March 6, 2008, 4:20 pm

EBay's new in-house blogger sounds off

Next month eBay will launch an unfiltered community blog, eBay Ink. What's your view on the plan?

Filed Under: FSB Features

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From Jeremy Isaacs, Manchester

eBay’s latest acquisitions

On the back of an unpredictable stock market, it is only right that shareholders in eBay actually get an insight into how at a time of looking after and wrapping up in cotton wool their eBay money tree, their raping and pillaging tirade on this goose that lays golden eggs, will result in the leaving behind of a rotted carcass.

Ebay once again has decided to splash their cash, on a day when they have tried to bury bad news resulting in allegedly making redundant 10% of their workforce.
http://ebaystrategies.blogs.com

Their recklessness in spending such large amounts of cash at a time when even banks apparently don’t seem to have any is just another sickly announcement and timed to coincide with CEO Donahoe’s recent meetings with President George Bush. http://ebayinkblog.com/2008/09/30/ebay-goes-to-washington/

Oh and by the way eBay have announced today that they are also improving performance by reducing 10% of their staff.

Already the World is seeing a return on their hard earned investments. Do banks really know what they are doing and why should we do what they tell us to do!

George Bush has just pushed through a package to put billions of pounds into the banks, who will probably also be guaranteeing or even putting the money forward for eBay to push their money into a business that will no doubt as they did with Paypal end up enforcing you to use. This latest little purchase ($820 million cash and $125 million options) will, if paypal is anything to go by, aim to push debt to those left who have successfully avoided it, or possibly push even more further in it! Paypal is not an option, you cannot list an item on eBay otherwise.
So what is going to happen and where is the 10% of the staff being lost from, normally we shouldn’t really care, its got nothing to do with us right, well if you have read the above, I believe it has. Shareholders will think this is fantastic, pruning the business in such uncertain times only shows that it is being well managed. Shareholders could not be more wrong and so wide off the mark.

The problem is eBay, which is well documented in blogs, forums and within sellers revolts that eBay who have made so many major changes over the last couple of years, have made even more changes in the last 6 months. During this period businesses that were developed on the very basis that eBay was founded have either walked off or even been turned off and the so called account managers who are more than likely to be sacrificed with these cuts, have had no direction and still have no direction as to how to deal with these recent changes, it is far from comforting to see that both as a shareholder and a tax payer, who is going to have to fund the bad management of the banks and governments, whether it is now or in the future, that even as we are writing today with all the uncertainty eBay who quite clearly have not got their ship in order are funding purchases for over a billion dollars!

Finally, I am writing this article not because I read the papers, watch the news, but like every body else I am concerned that we will pick up the bill for these fat cats of industry who really do not give a monkeys uncle what happens to you and me. For the record I have my own gripes with eBay and have documented the manner in which eBay has affected us as a seller, hopefully on reading this article you will make your own minds up as to where I am coming from.

Rise and fall of E-Jumble on eBay

Facts and History

2006 – January

E-Jumble born as eBay facilitator from 104a Castle Street, Edgeley Stockport. Unit size 427 sq ft over two floors.

1. E-JumbleUK was set up to facilitate goods on eBay such as furniture, fittings and other used goods such as kitchens, bathrooms, bedroom suites that were too good to be skipped and placed in landfill sites. Selling predominately from customers homes with smaller items held at premises for shipping.

2006 – October

2. E-JumbleUK turnover based predominately on eBay sales had no alternative but to relocate from its original small unit to the 1st floor of a small mill (3,500 sq ft) due to sellers wanting a collection and removal service and we had no place to store. The company purchases a used transit as we recognised that if we could not collect, sellers would sooner skip or tip perfectly good items. We also recognised that we could assist smaller manufacturing/retail businesses who were looking at avenues to close their companies rather than be forced to close in the longer term, our true descriptions allowed these businesses to exit at a price they understood provided them with something, rather than receiving nothing if the businesses were forced to close. The eBay buyers were delighted that they got the opportunity to buy at such prices by buying direct, rather than buying through a trader.

