AuctionBytes - McCain Touts eBay's Whitman as Treasury Secretary During Debate

Full article at:

http://blog.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/blog/blog.pl?/comments/2008/10/1223432071.html

McCain Touts eBay's Whitman as Treasury Secretary During Debate

By: Ina Steiner

Tue Oct 7 2008 22:14:31

Only ten minutes into the US Presidential debates Tuesday evening, Republican candidate John McCain mentioned former eBay CEO Meg Whitman. Moderator Tom Brokaw had asked the candidates whom they saw as possible replacements for Henry Paulson, United States Secretary of the Treasury. McCain made the obligatory reference to Warren Buffet, then launched into a sales pitch for Whitman.

"I like Meg Whitman. She knows what it's like to be out there in the marketplace. She knows how to create jobs. She headed a company that started with only 12 people, and now 1.3 million people in America make their living on eBay." (For those of you who might be joining this post from outside the eBay world, that's known as "eBay math.")

He continued, "It's gonna have to be someone who inspires trust and confidence."

//
// A little background.
//

Quick demonstration of the term "eBay Math."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/138221
My eBay Job
By Daniel Gross

• "a 2006 study conducted by ACNielsen on behalf of eBay. The company surveyed eBay sellers around the globe, including 2,000 in the United States. And it concluded that "approximately 1.3 million sellers around the world use eBay as their primary or secondary source of income," with an esti­mated 630,239 in the United States"
• "Even the minority of sellers who meet the company's "power seller" re­quirements aren't coming close to "mak­ing a living" selling on eBay. To reach the lowest level, bronze sellers must rack up $12,000 in sales (sales, not profits), or move 1,200 items over the course of a year."

//

According to eBay, 630,239 "make a living off eBay" = 100,000.

This form of "mathematics" is known as "eBay Math".

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/29/AR2005062902935.html
EBay Sellers Fell Into Careers That Fill Their Lives
By Leslie Walker
June 30, 2005

• "eBay reports more than 100,000 merchants belong to its multi-tiered "power-seller" group, which requires sales of at least $1,000 a month"

//

http://www.newsweek.com/id/138221

MONEY CULTURE

Daniel Gross

My eBay Job

Do 1.3 million people really earn a living on the site?

May 22, 2008 | Updated: 11:19 a.m. ET May 22, 2008

Certain numbers have an iconic status in America's business culture.
One of them is the number of people who derive income selling goods on eBay:
1.3 million. The figure has been cited by eBay executives such as
former CEO Meg Whitman, speaking on 60 Minutes in March; by companies
that are part of the eBay economic ecosystem; and, in late April, by
presidential candidate John McCain. "Today, for example, 1.3 million
people in the world make a living off eBay," he proclaimed. "Most of
those are in the United States of America."

Where
does this number come from? And do more than 650,000 Americans really
"make a living" selling costume jewelry, baseball cards, and cameras in
the world's largest swap meet?

The number can be
traced to a 2006 study conducted by ACNielsen on behalf of eBay. The
company surveyed eBay sellers around the globe, including 2,000 in the
United States. And it concluded that "approximately 1.3 million sellers
around the world use eBay as their primary or secondary source of
income," with an esti­mated 630,239 in the United States. Take careful
note of the phrasing, however: primary or secondary. That could mean
50,000 use eBay as a primary source and 1.25 million as a secondary
source. Or it could mean the split is closer to 650,000-650,000.

EBay doesn't break out the numbers, but it's a safe bet the reality
is closer to the former. Even the minority of sellers who meet the
company's "power seller" re­quirements aren't coming close to "mak­ing
a living" selling on eBay. To reach the lowest level, bronze sellers
must rack up $12,000 in sales (sales, not profits), or move 1,200 items
over the course of a year. "A bronze-level power seller isn't making a
full-time living on eBay," says Cindy Shebley, who began selling on
eBay in 1999. "They have to really crank it up and get into higher
tiers, like titanium." Levels rise from silver ($3,000 or 300 items per
month) to Titanium ($150,000 or 1,500 items per month). Shebley is a
silver-level seller (mostly photography and lighting equipment) but
says most her income comes "from supporting sellers as a consultant and
a teacher." Shebley teaches classes and is working on a new book, How
To Market an eBay Business.

A part-time seller,
Shebley is nonethe­less an integral part of the eBay economic
ecosystem. The company itself (market capitalization of about $40
billion, 15,000 employees) is surrounded by businesses like the one run
by Catherine Keener's character in The 40-Year-Old Virgin—a storefront
that helped people sell things on eBay. In the real world, it seems
there are almost as many businesses that will help you sell on eBay as
there are items for sale on the site, from Mail­ Boxes Etc., to UPS, to
bubble-wrap manufac­turers, to software developers who have created
more than 12,000 eBay applications, to Paul Mladjenovic, author of
Zero-Cost Marketing, teaching an online class at the Learning Annex.

EBay
support has become a compelling in­dustry because it turns out there's
a lot of friction in this supposedly frictionless model. A few years
ago, Doug Graham, owner of Graham & Company, an advertising firm in
Great Neck, N.Y., began reselling other people's goods on eBay. In
exchange for a 30 percent commission, Graham handles all the hassles.
"You have to take nice photos, conduct realistic auctions, re­spond to
e-mails, and handle shipping and packing," he says. "Each auction can
take a couple of hours." Graham's eBay sales are about $150,000 a year,
but this power seller isn't making an eBay living. "It's a nice profit
center for a larger business."

EBay continues to
attract people who would like to make a portion of their living
selling. "We think there are about 600,000 sellers that use selling
tools on eBay who are trying to make a buck," says J.P. O'Brien, chief
executive of­ficer of Sagefire, a Boulder, Colo., com­pany that makes
software programs that automatically download data on bought and sold
items.

Of course, there's a big difference be­tween
making a buck and making a living, between a sometime-thing and a
steady gig. The notion that 630,000 Ameri­cans—a number roughly equal
to the population of North Dakota—are making something approaching a
living wage selling on eBay is a little rich. I've been paid a few
times to play the piano—it doesn't make me a professional musician.

//
//
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Event Horizon 1984

Gilligan's Island - An eBay Tune - The Ballad of MiniMeg's Island

Gilligan's Island first aired
26 September 1964.

Happy Birthday!

And now with apologies to Gilligan's Island, and ode to eBay.

The Ballad of MiniMeg's* Island

Just sit right back and we'll blog a tale,
A tale of a fateful COM
That started from this sunny bay
This side of San Jose

The mate was a ole Meg protege
The skipper Bain Exec.
Five eBayer's set sail that day
For a three year tour, a three year tour.

The stock market was getting rough,
The tiny COM was tossed,
If not for the courage of the peerless crew
The eBay would be lost, the eBay would be lost.

The COM set ground on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange
With MiniMeg,
The Don.A.Hoe,
The Buy dot COM, and their shills,
The Uncle Griff,
The cheerleaders and eBay Pinks,
Here on MiniMegs Isle.


* Lorrie Norrington

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From eBay Discussion Board - why are positive comments from Satisfied customers being used against us?

Here's eBay's major response regarding the eBay sponsored DSR thread.

maeve@ebay.com

Hello Everyone, I wanted to remind you that off topic posts, posts that are disruptive or uncivil will be removed.

Per our forum policy at the top of this board.

Please note: To ensure this forum is helpful and educational, we thank you for keeping your comments and questions civil and professional. Off-topic and/or disruptive threads or posts will be deleted.

Maeve

Says a lot about eBay Customer Service, doesn't it?

//

From eBay Discussion Board

http://workshops.ebay.com/thread.jspa?threadID=140000072&tstart=0&mod=1221580945740

why are positive comments from Satisfied customers being used against us?

honeville1 (3767 ) Sep-16-08 08:37 PDT
During the last forum I asked the following question:

In the feedback process a buyer is asked:

1. How accurate was the item description?
If the buyer says "Accurate" they leave 4 stars

2. "How satisfied were you with the seller's communication? If the buyer says "Satisfied" they leave 4 stars.

3. "How quickly did the seller ship the item?" If the buyer says "Quickly" they leave 4 stars.

4. "How reasonable were the shipping and handling charges?" If the buyer says reasonable they leave 4 stars.

The words: "Accurate", "Satisfied", "Quickly" and "Reasonable" are not negative words. These are NOT sentiments of a dissatisfied buyer but expressions from a happy buyer who will most likely be back for more.

By setting the bar at 4.3, well above "accurate, Satisified, quickly, and reasonable" is not ebay setting the bar too high and won't many "good" sellers be suspended?

Having the heart of the question unanswered I re-phrased the question into one simple sentence:

“Why are POSITIVE comments from SATISIFIED customers met with NEGATIVE consequences by ebay?”

What you failed to understand is that myself, and apparently a whole host of other users, have our entire confidence in the firm foundation of a future on Ebay at stake. We ARE NOT afraid of negative comments from dis-satisfied users affecting us negatively (as they should) … But Ebay has in place a system in which positive comments from satisfied customers can ruin our businesses. You see, what we lost this year was our confidence, our security, our trust, our belief and are hopes and dreams that if we provide an “Accurate, Satisfied, Reasonably and Quickly“ service to our wonderful customers that we have a safe and secure home on Ebay.

During the last forum I gave you repeated opportunities to calm my fears and the fears of the whole community and explain to us “why positive comments from satisfied customers are met with negative consequences by ebay” and why that is good for the ebay community as a whole. You failed to do so. Then when I pressed for a response I came face to face with the tyrannical nature of Ebay. That was no way to restore my confidence. That was no way to assure me that as a good seller I have a home on Ebay. I closed my store, partly because I was offended at the tyranny but mostly because I lost all hope, all confidence, all assurance, all trust in Ebay. Best match had already eroded any confidence I had (even with raised standing) that a human being will actually see a listing I generate, but the last straw for me was having POSITIVE comments from SATISIFIED customers being used AGAINST my business. The way I see it, we are all only one SATISFIED customer away from being banned from listing on ebay. Why bother? I diverted all my money I was paying Ebay towards google and Yahoo PPC’s… $800.00 so far, and it’s only been 3 weeks.

Today is your chance to win back my heart and the hearts of other users who have lost the same confidence I lost.

This week we learned that not only are our futures on the line this year but so are yours… Ebay is facing a 10% reduction in jobs… why? Lot’s of complex reasons I’m sure but the bottom line is sellers like me have lost ALL CONFIDENCE in Ebay. We’ve lost it for 2 main reasons. First… we have no confidence that putting an item up on ebay means it will ever actually be seen by a human eye thanks to best match and lower traffic and second we have no confidence in the feedback system and specifically the DSR ratings and the negative consequences of positive comments. (the wording and scoring of 4 star) So here’s your chance… The community is watching, the community is asking, the community deserves an answer… Why are positive comments from Satisfied Customers met with Negative consequences on ebay?

Tell Donohoe and Norrington, they need to show their face on this one. Nothing else matters, the other changes, while controversial, are not insurmountable. This one is. Not only are you going to loose the “5%” (and I don’t buy that figure, 14 out of the top 50 are endangered) but your going to loose all of us who have lost our confidence, all security and all hopes in a bright tomorrow for Ebay….

Why are positive comments from satisfied customers met with negative consequences by ebay?

Here's your chance, restore our confidence.

unknown-shopper (1066 ) Sep-16-08 08:41 PDT 1 of 109
Thank you, honeville1. I too am curious why they cannot answer your simple questions.

To reach, the u n r e a c h a b l e starrrrrrr!

spoiledandcleaning (60 ) Sep-16-08 08:42 PDT 2 of 109
I would also like to know the answer to this question...

redrose451 (1163 ) Sep-16-08 08:44 PDT 3 of 109
Me too!!!

fireman.2412pf (60 ) Sep-16-08 08:45 PDT 4 of 109
It would be nice to see a pink come in here and answer your very well put question.

rachelm@ebay.com View Listings | Report Sep-16-08 08:45 PDT 5 of 109
Hi honeville1,
We've heard a lot of feedback on the wording of our DSR ratings. The Feedback team is in the process of reviewing all of the comments.
Rachel

redrose451 (1163 ) Sep-16-08 08:51 PDT 6 of 109
rachelm@ebay.com
Since this discussion/answer board has a limited time run, why not have the so-called "Feedback Team' answer this question instead of "reviewing all the comments"?

spoiledandcleaning (60 ) Sep-16-08 08:54 PDT 7 of 109
redrose
GREAT idea!

rachelm@ebay.com View Listings | Report Sep-16-08 08:59 PDT 8 of 109
Hi,
I'm working on getting one of our Feedback team members to help to post today.
Rachel

spoiledandcleaning (60 ) Sep-16-08 09:02 PDT 9 of 109
That's wonderful, thank you so much Rachel!

honeville1 (3767 ) Sep-16-08 09:15 PDT 10 of 109
Thanks Rachel,

Why not bring Lorrie or John in on this one. This is that big of an issue, it deserves a reponse from the top.

vintage_for_less (2461 ) Sep-16-08 09:19 PDT 11 of 109
This question goes to the core of seller's concearns and stonewalling all of us about it and saying that the wording may need to be changed and yet weeks and weeks go by without changes is frankly unacceptable

raidovermoscow (20935 ) Sep-16-08 09:19 PDT 12 of 109
The DSR for shipping is not fair for a seller on the west coast of the USA.

Most of my buyers are on the east coast of the USA and over seas. I get buyers telling me it takes longer to receive their items from me than other sellers. They don't consider the distant of where the item is being shipped from. This DSR system has to many flaws and needs to go.

outwst4less (1178 ) Sep-16-08 09:23 PDT 13 of 109
Fabulous. Wonderful Post.

So very True.

Thank you very much

sgrunin (11105 ) Sep-16-08 09:31 PDT 14 of 109
Shipping time should be reworded, is it the time the seller shipped it or the time the buyer gets it?

It SHOULD be the time the seller shipped as once its shipped we have zero control over how long it take the post office to deliver it

Not fair to have a DSR for something we dont have control over.

Scott

vk_roo (135 ) Sep-16-08 09:32 PDT 15 of 109
Perhaps eBay should consider adjusting the DSR policy such that a seller must maintain a 30-day DSR rating no lower than 4.0, along with a 12-month rating of 4.3. This may help to ease some of the concerns of low-volume sellers; as it is mathematically possible for a single disgruntled buyer to lower a DSR average to below 4.3 if you don't have many sales. This way, an otherwise good seller could have an "off month" without worrying about being put on vacation. After all, life does happen. Kids get sick, you get an occasional unreasonable buyer, etc.

I don't think anyone would argue that you must have at least "Good" service each month, with a slightly "better than Good" service average over 12 months. If a seller consistently has months with only a 4.0 average in any DSR, then their 12-month average will no doubt quickly fall below 4.3, and they could rightfully be put on vacation.

We all want only the best sellers on eBay. But, we also understand that occasionally things happen. Currently many small sellers are concerned that having a bad week, or even a single bad sale, can put their account in jeopardy. For me at least, using 4.0 as the acceptable 30-day DSR average, while maintaining the 4.3 12-month DSR average, would ease those concerns a bit. Perhaps eBay will consider adjusting the policy a bit.

vintage_for_less (2461 ) Sep-16-08 09:33 PDT 16 of 109
If you offer free shipping shouldn't your stars for that category automatically be 5.0 if it's free then why should a buyer be able to leave you 1 star????

funwork2 (363 ) Sep-16-08 09:33 PDT 17 of 109
Although I haven't tried to sell anything during these last few tumultuous months, I must admit I'm very concerned about the new transaction hurdles Ebay has placed before us. Ebay, why not drop the micromanagement of shipping and handling expenses and let buyers and sellers talk through the issues and find their own solutions? After all, the more time and effort buyers and sellers devote to talking through and negotiating their differences, the more invested they will be in their transactions. As for scofflaws, fraudsters, non-selling sellers, and non-paying buyers, why not drop the feedback system altogether and turn the noodniks over to local Better Business Bureaus, overzealous district attorneys, the FTC, the FBI, Homeland Security, Interpol, and the paperless payment processors that Ebay is so fond of (paypal, it's cousins in cyberville, the banks, and the credit card issuers). Don't let the psychiatric problems of unprofessional transactors define who lives and dies by the Ebay sword. Strikes and negative feedback are still instruments of torture, not commerce. Let confirmed delivery receipts (seller protection) and chargebacks for shoddy goods and services (buyer protection) rule. Let buyers and sellers on Ebay use the same common sense and commercial savvy that guide their transactions in bricks and mortar establishments. If seller X fails to satisfy, buyer A should walk away and vice versa. As long as transactors' identities on Ebay are fixed (that's right, no more monkey business with multiple IDs, changing IDs, and using unverifiable contact information, etc), folks will be able to steer clear of most trouble. I know this is only a first stab at some of the problems, but I think the Ebay system has grown too cumbersome and anti-commercial. Sorry, guys, but I don't want to feel warm and fuzzy on Ebay, I just want good deals and, at some point soon I hope, good profits. Cheers!

yankeydoodal (19 ) Sep-16-08 09:37 PDT 18 of 109
Currently many small sellers are concerned that having a bad week, or even a single bad sale, can put their account in jeopardy.

I fear that having an "accurate, satisfied, quickly, and reasonable" week will put my account in jeopardy.

Do not ask the Lord to guide your footsteps
if you are not willing to move your feet.

vintage_planet_earth (0 ) Sep-16-08 09:43 PDT 19 of 109
They don't know because changes are made without any real thought to the ramifications, and then nothing is passed down to the "front line".

Folks are running in circles thanks to too many layers of management. Its unprofessional (not the pinks, upper management

This lack of communication stinks!

gmservice (6979 ) Sep-16-08 09:46 PDT 20 of 109
I am pleased to see that a reaction to the DSR's is being voiced.
Only yesterday I complained that the DSR ratings do NOT match the quality of feedback received. I cannot understand how my DSR's fluctuate so much when I get such excellent feedback, and then my DSR ratings go down, as happened again today. I do not believe the comment received by ebay yesterday, that buyers give excellent or good feedback, and then give a lesser value to the DSR's ratings, why would they ?? Overthe last 6/8 months 1 have had a number of problems relating to ebay systems, and I never seem to get an answer that helps me,just a stock reply.
Will/gmservice

finnfemme (386 ) Sep-16-08 09:48 PDT 21 of 109
The thing that is scary about DSRs is that only those who chose to leave them determine our selling status i.e. it is voluntary.

There are so many buyers who don't leave feedback or stars - from some I get positive emails, but they leave no feedback.

It just seems wrong to be rated by such a random system. If it was mandatory to leave feedback/stars it would make more sense.

~Marilyn~

outwst4less (1178 ) Sep-16-08 09:50 PDT 22 of 109
One of the glitches is that you can have a 99.9% FB rating based on thousands of FBs and have a 4.2 DSR rating and get booted off.

designermayhem (555 ) Sep-16-08 09:56 PDT 23 of 109
I am a college student. I can only ship twice a week. This weekend I couldn't ship (flash flooding from Hurricane Ike kept me home.) My shipping stars hover at 4.5.

I have heard eBay is AUTOMATICALLY suspending sellers when their DSR for shipping drops below 4.3 with NO appeals process in place and NO contact person to explain what happened.

eBay is giving these sellers 30 days to IMPROVE their stars. This is moronic. If you can't sell during those 30 days, you cannot improve your stars.

What appeals process will be in place for this atrocious, inexcusable treatment of paying customers?

honeville1 (3767 ) Sep-16-08 10:00 PDT 24 of 109
designermayhem... to be clear ebay will not suspend any EXSISTING listings you have but will block you from listing any future items until or unless your stars rise above 4.3... and of course, anything but a 5 works against you.

honeville1 (3767 ) Sep-16-08 10:06 PDT 25 of 109
First response:

The Feedback team is in the process of reviewing all of the comments.

Second response:

I'm working on getting one of our Feedback team members to help to post today.

So which is it? Is the "Feedback team" in the process of reviewing all the comments" or are you getting one of our "Feedback team members to help post today"

I personally think this warrants a response from Lorrie or John.

"Why are POSITIVE comments from SATISIFIED customers met with NEGATIVE consequences on ebay"?

raidovermoscow (20935 ) Sep-16-08 10:07 PDT 26 of 109
As I stated earlier:

"The DSR for shipping is not fair for a seller on the west coast of the USA.

Most of my buyers are on the east coast of the USA and over seas. I get buyers telling me it takes longer to receive their items from me than other sellers. They don't consider the distant of where the item is being shipped from. This DSR system has too many flaws and needs to go."

I'm at a disadvantage by location (California)

This is not a "level playing field"

Someone at eBay please respond to this, or better yet please alter the DSR system, if not remove it completely.

eastendfunkystuff (1017 ) Sep-16-08 10:09 PDT 27 of 109
As long as you (eBay) are reviewing comments, I hope this one is in the mix:

Buyers from out of the U.S. - those whose ship to address is out of the U.S. - should not be able to rate DSR Shipping Time and Shipping Charges at all.

Not only are the actual shipping charges, whether USPS UPS or FedEx or any other carrier extremely high and rising, there is no way to assure that International buyers even UNDERSTAND what they are rating - that they are supposed to be rating the seller's time to ship, not the carrier's AND that the charges are the actual carrier charges with "no" or "very reasonable" handling charges. The DSR's are not a forum for International buyers to express their (rightful) displeasure with carrier charges. eBay is never going to get that concept across to the Tower of Babel that is the Language Barrier.

Current International carrier charges cannot in all reality be called "Very Reasonable" by any intelligent being. Trying to get the foreign speaking buyer to "put lipstick on the pig" just ain't gonna happen.

[If eBay's idea is to get U.S. sellers to offer "free" international shipping ...well, just who is going to swallow $34 shipping for a 5 lb book? Not to mention that "tracking" is a requisite for PayPal protection and lower cost USPS First Class and Priority Flat Rate Envelopes can neither be tracked nor insured. Just one of the many Catch 22's. What may be "do-able" free shipping for some items overseas is impossible for others. Size and weight matter big-time.]

sunflower_season (12 ) Sep-16-08 10:10 PDT 28 of 109
Post 31 counts for any seller who regularly ships in zone 8, or overseas/out of country.

I happen to be on the west coast, but know of sellers on the east coast with the same issue.

buriedbybooks (1865 ) Sep-16-08 10:14 PDT 29 of 109
75 percent of my sales are international. It is a well known fact that international buyers leave lower DSRs in the shipping time and cost area.

My DSR for shipping cost is 4.5 in the last 30 days. I ship at cost for international orders and have a whopping .25 handling fee for domestic. I 'set my buyer expectations' through numerous methods including listings, emails, inserts.

There is a clearly a cultural difference between what international buyers leave and what domestic buyers leave as DSRs.

and yes, I too am in CA with a lot of domestic buyers on the east coast.

Something needs to be done with both the wording and the averages. 30 days is too short of a window for most sellers. 90 days would be far more reasonable.

outwst4less (1178 ) Sep-16-08 10:18 PDT 30 of 109
Typical Buyer scenario. Buys on the 5th. Pays on the 10th. Ships on the 12th. Get's it on the 16thvia UPS Ground.. DSR rating for shipping Time? a 4.

outwst4less (1178 ) Sep-16-08 10:20 PDT 31 of 109
90 days is the standard in this arena. Industry wide.

raidovermoscow (20935 ) Sep-16-08 10:24 PDT 32 of 109
I had a buyer in Spain file a complaint 7 days after shipment!

It can take that long for a package to get to the east cost of the USA from California.

How can eBay LET these type of buyers have so much control over a seller's future on the site? How can a seller have the feeling of stability on eBay when you have buyers that don't understand the very basics of shipping times?

eastendfunkystuff (1017 ) Sep-16-08 10:43 PDT 33 of 109
raidovermoscow:

Not to mention getting dinged because of customs charges - happened to me from Portugal.

lynda_t@ebay.com View Listings | Report Sep-16-08 10:47 PDT 34 of 109
Hi all,

Let me address some of the questions you’ve asked and points you’ve raised about Feedback and DSRs.

Vk_roo: Thanks for your suggestions about how to balance small-volume and large-volume sellers. The vast majority of eBay sellers are well above the 4.3 threshold, and a single poor score is not sufficient to bump an otherwise excellent seller below 4.3. So nearly all sellers--small ones and large ones--are above 4.3. We also thought it was important to hold all sellers, small or large, to the same standard.

Designermayhem: I’m sorry to hear you were impacted by Hurricane Ike. Let me reassure you about some of the details around the 4.3 DSR requirement. (Also please see the FAQ at the top of this discussion board.)

Here’s how the 4.3 DSR requirement works: If a seller’s DSRs fall below 4.3, then the seller will not be allowed to sell until the DSRs are no longer below the threshold. The seller will not be suspended, and listings that are currently up will not be removed. The best way to improve your DSRs is to complete your open transactions with great customer satisfaction.

Raidovermoscow and Eastendfunkystuff and Outwst4less and Gmservice: Congratulations on your great feedback and DSRs! You are currently benefitting from the DSR system with your eligibility for raised search standing (and discounts for PowerSellers).

The next version of the dashboard will have an increased level of detail available for you to manage your business even more effectively; for example, by checking to see if your cross-border trade DSRs are higher or lower than your domestic DSRs. (For many sellers, the cross-border DSRs are actually higher.)

I hope this helps alleviate some of your concerns. Thanks!

Best regards,
Lynda Talgo
Global Trust and Safety

sashoo (971 ) Sep-16-08 10:48 PDT 35 of 109
Right. So let's see.

I didn't like having to pay customs.

The seller didn't tell me I had to, so Communication gets a 1.

Shipping by air is expensive, so I chose ground.

It took a long time. Let's give shipping time a 1.

It wouldn't have taken so long if air mail hadn't been so expensive. Let's give shipping costs a 1.

The description was pretty accurate, though he should have mentioned the customs thing. Let's give that a 2.

What protection is their for the seller against this scenario?

or even against the guy who just says,

"Yup. Pretty good. Let's call 'em all 4's."

raidovermoscow (20935 ) Sep-16-08 10:51 PDT 36 of 109
"raidovermoscow:

Not to mention getting dinged because of customs charges - happened to me from Portugal. "

I once received a negative feedback from a buyer in Canada because he had to pay customs...

bumblebee-garden (530 ) Sep-16-08 10:51 PDT 37 of 109
Honeville1 is my hero. Please keep trying to get them to actually answer the question in a sensical way.

sashoo (971 ) Sep-16-08 10:53 PDT 38 of 109
Raidovermoscow and Eastendfunkystuff and Outwst4less and Gmservice: Congratulations on your great feedback and DSRs! You are currently benefitting from the DSR system with your eligibility for raised search standing (and discounts for PowerSellers).

Which means that other sellers are currently being punished for the DSR system, right?

So, how do we know that these 4 "benefitting" sellers are offering better service than the folks currently being punished by DSR's?

What objective evidence is there that these 4 sellers are better sellers than any one else, and therefore deserving of such preferential treatment?

(I hope all 4 sellers here see that I'm not being in any way critical of you. I've used you as examples because Linda has used you as examples.)

Thanks,

etown99 (3027 ) Sep-16-08 10:54 PDT 39 of 109
Possibly you can help me understand the DSR's also.

As a seller:

4.0 I accurately describe MY item
4.0 I satisfy MY customer
4.0 I charge MY customer reasonable shipping
4.0 I ship MY customer's item quickly

As a venue, you can and will suspend my selling privileges for the reasons stated above.

Why does a "4.3 POOF you're gone" policy, with the above terminology in place, make sense only to Ebay management?

The terminology of the detailed star ratings needs amended! Just add two words to each rating definition.

4.0 accurately described item - seller suspended
4.0 satisfied the customer - seller suspended
4.0 charged reasonable shipping - seller suspended
4.0 shipped quickly - seller suspended

I believe the above is much more accurate reflection of how Ebay handles the DSR's. All buyers should be informed of the punitive actions management takes against their sellers when Ebay's sellers are accurately describing their items, satisfying their customers, charging reasonable shipping fees, and shipping quickly.

Just inform the buyers the truth about how Ebay uses the detailed star ratings against their sellers. Specifically against their small sellers.

Disclosure is a beautiful thang!

sashoo (971 ) Sep-16-08 10:56 PDT 40 of 113
Also, if I understand correctly,

if one of my DSR's falls below 4.3 (and my current lowest is 4.5- on shipping time, one I can't control)

I will be suspended from selling, thus making it impossible to improve my DSR's.

Where is the logic in this?

raidovermoscow (20935 ) Sep-16-08 10:56 PDT 41 of 113
Lynda,

What would happen to a sellers GTS listings in an eBay store if they fall under 4.3?

Would those listing continue after 30 days?

Thanks, ROM

sashoo (971 ) Sep-16-08 11:07 PDT 42 of 113
I guess the bigger question is how is it possible that Ebay cannot, or will not, see the gross unfairness in this.

Instead of developing a new policy that works, and is fair, they are spending tremendous time and energy trying to rationalize a policy that is unfair, and does not work.

I appreciate the effort, and the pinks responding here, and I like talking, but fixing the problem would be preferable to discussing it.

raidovermoscow (20935 ) Sep-16-08 11:08 PDT 43 of 113
"I hope all 4 sellers here see that I'm not being in any way critical of you."

Not at all.

I have "good" DSR's, raised on the search, and power seller discount, but I still don't like the star system due to the fact you have buyers that may not know the impact those "cute" little stars have on a seller's ability to put food on the table for their family.

fmbooklady (1024 ) Sep-16-08 11:10 PDT 44 of 113
The original question still hasn't been answered.

olewestgifts (2926 ) Sep-16-08 11:11 PDT 45 of 113
Explain some simple yes or no questions asked to Griff and his responses in the below thread. I hope we get an answer.

http://workshops.ebay.com/thread.jspa?threadID=140000123&start=0

raidovermoscow (20935 ) Sep-16-08 11:13 PDT 46 of 113
It looks like that thread was deleted...

vintage_for_less (2461 ) Sep-16-08 11:14 PDT 47 of 113
you set of forum to answer questions please answer questions that many powersellers have just look at people asking the questions!!

designermayhem (555 ) Sep-16-08 11:16 PDT 48 of 113
Here’s how the 4.3 DSR requirement works: If a seller’s DSRs fall below 4.3, then the seller will not be allowed to sell until the DSRs are no longer below the threshold. The seller will not be suspended, and listings that are currently up will not be removed. The best way to improve your DSRs is to complete your open transactions with great customer satisfaction.

Thank you for responding and clarifying, but as you can see frequently list as little as 3 items at a timne. Often I have zero items due to my schedule. However, if I had ten recent transactions, eBay will IGNORE my year of feedback which is NOT good and extremely unfair to the occasional seller.

