eBay Fraud Scams exposed

Based on recent report from Nielsen, eBay page views showing a steady decline over a period of two years. This is a clear indication eBay visitors a losing interest in eBay site or leaving the site because they cannot find what they are looking for. In contrast, Amazon page views hold steady. This indicates a consistent level of interest in Amazon site while interest in eBay continues to decline.

According to another metric by Nielsen, unique visitors to eBay continue to decline while Amazon continues to gain share of unique internet audience. We now have a relatively long period of time to measure true impact of changes initiated in late 2007 by eBay management to benchmark the two rivals based on those merits alone.

We have forcasted the signs of trouble in eBayLand as the recession approached in October 2008. Let’s take a look year later on how these forcasts turned out.

• Following eBay’s management blunders we have seen visitors and page views decline on eBay while Amazon’s increase. That still holds true per Nielsen’s graphs above.
• eBay lets go fraud, hijacked seller accounts, fakes and counterfeits go unchecked on it’s site. We have pointed a million times that eBay, who holds it’s profits above the safety of it’s customers, will see sales declines, as more and more customers get burned by the shady scammers whom eBay lets thrive on it’s site. eBay profits from all scams on the site. But consumers are not stupid. Once burned a person tells 10 others who then tell others and so forth and thus slowly but surely word has spread that eBay is not going to protect you as a buyer or seller if such protections stands in way of eBay’s profits. Furthermore eBay is famous for making a significant effort in covering up the fraud on it’s site in an effort to mislead it’s customers into thinking they are safe. There are vast amounts of testimonies to such eBay Hack Cover up and eBay Security Breach cover up all over the internet. Actually eBay spends 7 figure amounts on hiring and firing Public Relation firms to clean up this security mess.
• eBay should be doing better sales-wise than Amazon in depression economy, eBay is branded as heavy discounter, close out e-commerce venue. Back in the recession years of 2001 eBay made headline news bragging it is recession proof. In 2009 recession, ebay blames recession for it’s continuos sales decline.

How did eBay and Amazon compare on latest QUARTERLY REPORTS?

NET REVENUE

Amazon reported better numbers — Amazon’s revenue in the latest three-month period rose 14 percent over the second quarter of 2008, to $4.65 billion. eBay’s revenue fell 5 percent to $2.1 billion

NET INCOME

Amazon reported better numbers again. Amazon posted net income of $142 million in the second quarter, a 10% drop from the same period in 2008 and the first such decline since December 2006. Chief Financial Officer Thomas Szkutak of Amazon said the profit decline was due to a $52 million settlement the company paid in June to resolve a dispute with Toys R Us. Without the payment, Amazon’s profits would have increased. eBay reported a 29% decline from the same period in 2008, a second consecutive decline in 2009. Net income fell to $327 million, compared with $460 million, in the year-ago quarter for eBay.

No doubt, both companies are affected by the recession equally. At the end of 2008, for the first time in its history, eBay stomached a year-over-year decline in quarterly revenue. And now it has happened three quarters in a row. The cause of eBay’s loss in revenues, loss of income and growth shrinkage rests entirely on eBay’s management. But during a conference call with industry analysts and reporters, CEO John Donahue called the company’s latest quarter “solid,” saying “we’re moving in the right direction, a strong company getting stronger.” eBay management has a long and proven history of placing profits over and above everything else.
EBAY RECAP
Net Revenues down 4%
Net Income down 29%
Marketplace Revenues down 14%
Vehicle sales down 32%

And as for those registered user numbers…

Active users edged up from 88.3 to 88.4 million for its lowest gain (100k) in the 4 quarters presented in the release

In the meantime they had to add 37 MILLION new accounts to eak out that 100,000 active user gain. Now according to the data… This is showing incredible user churn.

A full 82% of Ebay’s registered users have not “who bid on, bought, listed or sold an item within the previous 12-month period.”

This should trouble stock holders as well.. “GAAP operating margin decreased to 19.6% for the quarter, compared to 24.8% for the same period last year” That is a 20% decline in margins

As eBay alienates it’s customer base, it will fade into the mediocre land of has been along with AOL internet service, Alta Vista search engine, Xerox copiers and IBM computers.

We believe people are basically good.

Except for ebay sellers….

We believe everyone has something to contribute.

Which is why we have increased fees and don’t refund listing fees on Non Paying Bidders.

We believe that an honest, open environment can bring out the best in people.

Which is why Detailed Seller Ratings are anonymous, buyer IDs and listings are hidden, and threads and posts are being removed from the eBay discussion boards.

We recognize and respect everyone as a unique individual.

