eBay Plans to Re-platform Its Marketplace

by: alaska

eBay sat on a wall,
eBay had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put eBay together again.

You drove your good sellers away, you flooded the site with overpriced or BORING free relists, and now you have a plan.

by: Bloggo

Steve Fisher must get his material from the Star Trek Random Technobabble Generator

http://www.ds10.org/Database/babble.html  

by: bitbybit

''That's why we have embarked on an ambitious, multi-year evolution of our shopping platform at eBay that aims to deliver relevant, persistent and personalized experiences for consumers.''

Sounds like the ''we have embarked on a three-year turnaround plan that aims to deliver by disruptive innovation...''

Of course this revolving 3 year  plan is revamped for Wall Street since eBay wants to dazzle them with all the latest buzz words.  

by: bitbybit

P.S. Ebay gets extra credit when they shove as many adjectives into one run-on sentence so it makes absolutely no sense.  

by: FeelingFroggy

Just more ebay split tongue speak.

Ebay has no clue and is wandering aimlessly in a land of dinosaurs.

Time for them to close the doors as they have no clue what to do.

by: unknown

::YAWN::

by: gizmo

BLAH, blah , blah , blah , blah , blah , blah, blah , blah .

by: RL15

more desperation. ebay still pushing the "we know what buyers want" instead of just letting buyers search for what they want.

by: comments

Oh come on! Ebay buying guides and "personalized searches" are just as useless as collectable product reviews. Then you have social media.....really? Your customers despise you. Every thing everywhere that mentions ebay is met with complaints and sob stories. The ebay image and brand draws nothing but comments of poor customer service and a total disconnect with its customer base.

About a week ago I saw a massive bee trapped on my porch trying to fly to freedom and every time it flew forward it hit the screen it fell down and tried to fly forward again to no avail. A couple days later I saw it laying dead on the frame under the piece of screen. Ebay's method of innovation is alot like this bee's path forward. It could have easily flown out the door 10 feet away but instead it persisted on traveling in a direction that just didn't work.

Maybe try to make things right with your customers. Pay attention to buyer/seller comments. Appeal to your customers even if you don't believe what they really want or need. Make them feel appreciated and they may come back. Mess with the search all you want. If the customers don't come to the site......they won't be searching.

by: queenfloraday

If I understand this correctly a B&M similar experience would go like this:

I arrive at the door and given a pair of goggles to put on. The goggles are programmed to decide what I can view. I am asked what I want to purchase. I am given a cart. The cart leads me to what the store thinks I want to buy. I can only see what the store wants me to see based on what I have purchased, in the past, from that store. No browsing other items, no impulse buying because I can't see what's available. Also the store has decided, based on my shopping experience, that items that I buy for other people, such as gifts, are a refection of my personal taste. It decides how much I am willing to pay and only shows me items in that price range.

This is not a positive consumer (or a vendor of that store)  experience. It is also hampering sales for the store. I am not sure why anyone in sales would use this method of selling as a business model.

by: toolguy

OK, I can see how this is going to work.

I have a used 3x rivet gun for sale made in the USA but is like 50 years old and has another 50 years of life left.

eBay has a customer looking for a 3x rivet gun, ebay has a preferred china seller selling new 3x rivet guns. Ebay's going to suggest to the buyer to buy the new chinese gun over the used American made one because the new one sells for more and is being sold by a preferred seller.

THIS IS NOT GOOD!

by: Bidderboy

I laugh when I hear eBay execs say that they are going to innovate using ''artificial intelligence''. Isn't that what they have been employing for the last several years? It turns out that the ''flea market'' concept that Donahoe despised and destroyed was the very thing that made eBay unique and successful. For collectors it has devolved from ''you never know what you are going to find'' to ''we don't care what you're looking for; here's what we want to sell you''.

by: BuildingMyOwnSite

My eyes glazed over as I nodded off, hitting my head on the keyboard while reading the above article. Now when I look in the mirror, my forehead says ''qwerty''.

What the He**did he just say?

Why do people talk like that?  I'm all for second languages, but does that have to mean no more English?

Those 3 bullet points are the 3 dumbest statements I've heard in YEARS.

Those folks over there are all.... oh forget it..........

by: comments

I don't get the flea market model everyone always talks about. Sure there was always lots of used stuff....still is. I never bought it. I liked that I could get new in the box items for considerably less then the retail store by bidding in auctions where the seller was required to complete the sale. There was a period of time I bought everything on ebay. Now I rarely even look for anything now that my saved auction searches just broke with the new saved searches that took away MY choice of what style of listings I want to look at.

But I guess that is the problem. The more ebay tells me what they want me to look at and how to look at it....the less I look period because I just don't want constraints......Glad JD is gone but it is time for a new direction that just isn't happening.

by: BuildingMyOwnSite

WAIT,

If he's the CTO, why doesn't he fix whats been broken for YEARS!!!!!!!

Good Griff Charlie Brown!!!!

by: White Rabbit

I have a three year plan too.. it is to get away from all the venues and put the control back where it belongs.. me

Etsy is history as far as my items is concerned.. Ebay? I will wait and see but the overall plan is to be free of all venues within a few years.

by: Bidderboy

I have only ever used eBay in flea market mode as I buy a lot of rare, collectable items. I buy my new items, especially electronics, clothing, appliances, etc at a store where I can see it, touch it, ask questions and bring it right back if I am not pleased with it. No worries about shipping cost, shipping time, damage in shipping or the seller's feedback. Meanwhile I used to spend $2000.00 per month regularly on treasures I could not walk into any store and find. I long to spend that much again but eBay has ruined their huge collectables market.

by: Rexford

Replatforming---is that the a new term for a new form of "disruptive innovation"?

Have you noticed over the years how anytime that things aren't going well for eBay they aim for some new idea or newfangled technology so that (at least in their minds) they can WOW Wall Street.

eBay can't get simple technology right, so their mission to adapt artificial intelligence and machine learning should be a hoot.

Wenig, the Alan Turing of ecommerce.  No wait, Alan Turing was actually a genius, not a hack.

by: bitbybit

All the bells & whistles in the world, doesn't make eBay the go to site anymore for buyers. The sellers WERE the social media, the barkers, the town cryers and the BEST buyers who in turn brought the buyers. The buyers brought in even more buyers who in turn brought in more buyers and so on and so on. The buyers consisted of friends, family and even complete strangers.

Instead of just trying to enhance the marketplace by keeping up with the changing techno trends, eBay could have stayed relevant over the years by keeping their golden goose. The golden goose was their enthusiastic sellers who would have gone along with any improvements to the site as long as they knew eBay had their backs. Instead eBay dismissed their sellers as noise and set out on what seems like a demented plan of serial abuse to keep sellers powerless so eBay could not only appease Wall St but go in a direction they believed would rake in the quickest buck.

Now fast forward years later and all eBay has are meaningless words like re-platform.      

by: iheartjacksparrow

Great, another eBay executive who talks in word salads. "Browsing flows" and "persistent product pages." I guess that means that I'll be unable to get away from what eBay wants to steer me toward.

My favorite is "... enable every person who shops on eBay to find their version of perfect...." I can tell you MY version of eBay perfect was the early 2000s.