2007 – April

3. Suspended from eBay for a period of 2 weeks, no warning, “MY EBAY” screen goes down with all buyer and sales information, causing unnecessary chaos and we do not understand as to why. Eventually we contact eBay who in a roundabout manner inform us that we are selling something we shouldn’t be, however they apologise to us saying it was a drastic measure on their behalf and they will do whatever they can to get us back on ASAP. We find the problem was caused by a specific can opener produced in the UK to be sold solely in the US which had been unknowingly given to sell.
We immediately contacted the MD of the company who made the can opener and explained what had happened, he was genuinely upset for us as he did not intend for such drastic measures to happen. Our account manager assures us that he will make sure such drastic measures do not happen again and even insists that eBay will themselves relist all items back on our eBay selling site to help us. eBay themselves relist everything again INCLUDING the can openers that caused the offence in the first place! In all we were off eBay for a period of 2 weeks, with cash flow affected for up to four weeks.

May 2007 to July 2007

4. Demand for our services is coming in as we have recommendations from both sellers and buyers, and we have noticed that we are gaining regular buyers visiting us from all around the UK to pick up their purchases and view what we had running on auction.
From a stand still start with no contacts our accounts show a turnover of
£275,000 in the first years trade, furthermore we are offered the top floor of
the mill and ground floor on a flexible basis to encourage our business to
grow.

August 2007to June 2008

5. E-Jumble is taking off, turnover has increased dramatically with further interest and business coming in from larger companies looking to dispose of overstocks and idle assets. Our overheads are also going up, however controlled and systems being built to make the business more efficient. However the business has no bank borrowings or overdraft facility and is slowly increasing its profit margins.
Furthermore expansion is set in place as the result of successful negotiations E-JumbleUK agree to merge with Wicklow based and established Irish companies Tara General and Dynamic group to develop the profile and set up trading in modern warehousing facilities in Wicklow, just outside of Dublin. Logistics are put in place and due to the nature of the set up we relocate our UK operation from its smaller 3 storey property (with small lift) for loading larger heavier items to a larger single floor modern warehouse under one mile away in Stockport, with the directors committing to a lengthy lease. The process would make logistics between the UK and the Wicklow warehouse easier and quicker to deal with. E-JumbleUK and E-Jumble.IE recruit a further 12 eBay listers, warehouse staff and drivers to operate between both businesses, with training to operate both E-Jumble’s software procedures and eBay’s, the recruits are trained for all health and safety issues that would arise in a warehouse operation, fork lift truck licences and even first aid. All 12 operators are salaried and trained for 3 months to commence the anglo UK and Irish venture to begin September 08.

July 2008

6. E-JumbleUK announces accounts showing profitability in only the second year trading giving it the perfect platform. With demand for services on the increase, it also announces that the trading for the May, June and July period was running at around £100k turnover a month. New systems are also in place to coincide with deliveries and warehousing, stock inventory barcoding systems in place and we are able to locate items quicker for our buyers.
Unfortunately however whilst we had emailed all buyers who had purchased through our eBay site that we were moving, we were receiving record number of negative feedback, which also coincided with neutrals being treated as a negative, (a situation which eBay then rectified and changed how they were treating a neutral). We were still experiencing problems to eBays recent feedback changes, we were being left negatives without having an opportunity to rectify matters all follow up complaints and whilst we were endeavouring to deal with complaints, our record of low negatives, were then running at over the eBay new charter. We were also receiving higher positive feedback than ever as well and relatively even today over the period as a whole 12 months our negative position still remains at 1.32% of total feedback.