Many, many sellers were impacted by Ike worse then me. Please tell me specifically, what is eBay doing to help protect the reputations of sellers affected by Ike? Nothing, right? What is eBay doing to the seller victims of Ike? Punishing them, right? Why?

raidovermoscow (20935 ) Sep-16-08 11:26 PDT 49 of 113
"The original question still hasn't been answered."

If eBay won't change the the definition of 4 stars "satisfied" on the rating system, then at least change 4 stars as "not satisfied", because if all of the buyers are just "satisfied" with you? You will not be allowed to sell on the site.

It is very clear to see that the DSR system is flawed.

olewestgifts (2926 ) Sep-16-08 11:31 PDT 50 of 113
Here is a follow up thread asking why they are removing the thread. I do hope you will help bump it.

http://workshops.ebay.com/thread.jspa?threadID=140000132&tstart=0&mod=1221589767055

outwst4less (1178 ) Sep-16-08 11:33 PDT 51 of 113
Raidovermoscow and Eastendfunkystuff and Outwst4less and Gmservice: Congratulations on your great feedback and DSRs! You are currently benefitting from the DSR system with your eligibility for raised search standing (and discounts for PowerSellers).

My Best Match level just dropped to Standard.

Ebay is in touch. Wrong.

funwork2 (363 ) Sep-16-08 11:38 PDT 52 of 113
I repeat:

Ebay, why not drop the micromanagement of shipping and handling expenses and let buyers and sellers talk through the issues and find their own solutions?

Don't let the psychiatric problems of unprofessional and vindictive transactors define who lives and dies by the Ebay sword. Strikes, sub-4.3 DSRs, and negative feedback are instruments of torture, not commerce.

Let confirmed delivery receipts (seller protection) and chargebacks for shoddy goods and services (buyer protection) rule.

Let buyers and sellers on Ebay use the same common sense and commercial savvy that guide their transactions in bricks and mortar establishments. If seller X fails to satisfy, buyer A should walk away and vice versa.

Let's find the forest for all these trees: Ebay, jettison this cumbersome feedback/strike/DSR system and let members use the existing system of moral suasion and legal sanctions in the polity at large to conduct business in your increasingly arcane and inchoate venue.

switchplateplanet (5212 ) Sep-16-08 11:38 PDT 53 of 113
So basically what ebay is requiring from us as sellers is perfection (5.0), while not holding themselves up to that same standard.

~SwitchPlatePlanet~

honeville1 (3767 ) Sep-16-08 11:38 PDT 54 of 113
Lynda Talgo
Global Trust and Safety

Well, thanks for at least showing up here but you did absolutely nothing to restore my trust, my safety, nor my confidence in ebay.

Let me be clear... If you want to judge me and hold me accountable for DIS-SATISIFED customers, I can not fault you. But your NOT. Your not.

I noticed that MY question remains unaddressed and I continue to be ignored, I'm smart enough to know that that means I better shut up now because just like last time you ignore my questions only so long, and then you reach out and slap me for asking what is now apparantly the question ebay refuses to answer.

Just understand as me and thousands others ride off into the sunset the issue over which we are doing so is over the wording and the consequences regarding the 4th star. It's not your intent that upsets us it's your method.

1. How accurate was the item description?
If the buyer says "Accurate" they leave 4 stars and ebay responds with NEGATIVE consequences.

2. "How satisfied were you with the seller's communication? If the buyer says "Satisfied" they leave 4 stars and ebay responds with NEGATIVE consequences.

3. "How quickly did the seller ship the item?" If the buyer says "Quickly" they leave 4 stars and Ebay responds with NEGATIVE consequences.

4. "How reasonable were the shipping and handling charges?" If the buyer says reasonable they leave 4 stars and Ebay responds with NEGATIVE consequences.

Let me ask you one last question. What has hurt ebay most... The 7 day pink slap I got for asking the question or the $800.00 I DIDN'T spend here since 8/21 because my concerns remain unaddressed?

Think that thru in the near future when Ebay announces a 10% layoff in it's workforce.

Ebay... your better than this! Surely you can put your heads together and come up with a GREAT system that doesn't use POSITIVE comments from SATISFIED customers NEGATIVELY against it's users.

designermayhem (555 ) Sep-16-08 11:46 PDT 55 of 113
An eBay employee posted to a news blog recently that he is nothing more than a paid eBay apologist. He had no power to affect change. (I believe he was store or PowerSeller support.)

We are looking to find the person who can affect change. If a pink could bring that person here to read these posts, I'll be grateful. S/he needs to be reading these posts and applying logic to how shipping is really rated by buyers. (Sellers are rated on the carrier no matter how many times you instruct a bidder not to do so. And eBay won't even remove their feedback if they realize they made a mistake.)

The employee reasoned eBay does not need it's current level of customer service representatives as the answer is the same to every problem -- listen to the sellers complain, apologize, and do nothing.

fmbooklady (1024 ) Sep-16-08 11:46 PDT 56 of 113
Why is it taking them so long to answer this question They've had time to review and come up with an answer between now and when it was asked and pulled on the previous workshop. Maybe it is hard to find an answer that can be confusing enough to still not answer the question but say "Hope this helps".

splendidthreads (1900 ) Sep-16-08 11:52 PDT 57 of 113
Posted this on another DSR thread, but it applies here as well.

I keep hearing statements to this effect, "sellers who have an average of 4.3 on any of their DSRs actually are quite unusual...in fact, only a few percent of all eBay sellers are below this threshold."

Where on the site can members go to see what the distribution of the percentages is? Where is the chart or table that lets US see these numbers?

This is something that affects our businesses and we should have open access to the information. Transparency in the methods of evaluating our seller performance, since they affect our success here, goes a long way towards trust. As it is now, I have no way of knowing if that statement is true or if it's just spin that ebay has told its CS reps to repeat whenever the issue of 4 being good and bad at the same time comes up.



outwst4less (1178 ) Sep-16-08 11:53 PDT 58 of 113
Hear this Ebay. My Best Match dropped from Raised to Standard. Not because of Item as described. Not because of communication or Shipping and Handling charges. But by Shipping Time!! I have no control over this. Absouletly zero when I turn it over to the Shippers. That's my Fault? I lose Exposure! I lose Discounts. I lose. Period. Look at my 12 month DSR's Ebay. You see a pattern there? No. Not at all. Solid numbers way above your standards.30 days is way too short of time for you to play your musical chairs game with my future.

sashoo (971 ) Sep-16-08 11:54 PDT 59 of 113
I fully support any seller that wants to sue eBay for suspending them due to shipping DSRs -- lowered by an act of God.

I liked your post, Designer. I thought it was excellent.

I'm giving it a 4.


You see, unfortunately for you, your post is being replied to by someone who just doesn't give 5's. 5's are perfect, and while excellent is good, it isn't perfect.

Just think: If only your post had been replied to by one who gives out 5's like candy! Your life would be so much different now!

I trust I have made my point.

sashoo (971 ) Sep-16-08 11:55 PDT 60 of 113
Hear this Ebay. My Best Match dropped from Raised to Standard. Not because of Item as described. Not because of communication or Shipping and Handling charges. But by Shipping Time!! I have no control over this. Absouletly zero when I turn it over to the Shippers. That's my Fault? I lose Exposure! I lose Discounts. I lose. Period. Look at my 12 month DSR's Ebay. You see a pattern there? No. Not at all. Solid numbers way above your standards.30 days is way too short of time for you to play your musical chairs game with my future.

Wow! you must be a bad seller. We'll be better off without you.

raidovermoscow (20935 ) Sep-16-08 11:57 PDT 61 of 113
The bottom line is eBay is trying to weed out the bad sellers which is fine.

Ebay NEEDS to do this without question!

But the new DSR standards is not the answer.

There is a saying about babies and bath water I believe.

funwork2 (363 ) Sep-16-08 12:00 PDT 62 of 113
I guess only Steve McGarrett will win at Ebay's new game, eh, Danno?

outwst4less (1178 ) Sep-16-08 12:03 PDT 63 of 113
Yeah. I'm a bad seller and lousy at musical chairs.

sem012 (875 ) Sep-16-08 12:03 PDT 64 of 113
We would be happy just to have sales. Discounts are nice, but sales are better! When sales kick back up, sellers will be doing a lot less complaining!

Well, that's true for SOME of us. LOL

outwst4less (1178 ) Sep-16-08 12:05 PDT 65 of 113
"Why is it taking them so long to answer this question"

They only have 15,000 employees. Give em' a break.

sashoo (971 ) Sep-16-08 12:26 PDT 66 of 113
Here's the thing:

We have been asked to participate in this forum, and it has attracted many excellent sellers,

(even though some of their DSR's demonstrate them to be less than excellent)

honest sellers and long time Ebayers who are genuinely concerned about their business.

While there are many messages, surely one of the clearest is this:

The DSR system is a source of great concern, for a great variety of legitimate reasons.

Yet, despite this, and Ebay's own acknowledgment on these threads that there are imperfections,

they plan to go ahead with this 4.3 policy.

The only solution they seem able to offer is that sellers should provide "better experiences."

They are unable to see that this is a lottery, a game, with good sellers poised to pay the price for attracting the wrong buyer.

Or they see it, and won't acknowledge it.

If we- good and honest sellers all- can vividly see the unfairness of this, why can't they?

outwst4less (1178 ) Sep-16-08 12:36 PDT 67 of 113
Why Can't They? I have no idea. Looking at all the postings and the huge amounts of FB's generated by these concerned Sellers. Wow! If I was Ebay, let's rethink this. These are heavy duty customers and we need to take of care of our Customers, forthwith.

hioctane62 (564 ) Sep-16-08 12:38 PDT 68 of 113
The whole thing seems like a repeat of the 8/20 board, with different pinks and reworded, canned responses.

outwst4less (1178 ) Sep-16-08 12:45 PDT 69 of 113
No comment.

yankeydoodal (19 ) Sep-16-08 12:46 PDT 70 of 113
My last feedback comment this morning was "I'm seriously impressed. New favorite seller" And, my stars keep falling . . .



Do not ask the Lord to guide your footsteps
if you are not willing to move your feet.

outwst4less (1178 ) Sep-16-08 12:49 PDT 71 of 113
Hi Yankey.

gotcha beat.

Unbelievable! INCREDIBLE SHIPPING! Don't know how you got it here so fast. DSR 4

citygirlhardware (379 ) Sep-16-08 13:01 PDT 72 of 113
honeville1 wrote:

"I'd really rather get back to selling on ebay but apparantly my confidence and security and trust isn't going to be restored today."

Agreed.

We've been asking all of the questions on this board for a long time. Yet ebay has no real answers ready for today's discussion.

gettysburg7263 (358 ) Sep-16-08 13:02 PDT 73 of 113
honeville,

"..regarding the 4th star. It's not your intent that upsets us it's your method."

It is precisely this method which speaks to their intent.

After pondering this statement, you'll have your answer.

yankeydoodal (19 ) Sep-16-08 13:03 PDT 74 of 113
Saw this siggy on someone else's post but believe it merits repeating.



Will the last person with a star, please turn off the light.

sashoo (971 ) Sep-16-08 13:09 PDT 75 of 113
If you had a big meeting coming up with shareholders,

angry, frustrated shareholders who are going to hit you with a bunch of serious, legitimate questions about very specific policies,

questions you can predict in advance because you've heard them before,

questions for which those shareholders are going to demand answers,

wouldn't you have some pretty definitive answers ready?

outwst4less (1178 ) Sep-16-08 13:13 PDT 76 of 113
I know the answer to that question.

eastendfunkystuff (1017 ) Sep-16-08 13:30 PDT 77 of 113
"Raidovermoscow and Eastendfunkystuff and Outwst4less and Gmservice: Congratulations on your great feedback and DSRs! You are currently benefitting from the DSR system with your eligibility for raised search standing (and discounts for PowerSellers)."

All is not SOooo peachy rosy...

I spent the month of August at "LOWERED" standing just because of [what my research and daily analysis tells me was] one overseas buyer who did not like the Shipping Charges - even tho I sent the item at 1/2 the actual cost other sellers of the same item usually charge [at my risk, also].

I got back up to "RAISED" when that 30 day DSR rolled off...

And I was MIGHTY CLOSE to the "Suspension" level for that EVEN THO my 12 month DSRs were totally unaffected before, during and after that "ding" sat in my 30 days!!

I'm here asking questions and making comments because I have been AFFECTED by this rating system.

outwst4less (1178 ) Sep-16-08 13:38 PDT 78 of 113
I know exactly how you feel. Got dinged from an International Buyer early this month for shipping damage. Sent out a 2nd unit Global Express and lost big bucks on the transaction. Very nice buyer. Got my brains dinged out on the DSR's

mikes66f100 (493 ) Sep-16-08 13:55 PDT 79 of 113
Pinks,

We appreciate your attempt to calm fears about DSR's, but still no one has answered the OP's question.

outwst4less (1178 ) Sep-16-08 14:03 PDT 80 of 113
is that 60 hours per month?

outwst4less (1178 ) Sep-16-08 14:13 PDT 81 of 113
Okay. Just curious.

honeville1 (3767 ) Sep-16-08 14:14 PDT 82 of 113
"You see, what we lost this year was our confidence, our security, our trust, our belief and our hopes and dreams that if we provide an “Accurate, Satisfied, Reasonably and Quickly“ service to our wonderful customers that we have a safe and secure home on Ebay."


This comes from the heart. It's not the ramblings of a "pot stirrer". I was INVITED here to have my questions answered, my fears calmed and my insecurities resolved. I got nodda. Well, that's not true I did get a couple of tyrannical emails. My YTD fees paid are $5,047.46. That may not seem like much to you California folks but round here that's more than my building payment and I have a 7,000 sq ft building. So I came here and asked a question. Clearly I'm not alone, many others have voiced their desire to have the question answered. So I ask again, and I think it is a question worthy of being addressed by Lorrie or John...

"Why are POSITIVE comments from SATISFIED customers met with NEGATIVE consequences on Ebay"?

a-likely-story (1347 ) Sep-16-08 14:20 PDT 83 of 113
Ditto


"Why are POSITIVE comments from SATISFIED customers met with NEGATIVE consequences on Ebay"?

maeve@ebay.com View Listings | Report Sep-16-08 14:22 PDT 84 of 113
Hello Everyone, I wanted to remind you that off topic posts, posts that are disruptive or uncivil will be removed.

Per our forum policy at the top of this board.

Please note: To ensure this forum is helpful and educational, we thank you for keeping your comments and questions civil and professional. Off-topic and/or disruptive threads or posts will be deleted.

Maeve

outwst4less (1178 ) Sep-16-08 14:22 PDT 85 of 113
I'm in Oregon and my fees are about or slightly higher than yours. Simple Question you are asking honeville.

outwst4less (1178 ) Sep-16-08 14:24 PDT 86 of 113
ditto.

redrose451 (1163 ) Sep-16-08 14:25 PDT 87 of 113
I agree with you, honeville. You took the time to ask relevant questions, in a well thought-out manner, but no one seems to be able to give you an answer.
I don't see how you could make your point any clearer.

a-likely-story (1347 ) Sep-16-08 14:26 PDT 88 of 113
You can remove whatever posts you please, but that's not going to make this issue go away.

amishtaxi (5531 ) Sep-16-08 14:28 PDT 89 of 113
OK, I'm confused maeve. This discussion on the question from honeville is off topic, disruptive or uncivil???? which is it? Is it going to go poof soon?
I encourage everyone who is reading this thread to make a copy of the OP's post. This question needs to be answered if we have to repost it again and again.

Again ebay:
"Why are POSITIVE comments from SATISFIED customers met with NEGATIVE consequences on Ebay"?
Grace








citygirlhardware (379 ) Sep-16-08 14:30 PDT 90 of 113
IMO the problems with DSR "language" are unsolvable. There are too many different types of buyers, too many different perceptions, too many cultural/age/education demos for DSR's to be understood in the same way by everyone.

So...are DSR's actually indicative of buyer satisfaction? Not really. How could they be?

maeve@ebay.com View Listings | Report Sep-16-08 14:33 PDT 91 of 113
Hello amishtaxi, honeville1's thread is not uncivil or disruptive. However, there have been a lot of off topic and disruptive posts made to this thread and I thought I should make mention that those posts would be removed for violations of the policy.

There is no reason to remove this thread, only some of the comments.

If you all keep it civil, there won't be a need to remove posts or send warnings.

Maeve

outwst4less (1178 ) Sep-16-08 14:34 PDT 92 of 113
OMG. I'm definitely talking to my attorney.

amishtaxi (5531 ) Sep-16-08 14:41 PDT 93 of 113
Thanks for replying maeve, I have just read the entire thread and did not see any of those kinds of posts. Have they been removed already?

Again ebay:
"Why are POSITIVE comments from SATISFIED customers met with NEGATIVE consequences on Ebay"?
Grace
Grace






raidovermoscow (20935 ) Sep-16-08 14:44 PDT 94 of 113
"Why are POSITIVE comments from SATISFIED customers met with NEGATIVE consequences on Ebay"?

All I know is that they are "Positively Consequential"

I'm trying to be positive here.

Hopeful the voices are being heard and eBay will reconsider the DSR rating system.

outwst4less (1178 ) Sep-16-08 14:45 PDT 95 of 113
ditto!

outwst4less (1178 ) Sep-16-08 14:46 PDT 96 of 113
ditto again.

outwst4less (1178 ) Sep-16-08 14:47 PDT 97 of 113
just trying to get an answer on a legitimate question.

That's all. That's it.

34for26and7 (2216 ) Sep-16-08 14:50 PDT 98 of 113
Come on with some good, valid and reasonable answers.

We just want to know

"Why are POSITIVE comments from SATISFIED customers met with NEGATIVE consequences on Ebay"?

----
Edie

outwst4less (1178 ) Sep-16-08 14:51 PDT 99 of 113
Edie? We have Lulu. Black Lab that is afraid of water.LOL and we live in the NorthWest.

Good looking dog.

designermayhem (555 ) Sep-16-08 14:55 PDT 100 of 113
outwst4less (1178 ) View Listings | Report Sep-16-08 14:34 PDT 92 of 98
OMG. I'm definitely talking to my attorney.

Let us know what you find out. I'm thinking defamation? Stating sellers with 4.3 or less stars in shipping are 'bad' and need to be removed? When we are knowingly be graded on carrier performance? And acts of God? And bad memory of bidders? And biased international bidders who get peeved when you don't perform an illegal act?

And the only portion of bidders highly motivated to leave feedback (since the unbalanced changes) are those wishing to grind an ax with eBay? (This giving a slanted picture.)

Uncivil?

eBay's pulling changes day and night is uncivil. Best match telling us what we want to see is uncivil. DSR allowing competition to ruin sellers over night is uncivil. PayPal escrowing funds flagrantly in the face of the law is uncivil.

Typing a message voicing legitimate discontent is expressing an opinion.

armourereric (435 ) Sep-16-08 15:06 PDT 101 of 113
Hi,

I have one that I'd really like to get an answer to.......
If you look at my DSR's you will see that I've had problems, I'll offer no defense to that other than that my product is handmade and I am considered the best product in my catagory on ebay. I finally got over the resentment of the DSR situation and thought,"well let's do awesome customer service and see what happens" I worked 60 hours a week for 3 weeks to catch up my shipping and did get caught up to where buyers got my product in less than a week. Imaging my shock early last week when 5 buyers informed my by phone, that when they went to give me feedback, they got a screen stating "sorry, we are not accepting feedback for this seller at this time" One of them was a high level exec at Fox Television. These 5 buyers were all over the US and one from the UK, can someone explain how I am to improve my DSR's, if the buyer is prevented from leaving them? Meanwhile, a competitor on ebay, who brags to me at LA hollywood parties that he can get away with murder on his DSR's,(he has 100 negs this year of 8500)because he pays $12,000 a month to ebay, get's to stay, when 4 of my buyers in the last month returned his product after getting hurt using it, and bought from me instead. We monitored his DSR's 2 weeks ago on an hourly basis and watched as 5 new feedbacks of 12000 raised his "product as described" DSR from 3.9 to 4.5 I've been on ebay for 8 uears, I was the founder of my category, and I actually have an Emmy nom right now and it is sad that I go away while sussen stays. Even the companies that buy from me on ebay are in shock, and we are talking Fox, Universal and the Sci-Fi channel.

If you saw Tin Man, I made the all the armour including the big brass shoulders on Kathleen Robertson.

Thanks,

Eric

outwst4less (1178 ) Sep-16-08 15:06 PDT 102 of 113
This thread started out 100 posts ago with one very simple question. Still unanswered.

honeville1 (3767 ) Sep-16-08 15:09 PDT 103 of 113
Hey pinks... 2 more hours and your tour of duty is done here! Any chance in Lorrie or John addressing this and getting you pinks off the hook?

Griff said only 5% of users will be affected... no hard numbers but didn't the 2nd quarter report state something like 80 MIL. users? So what's the hard number here? 4 million accounts? Looks to me like 14 out of the top 50 are endangered and I stopped there. How many accounts are we taling about, how many items will be affected? How many LOYAL customers will follow their favorite sellers OFF ebay? NOT because they are "bad sellers" but because words like "Accurate, Satisfied, Reasonable and Quickly" are being used against them?

citygirlhardware (379 ) Sep-16-08 15:09 PDT 104 of 113
armourereric wrote:

"sorry, we are not accepting feedback for this seller at this time"

Time for an answer to this.

hioctane62 (564 ) Sep-16-08 15:13 PDT 105 of 113
Well... at least they cleared up board policy.

As if anyone asked.

I don't expect to see the OP's question answered.

carsandstereos (84 ) Sep-16-08 15:13 PDT 106 of 113
"Hello amishtaxi, honeville1's thread is not uncivil or disruptive."

It is however,still unanswered nor addressed by those to whom the question was posed.

outwst4less (1178 ) Sep-16-08 15:16 PDT 107 of 113
Yeah. I saw the movie. I'm in shock. Why is this happening? I didn't ask for it. My buyers didn't ask for it. Who asked for it?

outwst4less (1178 ) Sep-16-08 15:19 PDT 108 of 113
Why no answer?

raidovermoscow (20935 ) Sep-16-08 15:19 PDT 109 of 113
"I don't expect to see the OP's question answered"

That goes to show you eBay must really be thinking about this or they would have already answered the question (or at least I hope so).

I don't they will get rid of the star system, but I think changing it to 4.0 as the cutoff would be acceptable.

allmediaplus (8758 ) Sep-16-08 15:20 PDT 110 of 113
No, they won't be providing any actual answers. All of the pinks here have been given a script to follow, with no independant thinking allowed.

Nothing changes around here.

"Why are POSITIVE comments from SATISFIED customers met with NEGATIVE consequences on Ebay"?

hioctane62 (564 ) Sep-16-08 15:21 PDT 111 of 113
I think they know the answer, as do most of us.

We just want to hear them SAY it.

outwst4less (1178 ) Sep-16-08 15:22 PDT 112 of 113
there won't be any changes. that's the way it will be. They don't want your business. Just your money.

hioctane62 (564 ) Sep-16-08 15:27 PDT 113 of 113
I would like to see this unanswered question stay at the top as the board closes.

//
// The numbering is off because eBay deleted a post.
//

outwst4less (1178 ) Sep-16-08 15:44 PDT 113 of 116
It would be nice.

plant1here2 (Private ) Sep-16-08 15:52 PDT 114 of 116
The original post was a very good question. I read through the whole thread because judging by the pinks comments, it looked as though we were finally going to get an answer.

Is it Ok to say, thus far I am very disappointed?

This is my first time here so I honestly don't know how strict they are and If my comment is considered slappable, someone please let me know and I'll self report.

amishtaxi (5531 ) Sep-16-08 15:53 PDT 115 of 116
I would like to see this unanswered question stay at the top as the board closes.
Me too.
Grace





sciencefare (353 ) Sep-16-08 15:53 PDT 116 of 116
WHEN will eBay provide straight answers?

WHEN will eBay FIX the MESS the John Donahoe has created?

WHY does eBay AVOID the questions, DODGE the issues, and REFUSE to provide MEANINGFUL replies to VALID questions?

------------------
-ScienceFare

//
//
//

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From eBay Seller Forum - The Kind of CRAP Buy is Loading the Site up With

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http://eventhorizon1984.typepad.com/event_horizon_1984_blog/2008/08/from-ebay-seller-forum---the-kind-of-crap-buy-is-loading-the-site-up-with.html

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You won't find this post (below).

eBay Forums: The Kind of CRAP Buy is Loading the ...
The Kind of CRAP Buy is Loading the Site up With. manoftwine. (126. ) View Listings | Report, Aug-22-08 18:56 PDT. Check out 150286317814. See that price? ...
forums.ebay.com/db2/ thread.jspa?threadID=520002258&tstart=0&mod=1219463548415

eBay deleted it.

http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=52000225
This discussion thread has been removed

We decided to check why this particular thread about eBay's favored seller Buy (Buy.com) was deleted.

Well, here's the item, #150286317814, referenced in the thread.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150286317814

			NEW HP 16GB DDR2 SDRAM Memory Module 413015-B21	Item number: 150286317814

	You are signed in Watch this item in My eBay
This item has been added to My eBay for Guests. As a guest, you can: Track up to 10 items on this computer in My eBay Receive an email reminder for this item a few hours before it ends

View larger picture price: US $20,604.99 Up to $25 back - new eBay MasterCard Apply End time: Aug-25-08 03:51:09 PDT (1 day 15 hours) Shipping costs: Free Other (see description) Service to United States (more services) Ships to: United States Item location: United States, United States Quantity: 4 available History: Purchases You can also: Bid with Bid Assistant Get SMS or IM alerts | Email to a friend Listing and payment details: HideShow Starting time: Aug-22-08 03:51:09 PDT Duration: 3-day listing Payment methods: PayPal (preferred) See details Meet the seller Seller: buy( 179319) Feedback: 99.6 % Positive Member: since Feb-12-02 in United States See detailed feedback Ask seller a question Add to Favorite Sellers View seller's other items: Store | List Visit seller's Store: Buy's Internet Superstore Contact the seller instantly Buy safely 1. Check the seller's reputation Score: 179319 Positive See detailed feedback

A flagrant means to artificially boost eBay's GMV (Gross Merchandise Value), which eBay provides in it's quarterly reports to the SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission www.sec.gov) and stock holders. Since stock brokers use GMV as one means to determine the value of a company, GMV does affect stock price.

What eBay would report as GMV for this item is $84,419.96 ($20,604.99 x 4 items).

And you may wonder if $20.604.99 is a good price to pay for 16GB memory? No, it is not.

http://www.google.com/products?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=16gb+ddr2&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=X&oi=product_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title

Try $3,327.77.

eBay seller Buy statistics according to Terapeak (www.terapeak.com), 21 May 2008 to 18 August 2008.

• Sell-Through: 2.13%
• Listings: 8,438,289
• Items Offered: 744,035,957
• Average Price: $42.50
• Total Sales: $10,021,445

And we leave you with this old but interesting pattern of Buy's customers.

Here's the typical Buy customer for very high priced computer items.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170244439567

NEW Cisco 11501 Content Switch CSS11501-2PK
$14,498.99
Ended: Jul-30-08 12:24:53 PDT

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBidsLogin&item=170244439567

User ID Price Qty Date of Purchase
nathaniel.213( 0 ) US $14,498.99 1 Jul-27-08 20:11:52 PDT

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=nathaniel.213&ftab=AllFeedback

Member since: Jul-27-08 in United States

http://search.ebay.com/ws/search/MemberSearchResult

User ID Member for Location
nathaniel.213( 0 ) Less than 1 month CA, United States

And here's another one:

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBidsLogin&item=170237899215

This type of smoke and mirrors is a topic for another day.

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The eBay Auction Listing Padding Affair

This Google Blogger article is a backup to the original article located at:

The eBay Shopping.com Affair
http://eventhorizon1984.typepad.com/
event_horizon_1984_blog/2008/03/internet-transa.html

Show your support or displeasure by clicking on the original.

And check out our exceedingly short follow on note:

The eBay Shopping.com Affair Part Deux
http://eventhorizon1984.typepad.com/
event_horizon_1984_blog/2008/05/the-ebay-shoppi.html

The eBay Shopping.com Listing Affair
aka "The eBay Leap Day Auction Count Affair"
aka "The eBay SDC_PROD Affair"

By Event Horizon
Ides of March Edition, 15 March 2008
Revision: 2 April 2008 00:01 HST

"It's always difficult to keep personal prejudice out of a thing like this. And wherever you run into it, prejudice always obscures the truth. I don't really know what the truth is. I don't suppose anybody will ever really know."
Juror #8, Twelve Angry Men (1957)

The Leap Day weekend brought with it an extra day of buy and selling on eBay. It also ushered in an interesting event. A number of listings from Shopping.com, an eBay company, ended up on eBay.com. Counted in the hundreds of thousands these product listings were viewable on eBay.com, but not buyable.

In short an event that AuctionBytes would characterize as eBay Mystery Listings.

This was an event that had ample room for opinions. Aside from the fact that the average eBay buyer could not buy these products, there was the question of did these listings affect the auction counts? An important question as eBay provides those listing counts in their many reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Opinions ranged from an eBay Forum poster describing the event as "Ebay is padding their listings", to Randy Smythe of My Blog Utopia! stating "this padding of listings is a non-starter."

All this would definitely pique the curiosity of anyone interested in eBay. For about 5 seconds. Because all the relevant data is spread across Google, or deleted, archived, horded, and just plain not in one place for quick perusal. End 5 seconds.

We're going to attempt to put a smidgen of all that happened in this article. And over time expand the article slightly to accommodate new found pieces.

Before we begin, changing the subject slightly, you're wondering why the style of the title sounds oddly familiar? We were inspired by eBay, with their one mini-smidgen contribution.

• "Agent Sent Message", ebay Customer Service, 1 March 2008

Cue theme. Run introduction. Roll article.

Prologue. Internet transations are perishable and human memories short.

"people simply remember a version of events which makes as much sense as they require it to make"
Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987)

This article should not be considered a complete rendering of the Leap Day (2/29/2008) weekend events or a tome with all the available data. It is meant to give a relatively quick overview of the situation, and provide leads for those who wish to pursue more in depth study.

I. How many listings were involved?

"It was an accident" Captain James Kirk
"You seem to have a lot of them." Captain John Christopher
Star Trek, Tomorrow Is Yesterday (26 January 1967)

Do Listing Counts Matter?

Let's start with the simple matter of, does it matter at all? The answer is, Yes.

Listing counts are important to eBay, as the figures are reported to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Reference the "23-Jan-2008" "Form 8-K for EBAY INC" "Results of Operations and Financial Condition, Financial Statements and Exhibits" report.

