As you know, I'm a long time eBayer... Well, as we're getting ready for our honeymoon, I hope you'll forgive the shameless plug of one of our auctions! If you're looking for SATA cables, head on over to my auction here. The starting price for 35 is just £20 delivered anywhere in the UK.

Please help me pay for my soon to be wife's shoe addiction - New York may bankrupt me!

Apologies for the blatant plug here, but if I can't advertise my own business on my own site, where can I? For the last year or so, we've been selling Pink Hard Hats on eBay. Strange product I know, but my other half found them and they're a pretty decent seller. As you'll also know, eBay seem hell bent on making it as difficult as possible to sell stuff on their site. We've therefore decided to shift the focus off of eBay and on to our site. If you know someone who'd like one, please point them at the link below, or click on the picture...

www.pinkhardhats.co.uk - go on, you know you want one!

From a technical perspective, I knocked the site up with Joomla 1.5. This is the first time I've used this version, having been a die-hard 1.0x boy. I must say that it's not a massive leap forwards, but there are some really nice features on the admin side that make content management more pleasurable. Adding in more complex HTML to posts still requires that you turn of TinyMCE, but that's really no hardship, and basic code is supported pretty well. The media manager is a nice addition, and grouping together all of the module management tools makes a lot of sense. If you've got a lot invested in themes there is also a 1.0x compatibility mode available so you can put off rewriting your code for a while. As you've probably guessed, I'm a big fan of all things Joomla, and this version just goes to strengthen that feeling. With the abundance of GPL templates on the web, it is incredibly easy to make a professional looking site with little or no artistic skill, which is a bonus for me! I'm still not sure if it's up to handling a large site with 10's of editors and 1000's of users, but for an SME website, it's unbeatable. From unzipping the files to my desktop to submitting the site to Google, about an hour and a half passed. I don't think you can get much quicker than that...

If you've spent more than a few hours online, you've probably made it to eBay. If you've made it to eBay, you'll have probably seen the adverts for hundreds of "secret" get rich quick schemes and eBooks with "resell rights".

As you may have probably have guessed, most of them are crap. If you want to see for yourself, visit Floodle, where you'll find a whole load of eBooks that sell for a small fortune on eBay for free.

As I've mentioned, the majority of the information is crap, but there is some interesting stuff, and it's a lot kinder on the wallet getting the information from here than shelling out for it!

As I've already stated, I'm a current eBay PowerSeller (though this may soon change), so I have an interest in the changes that have been rolled out over the past couple of months. If you'll forgive me, I'd like to discuss them in a bit more detail, and hopefully by the end of this article, you'll agree with me when I say that eBay have just pulled off the biggest marketing cock-up since New Coke...

eBay was set up in 1995 by a French-Iranian, Pierre Omidyar, and the first item sold by the site was a broken laser printer. This auction has set the tone for eBay ever since... It is not, and has never been, a competitor to Amazon or the other big online retailers. This appears to be something that the founders of eBay have forgotten. Leveraging openings in to new markets is something that any competent management team should do, but not at the expense of your core business...

eBay is still one of the largest sites on the internet, with the .com site pulling in over 900m uniques a year. This is a huge number - WalMart, the iconic American grocer and owner of the UK's Asda, pull in about a third of that. The big selling point of eBay, to me and to the vast majority I've spoken to, is not the price of the items. eBay UK would have you believe that it's the cheapest place on the web to buy a whole host of items, when this has simply not been the case for at least the last 5 years. Market forces have driven mass produced items to their optimum price, and in many cases eBay is significantly more expensive that the alternatives. The big appeal of eBay has been the width of the market (from F18 fighter jets to the rights to Britney Spears hair), and the fact that you can purchase off of a one man band or a multinational according to your needs and preferences. In a stroke, with their current changes, eBay have killed this stone dead.

Let me give you a rundown of the current changes, as they stand at 31st May 2008. These have all been introduced withing the past 9 months.

1) Detailed Seller Ratings (DSRs) - these are the stars that you get to leave for a seller when you buy something from them, and they range from 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest. Personally, I like to rate transactions that I am involved in, and would consider my average purchase from Amazon about a 4 out of 5 - perfectly satisfactory. If I were to use this logic on eBay, I may end up costing the seller their listing visibility... Anything below a 4.3 will result in a sellers items ending up at the back of the queue when a specific search term is used. By marking a 4, you're essentially depriving a seller of a much needed boost to sales, even though the transaction was perfectly OK in your eyes.

My DSR's

Believe it or not, my Communication rating is borderline, and I am at risk of losing my search position. They are also completely anonymous, optional, and unremovable...

2) Only buyers can leave neutral or negative feedback - Since May 15th, sellers can only leave positive feedback for buyers. This essentially means that we have no way of communicating with other sellers that this particular person is a PITA. The eBay response is that buyers feared negative feedback, so removing our ability to leave it allows a more accurate reflection of the transaction... As a seller, I am used to dealing with awkward buyers. In more than 1000 eBay sales, I have left negative feedback twice. 1 in 500 sales have been that bad that I want to make others aware... Since the change, I have had buyers blackmailing me, swapping their feedback silence for partial or total refunds, upgrades they should pay for, or sometimes simply stating that they're reserving the option to neg me for a laugh... All sales aren't perfect, but that is not always the fault of the seller. The feedback system is voluntary, and one negative from a dodgy seller doesn't stop people selling to you. Removing one half moves the goalposts so far over to one side that the game is almost not worth playing...

Average satisfation ratings generally hover around the mid-60s to mid-70s, with class leading performers hovering in the mid-80s - as of Q4 2007, eBay hovers around 81 on the ACSI Index.

So, what will an above eBay mark of 96.77 (1 in 30) get you?

