Does eBay Break Own Rules?

Hi Gang,

Sorry about the long silence between posts.  I've been out of town part of the time at a very amazing marketing conference that I'll tell you more about in a future post to the blog.

Today's topic is one that is quite the problem for our old friend eBay.  It seems they have been in a new class action suit filed in California that claims eBay is shill bidding.  For those of you not familiar with shill bidding it is when someone (i.e. you, a friend, family member, etc.) bids up an auction to inflate earnings.  According to the lawsuit, "the Internet auction company is illegally using "shill" bidding against its own customers to force up prices, and thus increase its fees and finance service charges, a consumer suit charges."

Hmmm.  I guess raising our fees in the name of "the seller's best interest" isn't enough.  Generally I'm all for corporations and big business.  But eBay just doesn't seem to get it.  They are continually doing things like this that either drive sellers away or cause lawsuits.  I realize that there was no roadmap for the company to follow - they are pioneers and they do what they do very well.  But if they really want to increase profits, they should quit trying to do it through schemes and bad practices.  They should increase their profits the same way I have to do it:  by giving more value to the people who pay them money.

If I expect to make more money based on the same value the only variable that I can improve on is to improve the quality of my service to my customers.  If eBay wants to earn more money they should do the same and improve the value of their services to their customers - namely the sellers.

If you would like to read more about this case please read the archive at Ina Steiner's Auction Bytes website.  And if you aren't a subscriber to her newsletter, you should be.  If you would like to read the actual legal complaint you can get the .pdf file here:  http://www.lerachlaw.com/cases/ebay/complaint.pdf

Talk to you again soon ( I promise!),

Tiger Todd

Comments

[Living Free Online]

This is a little un-nerving - not only facing fellow ebayers shilling but eBay itself - tut tut! .. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
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