• In the "Unaudited eBay Marketplaces Supplemental Operating Data" section is "Number of New Listings (2)" with the definition "(2) Listings on eBay Marketplaces trading platforms during the quarter, regardless of whether the listing subsequently closed successfully."

Listing counts are important to eBay, as they are mentioned in the report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Reference the "29-Feb-2008" "Form 10-K for EBAY INC" "Annual Report".

• In the "Key Operating Metrics and Financial Information" section (emphasis ours) eBay states , "Members of our senior management team regularly review key operating metrics such as active users, listings".
• Further, "These financial measures allow us to monitor the profitability of our business and to evaluate the effectiveness of investments that we have made (and continue to make) in the areas of marketing, product development, international expansion, customer support and site operations. We believe that an understanding of these key operating and financial measures and how they change over time is important to investors, analysts and other parties analyzing our business results and future market opportunities."
  
• In the "Financial Summary" section (emphasis ours) eBay states, "we face challenges in the U.S., U.K. and Germany, which are our three largest markets, as growth of listings, active users and GMV on the eBay.com platform in those countries has slowed."
• In the "Results of Operations" section eBay has the metric "Number of listings (3)" with the definition of the metric being "(3) Listings on eBay Marketplaces trading platforms during the period, regardless of whether the listing subsequently closed successfully."

The fact that eBay has the subject of "listings" in their official reports, belies pundits claims that the listing counts are of no concern.

Those who proffer the specious argument that the amounts involved are small and therefore inconsequential, must not deal often in large real world real time computer systems. Let's propose the scenario that someone or some group accidentally dumps a quarter million to a half million database TEST records into a PRODUCTION system. This same person or group then tells people in authority nonsense such as 'it's 35 thousand Usher'.

This is what those people would hear in the real world:

• "You're Fired!", Donald Trump

eBay's official position on the number of listings.

• eBay - Listings erroneously placed on eBay.com: 35,000

"An eBay spokesman told PC Magazine at the time that 5,000 shopping.com listings were erroneously placed on ebay.com. After sellers expressed doubt about that number in the comments section, eBay was asked to again confirm that it was indeed 5,000. The same spokesman responded Friday that he had originally told PC Magazine that eBay pulled 35,000 listings, but a review of the interview confirmed that he said 5,000."
PC Magazine, 10 March 2008

• 4 March 2008 - "5,000 shopping.com listings were erroneously placed on ebay.com"
• 7 March 2008 - "eBay pulled 35,000 listings"
• 10 March 200 - "a review of the interview confirmed that he said 5,000"

{eBay, Usher} "Lieberman said fewer than 35,000 listings were affected by the glitch".
AuctionBytes, 5 March 2008

Usher Lieberman is eBay's Spokesman, and is not an integral part of eBay's programming departments. He reports to the press what he's told. In the matter of contradictory statements or "false and misleading statements to the press" [SEC], the original source of the "5,000" and "35,000" counts should be investigated.

Our research regarding the listing counts during the February 29th Leap Day weekend.

• Total Listings, Hard Count:
  • 161,358 to 192,966 (161,358 + 31,608) to 241,368 (161,358 + 80,000)
• Total Listings, Soft Count:
  • 271,280 to 302,888 (271,280 + 31,608) to 351,280 (271,280 + 80,000)
• Estimated Listings Count: 500,000 (rounded)

Total Listings Hard Count Methodology.

The "Hard Count" represents the total number of auction listings confirmed by screen shots, archives, and reported by AuctionBytes. In theory the Hard Count should equal or be close to the Soft Count. But in practice it is not an easy task to collect hard evidence, from multiple witnesses, after the fact.

The 31,608 figure derives from the AuctionBytes observation that "indicated the seller had over 80,000 listings on eBay.com."

AuctionBytes does not reveal the identity of that seller. Making it possible that the seller with "80,000" items is part of the list of observed sellers. The 31,608 figure is derived from taking "80,000" and subtracting the largest listing count reported, which is 48,392. In this way listing counts are not added in twice.

In other words, if the seller with item count of "48,392" (part of the observed list of sellers) actually has "80,000" items, the total should be 161,358 + 31,608. The 31,608 being the uncounted part of the "80,000" (80,000 - 48,392). The 31,608 can increase to a maximum of 80,000, depending on who the seller is or is not.

For instance in the case of this seller not being on the reported list of 14 sellers, the soft count would be 161,358 plus 80,000 or 241,368.

There is also the case of the count from AuctionBytes being completely wrong; 0 items.

The Hard Count ranges from a minimum of 161,358 items, to a maximum of 241,368 items.

Total Listings Soft Count Methodology.

The "Soft Count" represents the total number of auction listings reported, but not necessarily verified by screen captures, etc.. The figure of 271,280 is the lower limit of those reported observations. As in the Hard Count, the 31,608 figure derives from the AuctionBytes observation that "indicated the seller had over 80,000 listings on eBay.com."

The observed Soft Count ranges from a minimum of 271,280 items, to a maximum of 351,280 items.

Estimated Listing Count Methodology.

Using the Medved "EBay Auction Counts: February 24, 2008 to March 1, 2008" chart, an estimate can be made as to the number of listings removed.

eBay stipulated two things:

• That the problem started "Friday night".
  
• That by March 2nd the "system issue has been resolved", i.e. the "accidental" listings were completely removed.

Logically we're looking for an increase and subsequent rapid decrease of at least 161,358 (Hard Count) listings and up to 351,280 (Soft Count), during the weekend time frame.

As it turns out there is just such an occurrence. There is an auction count spike in the auction count beginning at about the "2/29" (09:00 PM PST, Midnight EST) line and ending at about the "3/2" (09:00 PM PST, Midnight EST) line. From a graphing standpoint this increase conveniently begins after a relatively flat period of auction listings.

That would be approximately 13,900,000 (peak) - 13,400,000 (base) = 500,000 listings

• 13,393,000 28-FEB-2008 04:30 AM PST, 07:30 AM EST. Initial low point; base.
• 13,910,000 29-FEB-2008 10:00 AM PST, 01:00 PM EST. Peak
• 13,454,000 01-MAR-2008 07:00 PM PST, 10:00 PM EST. Lowest point of the day.
• 13,410,000 02-MAR-2008 02:32 PM PST, 05:32 PM EST. eBay announces "system issue has been resolved".
• 13,333,000 02-MAR-2008 08:00 PM PST, 11:00 PM EST. Lowest point of the day and weekend.

http://www.medved.net/cgi-bin/cal.exe?EIND Chart times are Eastern Standard Time (EST).

Using Randy Smythe's 13.5 million average daily auction listings as a measure, the half-a-million auction listings represents 3.7% of the daily total. A significant amount as far as the report by eBay's Accountants to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is concerned.

Is There More?

The question arises, were there more "test" listings. Our answer is, you are free to ponder this question.

But think about this. eBay held a listing special beginning on March 1st. Historically auction counts rise during a listing special. Typically a million or more. How many listings would have to be removed to not only negate the expected listing count increase, but cause the count to fall?

And ponder this too. As a matter of good business, eBay does put back listings removed in error. Such an increase due to putting back deleted listings would show up much later on Medved ("EBay Auction Counts: March 2, 2008 to March 8, 2008"). Abet buried in subsequent listing specials and promotions.

http://www.medved.net/cgi-bin/cal.exe?EIND Chart times are Eastern Standard Time (EST).

eBay's 2008 Q1 (1st Quarter, January 01 to March 31) report to the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission should be interesting.

II. SDC_PROD Seller List and Counts

"The world isn't run by weapons anymore, or energy, or money. It's run by little ones and zeroes, little bits of data. It's all just electrons." Cosmo, Sneakers (1992)

We believe that none of the Shopping.com sellers were aware their items were being transferred to eBay.com. As stipulated by eBay, "Shopping.com listings appeared accidentally on eBay.com". It would be an interesting exercise to find out if the involved Shopping.com sellers were billed eBay.com listing fees at the time, and then credited afterwards.

SDC_PROD Seller List

This is a list of the fourteen (14) "sdc_prod" (shopping dot com) seller accounts that were located and reported, 29 February to 1 March 2008. Plus additional sdc_prod sellers that were located post event.

This list contains:

• A brief description of the seller.
  
• A link to the seller's eBay.com Feedback page.
  
• A link to the current number of items by the sdc_prod seller.
• A link to search Google for the specific sellers.
  • That link can help you perform a search of the Google archives for sdc_prod related material. Use the "repeat the search with the omitted results included" option to maximize the available data.
  • On Google links to eBay.com or ebay.auction.co.kr use the "Cached" link to obtain the archived data.
  • Because this issue involves eBay.com, ignore eBay Express references.
  • And be quick because the Google archive cache data is dynamic; changing from day to day.
• The "reported listing count" of items by sdc_prod name seller on eBay.com. As reported 29 February to 1 March 2008. And where available.
• Links to screen captures of these auction counts. Where available.

The total count from the screen captures, 161,358, is evidence that eBay Spokesman Usher Lieberman made a number of "false and misleading statements to the press" when he said on multiple occasions that "5,000 listings" or "35,000 listings" were involved.

Time permitting, this section will be updated.

* sdc_prod_301013_74
Shopping.com seller The Twister Group
Member since Oct-18-06 in Illinois, United States

• Feedback sdc_prod_301013_74
• Products on eBay.com from sdc_prod_301013_74
• Search Google for sdc_prod_301013_74

eBay.com reported listing count, 27,291

"27076 items found" ( LINK Google archive screen capture )
"27076 items found" ( LINK screen capture from www.suspendedfromebay.com )
"27076 items found" ( LINK screen capture from www.companyexposed.com )
"27076 items found" ( LINK screen capture from pages.suddenlink.net/docswife )

* sdc_prod_305839_99
Shopping.com seller BargainBasementBatteries
Member since Oct-30-07 in California, United States

• Feedback sdc_prod_305839_99
• Products on eBay.com from sdc_prod_305839_99
• Search Google for sdc_prod_305839_99

eBay.com reported listing count, 56

"56 items found" ( LINK screen capture from www.giovanni666.info )

* sdc_prod_310426
Shopping.com seller ANTOnline
Member since Feb-15-08 in Georgia, United States

• Feedback sdc_prod_310426
• Products on eBay.com from sdc_prod_310426
• Search Google for sdc_prod_310426

eBay.com reported listing count, 21,798

"21798 items found" ( LINK screen capture from www.youtube.com/watch?v=mePI-UWDGOE )
"21798 items found" ( LINK screen capture from forums.ebay.com, www.suspendedfromebay.com, Google archive )

* sdc_prod_409455_97
Shopping.com seller Sababa Shopping
Member since Jul-16-07 in New York, United States

• Feedback sdc_prod_409455_97
• Products on eBay.com from sdc_prod_409455_97
• Search Google for sdc_prod_409455_97

eBay.com listing reported count unavailable

* sdc_prod_434012
Shopping.com seller SpectrumSuperStore
Member since Apr-11-07 in California, United States

• Feedback sdc_prod_434012
• Products on eBay.com from sdc_prod_434012
• Search Google for sdc_prod_434012

eBay.com reported listing count, 35,002

"35011 items found" ( LINK screen capture from www.giovanni666.info )
"34998 items found" ( LINK screen capture from thevirginmarypretzel )
"Up to 10,000 listings can be displayed in this view" ( LINK screen capture from www.companyexposed.com )

* sdc_prod_442675_57
Shopping.com seller Boyne & Kelly L.L.C.
Member since Oct-25-07 in New Jersey, United States

• Feedback sdc_prod_442675_57
• Products on eBay.com from sdc_prod_442675_57
• Search Google for sdc_prod_442675_57

eBay.com reported listing count, 4,702

* sdc_prod_9021_2
Shopping.com seller Buy.com
Member since Feb-22-08 in California, United States

• Feedback sdc_prod_9021_2
• Products on eBay.com from sdc_prod_9021_2
• Search Google for sdc_prod_9021_2

eBay.com reported listing count, 12,233

"12233 items found" ( LINK screen capture from www.youtube.com/watch?v=mePI-UWDGOE )
"12233 items found" ( LINK screen capture from img255.imageshack.us )

* sdc_prod_9055
Shopping.com seller Focus Camera
Member since Oct-30-07 in New York, United States

• Feedback sdc_prod_9055
• Products on eBay.com from sdc_prod_9055
• Search Google for sdc_prod_9055

eBay.com reported listing count, 1,925

* sdc_prod_9074_35
Shopping.com seller pcRUSH.com
Member since Feb-28-08 in California, United States

• Feedback sdc_prod_9074_35
• Products on eBay.com from sdc_prod_9074_35
• Search Google for sdc_prod_9074_35

eBay.com reported listing count, 21,401

"21481 items found" ( LINK Google archive screen capture )
860 pages, 25 items per page. 859 x 25 = 21,475 items ( LINK Google archive screen capture )
"Up to 10,000 listings can be displayed in this view" ( LINK screen capture from www.suspendedfromebay.com )

* sdc_prod_9090
Shopping.com seller CompSource Inc.
Member since Mar-26-07 in Ohio, United States

• Feedback sdc_prod_9090
• Products on eBay.com from sdc_prod_9090
• Search Google for sdc_prod_9090

eBay.com reported listing count, 32,601

"32601 items found" ( LINK Google archive screen capture )
1301 pages, 25 items per page. 1300 x 25 = 32,500 items ( LINK Google archive screen capture )

* sdc_prod_9124_14
Shopping.com seller TheNerds, Inc.
Member since Dec-12-07 in Florida, United States

• Feedback sdc_prod_9124_14
• Products on eBay.com from sdc_prod_9124_14
• Search Google for sdc_prod_9124_14

eBay.com reported listing count, 48,392

* sdc_prod_9352_67
Shopping.com seller Digital Foto Club
Member since May-28-07 in New York, United States

• Feedback sdc_prod_9352_67
• Products on eBay.com from sdc_prod_9352_67
• Search Google for sdc_prod_9352_67

eBay.com reported listing count, 30,278

* sdc_prod_9391_43
Shopping.com seller Adorama
Member since Feb-22-08 in New York, United States

• Feedback sdc_prod_9391_43
• Products on eBay.com from sdc_prod_9391_43
• Search Google for sdc_prod_9391_43

eBay.com reported listing count, 11,102

"11102 items found" ( LINK Google archive screen capture )

* sdc_prod_9452
Shopping.com seller eTronics, Inc.
Member since Jul-25-07 in New York, United States

• Feedback sdc_prod_9452
• Products on eBay.com from sdc_prod_9452
• Search Google for sdc_prod_9452

eBay.com reported listing count, 24,499

* sdc_prod_90076
Shopping.com seller OnlineSports, Inc.
Member since Nov-13-06 in California, United States

• Feedback sdc_prod_90076
  
• Products on eBay.com from sdc_prod_90076
  
• Search Google for sdc_prod_90076
  

eBay.com reported listing count, UNKNOWN

III. What Happened?

"Never underestimate the power of human stupidity."
Robert Heinlein, Time Enough For Love (1973)

There are two basic explanations.

1. eBay deliberately elevated auction counts, in effect producing "materially false and misleading statements" to improve their stock price. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission violation. A simple plan based on the simple but stupid premise that 'no one will find this.' Orange jumpsuits all around.
2. Human (Computer) Error. A cadre of programmers are allowed to run large scale tests on a live system. And goofed.

We had planned to explore and write about each possibility, but we'll leave that for another time.

IV. "THIS IS NOT AN EBAY LISTING"

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
George Santayana, The Life of Reason (1905)

Event Timeframe

Like many incidents, there are events that lead up to it, follow it, are associated with it, or simply happen in the same time frame.

Here is a short chronology of those occurrences.

== 2007 ==

.

February 2007

http://www.medved.net/cgi-bin/cal.exe?EIND Chart times are Eastern Standard Time.

.

9 March 2007

Are Ebay's Listing Numbers Inflated by Fraud?
03/09/2007 08:31 PM ID: 60834

Ebay Inc's (NASDAQ:EBAY) listing numbers have demonstrated dramatic volatility during the 'Vladuz' security scare. Some Ebay users have suggested that the millions of fraudulent listings are significantly inflating Ebay's listing numbers.

In response, an Ebay spokesperson claims: "there just isn't enough information there to tie the swings in listings that they show to any one cause". They declined to comment as to the number of accounts that may have been compromised.

It is also suggested that Medved's calculations for Ebay's total of listing numbers are overestimated too. As the Ebay spokesperson confirms, the Medved statistics used to quantify Ebay's listing numbers "far exceed our real activity in this area".

Source: www.theregister.co.uk

http://www.medved.net/cgi-bin/cal.exe?EIND Chart times are Eastern Standard Time.

== 2008 ==

.

13 February 2008

"February 13th, insertion fees for all auction-style and fixed price listings will be only 20 cents!"
Stephanie Tilenius, General Manager for eBay North America

"20¢ Auction-style and Fixed Price listing fees" (eBay)

http://www.medved.net/cgi-bin/cal.exe?EIND Chart times are Eastern Standard Time.

.

20 February 2008

Start of eBay Policy changes and media fee cut.

*** A Message from Bill Cobb - New Pricing and Other News ***
General Announcements
January 29, 2008 | 05:59 AM PST/PT

***A Message from Lorrie Norrington – New Media Category Pricing Effective February 20***
"I am pleased to announce we are accelerating our plan to phase-in category-specific pricing for media. This fee cut will coincide with the site-wide pricing changes previously announced to take effect on February 20."
Lorrie Norrington, President of eBay Global Marketplace Operations, February 11, 2008 | 10:01AM PST/PT

.

20 February 2008

Regarding the events of February 20th.

"The bug was related to the gallery feature that allows users to place a small photo of their item on the initial search returns page, a spokesman said. EBay traditionally charged 35 cents to include a gallery photo, but as part of the policy changes that went into effect February 20, they are now free of charge.
However, "the code actually rolled out three hours late, so there were a certain number of listings ... that didn't get gallery free"
Usher Lieberman eBay Spokesman to PC Magazine, 4 March 2008

• It is unclear from the PC Magazine article, if the "bug" was implemented on February 20th, the day of the "policy changes", or on February 29th.

.

20 February 2008

"the bug first emerged on Friday"
"But it wasn't a test. It ended up being a bug," Usher Lieberman
Usher Lieberman eBay Spokesman to PC Magazine, 4 March 2008

Despite Usher Lieberman's assertion that the "bug" happened on February 29th, there is evidence showing sdc_prod products appearing before the 29th.

While there are reports of sdc_prod listings appearing as early as December 2007, the earliest evidence of a "bug" is 20 February 2008.

Samples of a Shopping.com listings inserted onto eBay.com.

"Items for sale by sdc_prod_310426"
"Time listed" "Feb-20 15:49"

.

22 February 2008

Samples of a Shopping.com listings inserted onto eBay.com.

"Items for sale by sdc_prod_409455_97"
"Time listed" "Feb-22 10:22"

Google archive - February 29, 2008 16:37:41 GMT
Seller sdc_prod_434012, item number 320199419130, 30 day auction listing. Seller has no 30 day store. Start date February 22nd
"eBay (item 320199419130 end time March-22-08 06:45:06 PDT)" screen shot.

.

23 February 2008

Sample of a Shopping.com listing inserted onto eBay.com.

Listings on eBay.com are accessible on eBay International sites, such as eBay South Korea (ebay.auction.co.kr).

Google archive - Feb 29, 2008 22:42:51 GMT
Seller sdc_prod_310426, item number 120225811907. Start date February 23rd.
Time remaining on 30 day listing, 23 days 3 hours 35 minutes 46 seconds, screen shot

.

23 February 2008
05:49 AM PST

redsbe (Private ) Feb-23-08 05:49 PST 1 of 33

When I search ebay or via google for test listings I only find a few hundred yet total ebay listings are now running at or above Feb 12th numbers of 12.4 m (before 20 cent listings and boycott) so I fail to see the importance of test listings in inflating numbers.

.

27 February 2008
06:04:36 PM PST

PayPal and eBay Pay Shoppers to Shop
AuctionBytes
By: Ina Steiner
Wed Feb 27 2008 18:04:36

.

28 February 2008
04:30 PM PST, 7:30 PM EST (Eastern Standard Time)

eBay Auction count at lowest point of the day; 13,393,000 items.

Coincidentally, or not, at about the time many of eBay's employees head for home, the auction count begins to rise. Did some programmer turn something on, and leave for the day, intending to check on the code's progress the following morning?

Auction count rises to 13,405,000 by 07:30 PST, 10:30 EST.

http://www.medved.net/cgi-bin/cal.exe?EIND Chart times are Eastern Standard Time.

.

28 February 2008
09:00:01 PM PST, 12:00:01 AM 29 February EST (Eastern Standard Time).

Medved "EBay Auction Counts" approximately 13,425,000 items. First count on the February 29th chart.

http://www.medved.net/cgi-bin/cal.exe?EIND Chart times are Eastern Standard Time (EST).

.

28 February 2008
11:59:59 PM PST

"eBay is running a marketing campaign to encourage buyers to shop on its site by offering them coupons. One buyer sent AuctionBytes a coupon he had received (pictured) that offered $5 toward shipping on any one item. Part of the terms and conditions follows:

This Offer is valid only when you pay with, and seller accepts, PayPal. This Offer is intended for the recipient whose eBay User ID is printed on the Offer and purchase must be made on eBay.com with that eBay User ID. This Offer is not transferable.

This Offer is for one-time use. It may only be redeemed on the total shipping cost of an item or items on one purchase from a single seller, using a single method of shipping and single currency, in a single transaction. This Offer expires February 28, 2008 at 11:59:59 PM (PST)."
AuctionBytes, Wed Feb 27 2008 18:04:36

.
29 February 2008
04:23 AM PST

eBay Developer's Program
eBay Developer Forums > Technical Questions: eBay Shopping Web Services
Exclude Sellers Issue

Re: ExcludeSellers Issue
Posted: Feb 29, 2008 4:23 AM
"Because of the wide variety of searches that we do, we could easily use 200 to 400 ID's. 500 would be a good number for us."
stsi.com

The above statement is in response to the earlier part of the thread:

ExcludeSellers Issue
Posted: Jan 10, 2008 11:40 AM
Is there a limit on the number of Excluded Sellers that can be specified in a GetSearchResults call? I have several excluded sellers that keep returning search results. I have checked the XML for the call, and it looks correct.

Also, is it a problem if entries are duplicated? (I will be correcting this in any event.)

Thanks.
stsi.com

Re: ExcludeSellers Issue
Posted: Jan 10, 2008 12:12 PM
After further research, it looks like there is a limit of 100 excluded sellers. Can this limit be raised?
stsi.com

Re: ExcludeSellers Issue
Posted: Jan 14, 2008 3:42 PM
"Yes the limit is 100, which most users have found sufficient for their use case. How many IDs do you have?"
Rekha Patel, rekha.developersupport@ebay.com, eBay Developer Support, 11 January 2008

Re: ExcludeSellers Issue
Feb 29, 2008 4:27 AM
"Also, is it possible to use wildcards for excluded sellers? For example, I'd like to exclude the various iterations of sdc_prod_*, instead of having to type in all the numbers that this seller uses...."
stsi.com

.
29 February 2008
10:00 AM PST, 01:00 PM Eastern Standard Time

Medved "EBay Auction Counts" reaches maximum for the day of approximately 13,900,000 items. The
previous low count was 13,393,000 items on February 28th at 04:30 PM PST, 7:30 EST. An increase of about half-a-million listings in 16.5 hours.

Coincidentally, or not, during the time many of eBay's employees show up at work, the auction count abruptly stops rising.

One scenario:

• 07:00AM (10:00AM EST) - Programmers apply brakes to sdc_prod application.
• 08:30AM (11:30AM EST) - Or so they thought, sdc_prod application continues to add listings.
• 10:00AM (13:00AM EST) - Management puts brakes to sdc_prod. Programmer grunts delete sdc_prod listings.

A case could be made that by 10AM eBay applied working corrective action on the sdc_prod listing problem. Because at this point the auction count drops.

http://www.medved.net/cgi-bin/cal.exe?EIND Chart times are Eastern Standard Time (EST).

.
29 February 2008
01:00 PM PST, 04:00 PM Eastern Standard Time

Medved "EBay Auction Counts" drops slightly approximately 13,875,000 items, from 13,900,000 items. Last count of the February 29th chart.

.

29 February 2008

Regarding the events of "Friday night" 29 February 2008.

eBay's statements:

1) "a "bug" in its system had accidentally placed listings from eBay-owned shopping.com onto eBay.com late Friday night."
However, "the code actually rolled out three hours late, so there were a certain number of listings ... that didn't get gallery free, so we were going back and fixing that" on Friday, the spokesman said. "What happened was, when we wrote the code to implement that fix in the database table, there was a string that was left on there that populated and sent shopping.com listings onto ebay.com that it shouldn't have."
Approximately 5,000 listings were pulled from shopping.com, but they have since been removed, according to eBay."
PC Magazine, 4 March 2008

2) "eBay spokesperson Usher Lieberman initially told AuctionBytes they appeared due to a test, but on Monday, said he was incorrect and that the listings were the result of a glitch.
On Tuesday, Lieberman explained the nature of the glitch. Programmers rolled out code on Friday evening that was meant to credit certain listings that were eligible for free Gallery. The credit was due to them because eBay had promised sellers Gallery would be free for listings started at a certain time of day, and the code had been rolled out 3 hours past the deadline.
Lieberman said the programmers inadvertently caused the Shopping.com listings to appear on eBay.com when it created and launched the script to credit the sellers' accounts for Gallery fees.
Lieberman said fewer than 35,000 listings were affected by the glitch."
AuctionBytes, 5 March 2008

3) "An eBay spokesman told PC Magazine at the time that 5,000 shopping.com listings were erroneously placed on ebay.com. After sellers expressed doubt about that number in the comments section, eBay was asked to again confirm that it was indeed 5,000. The same spokesman responded Friday that he had originally told PC Magazine that eBay pulled 35,000 listings, but a review of the interview confirmed that he said 5,000."
PC Magazine, 10 March 2008

4) "Editor's Note: The eBay spokesman confirmed Monday that the number of postings pulled from shopping.com was indeed 35,000."
PC Magazine, 10 March 2008

.
29 February 2008
06:41 PM PST

First responders to Shopping.com listing anomaly.

By this time, the Medved "EBay Auction Counts" are somewhere between 13,875,000 listings (29 February 2008 01:00 PM PST) and 13,502,000 listings (1 March 2008 08:30 AM PST). "Between" as the Medved chart is blank between those times.

A possible scenario would be that eBay has been deleting listings since 10:00 AM; at least 8 hours. Or we should say an eBay application has been deleting sdc_prod listings.

eBay's March 1st Listing Special begins in 5 hours 19 minutes.

eBay user comments, edited.

mm*mc (154) Feb-29-08 18:41 PST

Look at this 35000 listings never sold anything these look funny to me. Let me know what you think check this out. 320199384960

neverstopsworking (127) Feb-29-08 18:49 PST

WOW!!

Did you Notice You CAN'T Bid on Any Of Them, You can Only Watch Them and They're listed for at least 21 more days??

.

29 February 2008
07:25 PM PST

Referenced by PC Magazine article.

mydiscountstation (921 ) Feb-29-08 19:25 PST

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZsdc_prod_434012

is e-bay padding their "listings" numbers?

This guy has over 35000 items. And there is no button for a buy it now and no button for making a bid.

interesting

.

29 February 2008
08:56 PM PST

eBay user comments, edited.

cmiprch (1732 ) Feb-29-08 20:56 PST 44 of 418

That sounds more like a hack, to me.

Sounds more like a conspiracy to me. 30 of these kinds of ID's with 35K listings is 1M items. Imagine the kind of volume drop you can hide with 30, 60 or 90 or whatever number of these IDs.

cmiprch (1732 ) Feb-29-08 21:19 PST 48 of 418

So "sdc" = shopping dot com?

Nice listings boost if eBay injected everything on shopping.com

.

29 February 2008
09:29 PM PST

Referenced by PC Magazine article.

monkey_business304 (0 ) Feb-29-08 21:29 PST

I have been collecting all ebay's padded listings and forwarding them to the FTC so they will investigate them.
Everything you can do will help.They should not get away with the crap they are doing.Im going to do my best to make sure they dont.

windorphin (31 ) Feb-29-08 21:40 PST 4 of 273

Don't waste your time. They aren't fake listings. They are your replacements. They're bringing in the big guns now. Huge retailers to compete with.

.

29 February 2008
10:25 PM PST

eBay user comments, edited.

moopy_inc (5562 ) Feb-29-08 22:25 PST 240 of 516

you would think they would at least use different user names. SDC_prod....I guess that is easier to keep up with. SDC = shopping dot com.....brilliant. haaaaa

orange_cape_hides_me (Private ) Feb-29-08 22:30 PST 25 of 51

I think the API developer angle is probably where the answer lies. Someone is clearly testing auction formats and listings, and these are not meant to be bid on.

.

29 February 2008
10:31:50 PM PST, 12:31:50 CST &1:31:50 AM 1 March EST

12:31:50 AM CST
"I see. Actually, this is not an eBay listing, the problem is it's a Shopping.com listing that is showing on our site by mistake."
Evan M. A., eBay Live Help Customer Service

12:32:25 AM CST
It is a current issue, yes, we have a bug on it. These are meant to be on shopping.com only but due to some reason are showing on eBay as well and can't be bought through the site."
Evan M. A., eBay Live Help Customer Service

.

29 February 2008
10:35 PM PST

eBay user comments, edited.

badmomster (Private) Feb-29-08 20:35 PST 68 of 521

It seems to me that if Ebay is boosting their numbers with bogus auctions, that's an issue for the SEC.

niruss (1979) Feb-29-08 20:36 PSST 70 of 521

Also for the stockholders and the FTC.

bosshossman1 (1 ) Feb-29-08 22:33 PST 255 of 516

We are now up to 7 Ids, Keep up the good work.
I will keep the totals coming.

sdc_prod_434012 # of listings 35002
sdc_prod_9124_14 # of listings 48395
sdc_prod_9074_35 # of listings 21401
sdc_prod_9452 # of listings 24501
sdc_prod_301013_74 # of listings 27291
sdc_prod_9352_67 # of listings 30278
sdc_ prod_ 9055 # of listings 1925

justinal (391 ) Feb-29-08 22:45 PST 31 of 273

Just curious, exactly what FTC code violation are you reporting them for?

And the SEC? It's an auction listing, not stock manipulation.

Going crazy will not help your cause.

aenthal (2243 ) Feb-29-08 23:04 PST 34 of 273

These bogus auctions are not a violation of anything.
EBay has a right to put anything they wish on their web servers, and they apparently wish to use space up with displays of auctions that don't exist.

krs6670 (107 ) Feb-29-08 23:12 PST 35 of 273

a trust and safety poster kind of figured it out...
sdc= shopping dot com

Feb-29-08 23:36 PST 385 of 700

O.K. looks like ebay is pulling all the listings. All the Ids we posted have had all the auctions pulled.

vsbeauty53 (15 ) Feb-29-08 23:59 PST 17 of 421

if they had nothing to hide, they didn't need to remove those (fake) listings. they are all gone now!

.
1 March 2008

Regarding the events of Saturday 1 March 2008.

"This was a limited test that has run its course" Usher Lieberman, eBay Spokesperson
AuctionBytes, 1 March 2008 01:56:54 AM PST

"He said he had made a mistake when he called the Shopping.com listings a test on Saturday morning. He was trying to track it down and after talking to a few people, felt comfortable saying it was a test, and subsequently found out the listings had appeared accidentally. Usher said it was his fault for initially getting it wrong."
Ina Steiner, AuctionBytes, 4 March 2008 04:02:46 AM PST

"AuctionBytes looked at one Shopping.com selling account on Saturday morning, it indicated the seller had over 80,000 listings on eBay.com"
Ina Steiner, AuctionBytes, 5 March 2008

• AuctionBytes does not report this fact, "80,000 listings," for 4 days.

.

1 March 2008
12:00:01 AM PST, 3:00:01 AM Easter Standard Time

eBay listing upgrade special, "2 days only March 1-2", begins. eBay sellers can list products at reduced prices. Historically the auction counts rise significantly during these eBay specials.

***Get Gallery Plus, Value Pack, Featured Plus!, and Picture Pack at a Discount This Weekend***
"The promotion will start on Saturday, March 1, 2008 at 00:00:01 Pacific time (12:00 a.m. plus one second) and end on Sunday, March 2, 2008 at 23:59:59 Pacific time (11:59 p.m. plus 59 seconds)."

There is no 12:00:01 AM count per sec, as there is a gap in the record from 01:00 PM PST (04:00 PM EST) February 29th to 08:30 AM PST (11:30 AM EST) March 1st.

13,875,000 listings, 29 February 2008 01:00 PM PST (04:00 PM EST)

http://www.medved.net/cgi-bin/cal.exe?EIND Chart times are Eastern Standard Time (EST).

.
1 March 2008
00:02 AM PST

eBay user comments, edited.

vsbeauty53 (15 ) Mar-01-08 00:02 PST 20 of 426

look, I found this:

Here is a copy of the list again for those that missed it.
sdc_prod_434012 # of listings 35002
sdc_prod_9124_14 # of listings 48395
sdc_prod_9074_35 # of listings 21401
sdc_prod_9452 # of listings 24501
sdc_prod_301013_74 # of listings 27291
sdc_prod_9352_67 # of listings 30278
sdc_ prod_ 9055 # of listings 1925
sdc_prod_9021_2 # of listings 12233
sdc_prod_9391_43 #oflistings 11100

moopy_inc (5562 ) Mar-01-08 00:17 PST 459 of 786

well, we all saw it, others on powersellersunite.com has seen it. I just wish these were found during the day. So many more people could have seen them.

atticcleanin (35 ) Mar-01-08 00:25 PST 477 of 786

well should anyone need pics of id, then fb page then lisitng i think i grabbed like 4 or 5 of the 9

I got screenshots of a dozen different feedback names associated with SDC.

sdc_prod_434012 = SpectrumSuperStore
sdc_prod_9021_2 = Buy.com (who is NARU!)
sdc_prod_9124_14 = TheNerds, Inc.
sdc_prod_9452 = eTronics, Inc.
sdc_prod_409455_97 = Sababa Shopping
sdc_prod_9090 = CompSource Inc.
sdc_prod_310426 = ANTOnline (who is NARU!)
sdc_prod_9074_35 = pcRUSH.com (who is NARU!)
sdc_prod_9352_67 = Digital Foto Club
sdc_prod_301013_74 = The Twister Group
sdc_prod_305839_99 = BargainBasementBatteries
sdc_prod_9391_43 = Adorama (who is NARU!)

Since those are all unique (HA!) user IDs, we have at least 12 bogus sellers running around.

buyingcarsforfun (80 ) Mar-01-08 01:36 PST 574 of 669

O.K. they are right back at it. I was double checking the Ids and these 4 have auctions listed again. Take a look.
sdc_prod_301013_74
sdc_prod_310426
sdc_prod_9352_67
sdc_prod_9452

.
1 March 2008
01:56:54 AM PST

Mystery Shopping.com Listings on eBay?
By: Ina Steiner, AuctionBytes
Sat Mar 1 2008 01:56:54

Excerpt:

• "Mystery listings are appearing on eBay that don't allow shoppers to bid or buy. The listings appear to be feeds from Shopping.com sellers. A look at the User ID sdc_prod_301013_74, for example, shows the seller has 27,076 listings - but the ones we clicked on did not have bid or buy buttons."

.
1 March 2008
05:20 AM PST

eBay user comment, edited.

molerfamily (1 ) Mar-01-08 05:20 PST 69 of 273

Considering eBay does not report figures, it seems kinda like the conspiracies are rampant again. Because 3rd parties out there attempt to circumvent and create programs to provide folks this, it is just not logical for eBay to gain anything from this.

I agree with thizzwear completely on this. And Thizz, does not matter what date they were doing this testing, all the chicken littles will make that date fit into the agenda which they have. There is no winning for eBay for anything they do, the Chicken Littles of the world will use their twisted logic to make it appear they did this for some adverse reasoning.

The more these chicken littles talk, the less eductated they look. It has really become a joke to read all these things that are being said now.

.
1 March 2008
time unknown

eBay Numbers Inflated By Shopping.com Product Listings?
Pheebay.com
Date: 03/01/2008

Excerpts:

• "I'm betting Murphys Law is driving this event rather than any evil empire."
• "For me this isn't a significant issue in isolation but there is a potentially more worrying aspect to this story. Many readers will share the belief of many that eBay has never been good at introducing new or changed code leading many users to feel like Beta testers all too often. With the amount of changes planned for the coming months I have a hunch today is just one of a string of "cock ups" we will be reading and reporting in the near future."

.
1 March 2008
06:18 AM PST

eBay user comments, edited.

flaura22 (333 ) Mar-01-08 06:18 PST 79 of 418

I don't believe ebay has done anything with the intent to manipulate or deceive. The point is that IF whatever sort of glitch this is has mistakenly over inflated the numbers, then eBay is responsible for making the shareholders aware of the accounting errors IF the mistake has an impact on the stock values and/or IF the errors impact the financial reports to the shareholders.
I don't know about the whole casino scenario you've got going, I was thinking more along the lines of Enron and such.

eBay cannot be held accountable for any errors if they can say that they didn't know, which is why someone must have proof that an officer of eBay or PREFERABLY THE GENERAL COUNSEL FOR EBAY has been made aware of the possibility of a considerable accounting error in the financial reports to the shareholders.

shwp1 (1919 ) Mar-01-08 07:03 PST 681 of 878

I asked this earlier and it's still nagging at me.

Someone...[forgive me but I have forgotten who],
posted a link to another forum where one of the
sdc###### was inquiring how many id's they could have...
The were told 100....how many did they need?
sdc###### responded 400 or 500

soooooooooo

If sdc= shoppingdotcom
and shoppingdotcom is owned by Ebay

Isn't that like asking yourself a question...and doing it where everyone can hear [read] you ask?

the*katy*workshop (1468 ) Mar-01-08 07:11 PST 683 of 878

27076 items found (Save this search)
Show only: Items from seller sdc_prod_301013_74

type2mtg (51 ) Mar-01-08 07:10 PST 43 of 426

The absolute ONLY way for these items to show "by accident" is if the eBay techs included them in the database. If this was done "on accident" then those tech should absolutely be fired, because they are mixing two different databases and that is potentially a MAJOR screwup.

It seems that they probably have done this on purpose, because it's highly unlikely that the two different databases share the same table titles and attributes. Meaning that the SDC listings would have had to have been converted to fit the eBay database before they would show up, otherwise they would just error out and potentially bring down the whole eBay database.

Something is not right with this...you cannot just have stuff appear "on accident"...not when you're dealing with databases.

the*katy*workshop (1468 ) Mar-01-08 07:13 PST 685 of 786

19808 items found (Save this search)
Show only: Items from seller sdc_prod_9452

.

1 March 2008
08:10 AM PST, 16:10 GMT

200k Shopping.com items appear on eBay
TameBay
Author: Chris Dawson
Posted at: Saturday, March 1st, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Tags for this post: eBay.com, shopping.com, Snafu

Excerpt:

• "User names such as sdc_prod_9124_14 with some 48,000 eBay listings appeared, although currently all the listings appear to have been removed. SDC is the acronym for shopping.com, the shopping comparison site owned by eBay.
  
  sdc_prod_9124_14 The listings had no bid/bin links, simply a link to add to watched items leading so speculation that eBay are using them to increase listing numbers. A more rational explanation is that some one made an error in launching Shopping.com listings onto eBay and the error was swiftly reversed."

.
1 March 2008
08:21 AM PST

eBay user comment, edited.

emovieposter.com (20539 ) Mar-01-08 08:21 PST 84 of 418

Just like they were nailed cold with the "shipping stars" snafu, they are nailed cold with this one. Of course they will announce it was a simple mistake, and get rid of the fake listings.

.

1 March 2008
08:30 AM PST, 11:30 AM EST

Medved "EBay Auction Counts" approximately 13,502,000 items. The auction count was previously
13,875,000 listings (29 February 2008 01:00 PM PST)

Eight and a half hours into eBay's listing upgrade special, "2 days only March 1-2", and the auction count is falling.

http://www.medved.net/cgi-bin/cal.exe?EIND Chart times are Eastern Standard Time (EST).

.
1 March 2008
09:27 AM PST

eBay user comment, edited.

sandrarn83 (2919 ) Mar-01-08 09:27 PST 52 of 426

I read an article recently that Ebay (who owns Shopping) was going to start having some of the Shopping feeds shown on Ebay. That was one of the reasons I signed up for Shopping but then found that all my Amazon listings were already on Shopping. So no point in competing with my self and using my own money to be seen on Shopping when Amazon pays and does it for me.

Comment, edited.

Randy Smythe Says:
March 1st, 2008 at 5:30 pm (17:30 GMT), 09:30 AM PST

Chris, it’s likely that it was a slip-up. There have been discussions about integrating SDC listings into to eBay for awhile. These listings would not have shown up on eBay.com in the form that they did if eBay hadn’t set them up this way. So I would say it was a slip-up before a test. Eventually we will see SDC listing on the main platform.

I agee with you that it wasn’t eBay trying to inflate listing numbers.

eBay user comments, edited.

djcarlos1 (3838 ) Mar-01-08 09:46 PST 93 of 418

I don't know if it's a glitch, hack or purposeful deception. However, what makes it curious is all the auctions I looked at started last Thursday the day after the listing sale ended.

Say it isn't so, Joel?
Posted: Mar-01-08 11:23 PST
boycott*victoriously (17 ) Posts: 2,108

I must have missed that one. These are the ones I found, with last night's and this morning's results shown. That list you have only shows 10,000 counts ... could have been much more than that:

ID found:...............first shot..... Now
sdc_prod_9452...........19808....still there
sdc_prod_30103_74....27076....still there
sdc_prod_9055............1925.....zero now
sdc_prod_442675_57...4702.....zero now
sdc_prod_9124_14.......42578...zero now
sdc_prod_9090............ 24501...zero now
sdc_prod_434012..........35000...zero now

.
1 March 2008
01:02 PM PST, 03:02 PM CST

eBay Customer Service Agent (Lanie R.) and an eBay customer:
15:02 Agent Sent Message: I'm sorry for the inconvenience.This is actually an issue on the site right now I'm afraid. This is actually a Shopping.com listing that's appearing incorrectly on eBay.
15:03 Agent Sent Message: Our Technical team is working on getting resolved though, and I had this reported for you so we can add your account to the list.
15:03 Customer: Do these incorrect listings show up in ebays total listings/ Wouldn't they scew the listings totals?
15:04 Agent Sent Message: Oh, no it shouldn't though.
15:05 Agent Sent Message: The team is checking on the accounts of the sellers you reported as well for further investigation.
15:05 Customer: Shoudn't or absolutely doesn't?
15:05 Agent Sent Message: Absolutely doesn't.This is only a glitch on the search pages.
15:06 Agent Sent Message: You can check it from time to time to see it not on the eBay pages, only on Shopping.com
15:06 Customer: can you explain that a little further?
15:08 Customer: I'm not familiar with shopping.com. Why would their listings show up on ebay. Anf the one I mentionaed has ebay seller feedback.
15:08 Agent Sent Message: Sure! In the eBay account of the seller for items sold at eBay, it shouldn't get reflected, but if you were referring to the "items from seller" link for all items he is selling, I'm afraid the Shopping.com items will also appear and is confirmed as a tec
15:08 Agent Sent Message: hnical glitch.
15:09 Customer: can you respond to my last question also?
15:09 Agent Sent Message: Sorry for the confusion, Shopping.com is a specialty site owned by eBay but we handle separate accounts. It's similar to Express or Half.com
3/1/2008 15:10 Agent Sent Message: Ah, okay, Here's what happens, this particular seller has an account with SHopping.com to sell items, which is a different one as an eBay seller.

.
1 March 2008
01:12 PM PST

eBay user comments, edited.

suzisstuff (3233 ) Mar-01-08 13:12 PST 8 of 33

Cyoung 67-
Another poster and I caught that auction in the act last night. OP did a “snapshot” when it was at 35,000 listings and sent it to ABC NEWS. I was watching it around the same time and the listings went from 37,000 at the first point. I checked in on it 4 more times, 2nd time I think it was 17,000 auctions, then 7,000 and then 5,000 and finally in went to 536. Now it is at zero. OP and I both posted our findings but cannot find it this morning. Surprise, Surprise!

EBAY CAUGHT IN THE ACT!

molerfamily (1 ) Mar-01-08 14:08 PST 195 of 273

Would it not stand to reason, that if some deal was worked out, with say Shopping.com and premier members that pay to Shopping.com get free exposure listings with eBay, that in fact it is not costing them anything to have these listed in an eBay store account? That would make sense.
.
I do not profess to know what arrangement that Shopping.com merchants have, but it seems I read something to that effect somewhere.

rjrkea (3275 ) View Listings | Report Mar-01-08 13:56 PST 112 of 418

Well on Monday the Expanded Seller Protection enrollment link showed up for a period of time before getting removed.

Maybe this was some sort of a test like that where it went "live" and then was taken down.

On one hand I would think if it were a test, they would have used a much smaller amount of listings so it wasn't so visible and on the other hand maybe they wanted to see how large a volume they could handle for sellers as a means of luring users back from amazon or not lose them to amazon.

And then also maybe they wanted to see what current, knowledgeable users would say about the listings to quickly find out what "goofs" there were.

.

1 March 2008
2:55 PM, time zone unknown

eBay padding listing numbers on Auction site?
www.companyexposed.com
March 1, 2008
Published by admin @ 2:55 pm

Excerpt:

• "Today the Blogs and eBay Finance forums and eBay Seller forums are buzzing with examples of mysterious listings of items on which you cannot bid or which you cannot buy. These number in tens of thousands on seller accounts that were located today."

.
1 March 2008
2:56 PM PST

eBay user comment, edited.

The Number of Auctions
Posted: Mar-01-08 14:56 PST
lacemaker3 (300 ) Posts: 3,874

sdc_prod_301013_74 has been a member since Oct-18-06.

If you view the Text-format only page for their listings, it's very interesting. I am viewing it with 200 items per page.
- there are 27076 items found (but only 10000 can be viewed in the Text-format list)
- The first page of listings were started Jun-04-07 and ended on Nov-01-07 (why are they still listed in Text-format only? The item #s are invalid.)
- On the 15th page of listings, approx. half were started Apr-19-07 and ended Nov-15-07 16:19:44 PST. That's approx. 2900 listings that ended before Nov-15-07, and should no longer be on the site.
- All the rest of the listings (approx 7100) were started on Feb-25-08 and will end Mar-26-08, between 14:22:26 PDT and 14:32:16 PDT. They are 30 day listings.

.

1 March 2008
time unknown

Ebay Padding Counts w Fake Listings in Wake of Strike?
From: cappnonymous
Added: March 01, 2008

.

1 March 2008
05:24 PM PST

eBay user comment, edited

cloudberry121 (18 ) Mar-01-08 17:24 PST 18 of 20

There's been a lot of this going on this past month. Thousands of listings within weeks or even days and about 20% FB, if any. Odd times.

username: sdc_prod_301013_74 has 27291 listings.
username: sdc_prod_9090 has 32601 listings.
username: sdc_prod_9352_67 has 30278 listings.
username: sdc_prod_9074_35 has 21481 listings

.

1 March 2008
time unknown

Bogus Listings!!!
By dhoosierswife

Is eBay POSSIBLY padding their listings numbers???
By dhoosierswife

.

1 March 2008
06:06 PM PST

eBay user comments, edited

just_not_thinking (0 ) Mar-01-08 18:06 PST 68 of 426

Looks like the possee slept late today!

Sandra and possee why do you care about this?

How does it effect you in any way at all?

Why can't ebay run tests on their own site?!!

vsbeauty53 (15 ) Mar-01-08 18:14 PST 71 of 333

Gosh! ebay Number of Listings dropped! close to 500,000 items just gone!

eBay view charts 14,109,304 -472525 -3.35% March 1, 2008 9:06 pm

What an overnight change!

pepins4b8e (21 ) Mar-01-08 18:16 PST 73 of 333

You want them to let you know every time they do tests?
You think other sites let you know when they do test? You're dreaming!

sojo2004 (2698 ) Mar-01-08 18:23 PST 78 of 333

OK, this is what ebay says about test auctions:

Guidelines for Test Listings

Listings in the Test Auction category must be clearly labeled as a ’test’, both in the listing title and description.
No more than 10 test listings should run at once by a single account.
Accounts that leave or receive feedback in the Test Auction category must be used for test purposes only. This means that members must use a different account to leave or receive feedback for test purposes than is used for buy or sell on the site. Accounts found to be in violation of this guideline will be subject to immediate suspension.

Any Feedback left on test listings should be clearly labeled ‘test’.

All ’test’ feedback is subject to removal at any time, at eBay's discretion.

Normal listing fees will be charged when listing in the test category.

But I guess that just applies to members, not the management.

But in answer to pepin -- yes, if we have to clearly state a test listing is a test listing, then I DO think ebay should have to do the same.

sojo

Things are going swimmingly, thank you for asking.

.
1 March 2008
07:00 PM PST, 10:00 PM EST (Eastern Standard Time)

Medved "EBay Auction Counts" approximately 13,455,000 items. Auction count at the lowest point of the day.

.
1 March 2008

08:09 PM PST

eBay user comment, edited.

time2buy1949 (Private ) Feb-29-08 20:09 PST

Search 19140 THATCH RAKE 15" 19T EA 12912226

Comments please? Just saw this at the very tail end of a thread in the Feedback Forum. Thought it was appropriate to mention here. (They had a different item number from this seller posted, but I'm not sure I can do that.)

No price, no way to bid on it (I tried $30 just to see what would happen - it said transaction blocked, cannot bid on this kind of item) and if you click on see sellers other listings he has 35K+ others. And it's a zero account. Location - CA. Website in auction too.

How the heck would you even list something up with no way to bid on it? This is either just leading to their website and bigtime circumvention or it's eBay themselves inflating the numbers. Interesting either way.

What do the experts think?

.
1 March 2008
08:30 PM PST, 11:30 PM Eastern Standard Time

Medved "EBay Auction Counts" approximately 13,460,000 items. Last count of the March 1st chart.

Note auction count spike beginning at the "2/29" (09:00 PM PST, Midnight EST) line and ending at the "3/2" (09:00 PM PST, Midnight EST) line.

http://www.medved.net/cgi-bin/cal.exe?EIND Chart times are Eastern Standard Time (EST).

.

1 March 2008
08:34 PM PST

eBay user comment, edited.

erimess (10 ) Mar-01-08 20:34 PST 238 of 273

Wow. I came over here to try to catch up on the latest and I've found a conglomeration of paranoid, fact-creating, lynching mob!

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1 March 2008
10:00 PM PST, 01:00 AM 2 March EST (Eastern Standard Time)

Medved "EBay Auction Counts" approximately 13,425,000 items. First count on the March 2nd chart.

.

2 March 2008
00:34 AM PST

eBay user comment, edited.

oldspartantrader (3913 ) Mar-02-08 00:34 PST 100 of 425

This is much more disconcerting to me as a stockholder than as a seller --

I have asked by stock guy for input and he believes that if this is in fact listing count manipulation it is an SEC matter for investigation

.
2 March 2008
07:00 AM PST, 10:00 AM EST

Medved "EBay Auction Counts" approximately 13,470,000 items. Second listing count peak of the weekend.

Previous peak count was approximately 13,900,000 items, on February 29th at 10 AM PST

http://www.medved.net/cgi-bin/cal.exe?EIND Chart times are Eastern Standard Time (EST).

.

2 March 2008
07:04 AM PST

eBay user comments, edited

Shopping.com, Half.com and Ebay Express
Posted: Mar-02-08 07:04 PST
dakota_exchange (2844 ) Posts: 5,856

I wonder... but then why, after all of this became obvious to many, did many of these same listings get pulled?

Shopping.com, Half.com and Ebay Express
Posted: Mar-02-08 08:01 PST
pakardbelle (272 ) Posts: 1,019

Yesterday, I tried to bid on one of the SDC listings. And, this was not an eBay Express listing. It was one of the active auction format listings. And, the page would not accept my bid.

I put the item in my watched items, and it's still there. But now, when I click the item, the auction has been pulled. And when I search those listings for that seller, they are showing no auctions- so all 27K of the auction format listings have been pulled.

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2 March 2008
08:26:53 AM PST

Comment, edited.

Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 08:26:53 -0800 (PST)

The evidence is consistent with that conclusion, but is not yet proof of that. This could yet be hacking, or API/server malfunction. It could also be an unannounced "test" that accidentally had the "unintended" side effect of inflating traffic, right, sure.

In any event, there clearly are "fake Ebay listings", and in large numbers. Large enough to materially affect traffic count? I suspect we'll know in a few days.

The interesting thing to watch here is whether or not this phenomenon continues, and if it stops, what happens to the traffic reports.
--
Regards, Bob Niland

.

2 March 2008
11:13 AM PST

eBay user comments, edited

audlee-e-nuff-treasures (860 ) Mar-02-08 11:13 PST 32 of 432

Let's revamp this weekends events.
1. at 18:41 pst Friday evening a thread was started about listings that could not be bid on or bought.
2. between 12 am pst and 3 am Saturday these listings were being pulled.
3. These so called TEST listings if they were only TEST listings would have no reason to be pulled and some of the sdc_prod_### id's narued.
4. Then the thread of these findings is removed along with any that mention it.
5. why please tell me why, if this was only a TEST has it become an issue to remove them and the threads discussing them.

markd13 (84 ) Mar-02-08 11:19 PST 38 of 432

I see the Conspiracy Nut Jobs are out in full force.

And then we have the Free Speech nut jobs who have never read the Constitution or Bill of Rights and yammer on about something they have no knowledge. They don't seem to understand it doesn't cover entities like eBay.

But then again when have facts every stopped a nut job from their ranting.

.

2 March 2008
02:31 PM PST, 05:31 PM Easter Standard Time

Is eBay Fluffing The Numbers With Test Auctions??
Doc's Suspended From eBay Blog
March 2, 2008
Published by admin at 5:31 pm

Excerpt:

• "if they were using these thousands of test listings to skewer 3rd party listing stats generators like, Medved Charts and PowerSellersUnite.com it is outright fraud!"

.

2 March 2008
02:32 PM PST

eBay System Status Announcement Board
***Resolved: Shopping.com listings on eBay***
"Some Shopping.com listings appeared accidentally on eBay.com over the past two days. This system issue has been resolved. We apologize for any confusion or inconvenience this may have caused."

.

2 March 2008
03:53 PM PST

eBay user comments, edited

thehairball (973 ) Mar-02-08 15:53 PST 143 of 432

That was ebays pathetic excuse for 400,000 listings that all appeared out of nowhere and then disappeared almost as quick and looked nothing like any other ebay listings and if thats the case...then ebay is a very unsafe place to shop! How in the hell do 400,000 listings "accidentally" appear? That means that your private information on this site is no longer safe if stuff from any other site can just somehow magically appear on this one!

magisterrex (6944 ) Mar-02-08 15:54 PST 170 of 418

I don't know why so many people are quick to ASSume that eBay is an evil corporate entity that wants to steal their souls and use them as currency whilst dealing with the Devil.

When I last checked, you were supposed to be INNOCENT until PROVEN guilty. From the bizarre, over-the-top posts on this thread, I have no idea why some of you even sell here.

I know that if I felt that strongly about eBay, I would do what Bruce is doing, and exit, stage left.

.

2 March 2008
04:01 PM PST, 00:01 GMT March 3

Comment, edited.

Chris Dawson Says:
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:01 am

Such a prosaic explanation! Why couldn’t I have been proven wrong and it be a conspiracy?

.

2 March 2008
04:01 PM, time zone unknown

eBay censoring info about padded listings on it's forums
www.companyexposed.com
March 2, 2008
By admin @ 4:01 pm

Excerpt:

• "If the hundreds of thousands listings you cannot Buy Now or Bid on on eBay site are just an innocent mistake / glitch or have a legitimate reason to be there, why would eBay moderators be so diligent in removing posts from their forums discussing these? Although the eBay forum thread has been removed by eBay Moderators, Google cache still has some of the posts"

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2 March 2008
03:53 PM PST

eBay user comments, edited

aviation (3802 ) Mar-02-08 16:29 PST 187 of 418

By the way, at the moment, I don't believe eBay did this on purpose to inflate listings. While it's a possibility, I would hope eBay's not that stupid. I really can't see it happening as there are just too many people who would have to have been involved to do that.

in-weave (7349 ) Mar-02-08 16:56 PST 197 of 418

Some Shopping.com listings appeared accidentally on eBay.com over the past two days. This system issue has been resolved. We apologize for any confusion or inconvenience this may have caused.

I don't think we've seen the end of this....and, in some ways, I don't want to know what carp is coming. There's a reason they "accidentally" appeared. eBay may not have wanted anyone to notice them so that may be the accident but I'll be very surpised if we don't see something relating to shopping.com listings/eBay by the middle of the summer.

.
2 March 2008
8:30 PM PST, 11:30 PM Eastern Standard Time

Medved "EBay Auction Counts" approximately 13,330,000 items. Last count of the March 2nd chart.

.

2 March 2008
10:06 PM PST

eBay user comment, edited.

just_not_thinking (0 ) Mar-02-08 22:06 PST 145 of 425

POSSEE!!!

Why don't you start your own auction site posseauctions.com and make it perfect ...

I.E. the first website ever that has no glitches, and we'll all use it! Be sure to make a possee discussion board too!!

Remember it has to be perfect just like you, and never have any issues/glitches at all, even if millions of people are all using it at once.

Especially be sure to make a perfect message board! So we won't run the risk of not getting your daily/hourly/minutely/secondly words of possee wisdom!

Let us know when its ready possee!

.

2 March 2008
11:59 PM PST, 2:59 AM 3 March Eastern Standard Time

eBay listing upgrade special, "2 days only March 1-2" ends.

According to the Medved "EBay Auction Counts", at the time the listing special ended the count was approximately 13,355,000 items. The count at the start of the listing special was about 13,502,000 listings. An overall decrease.

http://www.medved.net/cgi-bin/cal.exe?EIND Chart shows auction counts by days of the month, Eastern Standard Time.

http://www.medved.net/cgi-bin/cal.exe?EIND Chart times are Eastern Standard Time (EST).

.

3 March 2008

Regarding the events and comments of Monday March 3rd.

"I spoke to eBay's Usher Lieberman during the IMA conference on Monday. He said he had made a mistake when he called the Shopping.com listings a test on Saturday morning. He was trying to track it down and after talking to a few people, felt comfortable saying it was a test, and subsequently found out the listings had appeared accidentally. Usher said it was his fault for initially getting it wrong."
Ina Steiner, AutionBytes, 4 March 2008 04:02:46

"but on Monday, said he was incorrect and that the listings were the result of a glitch."
Ina Steiner on Usher Lieberman, AuctionBytes, 5 March 2008

.

3 March 2008
06:21 AM PST

eBay Running A Test with Shopping.com Listings-Sorry It Was An Accident?
ebay & Beyond: Basics to Business
Posted by David White at 3/3/2008 6:21 AM

Excerpt:

• "they apparently choose to take this action in an effort to reduce the visibiltiy of the test or accident, whichever it was.........eBay needs to get their stories STRAIGHT!
  
  My Opinion
  If it really was a test, eBay should have announced it before they ran it, on the system announcement board. This was no accident. eBay rarely does anything by accident, but if they do, it is corrected very quickly, not 2 or more days later."

.

3 March 2008
06:53 AM PST

eBay user comment, edited.

dorothysew (978 ) Mar-03-08 06:53 PST 157 of 425

lol we wanted ebay to acknowledge the glitches so we would know about them and wouldn't run around trying to find out if there was something we were doing wrong. Now people are using the notifications to complain that there are glitches?

Ebay really can't win with some of you.

.

3 March 2008
07:34 AM PST

Sponsored Ads a Huge Win for eBay!
My Blog Utopia!
Posted by Randy Smythe at 3/03/2008 07:34:00 AM

Excerpt:

• "In fact we recently saw Shopping.com listings on the eBay.com site, which gives you an idea of their plans. eBay's response to the SDC listings was; "Some Shopping.com listings appeared accidentally on eBay.com over the past two days. This system issue has been resolved. We apologize for any confusion or inconvenience this may have caused." Notice it wasn't an error, it was accidental. Believe me, the accidental part was, that they showed up now, before they were supposed to. I have a hunch we will see SDC listings on the eBay platform sooner rather than later; first as a test and if that goes over well, they will roll them out site wide."

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3 March 2008
10:21 AM PST

eBay user comment, edited.

oldspartantrader (3884 ) Mar-03-08 10:21 PST 184 of 333

As I suspected -- These were not just run of the mill feeds I saw -- They were quite eBAY specific listings --

They were in fact eBAY listings like every other eBAY listing -- except they did not have any purpose in the normal realm of buying and selling

Comment, edited.

