How blogs threaten eBay

A recent auction startup allows bloggers to sell stuff on their blogs. See www.jittery.com and go to their BlogPoint feature.

Just wanted to let you know about a BLOG Panel Discussion that I helped organize on the topic of "Learn how Blogs change the way Businesses communicate with their audience".
Amongst our panelists will be Salim Ismail whose company, Pub Sub, is featured in your piece.
It takes place this Thursday, May 19 at 6:30 pm in Montclair, New Jersey.
For full Event Details visit http://www.montclairconcierges.com/may19cofevent.htm
The Event BLOG Page is http://www.njblogpanelmay19.typepad.com

Congratulations on your article

Serge Lescouarnec
My company: Montclair Concierges http://www.montclairconcierges.com

wow! no kidding, a blog is an awesome method to bypass the ebay model. it's a complementary model as a seller communicates his/her wares via a blog....existing customer/interested party who is RSS'd to the seller's blog site immediately knows that new "product" is available for sell and they come to visti the shop. Via comments, they can haggle over price and agree upon a sell. Customer then goes to the seller's checkout web page and transacts via paypal, etc.

as this model catches on, we may get new versions of technorati/pubsub that specialize on commerce sites....say, I am looking for a 71 El Camino...I type those magic words into a vendor version of Technorati and presto, I find all vendors that mention 71 El Caminos in their commerce blog. I drop them into my feed read and get updated whenever "new" inventory arrives.

pretty cool! thanks, Steve for another item in the 101 blog uses...

Another naive post on Blogspotting. Blogs vs. Ebay and you don't even a mention Craigslist??

This blog needs closing down.

I'd be interested to hear how Craig's List fits into the story, Piers, if you want to post it in a comment. Thanks

Interesting perspective and one I hadn't thought of yet. Thanks-

Stephen -

Structured blogging, micro-content, micro-formats, micro-media... plenty of discussion out there that articulates disruption. Here are a few that are worth a look; would love to discuss in greater detail.

Tony

http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2004/11/03/classified_ads_from_newspapers_to_ebaycraigslist_to_rss.html

http://www.buzzhit.com/2005/01/this-disruption-will-be-syndicated.html

http://www.buzzhit.com/2004/11/ebays-next-chapter-pricing-authority.html

The "splintering" of America into about 150 million special interest groups happened long before blogs. From the data that I've seen on how many Americans are reading blogs (or even know what a blog is), I don't think that anyone can rightly claim that blogs created "the great divide" in American thought.

Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't Ebay already a "backend service provider"? Ebay is already enabling a lot of special interest groups to get together and sell stuff. Now, if special interests groups get so "localized" that they are not interested is other people with the same interests in other cities or in other countries then there may be an impact on Ebay. LOCAL is the biggest and only threat to Ebay.

Marion, Wyman's point isn't that eBay doesn't provide these backend services, but that it will have to rely on them much more for its business as users find other ways to find each other (without visiting eBay).
Great point about local. My only quibble is your point that local is the "only" threat to eBay. Often the biggest threat facing companies comes from developments that aren't even on their radar screen. Just a few years ago, it seemed to many that the biggest threat to Microsoft came from the U.S. and European trustbusters. Maybe some people back then could foresee the rise of Linux and Google, but I wasn't hearing or reading it.

It's finally happened. In the spirit of wacky ebay auctions that generate media storms there is now an ebay auction touting the techniques that can be used to start a media blitz. Can you imagine what would happen if everyone selling something on the net was able to do that? I don't know if that would be good or bad?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=102483&item=5587521576&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

or type in 'media storm' when searching on ebay

Here's a quote from auction:

"The techniques themselves teach you how to start a buzz about your auction using the power of the Internet's ability to spread information. The Internet is now the backbone for information traffic that is in every part of our world. That information, when woven through the Internet using our techniques, eventually percolates to different levels above the backbone, and attracts the attention of other types of media, such as television, radio and newspaper. This attention grows since all types of media are focused on the auction, which in turn receives more visits and from that more and higher bids. Which then, (I'm sure that you guessed it) results in more media attention since the price of the item is rising. The auction, which is now a news story, now has a life of it's own...."