3) Neutral Ratings can get your account suspended - what's a neutral rating but a negative in disguise? Apparently, without telling anoyone, the OED have redefined the word neutral. Where it used to mean:

neither positive nor negative

it now means:

characterized by or displaying negation or denial or opposition or resistance; having no positive features

Leaving a neutral rating is now the same as leaving a negative in terms of seller performance. If you leave a neutral feedback, and wish it to be neutral (neither good nor bad), surely it should mean the same as not leaving negative feedback at all, given that the fear of retaliation from the seller has been removed. Neutral means that the sale was neither good nor bad.

This is not true - if a seller recieves 1 in 30 "non-positive" feedback, they are at risk of suspension. For some people, this means the loss of a few extra quid - less beer money. For others, it means the death of a business, people out of work, and another nail in a slowing economy.

The main problem I have is with the lack of intelligence that eBay credit their regular users with. There are those who have "bad experiences", and who don't come back. These are the consumers that eBay are targeting with this new drive, and are the people that they most certainly should not be basing their business model on. eBay have decided that everyone who comes to their site should be treated equally. This is fair. They have also decided that everyone who complains should have their complaints treated equally. This is completely unfair. eBay has always been a dynamic organism, with your n00bs at the bottom and your 100,000 shooting stars at the top. The whole point was that anyone who came in at 0 could reach 100,000 if they provided good service and good products. What the changes say to a new consumer is, "we appreciate that you don't understand the internet and are frightened by shopping online, so we're getting rid of the bad sellers, so you'll think our site is like Amazon". This is not, and has never been, eBay's market. Amazon have spent a fortune showing customers that shopping online is easy and safe. Those that sell on the Amazon marketplace know that they have to provide the service or get dumped in to the Big River. The eBay experience has always been "it's really cheap, but I need to borrow a van to go and pick it up". If you want buyers to buy from buy.com but use eBay, you're out of luck. Kicking the small sellers in the nuts and making them jump through hoops will not create the safe trading environment you hope it will. All it will do is drive the niche sellers away. These sellers are the ones that make eBay what it is - they are the people who use the visibility that eBay provides to sell their fantastic products like seeds or chocolate or hand-made toys. These sellers will push money that would have been spent with you in to their own sites, where the 90% of great buyers will find them. All you will be left with is a load of Chinese scammers, and a handful of large, established online retailers who'll use eBay to get rid of crap and other stuff that isn't selling...

eBay started as an online Car Boot Sale - whoever at eBay bought the 25% of Craigslist knew that - the two sites are perfect foils for each other. eBay, like Craigslist, will never be WalMart or the New York Times. On both sites, you live and die by your performance - is it worth coming back to? eBay Express died the death of a thousand cuts - no-one wants it! eBay 2008 will do the same. If I suck, people will tell me I suck. If I suck more than 1 in 4 times, my business will go to the wall...

Someone once said that eBay is a venue... If you were told what you could sell, who you could sell to, what you should do when someone didn't pay, and who you could inform when your merchandise was stolen, wouldn't you consider that more than a venue? If so, wouldn't you try to tell that venue that it was driving customers away in droves?

I have.

Apologies if you're expecting a computing thread this evening, or maybe something vaguely amusing, but this is a topic that I've thought about for a while, and a conversation today has really made me wonder if there are people who will gladly swap an extra £500 a month for the chance to moan...

I work in a fairly small team, inside a very large organisation. This is the first permanent job I have had in more than eight years, as I've always preferred contracting or being self employed. As a result, I still have a number of business contacts, and I still do a small amount of business from home. This is anything from private consultancy work to eBay sales (I'm actually still a Powerseller on eBay, though only a Bronze one), and brings me in as little or as much as I need, but never really less than £500 a month for a few hours extra work a week.

One of my colleagues, who I'll call D, and I were talking about money, and he mentioned that things were a bit tight. I told him about what I do, and basically gave him a list of products that would turn a £50 initial investment in to a £500 a month business inside 6 months. All it would require is about an hour a day, and a bit of initial searching for suppliers (literally calling up everybody on the first 10 pages of a particular website)...

The response I got was, in my opinion, unbelievable. D told me that he couldn't be bothered...

This is not a get rich quick scheme I'm floating. It's not going to require a massive investment in time or money, and it could add another £500 a month to his income. He's not bothered.

I know it's not a symptom of where I work, because another of my colleagues runs 6 online stores in his spare time and is looking to get VAT registered because he's taking that much cash...

This reaction quite frankly annoyed me, and as you'll know if you've read previous posts, in this sort of situation, I'll try to see how far I can take things... Here's what happened:

I research the products and find one that I know is selling on eBay for an average of £30 a go with a 100% auction success rate. I tell D what it is. Reaction? Don't know if I could find a supplier...

I find a supplier who will supply and deliver 12 of this product to the UK for £68. I tell D. Reaction? I don't know if I've got that sort of money spare...

I offer to front the money, which he can pay me back as soon as he's sold 3, which means that, even including eBay fees, Paypal fees and shipping, I am basically offering him £15 with no risk, plus the prospect of another £270 when the rest sell. Reaction? I don't know anything about eBay...

Finally, I offer a tutorial on how to create the listings, free hosting space for photos, and help with packing. Reaction? I don't know...

I DON'T KNOW!

I am offering this man, who is constantly complaining of financial problems, free money. I will provide a ready made business for him, where all he has to do is put something in a Jiffy bag and post it, and he is turning me down!

So, what happens after this...?

I am selling them on eBay. I am making around £200 a month at the moment with no effort on this one product, and have just found a new supplier who is half the price of my current one.

D is still moaning about being skint...

I know we get some visitors, and I really would appreciate your comments - I can understand most things, but this has left me flummoxed!

And NO, I won't tell you what I'm selling! I might be bloody minded, but I'm not stupid!