Odds & Ends & Auction Business Frank Ross on 25 Nov 2006 04:32 pm
eBay Creditability Gap 2007
What is eBay’s credibility going into 2007? From the buyer perspective, I think eBay’s credibility issues are probably much the same as they’ve always been. In Steve Woda’s Blog (link here), he attributes buyer trust problems to ‘information asymmetry’. According to Mr. Woda, information asymmetry exists where:
… one party has more or better information about the product than the other party. In eCommerce and on eBay, the seller clearly has an information advantage over the buyer, and this is information asymmetry.
I think this is an issue facing eCommerce in general, but it’s particularly apparent on eBay. This is due to many factors such as eBay not qualifying sellers and seller related fraud on eBay.
What about from the seller perspective? eBay Sellers were treated to a huge amount of flip flopping from eBay this past year and I will go out on a sturdy limb and say that seller trust in eBay is waning.
There was the announcement early in the year where eBay promised it would direct more traffic to eBay stores and give them more exposure. Yet on July 19th (almost two months after eBay live - the annual public relations event), Bill Cobb announced an enormous store fee increase and a reduced store exposure strategy, contradicting the earlier direction. This was given under the limp banner of “Resetting the Balance of the eBay Marketplace”.
Then there was the confusing paid ad partnerships with Google and Yahoo! (Yahoo for United States eBay users, and Google for Non U.S. users). And there is the persistent problem with the money eBay spent on Skype and their failure to bring it to market in any meaningful form.
In general, this has not been a good year for eBay establishing trust among sellers. There are already indicators that sellers are leaving eBay or are in transition. As an eBay seller myself, I would ask eBay: What have you done for me lately?
Tags: eBay Selling, eBay Stores, eBay Sellers, eBay Credibility
on 25 Nov 2006 at 6:42 pm 1.Dominic said …
I think the biggest problem with eBay right now that they need to:
1. Put some barrier of entry in place for new sellers, it can be in form of financial information verification and some initial setup fees
2. Allow scalability for large eBay sellers, like a diminishing listing fees and rate according to sale revenue and sell through rate
3. eBay has to start rewarding sellers with a good track record
My 0.02
Popcorn Machine
on 26 Nov 2006 at 2:47 am 2.Frank Ross said …
3 great points Dominic. I posted a while back about my experience with UBid and how you practically have to jump through hoops to sell there. Clearly there must be some qualifying method between Ubid’s and eBay’s (next to nothing) that will add some credibility to the selling platform.
on 04 May 2007 at 11:56 am 3.Steve Woda's Blog: buySAFE, eCommerce, Trust and Safety said …
Does eBay Have a Credibility Gap With Merchants in 2007?…
As 2007 begins to come into focus, I thought it might be interesting to revisit an experienced PowerSeller’s perspective on eBay. Frank Ross writes the Common Sense eCommerce blog, and in November 2006, Frank provided his commentary on eBay’s evolvi…
on 20 May 2008 at 2:13 am 4.htmarket said …
ebay has a credibility problem is correct as they will let anybody sell there and everybody knows that. the plethora of competition and the amount of merchants lead to a diminishing return where the house always wins and the seller will lose. If you are serious about selling move off of ebay and create your own site.