Wow this is great news. Any system that can take a sale from ebay and give money back to the users is a great system. Why dose a company like ebay need to have such a high amount of control over its members transactions ?

Are you kidding me? Why does eBay need control? Because it is so large that it needs to keep fraudulent people out as much as reasonably possible. You think a 'blog' would take over for billions in sales from eBay?

Would you buy something from me right now on this Blog, without even knowing me? How are you gonna pay me? How are you getting the product? Who do you complain to if all goes wrong?

And on the no user fees type argument, what happens if a blog gets so big that it has to supplant its users with fees/donations and advertisements? Won't it just end up turning into an eBay eventually?

What kind of marketing will go into a blog? How will the 100 million plus users on eBay find it?

The comparison to AOL is not a good one, AOL did not change with the times, it charges $25 for what people can get for $10, it is too big for its own good. eBay will flex, you watch, or have watched as Overstock Auctions, Yahoo Auctions, Amazon Auctions and almost any other competition fell to the wayside, they can't keep up with eBay.

I just don't buy a blog as a viable alternative or competition to eBay, not yet, no way.

Craigslist as someone mentioned has more oomff so far, it is still hindered by lack of marketing, it is basically a large classified ad. There are 940 items in my area for sale on Craigslist, a search on eBay locally reveals much more in one catagory!

yeah ! E-bay is really doiong a great job for the people's mechandise for selling,in net there is no one like ebay .thanks

I use e-books currently in only one context -- reading Oz books to my children at bedtime. What my Palm Pilot lacks in illustrations it more than makes up for in backlighting!
http://www.freewebs.com/getlook

Blogging is now a popular way to make money .........thanks
http://www.onlinemortgagerefinancing.net

The model of how blogs are effecting ebays business model brings another player in my mind. Myspace.com is unique in its ability to bring people together with common interests and desires. Though it currently attracts a younger audience, I myself at 54 just opened up a myspace account and networked to my local area to find a internet web designer

It may be a threat to e-bay, but it isn't really any different in the long run. Walled gardens don't go away, it's just a different garden. I can't sell anything on my blog if no-one can find it. As someone commented "...I type those magic words into a vendor version of Technorati and presto..." The only difference is you went to Technorati-garden instead of ebay-garden to find the product.

I was surfing through eBay today and came across this auction for buying sponsorship time on YouTube. I guess anyone can bid to sponsor the end of this video. So many people are looking at the video that sponsors could probably get a steal in terms of marketing dollars for their ad time.

With all the people talking and writing stories about this one it's going to be a highly viewed ending. I don't see why it won't hit millions of people in the end.

Here's the link to the ebay ad.
http://cgi.ebay.ca/Youtube-com-Net-Video-Sponsorship_W0QQitemZ190031910108QQihZ009QQcategoryZ102333QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

If the link doesn't work, check out ebay auction id: 190031910108

Ebay is a breeding ground for frauds since i joined,and i must stress i do PAY EVERY SELLER I ENTER INTO CONTRACT WITH..I have been ripped off by four sellers who have cashed their cheques,AND GIVEN ME STRIKES!i have to disagree that ebay should be alleviated of all legal responsiblilities and duties of care,just because registration is free..They make money out of every country they have their internet site based on(headquaters etc,dont adhere to countrys requirements and laws),and take a percentage of the sale between buyer and seller,if they make profit from the populus they have legal responsibilites to adhere to as a result-its really that simple..but as we all know from the OJ simpson trial the law is only as good as its last liar!And the more hansome your legal team is the better-it can even overwirte calulated coldblooded murder!My point is ebay are alleviating themselves of any concievable legal duties and only bend to pressure in extraordinary circumstances-due to media pressures and whatnots!!Its basically a shambles!!I have emailed ebay on the issue of fraud and they have either (1)ignored the noise(2)automated response and (3)reffered me on to someone else..they have basically wasted my time and money and i think i will venture into my local shop and take my chances there.as its just less hassle and yes the bargains are good..ive seen some handbags sold for over 1000!!Fake items and shill bids,ive seen the lost and i think i will give ebay a skip!
Yours truly
THE VOICE OF REASON

