According to the NY Times, Ebay CEO John Donahoe will continue to implement changes at Ebay despite some protests. He wants the Ebay to operate more like a strip mall and less like what is is today - an internet flea market. Ebay is the Internet's largest e-commerce site but has been facing increasing competition from Amazon.com. While Ebay's ancillary businesses such as PayPal and Skype continue to grow, Ebay's main core business has stagnated with only the number of active eBay users increased only 1 percent in the last year, to 83.9 million.
Some changes include:
- Listing auctions in the order of sellers with better ratings, lower shipping fees and cheaper prices instead of when auctions end
- Starting in May, sellers will not be able to leave negative feedback for buyers
- Changes in fees
- Ebay is testing a program that requires sellers to accept only PayPal payments in Australia and if successful, the company would introduce it in other countries.
Some sellers are not happy with the new changes including smaller mom-and-pop sellers on the site who say that it is harder to make a profit since their items are not showing up in the search results.
As a Ebay customer, I always look at a seller's feedback rating when I bid on items so I understand why Ebay would change it's search results. Any thoughts from any Ebay sellers?
Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/technology/17ebay.html?ref=technology
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