PAID BASHERS Definition of PADDING the Listing on eBay!
(2008-03-03 14:38:00) by elikeebayto...

It now has been about a week that the PAID BASHERS community has been busy polluting our beloved board with sorry comments about how eBay has floated or artifically increased its listing. Maybe one day these PAID BASHERS who are PAID money to spread lies and misinformation can discuss the matter with their boss and get an answer for us all. Question: How can you accuse eBay ...

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4 March 2008
04:02:46 AM PST

Update to Shopping.com Mystery Listings on eBay
By: Ina Steiner, AuctionBytes
Tue Mar 4 2008 04:02:46

I spoke to eBay's Usher Lieberman during the IMA conference on Monday. He said he had made a mistake when he called the Shopping.com listings a test on Saturday morning. He was trying to track it down and after talking to a few people, felt comfortable saying it was a test, and subsequently found out the listings had appeared accidentally. Usher said it was his fault for initially getting it wrong.

I asked Usher if he could tell me more, and he could not. I asked him if we might expect to see Shopping.com listings on eBay in the future, or eBay.com listings on Shopping. He said eBay is looking at a lot of different things and can't speculate on anything.

"Lots of things are on the table," he said.

.
4 March 2008
04:02 AM PST

Regarding events and comments taking place on Tuesday March 4th.

"On Tuesday, Lieberman explained the nature of the glitch. Programmers rolled out code on Friday evening that was meant to credit certain listings that were eligible for free Gallery. The credit was due to them because eBay had promised sellers Gallery would be free for listings started at a certain time of day, and the code had been rolled out 3 hours past the deadline."
AuctionBytes, 5 March 2008

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4 March 2008
Late afternoon, early evening

Ebay Accused of Padding Listing Numbers
PC Magazine
03.04.08
by Brian Heater and Chloe Albanesius

Excerpts:

• "When the bug first emerged on Friday, the spokesman told a reporter that it was actually a planned test. "But it wasn't a test. It ended up being a bug," he said. "So I ate a little bit of crow on that.""
• "EBay denied that any forum deletions were intentional. If any posts were taken down "it was accidental," the spokesman said. "We're not afraid of hearing from our community and allowing them to post and discuss things and be angry on our boards.""

.

4 March 2008
06:52 PM PST

ebay user comments, edited

oldspartantrader (3884 ) Mar-04-08 18:52 PST 199 of 333

It is quite possible that the messy matter is approaching a large fan

Approximately 5,000 listings were pulled from shopping.com, but they have since been removed, according to eBay. (from the PCMAG article)

That is so far from reality that it is ludicrous -- Not only ludicrous but so easily shot through of holes that it borders on management malpractice -- and when it is shown to be GROSSLY understated will invite ever more scrutiny --

We may be seeing a company beginning to circle the wagons and the result will be downright ugly --

If only companies that make major goofs would read the Johnson and Johnson Tylenol Story -- It is a roadmap to not just successful damage control but also to public trust --

Although public trust is at risk -- eBAY is taking an even larger risk with shareholder trust -- A trust that if lost will lead to the dissolution of the company -- an extreme that is unlikely to be sure -- but a needless exposure non the less

Continued pressure here would be far more effective than any boycott in bending managements will -- This misstep is an opportunity that the dissenters will be foolish to waste

I would start by looking for deleted in threads on the net and follow with screen shots of them and the 5000 listings -- followed by 5000 more a day later -- and on and on --

There are now at least two main stream media giants with interest -- an opportunity that is priceless

bhearsch (302 ) Mar-04-08 21:08 PST 207 of 333

The eBay owned Korean website often mirrors ebay.com auctions. Many of these sdc_prod_ listings are still live on their website. If you want to find them, go to Goog and enter the specific sdc_prod_ number, leave a space, and then enter site:ebay.auction.co.kr

When the results are shown, click on "repeat the search with the omitted results included."

You can find the sdc numbers on various websites/blogs. The eBay Korean website only shows the listings that are currently active and not the ones that have scrolled off but there are still quite a few.

.

5 March 2008

Regarding the events and comments of Wednesday March 5th.

"Lieberman said fewer than 35,000 listings were affected by the glitch."
AuctionBytes, 5 March 2008

AuctionBytes releases the "80,000" figure to eBay and the public. They first observed this figure on March 1st. Four days earlier.

• "However, he had no explanation for the fact that when AuctionBytes looked at one Shopping.com selling account on Saturday morning, it indicated the seller had over 80,000 listings on eBay.com." AuctionBytes, 5 March 2008

AuctionBytes becomes the first large news organization to report a count from direct observation of the situation. However AuctionBytes has not substantiated their claim with screen shots.

"Of the accusations of listing count manipulation, Lieberman said, "To think that we'd do that now is outrageous.""
AuctionBytes, 5 March 2008

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5 March 2008

eBay Calls Claims of Manipulation 'Outrageous'
By: Ina Steiner, AuctionBytes
March 05, 2008

Excerpts:

• "When Shopping.com listings appeared on eBay.com last week, sellers pointed to it as an example of eBay attempting to boost listing numbers."
• "AuctionBytes previously reported that several discussion threads had been removed, including one linked to in the original blog post published on Saturday.
• Most sellers are likely taking little notice of the dust-up. Those who are suspicious may be unlikely to be satisfied with eBay's response."

.

5 March 2008
06:44AM PST

eBay user comment, edited

oldspartantrader (3884 ) Mar-05-08 06:44 PST 210 of 333

The worm may be beginning to turn --

From the PCMAG article

Approximately 5,000 listings were pulled from shopping.com, but they have since been removed, according to eBay.

From the AB article

Lieberman said the programmers inadvertently caused the Shopping.com listings to appear on eBay.com when it created and launched the script to credit the sellers' accounts for Gallery fees.

Lieberman said fewer than 35,000 listings were affected by the glitch.

I am going to start a lottery methinks --

Whoever gets closest to the next eBAY estimated number of misplaced SDC listings will receive --

An all expense day trip to Leavenworth with full visitors passes and change for the vending machines -- While there they can visit the eBAY Exec of their choice

.

5 March 2008

Ziff Davis Media Files for Bankruptcy
By VINNEE TONG

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5 March 2008
08:04 AM PST

eBay user comments, edited

oldspartantrader (3884 ) Mar-05-08 08:04 PST 212 of 333

If both "buy" the explainations will likely go no where.

Should the SEC investigate there will be no buying of stories -- IMO

They are probably one of the scariest Regulatory bodies that Wall Street deals with -- They have teeth and are not at all shy about biting -- They are also pretty straight forward and fair without leaning in any particulat direction to meet an agenda

My attorney and accountant are also preparing letters to be sent to the State Attorney General requesting a watch on the situation with some of the "facts" that have surfaced attached as an addendum -- In that the Street is located here many a firm has been put in the hot seat through that AG Office even though technically domocilled elsewhere.

I am still jumping to no conclusions -- BUT -- The more the story changes the antsier I become --

jake-deals-4u (700 ) Mar-05-08 08:16 PST 213 of 333

preparing letters to be sent to the State Attorney General requesting a watch on the situation with some of the "facts

Too bad im sure the facts are' Everybody uses eBay at their OWN RISK via a user agreemant that is NOT compulsory, its voluntary.

And im sure theres probably an 12th grade HS kid that could explain that its eBays business & they can do as they dang well please with their OWN SITE + if someone doesnt like it, they are FREE to leave!

OTOH i havent quite figured out why someone who is a stockholder ( at their own FREE WILL & PROFIT ) would bad-mouth & spread bad-will at a company that they have a personal financial stake in , far & above the average site user.

If i was so upset at a company that i held stock in, i would sell that stock ASAP reguardless of P/L

pepins4b8e (21 ) Mar-05-08 08:41 PST 217 of 426

Carl, I own stock myself (although I'm sure not to your big wig level ). I fail to get a wedgie about this because while I see the listing numbers as an indicator, it is of small importance to me compared to the quarter-end results.

I guess we'll see if shareholders tend to think like me, or like you on this. I'm not criticizing your position. I just think that the press much prefers to follow Scarlett Johansson selling an evening with her on eBay versus some nebulous conspiracy about the number of listings on eBay.

.

5 March 2008
09:04 AM PST

Comment, edited

El Radical
Escrito el: 05-Marzo-2008 a las 17:04

La huelga de eBay ha sido más que un éxito. No fue sólo una caída del 13% de los artículos listados. Como sospechábamos eBay ha estado inflando artificialmente el número de artículos listados por 2 razones:

1) Para que los huelguistas nos desanimáramos haciéndonos creer que nuestra huelga era una huelga que llevábamos a cabo sólo unos cuantos vendedores.

2) PAra engañar a la bolsa.

La noticia acaba de salir en la propia CNN de EE.UU. Si se confirma la estafa en bolsa por parte de eBay estaría violando una Ley Federal muy seria y la multa que les caerá será de espanto, con el añadido de la mala reputación internacional que se producirá en el mercado financiero mundial de esta empresa y efectivo negativo en sus acciones.

Como véis, compañeros, cuando planatamos cojones y ovarios unidos, incluso podemos enfrentarnos contra las multinacionales y pisarles el cuello como ellos nos lo pisan a nosotros. Mis felicitaciones a todos los currantes vendedores de eBay y la solidaridad y apoyo de muchísimos compradores. Lo estamos consiguiendo. Van a venir más huelgas. Y vamos a seguir dándoles caña hasta que nos quiten el pie del cuello. Si tratan de hundirnos se hundirán ellos con nosotros.

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5 March 2008
03:18 PM PST

What's going on over at eBay?
BloggingStocks
Posted Mar 5th 2008 3:18PM by Michael Fowlkes

Excerpt:

• "But could there be something a little more sinister taking place on the site? Rumors are definitely swirling that the site has actually been padding its numbers with fake item listings. eBay wouldn't dare do such a thing, would it? It has already admitted that a "bug" in the system did in fact insert some fake listings into the site's database. The question is, was this really a bug, or did the site knowingly inflate its listings?"

.

5 March 2008
06:18 PM PST

eBay user comments, edited

jake-deals-4u (701 ) Mar-05-08 18:18 PST 242 of 426

Im suprised that the listing #s were of a daily concern to you as an investor.

So a higher count would indicate what?

A lower count would indicate what?

I didnt know that short term listing count anomolies here would affect a long term investors strategy.

I cant find any angle to a blip in listing counts in an investment angle, unless it provides a draw-down for emotional expousements .

But then again if i was emotionally upset over a company i was financially Invested in, ide seek Divesting of that investment.

Do you check the day-day infrastructre of other investment vehicles?

badday911 (71 ) Mar-05-08 22:23 PST 46 of 70

Why don't they do it on there stupid playgroud thing they set up?

ALL companies I know of have a test bed server to try out new things. They don't want to risk problems on the servers that make them money or are mission critical.

I spent 23 1/2 years with HP working with high end servers before retiring so I'm absolutely certain that a company would not risk problems running tests on a live system.

In my opinion, eBay is padding their listings.

vik*nan (33 ) Mar-05-08 23:25 PST 48 of 70

ALL companies I know of have a test bed server to try out new things.

a "sandbox" --- system or network to try out new software and equipment before deploying them to the production network.

Tests are never made on a production network even in smaller companies

aenthal (2241 ) Mar-05-08 23:59 PST 54 of 70

I don't care if eBay pads their listings.
What will it get them? A larger count on their server?
And what will that get them?
More space used up on their server.
And what will that get them? Nothing. Fake auctions don't bring in money, even if you put up a million of them.

I tend to agree that this is technical phenomenon, not a Pinocchio problem.
But yes, they also have a Pinocchio problem, and an ostrich problem, and a robot problem (se habla Fortran because there are no humans behind that curtain, working the strings).

Let them tell all the Pinocchio versions of reality that they want.
You can't turn a delusion into reality, no matter how many times you repeat it, no matter how much fake evidence you create to support it.
Sometimes karma is sleeping.
But in eBay's case it is hungry, and it will bite them in the butt eventually.

But don't worry about how they expose that butt before karma gets them.
Just be glad that it eventually will.

windorphin (31 ) Mar-06-08 06:15 PST 61 of 70

They use the numbers to show their stockholders that listings are not decreasing. Therefore they are lying and manipulating stock prices.

The analogy drawn about a restaurant filling their seats with mannequins with stockholders driving past is a good one. It is just as meaningless, and nobody will get in trouble for it.

It would only be a violation if they somehow cooked the books to show that those mannequins had eaten and paid.

.

6 March 2008

PC Magazine owner files Chapter 11
From the Associated Press

.

6 March 2008
05:22 PM PST

eBay user comments, edited

vik*nan (33 ) Mar-06-08 17:22 PST 2 of 31

It would be like amazon listings accidentally showing up on yahoo. Just because ebay owns shopping.com does not mean they are magically connected.

ebay's backbone probvider is level3.net

SJC-DNS1.EBAYDNS.COM
SJC-DNS2.EBAYDNS.COM
SMF-DNS1.EBAYDNS.COM
SMF-DNS2.EBAYDNS.COM

Current Registrar: NETWORK SOLUTIONS, LLC.
IP Address: 66.135.194.100 (ARIN & RIPE IP search)

shopping.com's provider is pnap.net

NS2ANY.SHOPPING.COM
NS1ANY.SHOPPING.COM

Current Registrar: MARKMONITOR INC.
IP Address: 64.94.186.80 (ARIN & RIPE IP search)

uplatewhattodo (18 ) Mar-06-08 21:18 PST 11 of 31

AS a techie myself, I do have to disagree with this analysis a bit. Everything about DNS and IP's etc has to do with how eBay and shopping.com provide the informaton out to the world. It says nothing as to how that information is stored in the database or databases. If they are sharing databases distributed across their internal networks, or even storage arrays are being shared by the two systems then it's possible.

They did say they were running a script that caused it which means they were running data directly into the database system(s) and bypassing all the interfaces.

A very bad idea to mess with a database that way if you don't know what you are doing, but it does make it possible. And it would violate Sarbanes Oxley if they didn't cross their t's and dot their i's, which they apparently did not do.

.

6 March 2008

Despite eBay's announcement of March 2nd, that "system issue has been resolved", 'accidental' auction listings can still be found.

Seller sdc_prod_305839_99
"67 items found" ( LINK screen shot 3/6/2008 )

Seller sdc_prod_9352_67
"417 items found" ( LINK screen shot 3/6/2008 )

.

6 March 2008
10:23 PM PST

eBay user comment, edited

postericon (0 ) Mar-06-08 03:29 PST 263 of 426

think the whole thing was filed under rumors speculations

these links that ur bringin here they are written by a bunch of nobodies ur credibility is in the drink, u believe everything u read, u realy expect us to believe this junk
i think what's goin on here is worse than what is goin on at ebay. too bad too a shame this forum is wrecked

.

6 March 2008

eBay Listings on the Rise! Must be the Fee Changes
My Blog Utopia!
Posted by Randy Smythe
Thursday, March 06, 2008

Excerpt:

• "I complain about eBay as much as the next guy and they certainly need to revamp their whole PR department and communicate better with sellers but this padding of listings is a non-starter."

.

7 March 2008

Regarding the events of Friday 7 March 2008.

PC Magazine, 10 March 2008:

1. "An eBay spokesman told PC Magazine at the time that 5,000 shopping.com listings were erroneously placed on ebay.com."
2. "eBay was asked to again confirm that it was indeed 5,000." "The same spokesman responded Friday that he had originally told PC Magazine that eBay pulled 35,000 listings"
3. "a review of the interview confirmed that he said 5,000."
4. "Editor's Note: The eBay spokesman confirmed Monday that the number of postings pulled from shopping.com was indeed 35,000."

.

7 March 2008
03:37 AM PST

eBay user comment, edited

schmoopie77 (109 ) Mar-07-08 03:37 PST 22 of 31

The eBay computer engineers do give us software which has glitches and bugs, so I can see someone making a colossal error. But technically, can this error even be caused?

"Lieberman said the programmers inadvertently caused the Shopping.com listings to appear on eBay.com when it created and launched the script to credit the sellers' accounts for Gallery fees."

It sounds as though they would be working with accounting software, not launching listings. Very bizarre.

.

7 March 2008

eBay Hires Blogger to Improve Communications
By Ina Steiner, AuctionBytes.com
March 07, 2008

.

7 March 2008

Klicken sie hier, um diesen Artikel nicht zu kaufen
Eingestellt am 07. März 2008 um 18:57 Uhr

Excerpt:

• "Die Stellungnahmen der amerikanischen eBay-Sprecher trugen auch nicht unbedingt zur Erhellung bei. In sich widersprechenden Statements war von Tests, Versehen oder Irrtümern die Rede. Ähnlich verwirrende Auskünfte gab es auch für Kunden, die sich bei „Live-Help“ direkt informieren wollten."

.

8 March 2008

FIASCO AFTER FIASCO DOGS EBAY 2008 POLICY CHANGES
By Editor, March 8th, 2008 at 7:00 PM

Excerpt:

• "Last weekend, first rumours, then facts, emerged regarding the mass insertion of listings with no bid or buy-now button, which many speculated were deliberately added to mask the effects of the seller boycott. Throughout the bloggosphere, bloggers dependant on eBay for their content, and ad-click revenues, gave San Jose the benefit of the doubt. Ina Steiner of AuctionBytes even interviewed a senior eBay bod, and both Randy Smythe and eBay UK’s tame bay gave reasons why it had to be a glitch or site test, rather than something from the dirty tricks department. First eBay spokesman Usher Leiberman said it was a test, then said it wasn’t, and then declined to comment further. Posts appeared on eBay announcement boards, and have been all over forums on both sides of the Atlantic."

.

10 March 2008

Despite eBay's announcement of March 2nd that "system issue has been resolved", 'accidental' auction listings can still be found.

Seller sdc_prod_310426
70 items found ( screen shot 3/10/2008 )

Seller sdc_prod_434012
51 items found ( screen shot 3/10/2008 )

.

10 March 2008

Honest Eddy’s Used Cars oder: eBay - das ehrliche, offene Umfeld
Auktionsblog
Posted in Allgemein on Mrz 10, 2008

Excerpt:

• Trotz der Ankündigungen seitens vieler US-Verkäufer, während des Streiks vom 18. bis 25. Februar keine Angebote zu listen sind die Angebotszahlen bei ebay.com im fraglichen Zeitraum fast nicht gesunken.

  Eine genauere Erklärung dafür findet sich natürlich nicht im ebay-Forum sondern extern.

.

10 March 2008

May Day Boycott Looming, EBay Revises Impact of 'Bug'
PC Magazine
03.10.08
by Chloe Albanesius

Excerpt:

• "eBay admitted that shopping.com listings were accidentally placed on eBay"

.

10 March 2008

Later in the day PC Magazine changes the title of their article from "May Day Boycott Looming, EBay Revises Impact of 'Bug'" to, "Another eBay Boycott Planned for May Day", and disables the AppScout link containing the lower part of the article.

And later a new AppScout link is created with the article reverting to the original title, "May Day Boycott Looming, EBay Revises Impact of 'Bug'".

And the interesting times continues.

Epilogue

"INCONCEIVABLE." Vizzini
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride (1987)

Two weeks after the events of Leap Day Friday, we can draw one conclusion.

• "eBay's 2008 Q1 (1st Quarter, January 01 to March 31) report to the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission should be interesting."

Thank you for reading.

...... returning to our March vacation ......
"Quashing and Creating Computer Bugs Since 1973"

//
//
//

Notes

Related article:

From eBay Seller Central - Ebay is padding their listings
http://eventhorizon1984.typepad.com/event_horizon_1984_blog/2008/02/from-ebay-sel-1.html

Article title:

Q: Why does the title of article keep changing?

A: We've altered the title to avoid being labeled as SPAM. Apparently Google considers variations of "sdc_prod" and "Shopping.com" to be SPAM, and removes direct links to such articles and items. Apparently late last year eBay began flooding Google with Shopping.com and sdc_prod* "advertising". Google's standard reaction to advertising SPAM is death by link removal.

//
//
//

The right to publish this news article - U.S. Supreme Court - 1988

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=485&page=47

1988, CHIEF JUSTICE REHNQUIST:

At the heart of the First Amendment is the recognition of the fundamental importance of the free flow of ideas and opinions on matters of public interest and concern. "[T]he [485 U.S. 46, 51] freedom to speak one's mind is not only an aspect of individual liberty - and thus a good unto itself - but also is essential to the common quest for truth and the vitality of society as a whole." Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc., 466 U.S. 485, 503 -504 (1984). We have therefore been particularly vigilant to ensure that individual expressions of ideas remain free from governmentally imposed sanctions. The First Amendment recognizes no such thing as a "false" idea. Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 339 (1974). As Justice Holmes wrote, "when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas - that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market . . . ." Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616, 630 (1919) (dissenting opinion).

The sort of robust political debate encouraged by the First Amendment is bound to produce speech that is critical of those who hold public office or those public figures who are "intimately involved in the resolution of important public questions or, by reason of their fame, shape events in areas of concern to society at large." Associated Press v. Walker, decided with Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U.S. 130, 164 (1967) (Warren, C. J., concurring in result). Justice Frankfurter put it succinctly in Baumgartner v. United States, 322 U.S. 665, 673 -674 (1944), when he said that "[o]ne of the prerogatives of American citizenship is the right to criticize public men and measures." Such criticism, inevitably, will not always be reasoned or moderate; public figures as well as public officials will be subject to "vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks," New York Times, supra, at 270. "[T]he candidate who vaunts his spotless record and sterling integrity cannot convincingly cry `Foul!' when an opponent or an industrious reporter attempts [485 U.S. 46, 52] to demonstrate the contrary." Monitor Patriot Co. v. Roy, 401 U.S. 265, 274 (1971).

//
//
//

Technorati Profile

Copyright © 2008 Event Horizon, Established 1984

From eBay Seller Central - Ebay is padding their listings

http://eventhorizon1984.typepad.com/event_horizon_1984_blog/2008/02/from-ebay-sel-1.html

Updated 04 March 2008 21:31 HST

By the time you read this, eBay will have removed 100's of thousands of auction listings from eBay.com. This took place between 29 February and 1 March 2008. Many of these listings eBay apparently inserted during the February 18-25 boycott.

Also by the time you read this, as 3 March 2008, eBay removed the larger eBay forum threads documenting these questionable activities. Use Google to obtained archived copies of the original threads.

http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=2000527568 [specified topic removed]
http://www.google.com/search?q=Is+Ebay+Creating+Listings+To+Boost+totals+Look

sdc_prod_301013_74 DBA The Twister Group (27,291 eBay.com listings 2/29/2008)
sdc_prod_305839_99 DBA BargainBasementBatteries
sdc_prod_310426 DBA ANTOnline (21,798 eBay.com listings 2/29/2008)
sdc_prod_409455_97 DBA Sababa Shopping
sdc_prod_434012 DBA SpectrumSuperStore (35,002 eBay.com listings 2/29/2008)
sdc_prod_442675_57 DBA Boyne & Kelly L.L.C. (4,702 eBay.com listings 2/29/2008)
sdc_prod_9021_2 DBA Buy.com (12,233 eBay.com listings 2/29/2008)
sdc_prod_9055 DBA Focus Camera (1,925 eBay.com listings 2/29/2008)
sdc_prod_9074_35 DBA pcRUSH.com (21,401 eBay.com listings 2/29/2008)
sdc_prod_9090 DBA CompSource Inc. (32,601 eBay.com listings 2/29/2008)
sdc_prod_9124_14 DBA TheNerds, Inc. (48,392 eBay.com listings 2/29/2008)
sdc_prod_9352_67 DBA Digital Foto Club (30,278 eBay.com listings 2/29/2008)
sdc_prod_9391_43 DBA Adorama (11,102 eBay.com listings 2/29/2008)
sdc_prod_9452 DBA eTronics, Inc. (24,499 eBay.com listings 2/29/2008)

More details regarding the above sellers are available farther down in this article.

Prior to Midnight 29 February 2008, the above list of "sellers" (the sdc_prod names) had over 200,000 lets say interesting (bogus) auction listings on eBay.com.

But don't fret. The above list may represent only "a small percentage" of the sdc (Shopping Dot Com) sellers who eBay posted auction listings on their behalf.

//
// eBay Customer Service Transcript - 29 February 2008
//

As a matter of privacy, we've edited out the email address. Otherwise the transcript that follows, a conversation between eBay Customer Service and joelycra, is unedited.

And joelycra please forward your eBay Customer Service transcript to the news service(s) of your choice.

From eBay Seller Central Forum
Ebay is padding their listings
http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=2000527614&start=40
http://www.activeboard.com/forum.spark?forumID=78886&p=3&topicID=15720025

joelycra (735 ) Feb-29-08 22:44 PST 69 of 94

OK... Just got out of live chat also. They told me these are Shopping - com listings that are somehow appearing on eaby by mistake... here's the transcript:




12:17:09 AM CST
System
Initial Question/Comment: Other
12:17:14 AM CST
System
Thank you for contacting eBay Live Help!
12:17:14 AM CST
System
You are successfully connected to eBay Live Help. Please hold for the next available Live Help Agent.
12:17:35 AM CST
System
Evan M. A. has joined this session!
12:17:35 AM CST
System
Connected with Evan M. A.
12:17:40 AM CST
Evan M. A.
Hello, thank you for waiting and welcome to eBay Live Help! My name is Evan. If you're a registered member, may I please start by having you confirm your User ID and first name?
12:17:41 AM CST
zz***@bellsouth.net
hello
12:17:57 AM CST

12:18:09 AM CST
Evan M. A.
Hi, Joe. Thanks! How may I help you?
12:18:32 AM CST
zz***@bellsouth.net
I have a question about an auction listing
12:18:58 AM CST
zz***@bellsouth.net
item 310025758222
12:19:10 AM CST
Evan M. A.
Thanks again. And I'm willing to help as much as I can.
12:19:19 AM CST
Evan M. A.
And may I have your concern about this listing?
12:19:51 AM CST
zz***@bellsouth.net
look at it.... it's not a real item, you can't bid on it
12:20:15 AM CST
zz***@bellsouth.net
these listings are in every category.... on the last page of listings
12:21:40 AM CST
Evan M. A.
Oh, okay. I understand what you mean. And let me try to look up on this listing.
12:24:19 AM CST
zz****@bellsouth.net
some of these SDC sellers have 30-40 thousand listings, and who knows how many SDC sellers there are
12:24:20 AM CST
Evan M. A.
Please give me another couple of minutes to look in to this for you.
12:26:10 AM CST
Evan M. A.
Oh, I see. I'm still looking this up for you, okay?
12:26:16 AM CST
zz****@bellsouth.net
ok
12:27:40 AM CST
Evan M. A.
Thank you.
12:30:15 AM CST
Evan M. A.
Thanks for patiently waiting. I see that the listing is listed under the eBay Express. What I can do is to redirect you now to our eBay Express chat, for more assistance about this listing.
12:30:29 AM CST
Evan M. A.
What IÈUlike to do is connect you with our eBay Express chat, for help with this. There may be a wait time to speak to someone after I? transferred you, but it shouldn?be too long. In case this chat disconnects please feel free to come back into eBay Live Help by clicking on our link on the eBay homepage. May I go ahead and do that now?
12:30:51 AM CST
zz****@bellsouth.net
these are not ebay express listings
12:31:03 AM CST
zz****@bellsouth.net
these are auctions
12:31:50 AM CST
Evan M. A.
I see. Actually, this is not an eBay listing, the problem is it's a Shopping.com listing that is showing on our site by mistake.
12:32:25 AM CST
Evan M. A.
It is a current issue, yes, we have a bug on it. These are meant to be on shopping.com only but due to some reason are showing on eBay as well and can't be bought through the site.
12:33:32 AM CST
zz****@bellsouth.net
ok... that's what I needed... Thanks
12:34:25 AM CST
Evan M. A.
You're most welcome. Do you have any other concerns, Joe?
12:35:29 AM CST
zz****@bellsouth.net
no, thanks
12:35:35 AM CST
Evan M. A.
Thanks for using eBay Live Help! Once youˆÂ ready to close this chat window, please feel free to click on the º–it?utton.
12:35:40 AM CST
Evan M. A.
It's a pleasure chatting with you. Have a good night!


There could be millions of these listings.... just go to the last page of items in any category sorted by "ending soonest" and you'll find them.

//
// eBay Customer Service Transcript - 1 March 2008
//

From the eBay Feedback Forum
Is Ebay Creating Listings To Boost totals Look
http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=2000527568&start=1080
http://www.activeboard.com/forum.spark?forumID=78886&p=3&topicID=15720025
http://www.google.com/search?q=Is+Ebay+Creating+Listings+To+Boost+totals+Look

idee99555 (0 ) View Listings | Report Mar-01-08 19:03 PST 1082 of 1119

All right you guys. I went to live chat today to try and see what their story was on the inflated listings. I'm going to post the transcript. I don't see how it infracts the guidlines, but in case it gets pulled and anyone else wants it, email me. This is long and kind of disjointed, but this is the way it came to me. I had to request a transcript because the copy feature wouldn't work.

Dear eBay member,



Transcript of Session Number: 9852546
3/1/2008 14:35 Agent Sent Message: Hello, thank you for waiting and
welcome to eBay Live Help! My name is Lanie. If you're a registered
member, may I please start by having you confirm your User ID and first

name?
3/1/2008 14:35 Customer Sent Message: idee99555
3/1/2008 14:36 Agent Sent Message: Hi there!
3/1/2008 14:36 Agent Sent Message: Thanks! How can I help you?
3/1/2008 14:37 Customer Sent Message: there are some wierd listings
that have no opening bids and you can't bid on them. Thousands of
items.
What's going on?
3/1/2008 14:37 Customer Sent Message: for instance
3/1/2008 14:38 Customer Sent Message: Item number: 150217971814
3/1/2008 14:38 Agent Sent Message: I would gladly look into this for
you.
3/1/2008 14:38 Agent Sent Message: Kindly give me a moment to check .


3/1/2008 14:41 Agent Sent Message: Hi. Kindly check again the item
number. I can't seem to pull up a record on file. Thanks.
3/1/2008 14:41 Customer Sent Message: Item number: 150217971814 i'll
get you the name also
3/1/2008 14:42 Customer Sent Message: Meet the seller Seller:
sdc_prod_9452( 76)
3/1/2008 14:42 Customer Sent Message: eTronics, Inc( 76
3/1/2008 14:44 Customer Sent Message: 19808 items found
3/1/2008 14:45 Agent Sent Message: I appreciate your patience. Kindly
give me a moment more.
3/1/2008 14:48 Agent Sent Message: I saw the item and this is indeed
strange. I'm having this reported for you for investigation.Please stay

with me.
3/1/2008 14:51 Customer Sent Message: There are many others. does the
sdc_prod_#### seller designation have a particular meaning?
3/1/2008 14:54 Agent Sent Message: Hmm, for the seller's ID though, it

reads : sdc_prod_9452
3/1/2008 14:54 Agent Sent Message: I'm still coordinating with the
team
as we speak. Please give me a few minutes more.
3/1/2008 14:55 Customer Sent Message: I meant as an example. There are

others with thousands of similar listings and they have the same
sdc_prod_ and a number for seller name.
3/1/2008 14:58 Agent Sent Message: Ah okay. Thanks. The team would
reply momentarily, please continue to hold.
3/1/2008 14:58 Agent Sent Message: I appreciate your effort to let us
know about this problem.
3/1/2008 15:02 Agent Sent Message: Thanks for patiently waiting!
3/1/2008 15:02 Agent Sent Message: I'm sorry for the
inconvenience.This
is actually an issue on the site right now I'm afraid. This is actually

a Shopping.com listing that's appearing incorrectly on eBay.
3/1/2008 15:03 Agent Sent Message: Our Technical team is working on
getting resolved though, and I had this reported for you so we can add
your account to the list.
3/1/2008 15:03 Customer Sent Message: Do these incorrect listings show

up in ebays total listings/ Wouldn't they scew the listings totals?
3/1/2008 15:04 Agent Sent Message: Oh, no it shouldn't though.
3/1/2008 15:05 Agent Sent Message: The team is checking on the
accounts
of the sellers you reported as well for further investigation.
3/1/2008 15:05 Customer Sent Message: Shoudn't or absolutely doesn't?
3/1/2008 15:05 Agent Sent Message: Absolutely doesn't.This is only a
glitch on the search pages.
3/1/2008 15:06 Agent Sent Message: You can check it from time to time
to see it not on the eBay pages, only on Shopping.com
3/1/2008 15:06 Customer Sent Message: can you explain that a little
further?
3/1/2008 15:08 Customer Sent Message: I'm not familiar with
shopping.com. Why would their listings show up on ebay. Anf the one I
mentionaed has ebay seller feedback.
3/1/2008 15:08 Agent Sent Message: Sure! In the eBay account of the
seller for items sold at eBay, it shouldn't get reflected, but if you
were referring to the "items from seller" link for all items he is
selling, I'm afraid the Shopping.com items will also appear and is
confirmed as a tec
3/1/2008 15:08 Agent Sent Message: hnical glitch.
3/1/2008 15:09 Customer Sent Message: can you respond to my last
question also?
3/1/2008 15:09 Agent Sent Message: Sorry for the confusion,
Shopping.com is a specialty site owned by eBay but we handle separate
accounts. It's similar to Express or Half.com
3/1/2008 15:10 Agent Sent Message: Ah, okay, Here's what happens, this

particular seller has an account with SHopping.com to sell items, which

is a different one as an eBay seller.
3/1/2008 15:10 Customer Sent Message: Ok. Well there are numerous
"glitches" out there and they are causing major confusion and
conjecture. YOu guys need to clean 'em up.
3/1/2008 15:11 Agent Sent Message: The items listed under Shopping.com

site should only be seen in that site and not on eBay.
3/1/2008 15:12 Agent Sent Message: Yes, we truly appreciate your help
on this one and the team is on it as we speak . We do hope we can have
this resolved asap.
3/1/2008 15:12 Customer Sent Message: Should . . . there they are.
3/1/2008 15:12 Customer Sent Message: you've been a wealth of
information Lanie
3/1/2008 15:12 Customer Sent Message: Thanks
3/1/2008 15:13 Agent Sent Message: So nice to hear that from you.
Thanks for your cooperation and understanding as well.
3/1/2008 15:13 Agent Sent Message: Is there anything else I can help
you with?
3/1/2008 15:13 Customer Sent Message: bye
3/1/2008 15:13 Agent Sent Message: All right! Once you’re ready to
close this chat window, please click on the “Exit” button. Take
care! =)

3/1/2008 15:16 Customer Sent Message: I don't seem to be able to use
the copy function
3/1/2008 15:16 Agent Sent Message: You can copy or print this chat for

your reference or I would gladly send you a chat transcript,I'll just
need your email address.
3/1/2008 15:17 Customer Sent Message: I've tried copying and I get
nothing. idee99@yahoo.com
3/1/2008 15:17 Agent Sent Message: No worries. Processing it
now,you'll
have it in a few minutes.
3/1/2008 15:18 Customer Sent Message: thanks again


Sincerely,
Lanie R.

eBay Customer Support

//
// AuctionBytes - Response from Usher Lieberman, ebay - 1 March 2008
//

AuctionBytes
http://blog.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/blog/blog.pl?/comments/2008/3/1204379814.html

March 01, 2008

Mystery Shopping.com Listings on eBay?

By: Ina Steiner

Sat Mar 1 2008 01:56:54

Mystery listings are appearing on eBay that don't allow shoppers to bid or buy. The listings appear to be feeds from Shopping.com sellers. A look at the User ID sdc_prod_301013_74

A discussion about the listings began Friday night on eBay's Feedback board. Some posters believe it is a sign that eBay is trying to inflate its listing numbers to mask any effects of the seller boycott. Because of the dearth of data from eBay, Wall Street analysts put a lot of credence on listing numbers to gauge the company's marketplace performance. This month, everyone studied listing numbers to try and measure the impact of the seller boycott. And sellers have been prowling the site looking for any evidence of manipulation.

Others believe the "sdc" mystery is a test eBay is running or may be a glitch.

Update 3/1/08: eBay spokesperson Usher Lieberman responded by email on Saturday, "This was a limited test that has run its course." I appreciate the update on a weekend and, if I learn more next week, will update this post.

Update: 3/2/08: eBay posted on its Systems Announcement board around 5:30 pm Eastern, "Some Shopping.com listings appeared accidentally on eBay.com over the past two days. This system issue has been resolved. We apologize for any confusion or inconvenience this may have caused."

Update 3/4/08: On Monday, eBay spokesperson Usher Lieberman said he had made a mistake when he called the Shopping.com listings a test on Saturday morning.

//
// Response from eBay Customer Service - 2 March 2008
//

This is an interesting announcement (below). Ignores the fact many of the "accidentally" appearing items were showing 25 days remaining out of 30 days.

http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:nGCP4ib50X4J:search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZsdc_prod_301013_74+sdc_prod_301013_74
"This page was last updated: Mar-01 19:00"

Let's see, 30 day listing - 25 days remaining = 5 days run, as of 3/1/2008
5 days before 3/1/2008 is 2/25/2008, give or take a day.

Guess 5 days in the real world is "two days" in eBay days.

From eBay System Status Announcement Board
http://www2.ebay.com/aw/announce.shtml

***Resolved: Shopping.com listings on eBay***

March 02, 2008 | 02:32PM PST/PT

Some Shopping.com listings appeared accidentally on eBay.com over the past two days. This system issue has been resolved. We apologize for any confusion or inconvenience this may have caused.

//
// AuctionBytes - Response from Usher Lieberman, eBay - 4 March 2008
//

http://blog.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2008/3/1204635766.html

Update to Shopping.com Mystery Listings on eBay
By: Ina Steiner
Tue Mar 4 2008 04:02:46

I spoke to eBay's Usher Lieberman during the IMA conference on Monday. He said he had made a mistake when he called the Shopping.com listings a test on Saturday morning. He was trying to track it down and after talking to a few people, felt comfortable saying it was a test, and subsequently found out the listings had appeared accidentally. Usher said it was his fault for initially getting it wrong.

I asked Usher if he could tell me more, and he could not. I asked him if we might expect to see Shopping.com listings on eBay in the future, or eBay.com listings on Shopping. He said eBay is looking at a lot of different things and can't speculate on anything.

"Lots of things are on the table," he said.

//
// AuctionBytes - Response from Usher Lieberman, eBay - 4 March 2008
//

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2273210,00.asp

Excerpt

EBay Accused of Padding Listing Numbers
03.04.08
by Brian Heater and Chloe Albanesius

However, "the code actually rolled out three hours late, so there were a certain number of listings ... that didn't get gallery free, so we were going back and fixing that" on Friday, the spokesman said. "What happened was, when we wrote the code to implement that fix in the database table, there was a string that was left on there that populated and sent shopping.com listings onto ebay.com that it shouldn't have."

Approximately 5,000 listings were pulled from shopping.com, but they have since been removed, according to eBay.

Sellers pointed to the listings snafu as evidence that eBay was inflating its numbers to make up for losses sustained during the boycott. When the bug first emerged on Friday, the spokesman told a reporter that it was actually a planned test.

"But it wasn't a test. It ended up being a bug," he said. "So I ate a little bit of crow on that."

//
// AuctionBytes - Response from Usher Lieberman, eBay - 5 March 2008
//

http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y08/m03/i05/s03

Excerpt

eBay Calls Claims of Manipulation 'Outrageous'
By Ina Steiner
AuctionBytes.com
March 05, 2008

On Tuesday, Lieberman explained the nature of the glitch. Programmers rolled out code on Friday evening that was meant to credit certain listings that were eligible for free Gallery. The credit was due to them because eBay had promised sellers Gallery would be free for listings started at a certain time of day, and the code had been rolled out 3 hours past the deadline.

Lieberman said the programmers inadvertently caused the Shopping.com listings to appear on eBay.com when it created and launched the script to credit the sellers' accounts for Gallery fees.

Lieberman said fewer than 35,000 listings were affected by the glitch.

//
// Reaction snapshot excerpts from eBay PowerSellers - 1 March 2008
//

Is Ebay Creating Listings To Boost totals? Strange listings...
http://forums.ebay.com/db1/thread.jspa?threadID=2000527597&start=40&anticache=1204400261806

fla*** (327 ) Mar-01-08 04:46 PST 73 of 109
(sp)Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

also known as the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act of 2002 and commonly called SOx or Sarbox; is a United States federal law enacted on July 30, 2002 in response to a number of major corporate and accounting scandals including those affecting Enron, Tyco International, Adelphia, Peregrine Systems and WorldCom. These scandals, which cost investors billions of dollars when the share prices of the affected companies collapsed, shook public confidence in the nation's securities markets.
The legislation establishes new or enhanced standards for all U.S. public company boards, management, and public accounting firms. The Act contains 11 titles, or sections, ranging from additional Corporate Board responsibilities to criminal penalties, and requires the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to implement rulings on requirements to comply with the new law.
The Act establishes a new quasi-public agency, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, or PCAOB, which is charged with overseeing, regulating, inspecting, and disciplining accounting firms in their roles as auditors of public companies. The Act also covers issues such as auditor independence, corporate governance, internal control assessment, and enhanced financial disclosure.

djc*** (3827 ) Mar-01-08 09:04 PST 88 of 110
Doing a little cleaning up, maybe?

djc*** (3827 ) Mar-01-08 09:46 PST 93 of 110
I don't know if it's a glitch, hack or purposeful deception. However, what makes it curious is all the auctions I looked at started last Thursday the day after the listing sale ended.

cmi*** (1712 ) Mar-01-08 09:52 PST 94 of 110
I don't know if it's a glitch, hack or purposeful deception. However, what makes it curious is all the auctions I looked at started last Thursday the day after the listing sale ended.

I noticed that too, 9 days ago they started. Awfully peculiar timing considering the "boycott" and all.

nan*** (9616 ) Mar-02-08 07:38 PST 133 of 280
Also Most if not all keep you from purchasing the items.

From this post (many are developers)
http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=2000527568
there are several people who asked Live Help and sent emails and one got Oh there is an error and another got it is just a test.

They are c&P all the auctions they can before they disappear.

Many are notifying all the media sources they can.

vq5*** (1072 ) Mar-02-08 09:04 PST 138 of 280
Update 3/1/08: eBay spokesperson Usher Lieberman responded by email on Saturday, "This was a limited test that has run its course." I appreciate the update on a weekend and, if I learn more next week, will update this post.

dar*** (369 ) Mar-02-08 09:06 PST 139 of 280
Why did they have to "Test" THAT MANY AUCTIONS during a boycott week?

avi*** (3794 ) Mar-02-08 09:10 PST 140 of 280
Why did they have to "Test" THAT MANY AUCTIONS during a boycott week?

Exactly.

And if it were a legitimate test, there would be no reason to pull the listings.

vail*** (9944 ) Mar-02-08 09:22 PST 141 of 280
"This was a limited test that has run its course."

Such HOGWASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

gui*** (2168 ) Mar-02-08 09:38 PST 143 of 280
"This was a limited test that has run its course."

Now that sounds like hogwash. There is a category just for test auctions, designed just for that purpose Everything Else> Test Auctions If eBay wanted to do test auctions they would have put them in there with a disclaimer not to bid. IMO that takes credibility away from this being a real test. I may buy a glitch, a hack, or a seller that has no idea what they are doing, but a test that is listed in the wrong category. And they yank it as soon as it is reported, come on, that one isn't believable.

avi*** (3794 ) Mar-02-08 10:47 PST 152 of 280
And eBay is sweeping the threads about this, the big one on the Feedie board is gone. SSDD.

Yep, the big one's gone and so is a much smaller one started after the first one disappeared. The big one at Seller Central is gone, but another with a vague title remains. A short thread at Trust and Safety is still there.

emo*** (20315 ) Mar-02-08 11:23 PST 156 of 280
"I think it might have been a test of dumping SDC items into Ebay."

Gee, what an AMAZING coincidence they picked the exact time the boycott was started, when the ENTIRE world was looking at the listing totals to see if the boycott was actually working!

Hmmmm.....

sno*** (12648 ) Mar-02-08 15:03 PST 166 of 285
Post #138 wrote that Ebay responded with: "This was a limited test that has run its course."

So, did Ebay actually ADMIT to involvement in those listings? They obviously are not test listings, we all know that.....But if they were performing some "other" form of test - perhaps - let's see...could it be inflating the number of listings test? What limited test are they talking about?

mag*** (6913 ) Mar-02-08 15:54 PST 170 of 285
I don't know why so many people are quick to ASSume that eBay is an evil corporate entity that wants to steal their souls and use them as currency whilst dealing with the Devil.

When I last checked, you were supposed to be INNOCENT until PROVEN guilty. From the bizarre, over-the-top posts on this thread, I have no idea why some of you even sell here.

I know that if I felt that strongly about eBay, I would do what Bruce is doing, and exit, stage left.

djc*** (3828 ) View Listings | Report Mar-02-08 17:24 PST 205 of 286
It's inconsistent statements like these that leads to speculation.

Update 3/1/08: eBay spokesperson Usher Lieberman responded by email on Saturday, "This was a limited test that has run its course." I appreciate the update on a weekend and, if I learn more next week, will update this post.

Update: 3/2/08: eBay posted on its Systems Announcement board around 5:30 pm Eastern, "Some Shopping.com listings appeared accidentally on eBay.com over the past two days. This system issue has been resolved. We apologize for any confusion or inconvenience this may have caused."

http://blog.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2008/3/1204379814.html

gir*** (305 ) Mar-02-08 18:09 PST 217 of 286
ok the difference would be this if it was a test then ebay has comtrol over its website..the only question would be what type of test and why...this is feel ok with..............now if not a test but rather an accident then this is more of a problem...an accident is an event in which you have no control over..that would mean some one some where and some how was able to get control of the ebay computers and put all those listings on..using the same technology someone could put what ever they wanted on a millon pieces of porn or a millon pages of mad magazine etc....and also if they can control they ebay computers to do that copuld they also not use them to harvest your personal finnancial info?

oke** (1560 ) Mar-02-08 18:11 PST 218 of 286
I don't think it was an accident, do you?

abr*** (5774 ) Mar-02-08 19:37 PST 272 of 287
If they choose to give 30 day auction style core listings numbering in the MILLIONS FOLKS, then that is perfectly legal for them to do. eBay has rules by which its members must operate, but these may be members of a DIFFERENT eBay club, and their rules may be much different than ours...

fre*** (6704 ) Mar-03-08 00:12 PST 323 of 367
I found something unusual. A new wrinkle. If you go to some of the big categories and show listings, select ending soonest and at the bottom you see, say, 7575 pages total for listings, if you type in assorted numbers HIGHER, say for example, 7578, 7586, etc you can find more of these 20-day listings which are still up but if you click them they say they are ended. However, they are still there! Also, the page numbers higher than the ones indicated are do not all appear. For example, say there is a 7592, 7593, but no 7594, no 7595, then there is a 7596, and so forth. It is very wierd. It looks like there are still thousands of such listings hidden or disguised. The "ended" listings still appear in search if you find them.

mis*** (1530 ) Mar-03-08 08:31 PST 341 of 367
You have to stop and think allot of people don't want to believe ebay is capable of wrong doing because they are afraid if they are that ebay will cease to exist soon.
I don't blame them, allot of them have there life dedicated to ebay and the sales.
I would be terrified as well if my bread and butter could soon evaporate and I really don't have a back up plan.

djc*** (3828 ) Mar-03-08 10:33 PST 363 of 368
Somebody made a comment on that auctionbyte blog about pages of no listings yesterday.

I didn't think much about it figuring it didn't mean anything. Today I started thinking about the actual item numbers and went to look around.

This is the sub categories in Clothing, Shoes & Accessories 2463944 items found in: Clothing, Shoes & Accessories

Costumes & Reenactment Attire (15661)
Cultural & Ethnic Clothing (1797)
Dancewear & Dance Shoes (7108)
Infants & Toddlers (230627)
Boys (58019)
Girls (143875)
Men's Accessories (110147)
Men's Clothing (362834)
Men's Shoes (97112)
Uniforms (13170)
Unisex Clothing, Shoes & Accs (15095)
Wedding Apparel (42330)
Women's Accessories, Handbags (241563)
Women's Clothing (812862)
Women's Shoes (242672)
Vintage (66834)
Wholesale, Large & Small Lots (6970)

If you add the numbers in each sub category, you get that 2.4 million total.

When you look inside Womens's Clothing (812862) you find 16,250 pages of items.
16,250 pages x 50 items per page is 812,500. So that sounds correct.

However, the pages above 14,446 are empty. So there are really only 722,300 items in that category.

That 16,250 pages is down from over 48,000 pages less than 24 hours ago.

Medved gets there numbers from the categories.

//
// Video screen captures - 1 March 2008
//

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mePI-UWDGOE
Ebay Padding Counts w Fake Listings in Wake of Strike?

From: cappnonymous

About This Video

This is a live screen recording of actual events on the ebay website, with altered vocals. The video portion is uncut with watermarks added, and otherwise unretouched. The vocal audio portion of this video is my opinion, based upon & validated by the facts. This curious situation has come about on ebay. here is some background and commentary. This is still very fresh. One thing clear, ebay seems to be acting to cover this up right now. This description will be updated with more info soon. It appears as though ebay has been caught padding the listing counts with lots and lots of fake listings from questionable accounts. Many of the se accounts are showing as "Not a registered user" or NARU. Many of the listings show as not having any detals, and the format of the listings is different Some are showing as disney listings. All sorts of strange things are going on. And of course, the censorship. Captured live here on video. Related threads on ebay forums: from the Feedback board: "Is Ebay Creating Listings To Boost totals Look" from Seller Central: "Im reporting ebay's padded listings to FTC for investigation" From Seller Central: "Ebay is padding their listings" from the Auction Listings bd: "E-bay is padding their listings" From the so called "Trust & Safety" board: "Zero FB seller has 35000 Listings with no way to bid on them - VERY ODD" Here are a few of the alleged fake names as reported and observed so far: sdc_prod_434012 = SpectrumSuperStore sdc_prod_9021_2 = Buy.com (who is NARU!) sdc_prod_9124_14 = TheNerds, Inc. sdc_prod_9452 = eTronics, Inc. sdc_prod_409455_97 = Sababa Shopping sdc_prod_9090 = CompSource Inc. sdc_prod_310426 = ANTOnline (who is NARU!) sdc_prod_9074_35 = pcRUSH.com (who is NARU!) sdc_prod_9352_67 = Digital Foto Club sdc_prod_301013_74 = The Twister Group sdc_prod_305839_99 = BargainBasementBatteries sdc_prod_9391_43 = Adorama (who is NARU!) Since I started it there, look for follow-up at the CAPP Forum: http://tinyurl.com/2wzjpc Please visit these sites before you consider using or continuing to use ebay: suspendedfromebay.com nekkidtruth.blogspot.com www.firemeg.com www.companyexposed.com www.theauctionguild.com www.pheebay.com www.ebaymotorssucks.com or you can follow the links from the cappnonymous channel page. --------------------- Note: This audio visual digital document was created using the new & improved ZDSoft Screen Recorder 2.6.2.0 and "SUPER © v2007 build .25" wmm2 & audacity on 02-29-2008 approximately 11:32:33 Pacific Time. I am using firefox 2.0012 browser with Adblock Plus NoScript Super DragandGo 0.2.6 Image Zoom 0.3 and SlimSearch 0.1.8 extensions and my "bumped" SpoofStick 1.06 among others. My skin is miniFox 0.8.2. The small magnified window is a function of microsoft wireless intellimouse explorer 2.0 model (less) Added: March 01, 2008

//
// From the eBay Developer Forums regarding the "sdc_prod" name - 29 February 2008
//

eBay Developer Forums
Technical Questions: eBay Shopping Web Services
http://dev-forums.ebay.com/thread.jspa?q=sdc&forumID=1007&threadID=500004459&messageID=600012983#600012983

Replies: 4 - Pages: 1 Last Post: Feb 29, 2008 4:27 AM by: stsi.com »

stsi.com
Member Since: 1/10/08

Read ExcludeSellers Issue
Posted: Jan 10, 2008 11:40 AM

Is there a limit on the number of Excluded Sellers that can be specified in a GetSearchResults call? I have several excluded sellers that keep returning search results. I have checked the XML for the call, and it looks correct.

Also, is it a problem if entries are duplicated? (I will be correcting this in any event.)

Thanks.

stsi.com
Member Since: 1/10/08

Read Re: ExcludeSellers Issue
Posted: Jan 10, 2008 12:12 PM

After further research, it looks like there is a limit of 100 excluded sellers. Can this limit be raised?

rekha.developersupport@ebay.com
Posts: 2,035
Member Since: 6/30/05

Read Re: ExcludeSellers Issue
Posted: Jan 14, 2008 3:42 PM

Hello stsi.com,

Yes the limit is 100, which most users have found sufficient for their use case. How many IDs do you have?

Best Regards
Rekha Patel
eBay Developer Support

stsi.com
Member Since: 1/10/08

Read Re: ExcludeSellers Issue
Posted: Feb 29, 2008 4:23 AM

Because of the wide variety of searches that we do, we could easily use 200 to 400 ID's. 500 would be a good number for us.

stsi.com
Member Since: 1/10/08

Read Re: ExcludeSellers Issue
Posted: Feb 29, 2008 4:27 AM

Also, is it possible to use wildcards for excluded sellers? For example, I'd like to exclude the various iterations of sdc_prod_*, instead of having to type in all the numbers that this seller uses....

//
// eBay filings to the United States Securities And Exchange Commission (SEC)
//

In regards to auction and store listing counts.

http://yahoo.brand.edgar-online.com/fetchFilingFrameset.aspx?dcn=0000950134-08-003741&Type=HTML
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/sec?s=ebay

Form 10-K for EBAY INC
29-Feb-2008
Annual Report

http://yahoo.brand.edgar-online.com/fetchFilingFrameset.aspx?dcn=0000891618-08-000046&Type=HTML
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/sec?s=ebay

Form 8-K for EBAY INC
23-Jan-2008
Results of Operations and Financial Condition, Financial Statements and Exhibits

//
// eBay stock price - 29 February 2008
//

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=eBay

EBAY INC (NasdaqGS:EBAY)

After Hours: 26.18 0.18 (0.68%) on 02/29/08
Last Trade: 26.36 Trade Time: Feb 29 Change: 0.91 (3.34%) Prev Close: 27.27 Open: 27.01 Bid: N/A Ask: 27.27 x 3000 1y Target Est: 35.22		Day's Range: 26.17 - 27.08 52wk Range: 25.64 - 40.73 Volume: 17,475,127 Avg Vol (3m): 15,744,000 Market Cap: 35.66B P/E (ttm): 104.19 EPS (ttm): 0.25 Div & Yield: N/A (N/A)

//
// Detail data on "sdc" sellers.
//

Listing counts are from the eBay.com site. I.E. these are not counts from eBayExpress.com nor Shopping.com nor Half.com nor any site but eBay.com.

For some Google archive data, see the date the item was archived.

This data is not meant to be all inclusive. It does provide a means to verify facts, and leads to more information.

sdc_prod_301013_74
aka The Twister Group (27,291 listings 2/29/2008)
http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=sdc_prod_301013_74&ftab=AllFeedback
505 positive feedback, 0 listings 3/2/2008
Member since Oct-18-06 in Illinois, United States
www.google.com/search?q=sdc_prod_301013_74 [Google archive, use cache link]
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:nGCP4ib50X4J:search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZsdc_prod_301013_74+sdc_prod_301013_74
http://www.companyexposed.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/ebay-seller-sdc-prod-301013-74-a-v-accessories-cables-desktop-laptop-accessories-items-on-ebaycom.png
http://www.companyexposed.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/olympus-260302-evolt-e-10-starter-kit-ebay-item-200203133477-end-time-mar-26-08-14-35-44-pdt.png
http://www.companyexposed.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/place-a-bid.png

sdc_prod_305839_99
aka BargainBasementBatteries
http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=sdc_prod_305839_99&ftab=AllFeedback
7 positive feedback, 148 listings 3/2/2008
Member since Oct-30-07 in California, United States
www.google.com/search?q=sdc_prod_305839_99 [Google archive, use cache link]
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:13lDN7y4IHAJ:cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll%3FViewItem%26item%3D220206840342%26ih%3D012%26category%3D31513%26ssPageName%3DWDVW%26rd%3D1+sdc_prod_305839_99
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:MVdOb-vVDPoJ:cgi.ebay.com/Aspire-1301XV-Laptop-Battery-9-6V-Ni-MH-4000mAh_W0QQitemZ220206826809QQihZ012QQcategoryZ50390QQcmdZViewItem+sdc_prod_305839_99
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:9hMQHjW-HvgJ:cgi.ebay.com/Aspire-1307LC-Laptop-Battery-9-6V-Ni-MH-4000mAh_W0QQitemZ220206826435QQihZ012QQcategoryZ50390QQcmdZViewItem+sdc_prod_305839_99

sdc_prod_310426
aka ANTOnline (21,798 listings 2/29/2008)
http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=sdc_prod_310426&ftab=AllFeedback
0 positive feedback, 0 listings 3/2/2008, Not a registered user
Member since Feb-15-08 in Georgia, United States
www.google.com/search?q=sdc_prod_310426 [Google archive, use cache link]
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:nPDK_hOHHnYJ:cgi.ebay.com/Revlon-MoistureStay-Fast-Heat-Paraffin-Bath-RSV1212_W0QQitemZ120227712889QQihZ002QQcategoryZ33163QQcmdZViewItem+sdc_prod_310426
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:h1d5zecY9ugJ:ebay.auction.co.kr/detail.html%3FitemNo%3D120225811907%26FeedBackPercent%3D0+sdc_prod_310426
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ko&u=http://ebay.auction.co.kr/detail.html%3FitemNo%3D120225811907%26FeedBackPercent%3D0&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=6&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dsdc_prod_310426%26start%3D30%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26sa%3DN
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:VjhJfZtF7sAJ:ebay.auction.co.kr/detail.html%3FitemNo%3D120225360950%26FeedBackPercent%3D0+sdc_prod_310426
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ko&u=http://ebay.auction.co.kr/detail.html%3FitemNo%3D120224895939%26FeedBackPercent%3D0&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=9&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dsdc_prod_310426%26start%3D30%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26sa%3DN
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:-gm9kAaw7xoJ:ebay.auction.co.kr/detail.html%3FitemNo%3D120224930838%26FeedBackPercent%3D0+sdc_prod_310426
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ko&u=http://ebay.auction.co.kr/detail.html%3FitemNo%3D120224930838%26FeedBackPercent%3D0&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=2&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dsdc_prod_310426%26start%3D70%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26sa%3DN

sdc_prod_409455_97
aka Sababa Shopping
http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=sdc_prod_409455_97&ftab=AllFeedback
104 positive feedback, 0 listings 3/2/2008
Member since Jul-16-07 in New York, United States
www.google.com/search?q=sdc_prod_409455_97 [Google archive, use cache link]
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:wdbbmSkSv5YJ:cgi.ebay.com/Joe-Frazier-Signed-Everlast-Boxing-Shoe_W0QQitemZ310025760330QQihZ021QQcategoryZ27272QQcmdZViewItem+sdc_prod_409455_97
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:RS6-QlnYA2sJ:cgi.ebay.com/Streamlight-Jr-Luxeon-LED-Light_W0QQitemZ310025774047QQihZ021QQcategoryZ106987QQcmdZViewItem+sdc_prod_409455_97

sdc_prod_434012
aka SpectrumSuperStore (35,002 listings 2/29/2008)
http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=sdc_prod_434012&ftab=AllFeedback
0 positive feedback, 0 listings 3/2/2008
Member since Apr-11-07 in California, United States
www.google.com/search?q=sdc_prod_434012 [Google archive, use cache link]
http://www.companyexposed.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/ebaycom-seller-list-sdc_prod_434012.png
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:xMl5SZU-ESsJ:cgi.ebay.com/Hybrid-Series-76-Key-Keyboard-Case-EA-BGHB-76_W0QQitemZ320222873077QQihZ011QQcategoryZ85858QQcmdZViewItem+sdc_prod_434012
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:XcX-QQRk69EJ:cgi.ebay.com/WB700-ALUMINUM-WORK-BENCH-1_W0QQitemZ320222203965QQihZ011QQcategoryZ67719QQcmdZViewItem+sdc_prod_434012
Sconce each 5115-2W - eBay (item 320220857443 end time Mar-23-08 ...
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:ie1RFfPfftoJ:cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll%3FViewItem%26item%3D320199419130%26ih%3D011%26category%3D41424%26ssPageName%3DWDVW%26rd%3D1+sdc_prod_434012

sdc_prod_442675_57
aka Boyne & Kelly L.L.C. (4,702 listings 2/29/2008)
http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=sdc_prod_442675_57&ftab=AllFeedback
0 positive feedback, 0 listings 3/2/2008
Member since Oct-25-07 in New Jersey, United States
www.google.com/search?q=sdc_prod_442675_57 [Google archive, use cache link]
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:eJS01HGdc2MJ:cgi.ebay.com/7-Wonders-of-Ancient-World-PSP_W0QQitemZ120214123226QQihZ002QQcategoryZ378QQcmdZViewItem+sdc_prod_442675_57
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:W2o81DDL3EEJ:cgi.ebay.com/Luxury-Paraffin-Bath_W0QQitemZ120227861327QQihZ002QQcategoryZ33163QQcmdZViewItem+sdc_prod_442675_57
http://ebay.auction.co.kr/detail.html?itemNo=120227877849&FeedBackPercent=0
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ko&u=http://ebay.auction.co.kr/detail.html%3FitemNo%3D120227877849%26FeedBackPercent%3D0&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=2&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dsdc_prod_442675_57%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:RdTfjWou1rQJ:cgi.ebay.com/Widepath-Tempo-Upright_W0QQitemZ120213667347QQcmdZViewItem%3Fhash%3Ditem120213667347+sdc_prod_442675_57
Widepath Tempo Upright - eBay (item 120213667347 end time Mar-21 ...
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:RdTfjWou1rQJ:cgi.ebay.com/Widepath-Tempo-Upright_W0QQitemZ120213667347QQcmdZViewItem%3Fhash%3Ditem120213667347+sdc_prod_442675_57
1GB 1066MHZ DIMM DDR3 - eBay (item 120224872850 end time Mar-21-08 ...
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:3hWj_pz6kVQJ:cgi.ebay.com/1GB-1066MHZ-DIMM-DDR3_W0QQitemZ120224872850QQihZ002QQcategoryZ111425QQcmdZViewItem+sdc_prod_442675_57
2GB KIT 1333MHZ DDR3 - eBay (item 120226065068 end time Mar-24-08 ...
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:k-5_eMw0X4kJ:cgi.ebay.com/2GB-KIT-1333MHZ-DDR3_W0QQitemZ120226065068QQihZ002QQcategoryZ111425QQcmdZViewItem+sdc_prod_442675_57

sdc_prod_9021_2
aka Buy.com (12,233 listings 2/29/2008)
http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=sdc_prod_9021_2&ftab=AllFeedback
0 positive feedback, 0 listings 3/2/2008, Not a registered user
Member since Feb-22-08 in California, United States
www.google.com/search?q=sdc_prod_9021_2 [Google archive, use cache link]
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:QAXuEnq4G4wJ:cgi.ebay.com/Spalding-79465-NBA-54-Inch-Basketball-Backboard-and-R_W0QQitemZ110228789630QQihZ001QQcategoryZ21196QQcmdZViewItem+sdc_prod_9021_2
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:Yd2XfmHiLA8J:cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll%3FViewItem%26item%3D110228791004%26ih%3D001%26category%3D306%26ssPageName%3DWDVW%26rd%3D1+sdc_prod_9021_2
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:5MkhNRgk0uYJ:ebay.auction.co.kr/detail.html%3FitemNo%3D110228785954%26FeedBackPercent%3D0+sdc_prod_9021_2
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ko&u=http://ebay.auction.co.kr/detail.html%3FitemNo%3D110228785954%26FeedBackPercent%3D0&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=10&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dsdc_prod_9021_2%26start%3D20%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26sa%3DN
http://ebay.auction.co.kr/detail.html?itemNo=110228785954&FeedBackPercent=0

sdc_prod_9055
aka Focus Camera (1,925 listings 2/29/2008)
http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=sdc_prod_9055&ftab=AllFeedback
235 positive feedback, 0 listings 3/2/2008
Member since Oct-30-07 in New York, United States
www.google.com/search?q=sdc_prod_9055 [Google archive, use cache link]
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:vL_bdzKpE-wJ:cgi.ebay.com/Canon-Printer-Ink-Canon-PGI-9-Yellow-Ink-Tank_W0QQitemZ220206475064QQihZ012QQcategoryZ51292QQcmdZViewItem+sdc_prod_9055
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:OK3sbJCL5p0J:cgi.ebay.com/Canon-Printer-Ink-Canon-PGI-9-10-Color-Pack_W0QQitemZ220206475061QQihZ012QQcategoryZ51292QQcmdZViewItem+sdc_prod_9055
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:Xkp36kduKuAJ:cgi.ebay.com/Kenwood-Alpine-in-Dah-CD-MP3-WAV-CD-IPOD-USB_W0QQitemZ220206476932QQihZ012QQcategoryZ307QQcmdZViewItem+sdc_prod_9055

sdc_prod_9074_35
aka pcRUSH.com (21,401 listings 2/29/2008)
http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=sdc_prod_9074_35&ftab=AllFeedback
0 positive feedback, 0 listings 3/2/2008, Not a registered user
Member since Feb-28-08 in California, United States
www.google.com/search?q=sdc_prod_9074_35 [Google archive, use cache link]
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:egtfB3spkuwJ:search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZsdc_prod_9074_35+sdc_prod_9074_35
http://www.suspendedfromebay.com/postings-archive/sdc_prod_9074_35-1.jpg
http://www.suspendedfromebay.com/postings-archive/sdc_prod_9074_35-5.jpg
Canon 3708A005AA - eBay (item 120227783548 end time Mar-29-08 :39:34 PDT)
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:t83ZZsaKUBoJ:cgi.ebay.com/Canon-3708A005AA_W0QQitemZ120227783548QQihZ002QQcategoryZ61673QQcmdZViewItem+sdc_prod_9074_35
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:4VE7CCkI4fMJ:ebay.auction.co.kr/detail.html%3FitemNo%3D120227765257%26FeedBackPercent%3D0+sdc_prod_9074_35
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ko&u=http://ebay.auction.co.kr/detail.html%3FitemNo%3D120227765257%26FeedBackPercent%3D0&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=10&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dsdc_prod_9074_35%26start%3D10%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26sa%3DN
http://ebay.auction.co.kr/detail.html?itemNo=120227765257&FeedBackPercent=0

sdc_prod_9090
aka CompSource Inc. (32,601 listings 2/29/2008)
http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=sdc_prod_9090&ftab=AllFeedback
206 positive feedback, 0 listings 3/2/2008
Member since Mar-26-07 in Ohio, United States
www.google.com/search?q=sdc_prod_9090 [Google archive, use cache link]
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:FxeShIuGsq4J:ebay.auction.co.kr/List.html%3FUserId%3Dsdc_prod_9090+sdc_prod_9090
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:6UblAGIUYPwJ:ebay.auction.co.kr/detail.html%3FitemNo%3D370027703589%26FeedBackPercent%3D93.2+sdc_prod_9090
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ko&u=http://ebay.auction.co.kr/detail.html%3FitemNo%3D370027703589%26FeedBackPercent%3D93.2&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=9&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dsdc_prod_9090%26start%3D10%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26sa%3DN
HON Mentor Series Single Pedestal Desk - Rectangle - - eBay (item 370016020192
end time Mar-21-08 23:28:22 PDT)
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:eENzLiVfg80J:cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll%3FViewItem%26item%3D370016020192%26ih%3D024%26category%3D11832%26ssPageName%3DWDVW%26rd%3D1+sdc_prod_9090

sdc_prod_9124_14
akaTheNerds, Inc. (48,392 listings 2/29/2008)
http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=sdc_prod_9124_14&ftab=AllFeedback
259 positive feedback, 0 listings 3/2/2008
Member since Dec-12-07 in Florida, United States
www.google.com/search?q=sdc_prod_9124_14 [Google archive, use cache link]
INDEX,LTR,#376-400,25,WE - eBay (item 120213499957 end time Mar-21-08 09:18:05 PDT
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:7uI-xsGbWrcJ:cgi.ebay.com/INDEX-LTR-376-400-25-WE_W0QQitemZ120213499957QQihZ002QQcategoryZ4203QQcmdZViewItem+sdc_prod_9124_14
NOTEBOOK,5SUBCLG,11X9,AST - eBay (item 120213501400 end time Mar-21-08 09:19:12 PDT)
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:L-FmypDv-oAJ:cgi.ebay.com/NOTEBOOK-5SUBCLG-11X9-AST_W0QQitemZ120213501400QQihZ002QQcategoryZ60271QQcmdZViewItem+sdc_prod_9124_14
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:ZzyC1hqSDe0J:ebay.auction.co.kr/detail.html%3FitemNo%3D120213540500%26FeedBackPercent%3D97.7+sdc_prod_9124_14
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ko&u=http://ebay.auction.co.kr/detail.html%3FitemNo%3D120213540500%26FeedBackPercent%3D97.7&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=8&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dsdc_prod_9124_14%26start%3D60%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26sa%3DN
http://ebay.auction.co.kr/detail.html?itemNo=120213540500&FeedBackPercent=97.7

sdc_prod_9352_67
aka Digital Foto Club (30,278 listings 2/29/2008)
http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=sdc_prod_9352_67&ftab=AllFeedback
922 positive feedback, 0 listings 3/2/2008
Member since May-28-07 in New York, United States
www.google.com/search?q=sdc_prod_9352_67 [Google archive, use cache link]
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:9TJtexR6ptsJ:ebay.auction.co.kr/detail.html%3FitemNo%3D270214141173%26FeedBackPercent%3D98.7+sdc_prod_9352_67
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ko&u=http://ebay.auction.co.kr/detail.html%3FitemNo%3D270214141173%26FeedBackPercent%3D98.7&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=8&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dsdc_prod_9352_67%2Bitems%2Bfor%26start%3D20%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26sa%3DN
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:xtXD8nksrckJ:cgi.ebay.com/Crosley-ST73-CH-Richmond-Entertainment-Center-Stereo_W0QQitemZ270214141288QQihZ017QQcategoryZ20488QQcmdZViewItem+sdc_prod_9352_67
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:rs5hKtPhMu8J:cgi.ebay.com/Canon-Printer-Ink-Canon-PGI-9-Red-Ink-Tank_W0QQitemZ270214133563QQihZ017QQcategoryZ51292QQcmdZViewItem+sdc_prod_9352_67
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:9x61N_X0Qf0J:ebay.auction.co.kr/detail.html%3FitemNo%3D270214140109%26FeedBackPercent%3D98.7+sdc_prod_9352_67
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ko&u=http://ebay.auction.co.kr/detail.html%3FitemNo%3D270214140109%26FeedBackPercent%3D98.7&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=2&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dsdc_prod_9352_67%2B%26start%3D490%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26sa%3DN

sdc_prod_9391_43
aka Adorama (11,102 listings 2/29/2008)
http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=sdc_prod_9391_43&ftab=AllFeedback
0 positive feedback, 0 listings 3/2/2008, Not a registered user
Member since Feb-22-08 in New York, United States
www.google.com/search?q=sdc_prod_9391_43 [Google archive, use cache links]
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:4OzbhDP_92QJ:search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZsdc_prod_9391_43+sdc_prod_9391_43+%22items+for+sale
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:VU7vSCdRVFQJ:cgi.ebay.com/CTA-Digital-Grand-Scale-iPod-Home-Theater-Speaker-Sy_W0QQitemZ110227893470QQihZ001QQcategoryZ1499QQcmdZViewItem+sdc_prod_9391_43
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:WghAkj7ZI3cJ:cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll%3FViewItem%26item%3D110227905896%26ih%3D001%26category%3D111650%26rd%3D1%26ssPageName%3Dmem_guide:5+sdc_prod_9391_43
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:BgHMQo9x8vAJ:ebay.auction.co.kr/detail.html%3FitemNo%3D110227897474%26FeedBackPercent%3D0+sdc_prod_9391_43
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ko&u=http://ebay.auction.co.kr/detail.html%3FitemNo%3D110227897474%26FeedBackPercent%3D0&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=8&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dsdc_prod_9391_43%26start%3D20%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26sa%3DN

sdc_prod_9452
aka eTronics, Inc. (24,499 listings 2/29/2008)
http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=sdc_prod_9452&ftab=AllFeedback
78 positive feedback, 0 listings 3/2/2008
Member since Jul-25-07 in New York, United States
www.google.com/search?q=sdc_prod_9452 [Google archive, use cache links]
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:PLDjjwBGjLoJ:cgi.ebay.com/Vicks-V965-Comfort-Flex-Digital-Thermometer_W0QQitemZ150220736330QQihZ005QQcategoryZ117026QQcmdZViewItem+sdc_prod_9452
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:0ibMKyEJt9QJ:cgi.ebay.com/Kicker-06ZX7501-750-Watt-Mono-Amplifier_W0QQitemZ150220613724QQcmdZViewItem%3Fhash%3Ditem150220613724+sdc_prod_9452
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:cuW0f2sePQAJ:cgi.ebay.com/Back-to-Basics-SE2000B-Smoothie-Elite-Smoothie-Maker_W0QQitemZ150219799501QQihZ005QQcategoryZ20668QQcmdZViewItem+sdc_prod_9452

//
// Complaint about the accuracy of the data in this article - 1 March 2008
//

http://forums.ebay.com/search.jspa?q=&objID=f21&dateRange=all&userID=sellitallonline

From eBay Seller Central Forum
SIGN THE PLEDGE _ NO SALES FEB 18-25!
http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=1000636290&start=10040

sellitallonline (2278) View Listings | Report Mar-01-08 10:23 PST 23114 of 23164
I don't know what is going on....maybe eBay is innocent.

http://eventhorizon1984.typepad.com/event_horizon_1984_blog/2008/02/from-ebay-sel-1.html

sellitallonline (2278) View Listings | Report Mar-01-08 11:53 PST 23126 of 23164
broadview1313

I don't need permission to print a link. In regard to the information on that link. Well, it is not me and if the information is correct or incorrect that would be up to eBay to decide and for them to take action against or toward the person posting on that website. If it is incorrect then I hope eBay does go after that person. I was giving a link hopefully shed some light on eBays innocents. Merry Christmas

//
// The right to publish this type of report - U.S. Supreme Court - 1988
//

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=485&page=47

1988, CHIEF JUSTICE REHNQUIST:

At the heart of the First Amendment is the recognition of the fundamental importance of the free flow of ideas and opinions on matters of public interest and concern. "[T]he [485 U.S. 46, 51] freedom to speak one's mind is not only an aspect of individual liberty - and thus a good unto itself - but also is essential to the common quest for truth and the vitality of society as a whole." Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc., 466 U.S. 485, 503 -504 (1984). We have therefore been particularly vigilant to ensure that individual expressions of ideas remain free from governmentally imposed sanctions. The First Amendment recognizes no such thing as a "false" idea. Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 339 (1974). As Justice Holmes wrote, "when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas - that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market . . . ." Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616, 630 (1919) (dissenting opinion).

The sort of robust political debate encouraged by the First Amendment is bound to produce speech that is critical of those who hold public office or those public figures who are "intimately involved in the resolution of important public questions or, by reason of their fame, shape events in areas of concern to society at large." Associated Press v. Walker, decided with Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U.S. 130, 164 (1967) (Warren, C. J., concurring in result). Justice Frankfurter put it succinctly in Baumgartner v. United States, 322 U.S. 665, 673 -674 (1944), when he said that "[o]ne of the prerogatives of American citizenship is the right to criticize public men and measures." Such criticism, inevitably, will not always be reasoned or moderate; public figures as well as public officials will be subject to "vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks," New York Times, supra, at 270. "[T]he candidate who vaunts his spotless record and sterling integrity cannot convincingly cry `Foul!' when an opponent or an industrious reporter attempts [485 U.S. 46, 52] to demonstrate the contrary." Monitor Patriot Co. v. Roy, 401 U.S. 265, 274 (1971).

//
//
//

Technorati Profile

Event Horizon 1984 Blog Log

Event Horizon 1984
eCRATER EventHorizon1984
eBay World_Securities

Internet Merchants Association - Deutsche Bank - Transcript from Wall Street Analysit & IMA President/VP Interview

http://imamerchant.org/blog/54/

Transcript from Wall Street Analyst & IMA President/VP Interview

The following is the transcript with IMA President Steve Grossberg & Vice President Ben Mandrall with Wall Street Analyst Jeentil Patel. The following interview was held February 6, 2008.

http://imamerchant.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/deutschebankpatel020608.pdf

DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 1

DEUTSCHE BANK

Moderator: Jeetil Patel

February 6, 2008

12:00 pm CT

Operator: Good afternoon. My name is (Carmen) and I will be your conference operator today. At this time I would like to welcome everyone to the Impact of eBay Recent Changes and Perspectives on the Internet Merchants Association Conference Call.

All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker’s remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star and the number 1 on your telephone keypad.

If you would like to withdraw your question, press the pound key. Thank you Mr. Patel, you may begin your conference.

Jeetil Patel: Yes, thanks (Carmen). Welcome everyone. Thanks for joining us on this call. I’m Jeetil Patel, analyst here at Deutsche Bank Securities to dive a little deeper into the eBay changes that were recently announced about a week ago as well as just some overall themes related to eBay. As well as just overall channels in management and kind of e-commerce strategies as a broad perspective as well. DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 2

I’m actually joined by a couple folks here from the Internet Merchants Association. For those of you that may not be familiar with the IMA, they have approximately 200 members that focus primarily on e-commerce on their Web site, on eBay, through Google as well as Amazon out there. And I think it’s going to be important to here what some of these folks have to say about some of the changes and other issues around the eBay market place.

Joining me are Steve Grossberg, President of the IMA and they’re pretty large seller on eBay alone also; as well as Ben Mandell, Vice-President of the IMA. And Ben, I think you’ve had quite an extensive experience selling on eBay and, you know, still do. So I think it’s going to be great to hear both of your perspectives on different issues as related to the company.

We’re going to go about 30 to 40 minutes on the overall presentation and open up to Q&A. If you guys – if anyone on the line has a question and would like to email it, you can email it to me at jeetil.patel@db.com or just simply queue up and we’ll be – I think we’ll take questions at the end here.

But we’re going to break it down in a couple of key segments here. I guess to kick it off we’re going to focus on the seller conference that was there last week out on the East Coast. And Steve – and then I believe you both were in attendance.

First of all welcome. I guess, you know, is there, you know, I guess – can you talk about first of all, the overall feedback and perspective of sellers? How do they feel about the conference in general and the take-aways? And then we’ll get into a little bit more deeper – just deeper issues as we move ahead. DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 3

Steve Grossberg: Yes. Hi, this is Steve Grossberg from IMA. Want to thank Jeetil for having us on the call and we’re pleased to go into this. I just wanted to start off by telling the listeners they can visit our Web site at imamerchant.org. And in a few weeks from now we are hosting our annual e-commerce conference and there’s going to be a host of eBay management in attendance there. As well as folks from Google and Amazon and a host of other e-commerce companies. And (Stephanie Poleneus) who is the new Senior VP over at eBay North America will be delivering the key note speech. So it should be quite interesting.

As far as the changes; as you know, there has been many changes introduced by eBay last week. Specifically fees and feedback are – appears to be the big one. And we can go into talking about the fees a little bit.

We had some concern because eBay’s had – eBay has had issues for years. And eBay’s take rate seems to be quite high in many areas and that has caused these issues. And I believe eBay is acknowledging they’ve had issues and problems; hence, this why they came out with these radical and drastic changes last week.

However, with that said, we truly believe that while we applaud eBay for making these changes and acknowledging that they have issues on the site that need to be addressed – and this is the first time I believe that eBay has ever really done anything about it – we also believe that they are misinterpreting their own data. And that these changes will not be successful.

Jeetil Patel: Steve, I mean, we ran some numbers ourselves here relating to just the different pricing bands, you know, final value fees and listing fees. But, you know, I guess of the end IMA or broadly the folks in attendance I guess, can you talk about, you know, how – what percentage of sellers do you think are DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 4

seeing an increase in fees as a result of this, decrease in fees and also no change in fees, you know, as you looked at, you know, as you’ve spoken to IMA members or folks in attendance out at the conference.

Steve Grossberg: Okay, well the best we could tell it appears about 1/3 of our members are going to see a fee increase. A third of our members will see a fee decrease and the balance – about 24% - will be revenue neutral.

Okay, so really this was not a – when you look at the fees there was not a radical change that - and the stimulus that eBay needed to get this site back on track. We believe they needed to have a sweeping and broad fee decrease across the board and all they did was reshuffle fees. Okay, it’s like shuffling the cards and they come out differently but at the end it’s the same 52 cards. And that’s not going to solve their problems here.

Ben Mandell: And the other thing too, from our point of view is they have rewarded sellers that weren’t doing such a good job as far as sell-through with this fee structure. And the ones that actually had 100% sell-through or close to 100% sell-through, those are the ones that are really getting a major price increase.

Jeetil Patel: Do you think it’s specific to a cat – different categories or do you think it’s specific to different ASP bands? If you look at that 1/3 increasing, 1/3 decreasing and, you know, 24% revenue…

Ben Mandell: Well you have to remember that most sells on eBay are in the $40 to $42 range. So anything that they change in other category does not have a material effect because most of the sales are in that $40 to $42 range.

Steve Grossberg: Yes, and under. DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 5

Ben Mandell: And under. That’s correct. So what happens is well, sure, if I sell a $100 item and you give me a discount off of an already inflated price that I can’t make money on to start with, it really doesn’t do me any good to have the discount at the $100 range. And that’s what they’ve done here.

Steve Grossberg: If I may add onto that Jeetil, because we’ve dissected the numbers as well here. And when we’re talking about percent of sellers, we don’t really want to focus in on that area. We want to focus in on percent of transactions. Okay? Percent of GMV.

Jeetil Patel: Yes.

Steve Grossberg: The transactional volume in sellers being engaged, I think here, is the more important measurement to look at. So when you look at who got fee release, they are making up a much less percentage of the total eBay transactions. eBay has hit most of the high transaction volume sellers with a fee increase which in our minds mean buyers will become less engaged in the site because seller are going to have no choice but to pull back.

Ben Mandell: I think that’s a fair statement.

Jeetil Patel: So, I mean, if you – just to go back to that quick point. But if you look at the percentage of volume, how would you break up the 1/3, 1/3, 24 against the volume base?

Ben Mandell: Well based on what we…

Jeetil Patel: …a majority that are seeing a price increase at that point? DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 6

Ben Mandell: Let’s just to specialize…Guys, there’s some specialized sellers that are on eBay in the high volume category that did see a fee decrease. And those sellers are folks that were using the Gallery option which up to this point has been 35 cents.

Jeetil Patel: Yes,

Ben Mandell: All right and there’s a large shoe seller that had to use the Gallery item – or Gallery option because he sells shoes. Well in his particular case, he sells a lot of shoes and does thousands of listings a day. He’s going to save 35 cents on each listing that he puts up there each day. So if he’s got 1,000 listings, you can see how the numbers start to add up.

Jeetil Patel: Yes.

Ben Mandell: But he’s the exception to the rule in the high volume category. Most of the high volume folks didn’t use the Gallery because the Gallery costs 35 cents. And you could basically could list something else for either 40 cents or 60 cents and they – the high volume folks said, “Well, I’d rather have another listing for 40 or 60 cents than put 35 cents as an extra fee on a listing that I already have.”

Steve Grossberg: And what it comes down to Jeetil, if you look at it and you look at the guys who did the high transaction volume - such as books, music, video, video games and also the guys who are doing the true 99 cent reserve model – those guys got hit with a wicked fee increase. These are the guys that are bringing the buyers to engage on eBay on a daily and weekly basis.

Okay, now if you look at, for instance, a $15 or $14 ASP item. Somebody who had a 17% sell-through only who was not doing a great job got hit with a DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 7

4.3% increase - and the reason why I said that is those sellers are not using Gallery cause when they had a 16.7% increase Gallery on the old system would’ve cost them about 15% of GMV just to put a photo up of their add

Jeetil Patel: Yes.

Steve Grossberg: They couldn’t afford it, they couldn’t sell the item on the site. eBay wants to come back and say, “Gallery is free.” Gallery is not free. They hit the sellers in this category in the back end with that huge whopping fee increase in the back end of their fees.

Ben Mandell: In effect, what they’re doing is forcing everybody to pay for Gallery now. That’s what they’re…

Steve Grossberg: You know, right now lower tier – which is bringing in the high transaction volume. So now, if we look at the same $14 ASP item where the seller had a – remember it was a 4.3% increase if he had a 17% sell-through…

Jeetil Patel: Yes.

Steve Grossberg: If you double that sell through to 33%, he got hit with a 13.4% increase.

Jeetil Patel: So it’s actually affecting the better sellers, the larger volume sellers. I mean, basically the power sellers more so than the marginal seller that’s there for…

Ben Mandell: Absolutely.

Steve Grossberg: And the seller who’s bringing buyers to engage in the site, that has a better sell-through ratio. If they had a 50% sell-through, they’re getting hit with a 20% fee increase. All that’s going to do is push these people on to other sites DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 8

– mainly Amazon. And eBay already drove the good sellers to Amazon two years ago. Hence, Amazon is experiencing hyper growth in those categories.

Jeetil Patel: So basically you have a slew of high volume sellers that are seeing increases where all the volume is and you figure that’s where buyers are interacting, right? You have massive purchase frequency. If I read a book , I’m done within a week or a month and I’m coming back for more.

Well, if you’re now conceding this category or wiling to raise rates and drive that business out of eBay, then you’re going to lose just going to by retention the ability to bring them back constantly every month or every quarter to transact more frequently.

Steve Grossberg: Exactly. And, I mean, I don’t think this is rocket science and I, you know, we certainly don’t need a whole lot of schooling to figure this out. Look at some of the best and brightest retailers such as Best Buy and Wal-Mart.

Jeetil Patel: Yes.

Steve Grossberg: Every Tuesday new DVDs come out. These guys advertise them, they sell them out at a low cost. Why? To get consumers engaged in coming in their store on a weekly basis. Okay, because those consumers engage and buy other items in the store. Okay, what eBay is doing is driving buyers away to engage in other sites.

Ben Mandell: And we haven’t been able to have DVDs – new release DVDs – sold on eBay in years because it just costs too much to sell them. There’s not enough marked up in them to pay the eBay fees. DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 9

Steve Grossberg: So we don’t understand why eBay wouldn’t drastically lower fees in these type of categories to get buyers to engage more instead of doing the complete opposite. And that’s why we feel that they are misinterpreting their own data here. Because that would be the right thing to do. Because where does the new buying experience happen on eBay?

Well they’re certainly not coming on eBay and buying $2,500 flat panel TVs in their first buying experience. They’re usually going to start on a lower ASP item, those items didn’t have Gallery. They are forcing that transaction volume off of eBay and scaring away the buyers more.

Ben Mandell: And think about this. If you walked into a large store and all of a sudden a lot of your merchandise that used to be there is no longer there. And now you’ve got to go somewhere else to get it.

Jeetil Patel: Yes.

Ben Mandell: It’s a pretty good chance that you’re going to go to the one place that has all of it instead of making two trips or three trips.

Jeetil Patel: So basically the Trojan Horse – which is the low ASP, high volume categories at eBay – they’re basically raising rates to drive it out.

Steve Grossberg: Yes, and let’s touch on the 99 cent no reserve guys.

Jeetil Patel: Yes.

Steve Grossberg: Because these are also a lot of eBay as well… DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 10

Jeetil Patel: I think before you get into that, I mean, I know – I understand the dynamics of the 99 cent no reserve model and what’s been happening. But I guess, can you talk about, you know, what – as you describe it can you just give us a sense of what it looked like maybe three to four years ago when, you know, 99 cent no reserve really worked effectively and seems to have lost its legs, you know, each and every year? But I guess, as you jump into that in more detail can you describe what’s been happening, you know, over the last couple years in that…

Ben Mandell: I can talk about that a little bit. Okay. It use to be on eBay in the late ‘90s early 2000s you could put an item up for 99 cents and it would close at a price that was the value of it. And that’s what eBay really wanted you to do. Start the auctions at 99 cents, let them roll and they’d close at a market value. That’s back when people really bid on the site.

And that business has been declining as people get wise as to how to actually shop on eBay and snipe and not get into bidding wars and things like that. But there are a few of those guys that have still been around that have done a wonderful job.

One of them is a large seller that sells CDs on – 1 cent CDs on eBay. And he’s got a following and he puts up 1,000 listings a day and there are a bunch of CDs and he starts them all at a penny basically. And lets them roll and that’s just his business model and he’s been quite successful with it.

And there’s another - one that’s in our group that sells movie posters and he starts everything at 99 cents and lets it roll and some of these movie posters sell for – depending on how rare they are – sell for $200 or $300. DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 11

So those are the guys that we actually talk to at the conference and those particular guys are going – one of them has said he’s forced off of eBay at this point. The other guy has indicated that his fees are going up to the point where now eBay is making a lot more in fees that he makes.

Steve Grossberg: And let’s frame this a little bit more, Ben. And the fact that these 99 cent no reserve sellers – and I did some quick numbers – if it’s a guy who didn’t use Gallery - because most of them don’t – because they’re working on ultra thin margins. Hence, that’s why they were able to survive with this 99 cent no reserve model because a bunch of their stuff they’re selling they actually lose money on. Okay, but they’re getting customers to engage in eBay on a daily basis because they’re looking for bargains and scouring the site, you know, for bargains. And I think everybody understands that analogy there.

Anyway, these guys got hit – if they sold – if they’re selling $100 ASP items – they’re getting hit with a 23% increase. If they’re selling $200 ASP items – which we have sellers who do that – used PDAs and Blackberrys and the like – they’re getting hit with a 18% fee increase.

Okay, we are estimating – this is coming out to dollars per sale. Okay, when you look at the dollars per sale and these guys were listing anywhere from 3,000 to 10,000 items a week on the site, eBay just took away 25 to 50% of this merchant’s gross profit.

Okay, so they’re either going to force these guys to go off the site or – and that means less buyers engaging in the eBay site cause these people are bringing them buyers – or eBay becomes a much more seasonal business where they start focusing on other channels and stop selling on eBay 365 days a year like they used to. And just come back during the high season when the ASPs are a little bit higher, such as Christmas. DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 12

Jeetil Patel: So in the case of those folks that use the 99 cent or penny no reserve models, you know, what type of fee hike are you guys seeing or hearing from those individuals?

Ben Mandell: I’ve talked to a number of folks and their fees are going up by thousands of dollars a month. I mean, $3 to $6,000 a month is what I’m hearing. And the question that I ask on this is, “Are your – if your fees are going up $3 to $6,000 a month and that’s what you’re paying eBay, what are you getting for this?” And the answer was, “Absolutely nothing. I’m not getting higher ASPs, I’m not getting higher sell-throughs. I’m strictly paying eBay more fees.”