In a message dated 8/30/2007 11:15:56 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, message@eBay.com writes:

Dear member,

eBay member skaeserbackgrounds (14122) has that they already paid for item #200122150768

Review the submitted details regarding the payment.

Regards,
eBay International AG

ebay-ou are so out of it. I never have sold anything on ebay. You should get in trouble with the Feds for your crap you pull. This is not even a good email screen name. (skaeserbackgrounds). You just keep on trying to bilk people. I am posting this on a blog. ebay is up to no good! This is the 6th time you have emailed me some of your bilking junk!

C

I just don't get the connection here. I don't see how blogs will ever replace eBay's business model. Let's be real here, blogs are not that trustworthy, as far as the public is concerned. They come and go on one person's whims. eBay is well established and offers a good system even if it has it's quirks, it's a good system. What blogs do you have in mind that could ever replace eBay? You're saying people are going to setup blogs and trade between themeselves? Sounds' pretty naive to me. As naive as when people say we don't face a terrorist threat.

The worst thing about ebay is the horrible customer service.
It's like there is this huge uncontrolable animal that
nobody owns. Makes one wonder (like in the Wizard of
Oz): is there even a human behind the curtain? The
online customer support and/or live chat is like trying
to communicate with a robot, a 4th grader, or someone who
has no command of the English Language or the language of
ebay. So it's no surprise that the customer care/service is
all farmed out overseas (Mannilla or India) and it's no
wonder that canned boilerplate responses that are already
available on the internet is all the help knows how to
cut and paste.

What's also tragic is that ebay
supports these huge 150,000 item mega sellers (like White
Elephant Media) who never answer emails, won't respond to
dispute console complaints, and then give retaliatory
feedback to any buyer who leaves well-deserved negative
or even neutral feedback. By the way, I advise anybody
who wants to buy DVDS, CDs, or videos to stay away from
White Elephant Media. That outfit is a nightmare waiting to
happen. They finally get around to communicating with
irrate buyers only after they leave the retaliatory
feedback. Then, in a fashion reminiscant of blackmail, they
send out automatic emails to everybody they gave
negative feedback to and try to bribe them into mutally
withdrawing the negative feedback. I'm not kidding! Go
check out their feedback! Over 1300 mutually withdrawn
negative feedbacks. The written feedback remains, but it
gets withdrawn from the feedback scores. Hundreds of
people have complained to ebay about this seller, and
ebay just continues to let them screw people over. Ebay
allows them to make a mockery out of the feedback system and
allows them to thumb their nose at the dispute console
system. It appears that ebay is more concerned about the
greasy dollars they get from these dishonest power
sellers like White Elephant Media than they are about the
way this outfit totally disses ebay buyers. After
ignoring dozens of emails and phone calls, this outfit
has the audacity to call itself a "customer driven company."
And when they give the retaliatory negative feedback
they will blatantly lie and say things like "...we
answered every e-mail..." They try to put it all back on the
buyer. They are also very rude and bullying on the
phone--selective listeners and selective readers--select and
then bully. The only thing they're doing is driving
customers away from ebay.

7 March 2008

eBay Australia introduces total anonymity for shill bidders

An expanded version of an earlier comment on the total bidder anonymity recently introduced to Australia by eBay (presumably a testing of the water for a more general application), including responses to the various nonsensical statements being offered by eBay in support of this decision.