That can have as many user IDs as they want because it increases our user base numbers on shareholder quarterly reports.

We encourage you to treat others the way that you want to be treated

But that doesn’t apply to ebay….

So much for the evolution of ebay community values…

32 % of eBay users report being scammed according to the latest survey commissioned by Consumer Reports WebWatch as part of its “Look Before You Click” campaign, supported by a CyberAwareness Grant from the New York State Office of Attorney General and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. The survey represents one of the most comprehensive studies of New York state Internet users, their behavior and their problems with online fraud in a variety of environments: Online auctions, shopping, e-mail and spam, privacy and others. The whole survey is available today for the first time at :
http://www.consumerwebwatch.org/dynamic/fraud-reports-internetfraud.cfm

Online Auctions - Great Bargains, Possible Problems

For more than two years, online auction fraud has been the number one complaint of New York state residents to government organizations that keep track. The WebWatch survey shows that 27 percent of state residents who have ever used an online auction Web site, such as eBay or Amazon, have experienced a scam or deceptive practice - 32 percent of eBay users were scammed.

Eleven percent of online auction site users reported they never received the goods they bid on, the most common complaint. In addition, seven percent of survey respondents who received their goods said they were not in the condition they expected. Other common complaints included not being told a key detail about the item before it arrived (7 percent) and being sent an item of lesser value than the one they actually bid on and won (7 percent). Read details of our in-depth investigation of auction sites, including lessons learned by New York State residents:

http://www.consumerwebwatch.org/pdfs/casestudies.pdf

Beware : eBay PR wants you to belive you are safe shopping on eBay but independent research proves otherwise. You are better off shopping at other venues. eBay derives too much profit from scams and eBay management is notorious for closing both eyes over the customers being scammed if curbing scams cuts into eBay’s bottom line.

eBay continues to spend all of it’s revenues on stock repurchases to prop it’s own shares. It’s all about make belief to shareholders. Meantime the rumors that eBay is cutting 10% of it’s work force have been confirmed by Wall Stree Journal this morning.

The employees may be better off elsewhere : according to the latest ratings where employees rate their own employer, eBay CEO rating dropped to 26% from over 30% in less than a month and there is a major discontent brewing inside company ranks.

Average ratings from all usersOverall Rating
2.9 CEO Approval

John J. Donahoe
President and CEO

26% “Approve”
1 - 10 of 143 Reviews for eBay

Sep 9, 2008

10 found helpful
“Why is management trying to kill the golden goose?…”
Software QA Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States)
Sep 8, 2008

10 found helpful
“One eBay insider’s point of view…”
Program Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)
Sep 21, 2008

8 found helpful
“Ebay needs to get back to what made it great, being a unique force in the online marketplace.…”
Independent in San Jose, CA (United States)
Sep 12, 2008

9 found helpful | 1 comment
“Nearly 5 years there - what was I thinking…”
Senior Staff Software Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States)
Sep 11, 2008

8 found helpful
“Horrible for engineers.…”
Senior Software Engineer in Campbell, CA (United States)
Aug 22, 2008

10 found helpful
“eBay attracts a lot of great people, then the company culture beats them down and they leave within a couple of years.…”
Senior Product Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)
Sep 19, 2008

7 found helpful
“Great company, great purpose, no leadership, no willingness to admit mistakes…”
Senior Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)
Sep 10, 2008

8 found helpful
“Used to be a good place to work….…”
Program Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)
Sep 27, 2008

5 found helpful
“Was a great place to work when it was eBay instead of Amazon Jr. or Walmart.com Lite…”
Project Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)
Sep 8, 2008

6 found helpful | 1 comment
“John J. Donahoe does NOT know how to run a company!…”
Software Engineer in San Jose, CA

Can this get any worse?

Yes it can and yes it will. There are many reasons why. One of the best summaries of lately was published today at Forbes Magazine : The Real Reason eBay Is Stuck

eBay shares keep plunging as more on more bad ebay news paired with financial markets turmoil - we now have a 5 year low and finance forums for eBay shares at Yahoo and Google message boards are buzzing with discontent.

Net Institutional Purchases - 1s Qtr 2008 to 2nd Qtr 2008

Net Shares Purchased (Sold) (89,598,700)
% Change in Institutional Shares Held (10.8%)

Net Institutional Purchases - 4th Qtr 2007 to 1st Qtr 2008
Shares
Net Shares Purchased (Sold) (30,998,100)
% Change in Institutional Shares Held (3.5%)

So it appears that institutions have dumped three times as many shares in second quarter 2008 compared to first quarter 2008.