Jeetil Patel: But, I mean, switching subjects, but, I mean, the DSR should allow you to get a better fee discount. And I guess I’m curious…

Ben Mandell: Well, this is another – this is smoke and mirrors – this DSR discount. Because I asked – there were 200 top sellers, the 200 very top sellers at eBay were at that conference. And I asked the question in front of John Donahoe and the whole eBay executive team during the question-and-answer session – and I wanted to know how many of the 200 sellers in that room which are the top sellers – had DSRs of 4.8 or above on all four categories because that’s what it takes to get the discount. And ten of them raised their hand.

Steve Grossberg: And Jeetil, like Ben said, it’s smoke and mirrors and I – and as I said earlier in the call – you don’t want to focus on percent of sellers. eBay wants us to focus on percent of sellers, I want to focus on transaction volume. We’re estimating that 1 to 2% of the transactions conducted on eBay have this 4.8 DSR or better.

Jeetil Patel: Yes, and… DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 13

Steve Grossberg: The number of sellers is totally irrelevant and I would caution people not to focus on that number.

Jeetil Patel: And just, you know, describe DSR as detail seller rating. It’s made up of four key elements of the eBay kind of scoring model around sellers. And, you know, I guess can you guys talk about exactly what are…

Ben Mandell: All right, let’s talk – also, first of all it’s important to realize that the offer of the discount is 15% off of the listing fees only. It’s not all the other fees you pay on eBay. So first of all…

Jeetil Patel: Sorry Ben…

Steve Grossberg: …fees. It is that.

Jeetil Patel: I’m sorry.

Ben Mandell: Is it?

Steve Grossberg: Fifteen percent of the final value fees, not the listing fees.

Ben Mandell: Okay, 15% of the final value fees, not the listing fees. But it’s not any other optional services that you buy. It’s not your entire eBay fee bill. And that’s important to realize that, that translates into a discount on your total overall bill of somewhere around – we’re thinking – 6%.

Steve Grossberg: Well if you go back Jeetil, I had written a piece on this back in September ’07 and it’s on the IMA site on our blog. There’s a link to our blog and it’s called, DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 14

“Looking at eBay’s detailed seller ratings – I am concerned.” So I brought this to the forefront back in September.

Specifically, I talked about the shipping and handling DSRs and if I can dive into it for a second. At the time, I analyzed the top 100 sellers in eBay USA who were actively selling on the site. At that time, only – the average score of the top 100 sellers by transaction volume – okay, because that’s what concerns me is transaction volume – they scored a 4.1 on shipping and handling. Okay?

There was only 44% of them scored a 4.5 or better so that means 56% of the top 100 sellers are not going to be in the Power Seller program any longer – based on eBay’s new rule.

The third thing is only one of those top 100 sellers qualified for the 15% discount. Now it’s funny because if you look at 4.5 or better – eBay’s new power seller requirement – item as described 99% of the top 100 sellers are in there. Communication 93%, shipping time 81%. But shipping fee was 44%.

eBay should not even have shipping fee in there cause it’s the only one of the four DSRs that the buyer knows with 100% certainty what those costs are up front. It was clearly communicated and even John Donahoe’s coming out and saying, “Buyers have remorse after the fact about what they paid for shipping and handling.”

So I’m going to call it Big Brother or the government. You know, we all know that government doesn’t do things well, that de-regulated industries are the best industries.

Jeetil Patel: Yes. DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 15

Steve Grossberg: Well eBay cannot regulate it and they need to stay out of it. And by trying to regulate it – as we’ve seen in the past with any other government agency who tries to regulate things – they have a tendency on screwing things up.

Ben Mandell: Okay, and keep in mind also that according to eBay’s own data, shipping and handling is not the number one complaint on eBay.

Jeetil Patel: What is then?

Ben Mandell: The number one complaint on eBay is delivery time. And they focus nothing on delivery time whatsoever. And I can tell you, our members shine on delivery time.

Jeetil Patel: Yes. And so – but the biggest waiting is placed on shipping and handling charges which is…

Ben Mandell: Which is…

Jeetil Patel: No, no…

Ben Mandell: You cannot solve that. I mean, it’s one of those things – it’s like taxes. Nobody likes them but you can’t solve it.

Steve Grossberg: And it comes down to…

Jeetil Patel: Well you called it based on the fees that eBay charges its sellers.

Steve Grossberg: Well and that’s a huge part of it. But what it comes down to, what we’d like to see it replaced is would you buy from the seller again. DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 16

Jeetil Patel: Yes,

Steve Grossberg: Which would work better for sellers and it would work better for eBay. Why do you want to - why does eBay want to go market that 56% of their sellers – of their top sellers are not power sellers.

Plus let’s talk about the discounts they gave us for a minute. If – I’ll look at my personal numbers. If I was to try to get mine up to a 4.8, the bonus that eBay is offering me comes out to 19 cents per item. So as a business person, that tells me if I strive to earn eBay’s 4.8 and get a discount, I want to lower my shipping and handling somewhat less than the bonus they’re offering me. So let’s say I split it with them and I said I’m going to lower my shipping and handling a dime. That will have no effect on raising my DSRs and it will ultimately serve just to lose me money.

Jeetil Patel: Yep.

Steve Grossberg: So…

Ben Mandell: It also…

Steve Grossberg: …it tells me to look at their own economics. This is not enough of a carrot to incent sellers to strive to get there. And sellers need to look at their own economics and run their business the way they need to run their business. Again without interference or regulation.

Ben Mandell: And also you have to keep in mind that our sellers that give free shipping – which should translate to 05 only get a 4.7 on DSRs. DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 17

Jeetil Patel: That’s strange.

Ben Mandell: So even if they give the shipping for free, you’re still at 4.7 which is below the rate that it takes to get the discount.

Jeetil Patel: Sounds like that’s the wrong waiting that they have in the system. But, you know, I guess if you’re at about a 4. – I think you talked about a 4.4 on average – what do you think happens now as you go forward with this new DSR rating? And I guess one of the other big themes out of this was it seems like sellers cannot rate buyers but buyers can rate sellers.

Ben Mandell: And this is going to be a disaster.

Jeetil Patel: Okay.

Ben Mandell: Okay, you’re looking now at the point – what they’ve done is they are taking away the seller’s ability to leave negative feedback on a buyer. But buyers can leave negative feedback on sellers. And so there’s no repercussions at all for a buyer to do that. Even it he’s totally 100% satisfied he can write that he’s not satisfied and that’s the end of it.

And my prediction is that we’re going to end up with about a 20% negative feedback ratio on eBay. You’re going to see red ink, red ink everywhere.

Jeetil Patel: So you’re basically going to see an average of 4.4 go to at least 4 if not lower?

Ben Mandell: If not lower. And I think when people start to see all of these negatives start to come out of the woodwork – buyers especially – they’re going to be scared like you’ve never seen before. And right now they get upset over just 2% negative. And when this expands to 20% - and everybody’s going, “Why in DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 18

the world are you saying 20%? Where are you getting this from?” And where I’m getting this from is I’m looking at the CSI Index ratings for the largest chains in the country. And the best department store in the country, the best rating – and that comes from Kohl’s - …

Jeetil Patel: Yes.

Ben Mandell: They’ve got an 80% Customer Satisfaction Index. That means 20% of the people that go in there aren’t happy. And Costco, which we think is a phenomenal company, they have a 79 which means 21% are not happy.

Jeetil Patel: Yes.

Ben Mandell: All right. I don’t see how in the world eBay is going to do better than Costco or Kohl’s – on the CSI Index. It’s just not going to happen. But they’re trying to get there.

Jeetil Patel: And already it appears as though buyers are buying fewer items per buyer already. Or in the world of retail that would be referred to as comps for sales. But if the comps for sales are negative on eBay already and you’re going to start to see the feedback deteriorate further – let’s say 80% or less -…

Ben Mandell: Or less is right.

Jeetil Patel: Wouldn’t that actually put greater strain on the buyer’s interest or just overall ability or interest level in purchasing from eBay?

Ben Mandell: Absolutely. When you come in there you’ll see all these negatives as a buyer goes, I don’t want to deal with those guys. They got too many negatives. DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 19

Steve Grossberg: And if we look back for a minute and we go back to the beginning, what we’re saying is, it’s good that eBay has recognized that a change is needed and radical change is needed.

Jeetil Patel: Yes.

Steve Grossberg: But I think we’re pointing out here in our opinions, clearly they are misinterpreting the data and not making the right changes that are needed to fix the site. Our hope is now what appears that the management team that John has put in place is intent on fixing it.

And it seems a little less political even though all big companies are political in nature and were hoping – our hope is that they’re listening – which it appears they are – and are ready to make additional changes on a moment’s notice. And we sincerely, you know, hope – we’re cautiously optimistic that is the case because we are convinced that these are the wrong changes to make.

Jeetil Patel: Well certainly the question of would you buy from this seller again seems to be a very logical question to ask at the very least. And it’s almost like a very kind of consulting asked question of, you know, would you recommend this company to, you know, to your friends as a reference to purchase from.

Steve Grossberg: Absolutely.

Jeetil Patel: And, you know, the same idea I think speak volumes to, you know, a particular seller and the quality of that particular seller, you know, and the customer service.

Steve Grossberg: Right, I mean, let’s face it, those 20% who are rating Kohl’s negatively… DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 20

Jeetil Patel: Yes,

Steve Grossberg: I guarantee a large percentage of those people may come back in the store – for one reason or another. So really that says it all…

Ben Mandell: What if those 20% were out in front of Kohl’s picketing that they had a bad experience in Kohl’s? How would that effect Kohl’s business?

Jeetil Patel: Probably wouldn’t keep people there.

Ben Mandell: And that’s what happening with this system that eBay’s put together.

Jeetil Patel: So know lets – I’m going to switch a bit, the subject a bit more here. But, you know, non-paying bidder which kind of ties into kind of the buyer-seller feedback mechanism coupled with the buyer’s side equation in general.

But, you know, non-paying bidder – we’ve thought about it as a 7% hit, i.e. potentially 7% of all transactions don’t even get paid for from a payment standpoint despite the fact that sellers do get charged for it from a commission standpoint.

I think Steve, you had mentioned something on the order of 6% and I guess I wanted to elaborate on that in particular. I guess, can you describe, you know, what is – what do you think the non-paying bidder rate runs at today? And I guess, where, you know, what can you do to improve it or what can eBay do to improve it that you see in the business?

Steve Grossberg: Well… DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 21

Ben Mandell: There’s two rates there that he needs to cover and I’ll let him do it but I just want to say there’s the rate that eBay admits to and then there’s the other rate.

Steve Grossberg: The real rate.

Ben Mandell: The real rate.

Steve Grossberg: Okay, but eBay can only admit to what people report. Jeetil, first you have to understand their unpaid item process.

Jeetil Patel: Yes.

Steve Grossberg: Their unpaid item process works, we cannot report an item as unpaid until after minimum seven days. Okay, so at that point we have to start a process and file it on eBay and give the seller a chance to respond as to why they haven’t paid. So we have to wait until either A, they responded; or B, they did not respond which is another seven days after we filed the strike. And then we can close it out.

So we’re potentially tying up our inventory for 14 days here. Okay, waiting to see if that buyer is going to pay.

Jeetil Patel: Yes.

Ben Mandell: And that’s under best circumstances.

Steve Grossberg: Now we are looking at it as when the buyer won the auction or clicked the Buy It Now button which a tremendous amount of eBay’s volume is off of Buy It Now or fixed price, they indicated that day they were going to pay. DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 22

So now here it comes in a buyer – eBay claims they are going to remove the negative feedback if a buyer does not respond to the unpaid item strike – which again is smoke and mirrors. Because I can tell you that 99% of the buyers plus answer the unpaid items strike and the usual response you get is a little check box they check on eBay that says, “Buyer indicates they will pay for this item.”

Well as a seller, I immediately close out that strike and file it as a strike unpaid because 8 days ago or 14 days ago or whenever when they actually bought the item…

Jeetil Patel: Yes.

Steve Grossberg: …they indicated to me they were going to pay. And at this point either it’s paid or it’s not paid. The excuse – you know, and I might have some personal feelings but I’m running a business. So I keep my personal feelings aside that their kid’s leg got amputated and the million - litany of excuses that you hear from eBay buyers. So you just close it out.

But anyway, we’re equating it that this also – eBay does not have enough skin in the game here and we’re equating it to a $100 million plus that eBay is making off these non-paying bidders which is a tremendous amount of eBay gross profit are coming from the non-paying bidders.

Ben Mandell: Also I want to point out too, the way Steve is closing out his non-paying bidders is about the fastest way that you can close them out. I know when we were selling on eBay we didn’t them close them out nearly that fast. If they told us they were going to pay we basically gave them another seven days to pay – and did that. And a lot of them did and a lot of them didn’t. So… DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 23

Steve Grossberg What the problem with Ben’s way is it becomes a manual task.

Ben Mandell: That’s right.

Steve Grossberg: A highlight of sellers cannot do it that way. And you have to understand the process when a buyer responds to a non-paid item strike thing – console, if I was not to either A, close it out because it wasn’t paid; or B, close it out because it was paid, I would then have to monitor those manually. I cannot automate that with any software cause eBay will not allow us the third party providers to automate it with software. So then it will become a manual task where I would have to monitor tens of thousands of items I sell in a month which I’m not willing to do.

Ben Mandell: Yes, he’s absolutely correct. But that’s where…

Steve Grossberg: Either they’re paid or they’re not paid.

Jeetil Patel: So clearly there is an inventory carrying costs that you are having to absorb tying up the inventory – the opportunity costs of inventory as well. But, I mean, I guess when you take a step back and look at the selling commissions you pay eBay, what percentage of those selling commissions do you think are pay – you are paying them as a result of non-paying bidders?

Steve Grossberg: Okay, again commissions and final value fees, that is refundable on a non-paid item.

Jeetil Patel: Yes. DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 24

Steve Grossberg: The listing fees are not refundable and again, eBay likes to have smoke and mirrors and say, well the seller can relist the item and if it sells the second time around we’ll give them relisting fee credit.

Jeetil Patel: Yes.

Steve Grossberg: Well let’s look at this. Like when you look at my categories for instance. The average sell through rate – you know, you’re looking at about 30%. So in essence only 30% of the listing fees are going to be reimbursable – 70% are not. Because we know that 70% of these items or maybe less will not sell in the first time around.

Jeetil Patel: Right.

Steve Grossberg: So again it’s smoke and mirrors. eBay need to give us number one, 100% credit on all those non-paying bidders because they’re the ones who brought them to the site and didn’t verify them. We are at the point where we’re saying eBay needs to collect payments on behalf of sellers. Just like every other site in the Internet works.

Ben Mandell: But we believe they can actually save a significant amount of money and a significant amount of employees by actually collecting the payments themselves.

Jeetil Patel: Sounds like a dicey situation given the amount of revenue at stake here or the amount of business they’re collecting on those fees…

Steve Grossberg: Well on the same token, is money coming back to them Jeetil, because right now when you have – you get your eBay bill let’s say on the 31 of the month, DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 25

let’s look at January 31 – the seller will have until the end of the last day of the following month to pay that bill.

By eBay collecting payments on behalf of sellers they reduce that float, okay, and they’re getting their payment immediately.

Jeetil Patel: Yes.

Steve Grossberg: Okay, so there’s going to be a lot of money coming back to them. Also there will be a lot of money coming back because in our minds PayPal would be the payment and automatic credit card processor if a buyer wanted to use a credit card – PayPal will become the automatic payment processor for credit card. All of that non-paying bidder money will come back, it will eliminate all the non-paying bidders. Okay, it will eliminate the inventory tie-up to sellers and…

Ben Mandell: And it’s going to eliminate a great deal of trust and safety’s department.

Steve Grossberg: So when you look at eBay’s issues, the issues are the high seller fees – which we discussed. Okay, the trust in the market place is a huge issue both on the buyer and seller side. And the only way to get this trust issue under control we believe is to collect payments on behalf of sellers. That eliminates 99% of the trust factor problem.

Jeetil Patel: Yes. Now I know – I think they indicated a while ago that they were going to simplify the checkout process between eBay Buy button and the PayPal Buy button. But do you think it makes sense to go to one unified Buy button when you hit the Buy button on eBay? You all actually instantly hit the Buy button on PayPal and it clears the transaction, the cash is collected and it’s done. DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 26

Steve Grossberg: Absolutely, just like on Amazon. You’re registered on the site and you’re credit card information or your PayPal account, whatever you choose to use as your preferred method of payment is registered on the site. Then at that point you should give the buyer the option after they click the Buy button if they want to change their preferred payment method to an alternate. And allow them to have alternate methods associated with their eBay account.

Not a hard thing. Every other online retailer has done it.

Jeetil Patel: Yes.

Steve Grossberg: Okay, so…

Jeetil Patel: The key take away it seems like you’re not a layaway plan even though eBay wants you to be one.

Steve Grossberg: No I had a guy last week and he bought an item from me and I filed the UPI and this is a funny story, he said do you mind waiting until I get my tax return check? Okay, well I’m sorry, I can’t wait a month or two and put your item on layaway till you get your tax return check.

Jeetil Patel: Right.

Steve Grossberg: Why did you hit the Buy button? Another IMA member just posted, he used my philosophy on closing out these strikes early and not waiting. And he just said he reduced his tied up inventory – where a month ago he had $20,000 at the end of the month tied up – he reduced that down to $1,500.

But tied up money and unpaid items seems to be a good thing for eBay. DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 27

Jeetil Patel: Yes.

Steve Grossberg: Okay, it’s not a good thing for sellers and we have a unique community here where eBay has to win and flourish, sellers have to win and flourish and buyers have to win and flourish. And if there’s any combination of those three that don’t win and flourish it doesn’t work.

Jeetil Patel: Which leads me to my last set of questions. But I guess I’m just trying to do a bit of comparison here. But if you look at eBay first of all, do you think it’s a buyer or demand problem, a seller economic problem or a structural problem on eBay?

Ben Mandell: It’s a basic structural problem at this point. And that’s causing problems for both buyers and sellers.

Jeetil Patel: Do you think that now they’ve gotten feedback after their power seller event last week the company could lower fees or change fees again or change the feedback DSR system?

Ben Mandell: I’m just disappointed they didn’t get it right the first time. I mean, I talked with somebody the night before they announced this and he said, “What do you think?” I said, “Well I’ve got my fingers crossed but, you know, based on their past experience they have a habit of messing things up.” And, you know, they came up the next day and they made it worse than it was.

Jeetil Patel: Do you think they’d change it?

Ben Mandell: You know I don’t know if they know what to do? DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 28

Steve Grossberg: We don’t think that eBay knows, the effect that these – we’re convinced of that too. eBay themselves don’t know what type of effect this will have happen and are misinterpreting their data. Okay…

Ben Mandell: And they’ve continuously been misinterpreting their data for a long period of time.

Steve Grossberg: Now we’re cautiously optimistic that some changes. But I can tell you one thing. I did have some conversations with some eBay executives after the fees were announced on Tuesday night. I know they are going back and looking at the Media category and they are concerned and we could see some changes forthcoming.

But my question is, number one, why didn’t they contact us before and discuss this before – which they had but they didn’t go into great detail cause we could have helped them before. And number two, is I haven’t heard anything back from eBay in this regard, asking us our opinions directly – a direct call from eBay – on where they may have gone wrong and what they could have done better.

Jeetil Patel: What about the DSR front?

Steve Grossberg: The DSR front? I think somewhere they’re getting some bad data and they’re convinced that’s the way to go. I think that one they’re going to have to learn from their own mistakes when Ben’s scenario – which I agree with – will most likely play out because the CSI as you mentioned, the Consumer Satisfaction Index - which is done by the University of Michigan - that doesn’t lie. And the same economics will play out on eBay as play out in the rest of the world when in comes to retailing. DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 29

And, you know, like Ben says, it’s going to scare away buyers. So I think they’re going to have to learn the lesson the heard way there.

Ben Mandell: Yes, the way I looked at this is they made this tremendous feedback change based upon the negative experiences of less that 1% of the buyers on eBay. So for that miniscule amount that’s far less than 1%, they have now basically messed up the entire feedback system for everybody else.

Steve Grossberg: And, you know, going on with saying there eBay made it clear and John Donahoe and Lorrie Norrington did an interview in AuctionBytes. And Lorrie Norrington came out and said as long as sellers are accurately describing their item and they’re being very clear on what is being offered to the buyer that they will make sure the buyer and seller both have a vehicle to express satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the transaction in an accurate way.

So if the seller is accurately and clearly describing what they’re charging on shipping…

Jeetil Patel: Yes.

Steve Grossberg: …why should they be able to come back and ding you and later in that interview John Donahoe was quoted as saying, “One of the biggest problems effecting eBay is that the buyers after the fact, have buyer remorse and do not feel good about the shipping and handling.” So they’re contradicting one other’s statement there.

You can’t clearly describe what you’re offering and then allow somebody to have remorse after the fact and be concerned about because there’s no way we can change what we’re clearly offering, is there? DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 30

Jeetil Patel: That’s right, no. So just to switch it up a bit more before we go into Q&A. But eBay, Amazon. A couple of key themes or questions that I’ve always had are and, you know, we’ve obviously polled a lot of folks. But what is the selling commission that you hear about on eBay versus Amazon? It seems like Amazon is 15 to 17 from what we gather. And what do you think the overall payment – payouts run relative to the payout to the gross dollars coming in?

Ben Mandell: Well you know Amazon…

Steve Grossberg: First of all, Amazon is not more that 15% anywhere.

Ben Mandell: And that’s including payments.

Steve Grossberg: They top out at 15%.

Ben Mandell: That’s including payment.

Jeetil Patel: Yes. eBay?

Steve Grossberg: eBay they top out in the 30s.

Jeetil Patel: Okay.

Steve Grossberg: And they just went higher.

Jeetil Patel: And I guess ASPs - we’ve always thought about eBay having lower ASPs out there than Amazon by a rate of 10 to 15%. What’s your take on that number?

Ben Mandell: The fee structure artificially depresses ASPs. And… DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 31

Jeetil Patel: What do you think…

Ben Mandell: What do I think what is?

Jeetil Patel: The spread between Amazon and eBay on pricing ASPs.

Ben Mandell: I think it’s in the 20 to 25% range.

Jeetil Patel: And that’s pure profit if you adjust for obviously costs of goods.

Ben Mandell: Yes.

Jeetil Patel: And then growth rates. I mean, can you talk about maybe listings growth versus transaction growth on eBay? And then Amazon growth, what you’re seeing there?

Steve Grossberg: Well the growth – the trend is certainly shifting to Amazon as well as other venues. And what eBay just did here if they don’t make more changes before implementation date of February 20…

Jeetil Patel: Yes.

Steve Grossberg: It’s just put sellers to go – sellers have always been gravitating towards Amazon and other venues, including their own Web site. Now you’re just pushing the sellers more to allocate more their eBay dollars – their advertising budget – and we call eBay an advertising venue – to other venues such as Google AdWords, you know, paying SEO Expert, Pay Per Click management companies, and so on and so forth. DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 32

You have to because you just can’t be spending 20 to 25% of take rates on eBay. And again, they are in essence managing our Pay Per Click management, SEO and everything for us. Well we could do it much cheaper and more effective ourselves.

I go back to the big government scenario, you know, I gave you. Big Brother cannot manage that as effective as us, not at that costs anyway.

Ben Mandell: Not anymore. They used to but not anymore.

Steve Grossberg: And then, you know, one other thing on that issue, Jeetil. And we talk about and we all look at like right now everybody is concerned and I’m sure you’re – the people on this line they know all about this, it hits home. The perceived recession we’re in or that is upcoming.

Our government looks to have a stimulus package and put $6 to $1,200 checks in people’s hands and sometimes more if they have children. This will stimulate the economy because you’re putting money in the hands of the people who need it and they will spend it.

eBay needs to provide a stimulus package to the sellers because if we have money in our hands, we’ll grow our business. eBay just hit me personally with over a $30,000 fee increase. I just hired another full-time employee. I was looking to grow my eBay business buy more inventory, expand my product line. Now I have to look at laying off that worker and retracting my eBay business.

Stimulus only works if you go in and it gets into the hands of the majority – not the minority. DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 33

Jeetil Patel: They put an over-ride tax on you.

Steve Grossberg: Yes, they taxed us. Okay, and they gave some people tax relief. But again, if you want a stimulus package to stimulate the eBay economy…

Jeetil Patel: Yes.

Steve Grossberg: You need tax relief to the vast majority of the eBay economy.

Ben Mandell: And you have to also remember too, we’ve lost in the past 18 months, we’ve lost a lot good top tier sellers based on the prior price increases. And we are now left on eBay with a lot of second and third tier sellers. And that’s creating problems with the buying experience also.

This latest stunt that they’ve pulled here basically is just making it worse. And we’re going to lose more and more – the last top tier sellers that we have on eBay, we’ll lose them because they simply can’t work on a very thin margin. And then once their profit that they had in the sale just go to increase fees, it’s just not there.

Jeetil Patel: Well on that note, why don’t we open up to questions and we can come and follow up with some final thoughts and questions at the end. But operator, can we poll for questions?

Operator: At this time if you would like to ask a question, please press star then the number 1 on your telephone key pad.

Again, in order to ask a question, please press star and the number 1 on your telephone key pad. DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 34

There are no questions…

Steve Grossberg: While we are waiting Jeetil, sorry.

Operator: There are no questions at this time.

Jeetil Patel: Okay. Go ahead Steve.

Steve Grossberg: I was going to say while we where waiting, another problem with this feedback is eBay encourages international cross-border shipping. And I truly believe in that myself. Now I looked at my shipments a couple days ago on eBay and understand that those buyers are going to rate you lower - in our minds - on shipping and handling because it costs more to ship international. And shipping time because you’re dealing with international shipments and customs of various different countries.

Well anyway, a few days ago when I looked at my eBay sales, 30% of my items going out were going to international and that represented 15 different countries. Now what kind of control can I have over customs and duties when I’m dealing with 15 different countries in a day on average – and 30% of my shipment?

They are setting us up to fail and we’re just sorry that they haven’t seen, you know, these things themselves and hopefully they will.

Jeetil Patel: If you, I guess, can you just take a step back and look at the growth rates on eBay versus Amazon, I guess. What do you see – what do you think the spreads are, what do you think the mix of business looks like for a typical seller today between eBay and Amazon? Is it 70/30, is it 60/40, 50/50? Any sort of idea then what are the underlying growth rates between the two? DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 35

Ben Mandell: Obviously Amazon is growing and eBay’s not here.

Jeetil Patel: Yes.

Ben Mandell: At this point and that’s problematic as we – we’re able to continuously sell on Amazon and make money doing it. We’re not able to do that on eBay. And that’s an issue.

Steve Grossberg: And they didn’t really pass on – going back to the fee increase. They lowered the fee a nickel. They forced you to buy Gallery with the back end. So there wasn’t fee relief on the front end.

But I see it Jeetil, as probably – it’s more like right now you’re looking at 10 to 15% on their personal Web sites. You’re looking at 25 to 30% on Amazon and the balance – you know, 60% or so – 55, 60% eBay.

But that trend has been shifting away from eBay and this is going to accelerate that trend in many areas.

Jeetil Patel: So do you think the – do you envision by say, this time next year. You’re probably looking at eBay becoming, you know, 40% of the mix and Amazon and personal Web site becoming far more substantial pieces…

Steve Grossberg: I would think that eBay will be for the first time less that 50% of most seller’s businesses, yes. And also remember, the guys with the fee decrease…

Jeetil Patel: Yes. DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 36

Steve Grossberg: Whether they see this coming or not, they’re going to get hit as well because as those high trends – action volume sellers leave eBay…

Jeetil Patel: Yes.

Steve Grossberg: As we talked about earlier, there’s going to be less buyers engaging to buy their product.

Jeetil Patel: Yes.

Steve Grossberg: So their conversion rates are going to go down and hence, their fee increase is going to be evaporated. And then eBay…

Ben Mandell: Also eBay’s going to come back to hit them with a fee increase on the next go round.

Steve Grossberg: They’re going to have to. They’re going to be hit the next go around. I mean, and this is what we’ve been facing for years and here we go again.

Jeetil Patel: So I know the intended consequence here for eBay was is they wanted, I think, probably because the stated listings that they want to go up based on this fee reduction quote-unquote…

Steve Grossberg: Not going to happen.

Jeetil Patel: So you think it’s going down?

Steve Grossberg: Not going to happen. DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 37

Ben Mandell: Neutral at best is our best estimate, neutral at best. That’s our most optimistic estimate.

Steve Grossberg: I mean, bottom line they decrease each listing by a nickel and they raise the final values fees by dollars. That’s the bottom line you can sit here and say it’s percentages and this and that. They took a nickel off of each listing and they raised it by dollars.

Jeetil Patel: Yes.

Steve Grossberg: On the backend.

Jeetil Patel: So I guess, you know, as we wrap up this call. I think there’s a couple of themes I think stand out for me here which is, you know, certainly eBay is, you know, moving – put a step in the right direction here in trying to make change and improve the economics out there as a whole. However, they seem to have missed the mark somewhat on their kind of fee or pricing strategy here.

And, you know, maybe on the feedback system and the DSR system as well. Sounds like we’re probably not done in terms of the changes and tweaks they’ll probably make based on, I guess, your conversations you’ve had. But, you know, I guess at this point, you know, your left with a fee increase unless otherwise stated by the company.

And, you know, it’s probably more an issue of the consumer and buyer – they buyer and seller trust in the system. It seems to be getting worse with this type of change as opposed to improving. DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 38

Steve Grossberg: Yes, I think that’s fair. I think that’s a fair statement. But at the end of the day, this will not accomplish what their intended goal and objectives were.

Jeetil Patel: Yes.

Steve Grossberg: And that’s to get more listing up, more buyers back to the site. We just can’t figure out how this will accomplish any of that.

Jeetil Patel: Yes. Well I guess with that again, thank you Steve and Ben for joining us to talk about some of the changes and I guess some of the broader themes on eBay.

Your conference is March 3 through 5 and I think in Vegas with, you know, again quite a few folks from different companies to talk about their e-commerce strategies as well. So it sounds like it’s going to be a pretty good event in general.

I guess we’ll see you at least – at the very least out there but we appreciate the time today to, I guess, to hear your overview.

Steve Grossberg: Yes, thank you for having us Jeetil and I know you’ll be presenting there as well with a couple other analysts on our Wall Street panel, State of Ecommerce of 2008 and Beyond. So we appreciate that and we’re looking forward to seeing you.

Jeetil Patel: Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for joining us.

Steve Grossberg: Okay, bye bye.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. You may now disconnect. DEUTSCHE BANK Moderator: Jeetil Patel 02-06-08/12:00 pm CT Confirmation# 34216181 Page 39

END

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