I have bought many more items than I have sold on eBay so this comment is primarily from a buyer’s perspective. I am most unimpressed with eBay Australia’s decision to now make all auction bids absolutely anonymous, and the various reasons given for this decision I find unconvincing. Indeed, the principal reason given, the protection supposedly afforded buyers from fake “second chance offers”, is far outweighed by the field day this decision creates for shill bidders from whose activities buyers will now have no effective means of becoming aware and thereby protecting themselves.

I have in the past corresponded at length on the matter of shill bidding with the robots at eBay Customer Support and, frankly, the experiences have invariably been very frustrating and unsatisfying. I have formed the opinion that eBay does not have any tools, let alone the “sophisticated” tools that eBay claims to have, for the detection of shill bidding. I realise that investigating user reports of shill bidding requires the expenditure of some ergs; but eBay has a moral and (usually) a statutory obligation to stop shill bidding whenever eBay is made aware of such activity. Unfortunately, my experience with eBay is such that I have formed the opinion that eBay is very little concerned about this activity, and indeed eBay’s responses to my reporting of such activity in the past have habitually been to initially deny that such activity is taking place and it is only after much kicking and screaming and threatening that eBay has finally taken any action against a shill bidding seller.

Shill bidding brings no financial disadvantage to eBay; indeed it potentially increases the listing and selling fees that eBay receives, and I have therefore, reluctantly, come to the conclusion that eBay is, in fact, not concerned about shill bidding, and this decision to now make all bids absolutely anonymous will, intentionally or otherwise, very effectively hide such activity and will stop buyers from being able to notice and report same. As a consequence of this decision, eBay will no longer have to worry about shill bidding or do anything about it as genuine bidders can’t detect and report that which it is no longer possible for them to be on guard against. Considering the fact that eBay has made the absurd statement: “… this initiative has no impact on shill bidding. There is no correlation between hidden IDs and shill bidding,” one has to wonder if indeed this whole exercise is not simply a disingenuous move to remove shill bidding from view and thereby simplify matters for eBay. A very unsatisfactory situation from a buyer’s point of view. I don’t like being cheated, I don’t like watching others being unknowingly cheated and I particularly don’t like the thought that eBay appears to be so indifferent to such cheating. Clearly, from a buyer’s point of view, eBay has now become a not so “safe and fun place to trade.”

On 26 February, on the eBay Workshop Board michelleoz@ebay.com, in anticipation, posed a question and responded thereto:

“Won’t the recent changes to ‘safeguarding member IDs’ allow more shill bidding to take place?

“No—the changes will not make shill bidding any easier.
“Our experience is that the detailed information provided on the buyer, and how it is presented, has been more useful to members of the community who report such activity. That is, we still get good quality member reports.
“Furthermore, ebay continues to monitor the back end of the site using both data provided by members and also data captured from members as they transact on the site.
“And ebay continues to adapt registration and account activity rules to make the site safer overall.
“Shill bidding is banned by ebay for good reasons: it hurts buyers (who see less value—one of the major drivers for internet purchases) and also hurts legitimate sellers. Any person who argues that ebay wants shill bidding to drive up revenue through inflated final value fees is way off the mark.”

The first sentence of this answer (“No—the changes will not make shill bidding any easier.”) is a patently absurd statement; of course absolute anonymity makes shill bidding easier—as it could so do at any attended live auction—just as the absolute anonymity offered by eBay’s “User ID kept private” facility has already enabled shill bidders to operate on eBay with little fear of detection (see below)—notwithstanding eBay’s claim of having “sophisticated tools” for the detection thereof.

And, to the contrary, the “detailed information provided on the buyer” now supplied is not more useful: you really cannot expect the majority of the sheep that graze on the eBay slopes to be interested in sifting through multiple pages of such “detailed” information to try and ascertain whether or not another bidder is a shill—assuming they are aware of such activity in the first place. I am certainly not interested in doing so; I prefer to be able to put a “face” on another bidder, so that I can more easily make that judgment. I use a third-party auction processing programme to keep track of current and past auction activity on eBay that is of interest to me (with no 90-day limit) and I can manipulate that data (like an Excel spreadsheet): previously, that gave me a good chance of noticing any suspicious patterns of bidding—but no more.

