preserve their right to leave you negative or neutral feedback in that case. At least if they never paid you can get it removed (usually) with enough effort.
Nadine – in their financial reports, eBay state how many accounts and how many active accounts they have. Most people interpret this as users, however I don’t think eBay have ever actually published the number of users – i.e. companies and individuals holding one or more accounts.
I also think they don’t separate out the number of accounts that are purely forum posting accounts either, though I don’t know for sure whether they are in or out of the accounts numbers.
Ed
Ed posted: “For the auction format, this will mean money will be automatically taken from the highest bidder’s account or credit card and put into the seller’s account”
WTH are they thinking? They created the massive amounts of non-paying bidders by not allowing sellers to
leave honest Feedback, but in true ebay fashion, they never think about the consequences.
Now this? All this will create is massive amounts of chargebacks by buyers who got used to bidding and not paying (with ebay’s blessings).
First they irritate the hell out of their sellers, now they’re going to irritate their buyers right of the site.
They just don’t get it. Stay out of the way. Let sellers advertise their items and deal with their buyers the way they need to and quit trying to micro-manage everyone’s affairs.