August 2008

7. Goods coming in due to the new modern warehouse and new barcoding inventory systems are being dealt with more efficient and are being listed almost immediately. Health and safety has been passed and we are resolving all our teething problems of such a major move, which also coincided with a busy previous 3 months. We expected a seasonal dip in turnover for August, however what we did not expect was that we would again be suspended by eBay. Again as last April and without any warnings we were removed from eBay, however this time we were informed that we would be removed for 30 days. (that is no cash flow for 30 days) 22 people to pay salaries to and rent to pay on our modern warehouse, no trade, no income. Our committed crime was that we had for the previous month more negative feedback than was accepted by eBay. We were dumbfounded, how do you deal with people who left four negative feedbacks as they had bought four items and were dissatisfied with one of the items they paid just over £10 for, relating to our listing stating approximately 35 bottles of liquid soap and four weeks later decided to report us to eBay and leave negative feedback for only collecting 34 bottles even though they signed for the items “as described on ebay”, or how do you respond to buyers that contact us to say that there is a damage on an item you posted and will accept £20 off and then they will not leave a negative, even then when we try to respond to the matter by asking for it to be returned, it is still held against us as we didn’t just give them what they wanted, which was £20 off for something that we never got the opportunity to view, do not forget this item was auctioned at a 99p start and described in an accurate manner.

Unfortunately for the staff we had to let the majority of our workforce go immediately, due to the immediate reaction to eBay we also had to contact our Irish counterparts to inform them that whilst we had this problem not only have we had to release the new recruited members and invested in, it meant that we could not proceed with E-Jumble I.E. They were also furious as they had also invested in premises in Ireland as well as recruiting sales staff over in Dublin and around Southern Ireland to bring in the business, their reaction was extremely furious as the money they had invested on in securing premises which as of now remains vacant together with racking and warehousing facilities, they were upset due to an American company being allowed to set up in Ireland on the basis that they do not pay their taxes and not allowing its UK company to trade and also for being responsible for causing the unnecessary unemployment of so many people in a business that was due to commence business in September, especially on the back of so many people due to the credit crunch and recession already being made redundant in Ireland. This company who collectively through their various business interests employ a lot of people already in Ireland and who pay their taxes are having to not only make people redundant, but also lose money on the back of a foreign company residing in Ireland to avoid paying taxes.

E-Jumble has always prided itself on customer service and buyer satisfaction and remain confident with ‘what cannot speak cannot lie, it wants its customers both sellers on whom they have returned other wise land fill fodder into much cash to know the truth, by reading all the feedback both good, bad and indifferent and read into it what they will, and at the end of the day, it has always been the buyers that decide and thankfully, when it reads that 1 in every 2.6 buyers come back to buy again, ‘what cannot speak really cannot lie’, every single feedback always tells a story and if buyers did not want to buy they really wouldn’t, as it is there for the next buyer to see. We remain positive that common sense will prevail and eBay recognise that the various principles in which eBay was founded have been adhered to by E-JumbleUK, and that it was always down for the buyers to pay what they wanted to pay, with all terms and conditions for buying clearly stated throughout all transactions.

Also, eBay always promote communication between the buyer and seller when they do not take their own advice as trying to get hold of your account manager in times of need or even to get them to respond to an e-mail is difficult. In the past when you had issues on your account, the account manager would ring up and discuss the issues to prevent any action being taken. Now ebay take action and your account manager goes into hiding. The only time you hear from account managers is when they want to promote a new policy, tell you how they are doing you a favour by reducing insertion fees (missing out that they are hiking final value fees).

Unfortunately as a business it appears the present management and staff are allowing the minority of crank customers, to spoil it for the majority and in trying to appease these minorities of jealous, conniving schemers, they will be left with buy it nows of retail prices and excuse the vulgarity of dirty knickers, farts in a bottle and photographs of empty buildings in Europe for sale with an excuse as to why there is no deeds included. eBay are allowing a brilliant and one time innovative idea for people around the globe to generally offer for sale what was to be discarded or surplus to requirements by way of a true genuine auction process to losing direction and genuine sellers.

What will be left after we have gone and how long it will continue for who really knows, however the response, best wishes and general support from nearly 3000 eBay buyers have caused a tear or two. We know that this support alone shows that what we created was worthwhile and not an altogether waste of time, if perhaps something that will in the end cost us dearly and whatever our fate is from now on, we can hold our heads up and know that we didn’t deserve what eBay have done to us, our families and a really good business.

Jeremy Isaacs
Managing Director
e-jumble Limited

0161 476 3497

jeremy@e-jumble.co.uk

Posted By Jeremy Isaacs, Manchester : October 6, 2008 4:25 pm