Having said that, and not wanting to appear negative, no matter what, to any suggestion of change, the “Bid activity (%) with this seller” on the Bid History Details page may, at first appearance, appear to be of some use in some circumstances but its usefulness is severely limited by the fact that it is a summary of only the past 30 days. I accept that the compilation of the Bidder Information data is more complex than simply storing and incrementing a count of a buyer’s feedback but why is this “30-Day Summary” not a summary of at least the previous 90–120 days—ie, for the whole of the period that past auction details remain available on/to eBay? Now, if that was the case and an indication of that “Bid activity (%) with this seller” figure appeared on the Bid History page and, better still, also for the current high bidder on the primary auction page (eg, “Bidder n (nnn I nnn%)”)—notwithstanding the basic objection to the absolute anonymity of “Bidder n” as opposed to “a***b (nnn)” which allows some opportunity for checking for any habitual appearance on a seller’s other auctions—that might well be of some usefulness in detecting shill bidding by regular eBay sellers.

Unfortunately, a 30-day summary is of little use when a bidder is only an occasional buyer and may well cause others to mistakenly suspect that a genuine non-regular bidder is a shill; and that is made even more likely now (in Australia) because, unlike in the US, the alias currently used in Australia (“Bidder n”) does not include the total feedback count, but only the new member symbol or the vague feedback “star” symbols (the meanings of the various colours of which I can never remember). Why does Australia, unlike the US, now use only the vague feedback symbols and not the actual feedback count for describing bidders—particularly in lists? At least Australia does not—yet—use the Australian form of alias for the winning bidder (we still get the actual ID which gives us a chance of spotting shills after but not before the event)—such absolute anonymity for the winning bidder would, once again, bring certain joy to the shill bidders. Nor do I understand the use, outside of Australia, of the feedback count in combination with the vague feedback symbols; it’s the count surely that counts. I don’t understand the logic of having so many variations in the information supplied between the various eBay sites.

With respect to the “Bids to unique sellers” count that appears in the Australian “30-Day Bid Summary”, this statistic represents only the number of unique sellers with whom the bidder has placed bids (and the “30-Day Bid History” listing also indicates this statistic), and does not represent feedback (ie, completed transactions) and it is therefore a pointless statistic except, possibly, if this bid count appears to be way out of proportion to any feedback count (by their nature shill bidder’s are going to nibble, not snipe), it could indicate that someone may have been placing small bids on other sellers’ auctions in an attempt to create the appearance of genuineness when shill bidding may be the ultimate intent (for example, see item 300194283130; Bidder 7: a new eBay member, less than 30 days; 22 unique items bid on; 18 bids to unique sellers; but still zero feedback: 0/22—that can’t be much fun!).

Previously, when anonymity was not activated until USD180/AUD250 (whatever) it was still possible to watch for suspicious bidding activity early in the auction. Now, after observing a number of auctions since total anonymity has been introduced for the whole of the auction, I have formed the opinion, that such total anonymity, particularly that with the absolutely anonymous form of alias used in Australia (“Bidder n”), is nothing more than an outrageously effective hide for shill bidders. I challenge anyone (eBay-programmed robots excluded) to make the same observations of bidder activity and the bidder information now supplied and argue otherwise.

And then there is the situation where bidders apparently can choose to keep their “feedback” private (ie, “alias (private)”). What is the point of having feedback if a bidder can choose to hide it? What is the point of having feedback if an anonymous bidder can choose to hide it? Presumably it is not hidden from the seller, only from other bidders. What possible purpose can there be for the hiding of feedback at any time—except for the possible concealing of shill bidding?

