Town Hall : more feedback changes to come?

Last night's eBay Town Hall was not so much about the new, as communicating eBay's conviction that all their recent changes were great, and that members who are complaining are completely in the minority. Seller concerns about the unintented effects of the anti-counterfeiting policy, for example, were dismissed in half a sentence: "we know we're impacting some sellers but..." Butt is exactly where Bill Cobb needs to get his head out of if he's going to keep sellers onside with that one.

After sixteen minutes of riffing with Griff, we finally got onto some real questions. Predictably, changes to feedback were a feature, and it seems that the recently announced "Feedback 2.0" is not the end of the changes. Matt, "resident Town Hall trust and safety guy", commented that:

With feedback 2.0, if a buyer rates a seller low on accuracy of item description, say a 1 or a 2 on a scale from 1 to 5, we're actually going to pop up another question that asks why, and one of the possibilities is was it a counterfeit or was it a fake.

And that's a good idea: you might even start to sell me on Feedback 2.0 like that. Assuming, of course, that eBay have the support staff to investigate.

Over the last few days, several sellers have said, some in jest and some not, that they would like the ability to rate buyers as they themselves will be rated. This had mixed reactions from the Town Hall panel, with some pointing out that it would make eBay unique on the internet, as buyers are almost never rated by merchants: whether this in itself would raise eBay's appeal was also a matter for debate. But the thought of "a gold dollar bill sign next to a buyer that pays fast" appealed to some, and we were promised more than once that "everything is on the table": looks like this is not the end of feedback changes.

Policies against excessive shipping and handling also look set to change: "we are all over the shipping issue, but it's more complicated than we thought." No kidding: the policy was a sledgehammer when first implemented, so let's hope this promises something a little more subtle.

And finally, unlikely as it seems, a call to promote eBay Stores (Shops in the UK) more prominently, met with apparent approval from the Cobbster: "good idea, I'll take that back to the Stores team". Fingers, as ever, crossed.

eBay fourth quarter conference call upbeat and positive

Meg had the enviable position of talking to investors shortly after releasing better than expected financial results. Apart from allowing that overall margin is down slightly and that Skype has room to grow and deliver more for eBay's bottom line the fourth quarter was cracker.

The worries that Google Checkout might impact the PayPal business were unfounded. In fact it's possible that the hype about Checkout went some way to increasing PayPals business as reality of PayPal's superior flexibility for both consumers and merchants bore fruit.

Finally something to look forward to - with the move of Philipp Justus from Germany and arrival to eBay of Michael Linton from bestbuy, Meg promises some innovative ideas will be coming to revitalise the auction format on eBay. It's true - we do love the fun side of business!

All in all as predicted much more upbeat than the third quarter's conference call, a strong performance with good results is always sweeter to swallow.

EU know it's a load of cobblers

So far, these efforts appear to be paying off with minimal disruption to our legitimate sellers.

That's Bill Cobb referring to the effects of the new "Building Trust by Reducing Counterfeits" policy. Exactly which sellers is Cobb talking about here? The couple of hundred cherry-picked and invited to listen to his spiel in San Jose? Or the thousands of sellers around the world outside the Ivory Towers who are struggling to maintain their sales on eBay?

We reported last week the huge problems Spanish sellers are having now that they're unable to list or ship outside Spain. The European Union is working to remove all cross border trade restrictions.

Removing border posts across Europe is easy. The real challenge for the European Union is to ensure that more subtle obstacles to cross-border trade in goods and services are similarly consigned to history.

Suddenly removing the ability for Spanish sellers to sell luxury goods across Europe is taking European Internet commerce back years at a single stroke, and it's not just the Spanish! All the other EU sites are in the same position, it's just I don't speak good enough Italian to communicate with those guys and report on the situation there!

There's another serious consequence of the new policy too, sellers who have been regularly selling on eBay for a number of years are suddenly finding their ability to make a living is severely restricted. A quick browse of almost any community board reveals sellers fighting to be able to list the inventory they have for sale.