No matter how eBay corporate serves their PR Cool Aid, the bottom line is, the company is suffering from MBAaitis : a clueless bunch of MBAs running the auction site to the ground.

Check out the eBay Stock message board on Yahoo Finance or it’s counterpart eBay Stock Message board on Google : it’s carnage time! eBay has been heavily censoring sellers and customers disclosing their dismay with eBay management on it’s own site, so some sellers moved those discussions to the eBay STOCK forums to let the shareholders know “there is something rotten in the state of eBay”

eBay shares have hit 1 year low and 3 year low this week $22.70
Trade Time: Sep 9 and it appears that recovery is not in sight any time soon.

Update 9/25/2008 If you watch volume on eBay shares, you will not be able to help but notice a pattern of someone dumping unusually high volumes of eBay shares past few days right at the end of trading day.

Past 5 trading days a muti-million share dumps end of each day.

How are all these recent changes a new CEO John Donahoe made since early 2008 working for everyone? We know that eBay Sellers are screaming bloody murder and abandoning the site for fairer pastures. We know that media hates eBay this year. Cramer keeps telling shareholders that eBay is in trouble. eBay employees give eBay very low ratings. But the eBay CEO continues on his path of self destruction maintaining “We may have some sellers that make some noise,” [eBay CEO John] Donahoe said, “but we’re absolutely confident of the direction we’re going.”

What do the buyers think?

The above graph clearly illustrates that over the past 13 months eBay has lost 9% of it’s visitors, while craigslist gained 61.9% new visitors and Amazon gained 17.1% new visitors over the past 13 month period.

This is not a new trend. New York Times blogger reported in January 2008:

• Now the latest audience figures from Nielsen Online confirm that the e-commerce traffic crown has changed heads. For the month of December, for the first time, more Americans clicked over to Amazon.com (59,624,000) than eBay (59,374,000).
• According to the Nielsen data, the number of visitors to eBay.com dropped 10 percent from December 2006 to December 2007.

The fact that eBay is losing buyers was again confirmed by the Internet Retailer report in February 2008 :
Unique traffic to eBay.com slipped 5% in February from February a year ago, to 56.6 million
The top 10 online shopping destinations in February, with unique visitors in millions this year and last and growth from prior year, according to Nielsen Online, were:

* eBay, 56.60, 59.42, -5%
* Amazon, 47.67, 40.76, 17%
* Target, 22.57, 20.14, 12%
* Wal-Mart Stores, 21.35, 20.11, 6%
* Shopzilla.com Network, 21.16, 16.86, 25%
* Shopping.com Network, 16.36, 17,82, -8%
* Yahoo! Shopping, 16.08, 11,46, 40%
* Dell, 16.06, 13,96, 15%
* Circuit City, 14.30, 9.39, 52%
* Best Buy, 13.45, 12.66, 6%

Did you notice that the only other online retailer experiencing slowdown in unique visitors is Shopping.com = also eBay owned company! eBay has a special knack for ruining any company they purchase. It all boils down to incompetent management running down everything they touch.

The credit for bringing this to our attention should go to this post on eBay Stock forum poster on Yahoo Finance Board: Wanto to see a scary eBay graph

There is a brand new site online that lets current and past employees rate their employers. It appears that eBay sellers and buyers are not the only ones disenchanted with eBay CEO and the company management. Take a look how eBay employees rate eBay.

Here is a summary of 10 ratings out of 100 today as of writing of this post:

Aug 22, 2008
3 found helpful
“eBay attracts a lot of great people, then the company culture beats them down and they leave within a couple of years.…”
Senior Product Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)
…
Sep 5, 2008
“Great company! Wouldn’t work anywhere else…”
Anonymous
…
Sep 5, 2008
“Exciting things are happening at eBay!…”
Visual Designer in San Jose, CA (United States)
…
Sep 3, 2008
“If you’re considering a job at eBay, look elsewhere.…”
Interaction Designer in San Jose, CA (United States.)
…
Sep 3, 2008
“Don’t treat us like th paper you you wipe with.…”
Customer Sercvice in Vancouver (Canada)
…
Sep 3, 2008
“Used to be a great place to work, now it’s just a job…”
Senior Director in San Jose, CA (United States)
…
Sep 3, 2008
“If you’re bright, passionate, and energetic, you’ll eventually become drained and resent everything you ever worked for.…”
Marketing Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)
…
Sep 2, 2008
“Ebay can be better with changes.…”
Software Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States)
…
Aug 22, 2008
“Too many MBA’s - not enough people who love the web…”
Senior Content Manager
…
Aug 20, 2008
1 found helpful
“ebay stuck in a wheel which goes round and round and never goes up…”
Senior Software Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States)
…