Then there is the “User ID kept private”: It should be borne in mind that it is the seller—not the bidder—who may choose to use “User ID kept private” (what I call the “shill bidder’s paradise tool”). If they desire it, why is it not the individual bidder who may choose such anonymity on a high-value item? Of course, the obvious answer to that is that the shill bidder, individually, could then choose such anonymity—but then it’s better for the seller employing shill bidding to have this choice as he can better hide his shill bids amongst the genuine bids—if there are indeed any genuine bids—when all bids are kept private (see below). If, as is claimed by eBay, this facility is to protect the identity of bidders on high-priced items then there should at least be a substantial minimum starting value qualification ($1000?). Frankly, I think this classic “shill bidder’s hide facility” should be done away with completely!

I am afraid the decision-makers at eBay (particularly in Australia) use a different form of logic to that which I instinctively use; the whole premise that absolute anonymity of bidders is the only, or even the best, way to protect buyers from fake second chance offers is a nonsense. There is none of this absolute anonymity—yet—on the U.S. or European sites, and with the form of alias currently being used—still only for the “higher-valued” bids in Europe and the U.S.—being a contraction of the actual bidder ID [ie, “a***b (nnn I)”]—a potential buyer has still got some chance of noticing if another bidder is, or has been, active in a questionable manner on a particular seller’s auctions. This observation cannot be made with aliases that are neither unique nor consistent—as is the case with the aliases currently being used in Australia (ie, “Bidder n I”). And the use of such totally anonymous aliases will undoubtedly further “aid and abet” shill bidders—anyone who thinks otherwise is being disingenuous or is a fool. Do I then believe that, in lieu, eBay will now, of its own volition, step up to the plate and better detect and act against such shill bidders? Not on your Nelly! And the rest of this boiler-plate answer is simply more meaningless words seeking some form of purpose.

And on the same workshop venue danieloz@ebay.com responded to a questioner asking if there is any “publishable data to back up the claims that second chance offers are such a problem, or that shilling has not in fact increased since the introduction of “hidden” bidder IDs for bids >$250?”:

“It is difficult for us to get accurate data on second chance offers because this activity happens outside of eBay’s systems and is not always reported to us.
“However, I can assure you that eBay wouldn’t have lowered the limit to $0 when hiding bidder IDs if the results from the initial launch over a year ago weren’t positive.
“Once again, this initiative has no impact on shill bidding. There is no correlation between hidden IDs and shill bidding.”

The content of this statement expresses the similar “we see no problem” attitude to that of other initial boiler-plate responses invariably received from eBay Customer Support. If this grossly absurd statement (“… this initiative has no impact on shill bidding. There is no correlation between hidden IDs and shill bidding.”) truly reflects what eBay believes, one can only say that this is simply one more example of just how naïve (or disingenuous) and how far out of touch with the real world are the decision makers at eBay!

And again on the same eBay workshop danieloz@ebay.com responded to another question about eBay’s data on fraudulent Second Chance Offers with:

“eBay saw a dramatic drop in the number of reports received of fake second chance offers for items above $250 after introducing hidden IDs.
“However, what followed was that criminals started to target items below $250. So it only made sense to extend hidden IDs to $0.
“Fake second chance offers are one of the ugliest types of fraud experienced by buyers because they believe they are operating under eBay’s watchful eye, when in fact they are not. Any action to reduce eBay members falling victim to this type of fraud will benefit sellers by increasing confidence among buyers by ensuring less of them get into strife.”

No specific data—just more of the same meaningless words searching for a purpose. The simple fact is that underbidders can protect themselves from fake email “second chance offers” simply by ignoring them unless such offers are also received via the eBay website.

And another gem from another of eBay Customer Support’s boiler-plate statements on the matter:

“… a high percentage of members have registered an email address that is close or identical to their eBay User ID so it is easy for them [the fraudsters] to guess their email address based on their User ID,”

Surely, this is a absurd statement; and smells more like some sort of “red herring.” If eBay truly wanted to protect buyers from such activity then the obvious option, that has always been available, was to do away with the “second chance offer”; I would hypothesise, anyway, that most second chance offers are the result of the underbidder having been outbid by the seller’s shill. That indeed was the case with a genuine, and the only, “second chance offer” that I have ever received: the particular auction was for an artwork; when I then looked more closely at the supposedly non-paying winner there was a symbol indication that the winner had recently changed their User ID; on further investigation I noticed that the previous ID happened to be made up of the same uncommon name as that of the artist of the artwork item on which I had bid. To me then it was obvious, beyond any doubt, that this was a case of shill bidding, but not so to eBay when I reported it; eBay even disingenuously suggested that the offer was fraudulent.

One particular seller I have noticed is auctioning a constant stream of identical items, with a starting value at 1.00, sometimes with a “Reserve not met”, sometimes with the addition of a “Buy It Now” at USD49.99, and using “User ID kept private” to hide totally any vestige of bidder ID (search eBay for “bmw scan tool”). What possible purpose can be served by eBay allowing the use of “User ID kept private” by sellers of such petty items. What possible purpose could such a seller have for choosing to use “User ID kept private” for such petty items. Some cynics may think that the only purpose could be to ensure, by the means of shill bids, that any successful bidder pays at least USD49.99. So, I would again ask, where are those “sophisticated” shill-detecting tools that eBay claims to have?

I think eBay should reverse this latest decision on anonymity; indeed I think eBay should do away with all absolute anonymity of bidding, and eBay should, in particular, do away with the “User ID kept private” facility (or at least apply a substantial minimum starting value qualification) as all this anonymity—particularly “User ID kept private” and the alias style “Bidder n”—serves too effectively as a hide for shill bidders, and anyone who argues otherwise is either being disingenuous or is a fool. In lieu of such a reversal I think we can predict an eventual downturn in buyer activity. Certainly, this is one “white fella” who will undoubtedly be doing less buying on eBay.

In lieu of receiving eBay’s prompt advice that eBay intends to do away with all absolute anonymity in bidding and/or in the case of “User ID kept private” severely qualify its use, one has to consider reporting this situation to the Office of Fair Trading and to the media and anybody else who will listen. I can see the television “Current Affair” show promo now: “eBay not concerned about shill-bidding sellers ripping off buyers,” or possibly, “eBay Australia introduces absolute bidder anonymity to protect shill bidders.”

And another crazy eBay idea: the looming proposal to bar sellers from lodging any negative feedback against buyers simply because some unscrupulous sellers have used such negative feedback in retaliation. As predominantly a buyer I have received three negative feedbacks from sellers (3/134); all have been in retaliation for negative feedback that I had lodged against them after all attempts to communicate were exhausted or the response from the seller was not satisfactory. Unfortunately, eBay uses a totally different form of logic to me; I would have thought that, instead of barring sellers from posting negative feedback, if and when such feedback was truly deserved, the simple answer would have been to require sellers to lodge feedback first, before there can be any request for a buyer to lodge feedback, as surely the transaction is satisfactorily completed for the seller when they receive their consideration for the goods (credit card purchases from Nigeria always excepted). You can very quickly identify the possibly less scrupulous sellers as those who habitually delay lodging feedback until the buyer has done so; not that that sort of detail is available to potential bidders: maybe eBay should consider publishing that statistic (ie, how many of the seller’s supposed sales have not had any feedback lodged for them by the seller) on the Seller’ Feedback Profile page; better still, on the primary auction page. A large enough number of “sales” sans feedback could also indicate the possibility of shill bidding.

What say you eBay?

People have already started extracting out the only useful part of eBay, It's feedback system. Now you can show your eBay feedback on ur own website http://easystorehosting.com/esh/show-ebay-feedback.php

Blogs can also help eBay, as far as posting positive experiences, etc. I know eBay helped this kid out in helping pay for college, you can check out his blog at http://ebayrox.blogspot.com.