It took them 10 days, to reinstate mine.... Their reply was that my account was in good standing and it was just a spot check!!!! bloody cheek. i was reinstated for a day then it happened again. was off for 5 days then back on again.. same answers..... then restricted me again while they looked into it. another 5 days..all in december too!!! i lost thousands as a power seller.

This quote is not an isolated incident, and we're not talking about sellers that have only just started out on eBay. These are sellers who have been trading for years and in many cases rely on eBay for their entire income.

It's all very well for Bill Cobb whose remit is eBay North America to state that sellers aren't being disrupted, but maybe if he cast his eye across the water to Europe he'd find a very different story. It is not the biggest sellers on the North American continent who are suffering, it's the rank and file of sellers worldwide who have piles of inventory and are suddenly barred from marketing their goods to the customers they purchased them for.

Keynotes sounding flat with sellers

Yesterday, a number of important announcements about changes to eBay were made by Bill Cobb. Leaving aside the question of why the Head of Marketplaces North America is announcing changes that are being implemented anywhere *but* north America, we'll be looking at some of these changes in detail over the next few posts.

Cobb's announcement said that for eBay, 2007 will see them:

• Reinvest in eBay's core by simplifying the site, improving finding, and accentuating the things that make eBay fun and unique.
• Take a more proactive approach to Trust & Safety to protect our members from fraud.
• Improve the buyer experience on the site by holding sellers to higher minimum standards

This all sounds great in theory, but it's already obvious that the implementation is not quite the breeze they'd have us believe.

A bad idea

Sometimes I really hate being right.

More in the morning when I have un-lost my temper.

Cobb phish

As a special holiday gift for my friend Fruity, I'd like to share the lastest phishing email (fifteen copies received this morning). I have been known to say that the sheer volume of eBay phishes are just an indication of eBay's success, but I'm really not sure what to make of this one:



Click the piccie to read the full, nauseatingly patronising but somehow familiar text.

Poor Bill: I bet he's really looking forward to the next Town Hall now.

Another management appointment at eBay

As part of eBay's far reaching management changes eBay Strategies report Michael Linton (formerly CMO of BestBuy) is coming to eBay to run the non-core parts of eBay: Motors, Stores/Shops, Express and ProStores. Linton will report to Bill Cobb and work with Gary Briggs, senior VP-chief marketing officer. It's a big step into the auction world and with parts in motors being the fastest growing category on eBay (sell through rate is one per second) a retailers experience makes sense. Express and ProStores could do with a boost, it's no secret that Express is growing much slower than sellers would like.

Along with the news of Philipp Justus moving to San José to oversee the auction business and the appointment of Dr. Daniel Lee as General Manager for their China Development Center in Shanghai, news of the management changes is slow to be announced. We are still expecting several significant appointments in some of eBay's fastest growing sectors to be announced in the near future.

As eBay move towards the new year they are realigning their management to focus on driving business forward in 2007. Putting decision making power in the hands of key leaders who align their attention to the buyers or sellers experience of the site can only be a good move and hopefully avoid debacles such as the shop inventory changes made and reversed in 2006.

Bill Cobb makes way for Philipp Justus at eBay

Updates: Executive Shake Up at eBay US

We're hearing that there's been a shake up at eBay at the top management level. Philipp Justus Senior Vice President, eBay Europe will be transferring to eBay Corporate headquarters in San Jose, California to head up US Business reporting in to high profile eBay veteran Bill Cobb from January.

Rumours broke late on Friday when German blogs responded to an eBay.de press release announcing the move. Although no official eBay US source has confirmed the rumours, it’s expected Bill Cobb will retain overall control of the North American business which also includes eBay Canada.

"Justus has done great work over the last seven years to build our business in Germany and more recently throughout Europe. I am therefore delighted that Philipp is moving to our Ebay headquarters in San José, and I am convinced that he will have a equally strong influence in his new role," said Meg Whitman, eBay's President.

Executive changes have blighted eBay’s reputation with Wall Street this year. In particular, Jeff Jordan’s departure in the summer spooked analysts. Apparently this is not the only change in senior corporate management and we expect more news from eBay in the next few days. So far a successor for Justus in Europe has yet to be appointed.