Great piece, in fact, it is spot on. Like you, I’ve spent the last several months finally coming to pragmatic terms with ebay; my net profits are simply never going to return and it’s only going to get worse. There is no switch that ebay could flip that would return us to the days of yore; too much has been damaged by too many years of neglect. Ebay always chose short term growth over putting quality controls in place that would have
kept ebay, in effect, “cool”. Amazon took a different view for the long term, spent the money, and look where they are now vs. ebay.

I’m 43 and going to grad school. The world is changing fast and I have to accept it’s time to move on (again)!

Information technology and seller tools for all ecommerce have evolved to a place where ruinous competition have meant few can succeed (meaning, make a decent living, or even a reasonablle part-time return on your actual time)…

Ecommerce retail in the future will be left to those who can sell for pennies via “Costco style” scale or those relative few who have a dedicated niche
of rare unique goods or precious antiques/hobby items…

Dan

And, Jeff, you made an important point – the vendors who sell a product (or service) to other eBay sellers are suffering as well. And I agree that PayPal is not and will not be the first choice of payment methods on non-eBay websites. I believe Google Checkout could really be a formidable competitor to PayPal in the near future.

My stand-alone site continues to increase. I should have been working on that site all along rather than leaving it dormant for years, but I was a true believer that eBay was going to re-surge in this down economy. My estimation was wrong and now I’m paying the price for a bad decision.

But eBay’s own predictions are also wrong. Yes, they realize Marketplace is tapped, but the prospect of Paypal usage exponentially growing off-site is unrealistic. Very, very few (>5%) use PP for payment on my off-ebay site. Its there and available to use in checkout, but underutilized.

Paypal is not cool. Ebay Live is dead.

The MBA’s view eBay as a retail company, but it’s the wrong business model. When you’re dealing with “cool” and popular the business model is one of a Rock Star.

Consider, eBay prospered as it’s fan base grew. eBay kept belting out what the fans wanted, and the fans kept coming back for more. eBay Live! was the equivalent of an outdoor rock concert.

The eBay business model could have been the Gene Simmons model. KISS then and forever; stay the same.

eBay could have been the Paul McCartney model. Making changes that remained popular over time.

Both models adding new fans to the fan base.

But what does happen to a rock star that angers or loses favor with their fan base, and still manages to survive?

Remain in business forever make money releasing and re-releasing and re-re-releasing old stale hits. Buy other promising properties. Go on smaller and smaller tours.

Say their fans are legion and still love them, while “cool” popular media make fun of them.

.

“Do you um, know what Ebay is?”
“Ebay, no.” Adrian Monk
“Good.” Capt. Stottlemeyer
Monk, Mr. Monk and the Secret Santa (2005)