I first found a mention of this on Yahoo Finance Forum for eBay stock on 9/3/2008 and it looked like this:

Overall Company Rating 3.2
CEO Approval Rating 32%

1 - 10 of 91 Reviews by eBay Employees

Aug 22, 2008
“eBay attracts a lot of great people, then the company culture beats them down and they leave within a couple of years.…”
Senior Product Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)

Aug 22, 2008
“Too many MBA’s - not enough people who love the web…”
Senior Content Manager

Aug 20, 2008
“ebay stuck in a wheel which goes round and round and never goes up…”
Senior Software Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States)

Aug 26, 2008
“tremendous opportunities, if only we would get our heads on straight and choose a visionary plan and leadership…”
Product Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)

Aug 24, 2008
“Wounded company that needs to find its way again…”
Senior Marketing Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)

Aug 22, 2008
“Corporate politics is rewarded over hard work and dedication.…”
Account Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)

Aug 20, 2008
“eBay stuck in a wheel which goes round and round but never goes up :(…”
Senior Software Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States)

Aug 19, 2008
“Great place to work with opportunities to grow…”
Software Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States)

Aug 19, 2008
“stuck in “turnaround” hell — we’ll see how it all shakes out. a lot (too much) change going on right now…”
Senior Category Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)

Aug 21, 2008
“Decent place to work…”
Product Manager in Campbell, CA (United States)

Next I found a similar post on eBay Seller Central forum, that one was dated September 2nd

So apparently this website must have come to attention of eBay corporate PR people as they have promptly sent two faithfull employees to give it such a nice rating that glaringly contradicts those 90 plus other rating: see the two latest ratings from Sept 5th.:

Sep 5, 2008
“Great company! Wouldn’t work anywhere else…”
Anonymous
…
Sep 5, 2008
“Exciting things are happening at eBay!…”
Visual Designer in San Jose, CA (United States)
…
It’s a shame that eBay feels they have to censor and decieve on all fronts. Those two consecutive emplyee praises from yesterday are just way too obvious when compared with the rest of the reviews. But again, eBay top management is not very bright so you cannot expect them to be very sophisticated in their efforts to censor out the truth.

The eBay Message Forum at Seller Central posts a full version of those 10 reviews and those are quite enlightening in case a shareholder wants to know what’s really going on in the company and what eBay will not tell you in their quarterly report. Here are full versions of the 10 employee reviews of eBay as posted on eBay Seller Central forum.

Aug 22, 2008
2.0
Details
Career Opportunities 3.0
Communication 2.0
Compensation & Benefits 3.0
Employee Morale 1.5
Recognition & Feedback 3.0
Senior Leadership 1.0
Work/Life Balance 3.5
Fairness & Respect 1.5
Disapproves of CEO

“eBay attracts a lot of great people, then the company culture beats them down and they leave within a couple of years.”
Senior Product Manager in San Jose, CA (United States) Past Employee (2007)
Pros
It’s a good name to have on your resume, and you will be working for a company that provides a living to millions of people. Bonus structure is good for a tech company.
Cons
Upper management is inept and tends to “swoop” in and make arbitrary changes to projects without supporting data. Politics is nasty, especially on the business side of things. There is significant favoritism given towards skinny blonde chicks by some senior managers. It takes a lot of work to get products out. John Donahoe is, I expect, going to run the company into the ground; he doesn’t understand the eBay ecosystem, and driving Rajiv Dutta out of the company was a truly crazy thing for him to do.
Advice to Senior Management
Ditch your CEO and start LISTENING to your wailing employees.

Aug 22, 2008
2.0
Details
Career Opportunities 3.0
Communication 1.0
Compensation & Benefits 2.5
Employee Morale 1.0
Recognition & Feedback 2.0
Senior Leadership 2.0
Work/Life Balance 3.0
Fairness & Respect 1.5
Disapproves of CEO

“Too many MBA’s - not enough people who love the web”
Senior Content Manager Current Employee
Pros
Good intentions of management on work life balance. Free soda. Staff cafeteria. Bus with wifi between San Francisco and campus. Most people are great to work with. Good christmas parties.
Cons
Good intentions on work life balance worthless when unable to hire even replacement staff while increasing the workload. Decisions made by MBAs who don’t know anything about the web or web design, so user experience is awful. San Jose is a hole. Stock options worthless. Too much consensus decision making which means decisions are too slow to make and end up sub-optimal just to compromise. No one single visionary you can believe in.
Advice to Senior Management
Stop taking your staff for granted. You are breaking them.

