Title from a song by Australian icon Rolf Harris, lyrics here. A little warm up before we get to the serious stuff!
After eBay Australia won the dubious distinction of a record breaking number of public submissions to the ACCC in opposition to their proposed PayPal Only in Australia policy, things have changed, on the surface.
Simon Smith got simplified or went walkabout and eBay Australia implemented a new ‘by invitation only program’ to communicate with their sellers called eSayers. Participants agree to answer a minimum of 2 surveys within a 6 month period.
“eBay wants to hear what you have to say about eBay.com.au – its features, policies, changes, fees and what you like or dislike about buying and selling on the website. That’s why we’ve created eSayers, the eBay.com.au member panel where you have the chance to give us, the eBay team, feedback on a number of topics that affect everyone who buys and sells on Australia’s leading online marketplace.”
If past experience in the USA is anything to go by, questions will be carefully and systematically framed to allow only the answers eBay wants to get. Then, to quote our friend Usher Lieberman they can say “We listened to our sellers, and this was an opportunity to show we can move quickly and be responsive”
Then of course there are the usual eBay glitches to contend with:
You may see the first survey here. You You may see You may see the first surveyYou may see the first survey here.
Comments on the Australian boards would indicate the surveys are Canadian in origin. 
This adds an extra layer of potential for cultural confusion because Australians, Canadians and Americans are not all the same. Eh?
Y’all come back!
Love the three legs song, he is such a smooth performer.
Posted by Liz on February 6th, 2009.
One of the loaded questions from the survey is:
“Thinking about changes that require you to update your listings or templates, or your selling strategy, which of the following would be easier for you to adapt to?
Please select one:
One change at a time, with changes coming more frequently
Numerous changes at a time, with changes coming less frequently”
You can not continue the survey withouty agreeing to one of the two choices (I tried), thus when queried Ebay can honestly say either that most users want frequent changes or multiple changes all at once. However, there is no way of expressing that you want less change and the ability to just get on with the job of productively and profitably trading on Ebay, in spite of the fact that this will be beneficial to both Ebay’s bottom line and the marketplace as a whole. For some reason they have lost sight of what the basic purpose of the marketplace actually is.
Kevin
Posted by Kevin_T on February 6th, 2009.
Kevin I don’t think this management has lost sight of the basic purpose of the marketplace. I do not believe they have ever comprehended the marketplace.
It is a pure revenue generator to them but to me they no more understand the mechanics of the process than your average person understands how bacon gets on their plate.
eg. We will add advertisements on the listing pages which get lots of traffic. Wow, look at our ad income. Oh oh we are getting less page views. Our sell through is down too.
It is not until the ad income drops, because the page views are gone, because there are no more interesting listings to browse rather than search, which may in turn need to new interests from the buying public that the penny may drop and by then it will be too late. By then this bunch of consultants and MBAs will have taken their millions and be fixing something else that is not broken
Posted by Henrietta on February 7th, 2009.