Has anyone heard of www.buyersboard.com It is getting popular in the New England area and totally FREE. It pretty much does what ebay and craigslist does (with a twist) - allows the users to bid openly. It has no listing fees or commission on sale price.
The most interesting thing about this site is that it lets users post what they want to buy and how much they are willing to spend, and prospective sellers can try to outbid themselves openly.

Hi,
I wish someone would show me how to start a media storm! As a struggling new tiny auction site, I'm not sure that blogs can cause the direct downfall of eBay, but they can certainly chip away at it's marketplace and its buyer confidence. Here are e-DUDS.com we always put the members first! Yup, all 150 of them :)

eBay is one of the largest online auction trade, with eBay customers have the opportunity to buy and sell items by accessing the real market value. eBay do offer free and easy blogs in their website for remarks or news on particular subjects and others might use them as personal dairies. In general, blogs do make a difference in consumer's life.

With eBay offering the "comment" option, it gives its members the freedom to post what they like. However, this allows buyers and sellers to relate to each other, trade, give their feedbacks on recent transactions done, offer reviews for related items, or consumers can comment on an item that a seller posted; by those comments and feedback potential buyers would know better about the item. This however, might influence the product selling for some sellers on eBay but on the other hand, it would help improve the loyalty and relationship building among buyers and seller, where sellers would get to know the consumers better, get a sense of their reactions, and allow them to speak freely in a way that is informal.

Moreover, regular buyers and sellers in eBay can keep their finger on the pulse of eBay's operations; check the changes done, latest offers, new products, and so on; for blogs are updated on a regular basis. Furthermore, sellers tend to go for blogs, because it is much easier and through it they can reach a larger number of buyers; it also makes eBay more approachable. In addition, eBay's blog is a friendly-search-engine, and it sure helps promote the website for it offers a large number of content.

To conclude, blogs play an important role in enhancing customers to interact with each other. For instance, eBay is one of the leading online auctions all over the world that takes this point into their account in order to improve their customer base and providing users with the latest technologies, and this will lead to an increase in their revenues.

Shill Bidding on eBay: A Case Study

For anyone that is interested, a detailed case study of a blatant shill bidder on eBay, and a comment on eBay’s apparent attitude thereto, at http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=24033

eBay's shrinking profit margins will ultimately give rise to newer avenues of online trading appearing. Take Pricefalls.com, for example. They monopolized on eBay pitching their Dutch Auction model and built what appears to be a very profitable website around this idea. Their prices are consistently lower, navigation is simple from the time you first log on, and they do not charge listing fees. eBay had better switch up its operating procedure before it gets taken down from the inside...

PS
Incase anyone finds this.

The following post appeared on the ebay blogs about Sept. 11, 09.

"After October 31, 2009, we will be discontinuing eBay Blogs.

While eBay Blogs provided useful and interesting information, we have decided to focus our efforts on what matters most to our members: making eBay the best place to buy and sell on the Web.

We appreciate all the great articles that were published on eBay Blogs, and we'd like to thank these eBay member/bloggers for their contributions to the eBay Community. If you have created an eBay Blog, we encourage you to print out or save your blog entries before we close this section of our site.

Remember, after October 31, 2009, these pages will no longer be available on the web.

Keep the conversation going! Visit the eBay Community and see what your fellow members are talking about today."

Since that time, the chatter in Blogland has been that folks have moved elsewhere. Facebook, Twitter, Multiply, MySpace.... Bloggers folded their tents and have found other places to feed the search engines. From the sound of it they've formed cohesive groups at Multiply (300 sellers is what I heard) Others have moved to the Community boards on ebay.

It's interesting to note that this is the second wave of folks leaving the ebay blogs. The first being when ebay began to change the way that ebay buyers and sellers evaluate transactions and the influx of larger corporations.

(Note. There's still the odd rumor that ebay is only reorganizing the blogs. Also the rumor that ebay will no longer list individual sellers on Google.)

Sad. I for one will miss the writers over on ebay blogs.