Aug 20, 2008
2.0
Details
Career Opportunities 3.0
Communication 1.5
Compensation & Benefits 3.0
Employee Morale 2.0
Recognition & Feedback 2.5
Senior Leadership 1.5
Work/Life Balance 3.0
Fairness & Respect 1.0
Disapproves of CEO
“ebay stuck in a wheel which goes round and round and never goes up”
Senior Software Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States) Current Employee
Pros
Culture, history, nothing, else, tocomment
Cons
politics, bickering, weak management, unfairness, low morale
Advice to Senior Management
hopefully solve problems of employees and give them a passion and reason to contribute.

Aug 26, 2008
4.0
Details
Career Opportunities 4.0
Communication 2.0
Compensation & Benefits 3.0
Employee Morale 3.0
Recognition & Feedback 3.0
Senior Leadership 2.0
Work/Life Balance 4.5
Fairness & Respect 3.0
Disapproves of CEO

“tremendous opportunities, if only we would get our heads on straight and choose a visionary plan and leadership”
Product Manager in San Jose, CA (United States) Current Employee
Pros
For better or worse, eBay is a large company. Even if you start at eBay doing one job, there’s tremendous opportunity to more around the company if you are apt and willing. eBay also attacks problems of tremendous scale, unmatched anywhere on the web. How we handle them is sometimes questionable, but there’s no doubt that we are the biggest game in town.
Cons
Management is schizophrenic and quarter-driven. Even when we were promised that we were NOT going to be quarter driven, we still see a highly detrimental focus on making the projection for Wall St.
Internally, everything not aligned with the current soup du ‘jour is likely to be canceled, paused, downsized or outright ignored. Also there are far too many doers and not enough thinkers hired here. This company is run by people who “have ideas”, whether they are well-planned or not.
Advice to Senior Management
Settle down. STOP focusing on the near term. Chill out, plan ahead and start treating this company like it’s going to be around for 100 years. If you don’t treat it that way, then it won’t be. If you keep treating it like it will only be around another 3 to 5 years, then Wall St. will assume that too.

Aug 24, 2008
2.0
Details
Career Opportunities 2.5
Communication 2.0
Compensation & Benefits 3.0
Employee Morale 2.0
Recognition & Feedback 3.0
Senior Leadership 2.0
Work/Life Balance 4.0
Fairness & Respect 3.5
Disapproves of CEO

“Wounded company that needs to find its way again”
Senior Marketing Manager in San Jose, CA (United States) Current Employee
Pros
Used to be the quality of the team - smart, vibrant people and a clear, defined mission for the business. Those things are changing, so now I’d say it’s still a company with potential, as soon as the “turnaround” is over.
Cons
Unclear decision-making, lack of accountability and disregard for critical functions that aren’t directly driving the business, but are still indispensible.
Advice to Senior Management
Articulate a vision and get people invested in it. Right now, people are operating in crisis mode, but there isn’t a lot of compelling reasons to stay. As the good folks hit the road with more and more frequency, “put your head down and get your work done” is less a rallying cry and more a threat. And even if the job market is so-so right now, attrition isn’t going to get any better without inspiration from the leaders of the company.

Aug 22, 2008
2.0
Details
Career Opportunities 2.5
Communication 2.0
Compensation & Benefits 2.5
Employee Morale 2.0
Recognition & Feedback 1.0
Senior Leadership 1.0
Work/Life Balance 2.5
Fairness & Respect 1.0
Disapproves of CEO

“Corporate politics is rewarded over hard work and dedication.”
Account Manager in San Jose, CA (United States) Current Employee
Pros
Good benefits package. Great coworkers.
Cons
Incompetant supervisors who micro-manage rather than encourage and support.
Advice to Senior Management
Trust and respect of employees could result in a more loyal and dedicated workforce.

Aug 20, 2008
2.0
Details
Career Opportunities 2.5
Communication 1.5
Compensation & Benefits 3.0
Employee Morale 2.0
Recognition & Feedback 2.5
Senior Leadership 2.0
Work/Life Balance 3.5
Fairness & Respect 1.0
Disapproves of CEO
1 of 2 people found this helpful
“eBay stuck in a wheel which goes round and round but never goes up ”
Senior Software Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States) Current Employee
Pros
The brand is well recognized. The company is full of intelligent people to learn from. A good place to learn about how internet business works.
Cons
The middle management is very incompetent and totally screwed up. They are busy in too many useless meetings and keep dishing out BS to employees.Too much politics.
Compensation here is lower than average. Promotions are given based more on politics than actual job performance.
Bloated infrastructure and organization. Change is slow and by the time it happens is often outdated. