@bojangled and @paul*tribesandvibes*
Thanks for your inputs. Sorry I used a bad example in 'hooks.' I did not mean fishing hooks but just hooks in general. When typing in 'hooks ebay' on Google the first link visible just sends me to a 'categories' page and no listings whatsoever. Asking Google for 'screws eBay' gives the same result. No listings just the categories page which is well erm pointless... sorry I was not being clear first time around. For clarity this was done on a Android phone using Chrome.
@tackshackuk I used to know my busiest times. 05:30 to 06:30am (early birds and insomniacs); 10am (coffee break), 12:30 to 2pm (lunch), 4:15-4:30pm (bored with work) and then any time between 6pm and 10pm (bored with TV).
Now that we only get 1, maybe 2, orders a day, at anytime of the day, it's hard to pinpoint. The last 3 orders were coffee break, before that, 2 orders over 2 days bored with TV. But there's no pattern any more. You cannot predict anything!
"I have said many time we have to accept that eBay has changed, in reality it has been changing for many years, if it no longer fits our business model, then in reality it's us that no longer fit into their business model and one way or another we have to accept that simple fact."
That's a very reasonable point... and many people (probably the vast majority of those affected) will simply and quietly walk away; both buyers and sellers.
- Likewise those who like me are in the process of setting up something that will sell to the public; are doing/have done that legwork. - With decades of more general business experience at my disposal; it's blindingly obvious to me that eBay is no longer a viable option for even the most modest 'cottage enterprise' to set up stall upon. - And do let's recall at this point that over 99% of all UK businesses are micro-Small (not even medium sized!) enterprises.
To add this arrived today in messages...
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'We've got essential resources to help make this your best season ever, including:
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It's insulting it really is... eBay.. NONE OF THAT GUFF WORKS, WE HAVE TRIED IT ALL OVER AND OVER AGAIN... believe me I want it to work, but it simple does NOT."
...It's exactly this; the sheer dishonesty of eBay, which raises the hackles. 90%+ of listed items being hidden from potential buyers, tangible as well as anecdotal evidence of this to be found from numerous commentators all over the boards (and elsewhere). - People's likelihoods being destroyed; and still eBay is trying to turn the screw further and harder.
...Managed Monetised Decline (MMD). It happens to platforms when they grow to a point they are primarily interested in manipulating their place on the money markets and lose sight of the function which underpins them. I could name names but am not allowed to here.
Consider what once once a professional, non-nonsense networking site; now degenerated into a recruiting platform with emphasis on keeping 'the ignorant and the rudderless' firmly treading the hamster wheel; now actively selling snake-oil and delusions - made intolerable and irrelevant to the serious, legitimate, professional mind... Now a cultish Shyster-central; MMD and 'black noise' traffic stats are the order of the day as it is 'shaved and prepped' for the final boil-down to it's bare bones. - Ultimately it is just a sophisticated 'pump and dump' scheme, played out over an extended period.
...Or the video platform; built on user content. To many of us who were/are actually in the trade; this was never a viable business model; it would never have paid our bills. It has however become a behemoth with many of its (frankly rank-amateur, which the platform exploits) producers becoming reliant on the £1K-£3K a month they might make from it. ...but as it descends into MMD it is turning the screw hard on its grass-roots and long term 'producers'.
I can think of one American lady who makes 'electronics and quirky tech' videos'; once a relatively famous maker of guitar effects pedals - who is quite frankly descending into utter madness and can be observed doing so for all the world to see. Her income severely denuded by the increasing greed of this video platform (which also leverages 'promotions' in a way comparable to eBay's tactics) - and lockfast to the sinking ship - as she comes 'under attack' from the varying forces of cost-of-living crises - she is reduced to basically e-begging to keep afloat.
...meanwhile the platform itself pursues those old 'black noise' statistics as it tries to pivot and become 'something like' one of the big movie-streaming platforms. Again; the eye is on the share price not the function and it is in a 'pump and dump' spiral.
...You know that TV ad for the 'big name' building society. Where the ageing-yuppie laughs at the concept of providing the service his customer expects, wallows in narcissism and sees 'the branch' as an incumbence and 'chatbots' as the answer? Disingenuous as that ad is (the firm behind it are as bad as anywhere else) - the ad is 'funny cos it's true'; these people are really like that!
- To the eBay managers and executives responsible for this mess (and it IS a complete mess!) I can only point them to the wise words of those two great philosophers Newman and Baddiel; simply trying to deny that there is a very serious problem really just inflames the situation...
