eBay agrees $56m settlement with bloggers over harassment case
Just seen this huge payout ebay have had to make, anyone else think this will mean a push to extort even more money from sellers so we cover what they have had to payout? no wonder there's been a huge push on sellers to pay even more via the ridiculous promoted listing BS.
12 comments
the_brick_lodge
·5 days agoIn the first 3 months of the year eBay had a net income of 500 million.
A few years back they got 9 billion in cash and stocks selling their advertising arm which included gumtree, they paid around 80 million for gumtree and some other companies like Skype.
56 million is a drop in the ocean to them.
appletree23
OP5 days agoGoing by that they have lost 10% of their net income for the first 3 months of the year, hardly a drop in the ocean to me.
the_brick_lodge
·5 days agoIf a normal person had an unexpected bill for major car repairs or boiler problems that could easily take more than 10% of their quarterly income, I don't think it's significant, certainly not enough for eBay to worry about it.
If there was margin for them to increase fees, or push fees harder, they'd be doing any way. I don't think they wait to lose some money before trying to take more of ours, sadly.
appletree23
OP5 days agoWell, right now if i had a surprise boiler fault that took away 10% of my first 3 months this year i'd be even more crippled than i already am, but then ebay aren't having the huge drop in profits/sales a lot of sellers on here are experiencing so yeah they can probably more easily absorb the hit.
the_brick_lodge
·5 days agoSorry to hear and yes it does feel that any time there is a small win something comes along to cancel it out, I wasn't meaning to imply I was particularly flush, rather that companies like eBay are living in a different world to us and that kind of money isn't much.
pillarboxred
·5 days agoThis is typical Capitalism. In the first twenty years eBay sellers made quite good money but then the shareholders started cracking the whip and the company must find more ways to squeeze more cash out of the sellers. They are pushing it on purpose to the point where you have to quit or assent to work for them, virtually unpaid or barely making anything.
pillarboxred
·6 days ago · EditedThe guilty parties have been sacked. It's a shocking case with a ludicrous aspect. I'm incredulous at the teenage delinquent behaviour of those well-remunerated executives. I occasionally looked at ecommercebytes but never regarded it as essential reading and those sacked eBay executives possibly thought it was doing more harm to the company than it was. Ecommercebytes does highlight grouches which come in waves. Years ago, many of us were angry at "the changes" such as the introduction of MyeBay (I still don't like the clunky name which makes it difficult to refer clearly to your MyeBay or their MyeBay as opposed to my MyeBay). Yet the MyeBay account is easy and convenient to use now that I'm used to it. I wonder whether a large company would risk trying to recoup a loss in one area of activity by placing an increased burden on the consumers of their services which is a different area of corporate governance. So "maybe or maybe not" is all I can reply.
appletree23
OP6 days agoWell at this moment in time it's coming across that if you don't promote you aren't selling, kind of like financial blackmail where they will back sellers who don't promote into a corner until you go under(like is happening to me) or cave and pay them even more of your money to promote, kinda like a promote or die feeling. And going by how previous employees have behaved i wouldn't put anything past them rn.
pillarboxred
·5 days agoYes, I try not to be too cynical as people say I am. There is a difference in approach to selling if you are selling "collectables" or packaged goods which many other retailers are offering too. The theory is that the vintage item will be searched out and by its nature won't have a great number of identical competitors so Promotion is less needed though the item needs to pretty special. The trouble is that eBay's machines make spurious matches and present "similar" items that no human person would say were similar in an interesting way.
appletree23
OP5 days ago · Editedjust today i've seen them hide and unhide an item from a seller who i buy off quite often and they promote and still the search algorithm was hiding then unhiding, saw an item i was interested in listed at 8:47am, went back to look at it again later and poof gone, assumed they had sold it but then refreshed and it was there again, that's odd i thought, clicked refresh and poof gone again, refreshed again and showed the item without the discount applied, refreshed again and item shown with discount applied, refreshed again and poof gone again and so on, almost videoed it to put on youtube just to show it happening in real time. And that wasn't via the normal search page, actually on the sellers own page while looking at newly listed items.
tommystrezures
·6 days agoLink is here from a few days ago, was in the US.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj039p238r5o
sugarsa-21
·6 days agoJust read it … wow !