One thing which is rarely brought up, as calls for eBay to go back to the way things were, is the enormous amount of money they would save by having a much simpler, leaner site.
It ain't gonna happen, but
Make automatic re-listing time-limited, say after six months the seller has to actively re-list. That would get rid of millions of old dead listings, saving on storage space and processing costs.
Get rid of BPF, and go back to a sellers' fee, say 6% or 7%. Nobody would complain. It would be much simpler, and again, would be much cheaper to implement.
Get rid of SD. Why didn't they just improve the postage options they already had available? If these options were genuinely attractive or cost-effective, users would have been happy to use them. They could have had a major campaign to point out the benefits. (I would use eBay postage if it was even a few pence cheaper - eBay's contracts would allow them to be cheaper, if they wanted to)
Various promoted listing - type initiatives are sadly here to stay, as eBay makes money from them, but they have got dreadfully out of hand. Don't over-complicate them, and control sellers' exposure better. More sellers would promote if they could trust the system more.
Simpler systems don't go wrong so often, or so catastrophically. Not only would some of the above save eBay money (or make more for them) on their own, simplifying everything would save a fortune in support and IT costs, as well as making eBay a much more attractive platform to conduct business.
Customer satisfaction would go through the roof! Customer retention rates would go through the roof! Far more new users would join. Very possibly, profits would go up. Why would they not?
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