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Dave

Member since: Jun 23rd, 2006

Dave's Latest Comments

Blog Activity
Blog# of Comments
Cinematical1 Comment
BloggingStocks7 Comments
Switched1 Comment

Recent Comments:

Not such a Merry Christmas at eBay (EBAY) (BloggingStocks)

Dec 27th 2008 12:51AM Ebay is such a great example of galloping management incompentence ruining a vibrant and successful company. Ebay had a unique attribute - it was the place to go to find fascinating and wonderful stuff for auction - and where to find valuable items too - it was becoming the Sotheby's and Christies of ecommerce and with the chance to dominate even these. I was a biggish ebay seller and buyer for many years, I don't list any more as there's little point and now my standard search, which used to pick up many items of interest to bid on, now only returns a few. Little point logging on any more really - with the neat stuff going, the "eyeballs" go too, Ebay's no longer unique, just another big box estore and there are better ones out there. I wonder too if ebay had any idea of the demographics of their despised small sellers - the ones I know locally certainly aren't the mom and pop borderline poverty types but are rather well-off collectors with tons of disposable income - I guess they're elsewhere now.

Not such a Merry Christmas at eBay (EBAY) (BloggingStocks)

Dec 23rd 2008 4:43PM Seems to me that EBAy has given away the one thing that made their site a magnet - the cool and bizarre things that turned up for sale. That's what made EBAY unique and successful. My usual search used to turn up dozens of items of interest to me - almost nothing now, so little point visiting the site. So, having driven away the small sellers and thus given away their unique advantage over other e-commerce sites - given away the one thing that got the "eyeballs" - they're now trying to compete with all the established thin-margin e-commerce sites - good moves!

Ebay's Controversial New(ish) Rating System Is Kicking Off Small Sellers (Switched)

Oct 29th 2008 12:38AM I think Donahoe is going to be famous - for being infamous - he's managed to do a great job of developing a negative branding - EBAY is now the company that folks love to hate, word of mouth built EBAY, it'll be the end of them too. Their inadvertant negative marketting has developed a huge momentum - and the company is not suddenly going to reverse trend and skyrocket. I can see all this in future business courses on how not to market. The Donahue Effect may be a good name for the course - his name may even enter the vernacular as a term to describe how galloping incompentence at the top sinks even the biggest ships.

I'm not giving up on eBay, yet (BloggingStocks)

Oct 25th 2008 10:25PM I think Donahoe is going to be famous - for being infamous - he's managed to do a great job of developing a negative branding - EBAY is now the company that folks love to hate, word of mouth built EBAY, it'll be the end of them too. Their inadvertant negative marketting has developed a huge momentum - and the company is not suddenly going to reverse trend and skyrocket. I can see all this in future business courses on how not to market. The Donahue Effect may be a good name for the course - his name may even enter the vernacular as a term to describe how galloping incompentence at the top sinks even the biggest ships.

Is eBay's evolving business model being eclipsed by local competition? (BloggingStocks)

Jul 30th 2008 5:59PM I've been selling on ebay for 10 years now, sold thousands of cool and collectible items - worked great! Perfect record, lots of good interactions with folks all over the world! But I'm leaving now - ebay has some pretty strange policies now that seem to "demonize" sellers and leave us at the mercy of buyers (you just need one flakey buyer and ebay says you're out - no recourse) . Too bad, as we're all treated like criminals - and seems like ebay's missing the real bad guys. So ebay seems to want the small sellers out, and become a "store front" for big sellers. Seems to me Ebay is giving away the major, major thing that draws folks to their site - the fact that you can find ANYTHING on ebay - certainly getting less that way as their site gets clogged with stuff you can buy at Walmart or at a craft fair - too bad. Frittering away the very thing that made them successful.

eBay drops on TV analyst's comments (BloggingStocks)

Jul 24th 2008 11:23PM I've been selling on ebay for 10 years now, sold thousands of cool and collectible items - worked great! But I'm leaving now - ebay has some pretty strange policies that seem to "demonize" sellers and leave them at the mercy of buyers. Seems some bright spark at ebay has come up with a "let's insult our sellers" bit of software. No recourse from ebay here. Bottom line is that if some post office in some faraway country is a tad slack, and a buyer complains about slow delivery, or he's just off kilter and complains for no reason - ebay automatically puts restrictions on the seller's account - despite the seller doing everything absolutely by the book - thanks ebay - makes the seller feel really good. Guilty until proven innocent - and no appeal. And I understand that the seller's new listings now get a lower preference in search results, so there seems little point in trying to resume with ebay. I sure wouldn't buy the stock. Ebid may be a friendlier home...

What is eBay doing? Well, let me tell you... (BloggingStocks)

Feb 21st 2008 7:01PM As a seller I've sent EBAY a request to automate the giving of feedback to my buyers - as all the feedback to buyers is the same, why do I have to go through the step of giving it? It's more of a transaction count now, not feedback.

What is eBay doing? Well, let me tell you... (BloggingStocks)

Feb 21st 2008 6:59PM Hmmm - the whole fiasco may be having an effect - certainly on how sellers feel about ebay - you'd think they would try to build up sellers' morale and good feelings about Ebay - a lot of good will to throw away. Anyway, yesterday Wed Feb20 ebay.com listing total = 12,926,407, currently Thurs Feb21 = 12,621,222, a drop of 305,185 listings or 2.36% - let's see what the rest of the week brings (I know my 60 or so formerly planned won't be there :+)

Review: An Inconvenient Truth -- James' Take (Cinematical)

Jun 23rd 2006 7:16PM One aspect of the global warming discussion that I don't see mentioned - Co2, methane, nitrous oxide are greenhouse gases, their percentage in the atmosphere is rising dramatically due to human input. It'd be really very odd if this didn't have a warming effect. Basic scientific laws and all that. Sort of like dropping a stone and it goes up instead of down - very suprising. Can we have the greenhouse deniers tell us how the increasing green house gases will not have a warming effect - why they expect the stone to go up rather than down?


Similarly, warm water drives hurricanes, the water is getting warmer. Can the doubters tell us why they expect that the warmer water will not cause stronger hurricanes?