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Is EBay Putting You Out Of Business? |
By:
Brett Smith |
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Is eBay Putting You Out of Business?
Brett Smith
One can not fail but be astounded by the train of thought exhibited by Brian Burke of eBay. He says, to quote him verbatim "Digital goods are often reproduced at little to no cost to the seller. On eBay, this creates the potential for Feedback Manipulation (both real and perceived)".
As far as the reproduction costs go, I would like to hear his response to the fact that the drug companies reproduce their products for practically nothing after PAYING A FORTUNE FOR R&D!
Since when does the cost of production have anything to do with the viability and demand of a product? It can take months to actually launch a digital product. Does all the product creation and pre-launch involved in getting a product to market account for nothing? I've personally purchased low priced ebooks that were extremely informative and would've paid more for the information had they asked.
eBay makes a claim which is absurd on its face - I was somehow harmed by purchasing a quality product for a low price! Did eBay's own developers not develop the digital delivery enabled listings on their site in the first place? And were these not discussed with the users of eBay beforehand?
Getting back to feedback manipulation, you can receive bad feedback even from as little as a single sale for a penny! Personally, I have left a bad review for a product I paid only a dollar for (even at a dollar, I still felt cheated). It is doubtful that the seller in this case was happy to receive this feedback. This is just to illustrate my point here. I have paid far more for digitally delivered products - occasionally they were not worth what I paid for them either. No matter how you pay and regardless of the nature of the product, you can still end up feeling you haven't got your money's worth.
eBay's listings, of course are not free. The seller has to pay in order to list his or her products.
I still cannot understand what eBay has to gain from damaging an entire industry due to an issue with a simple solution. eBay prides itself on being the provider of a service which they claim to be an easy way of selling products and service, and promoting those same products and services at a minimal cost to the seller. Apparently, eBay has now decided that they are being somehow exploited by the very entrepreneurs who make up so large a part of the eBay community.
A easily implemented solution to the issue eBay cites is to simply discount, or to ignore altogether, feedback relating to items whose sale price falls below a certain threshold.
It is hoped that eBay will soon revise this policy which is doing such damage to many of their users. There have certainly been adverse effects to businesses utilizing eBay as a venue for their wares from negative feedback - however, as stated above, there is in fact an easy solution to this. The digital segment of the eBay marketplace is growing quickly, and as with any other market segment, opinions may vary as to the products themselves.
All eBay users need to work together to convince the company to take a more realistic, humane approach towards their users and to use good business sense and straighten this whole mess out.
Just my 2 cents worth.
Brett Smith has helped 100's of home businesses promote their products and make more money online. Discover how to increase your sales, get better cashflow and increase your customer base with targeted effective search engine marketing http://www.leadpros.com/at/index_r.htm) Pay Per Click
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Article Source: http://www.statssheet.com/articles/article73918.html |
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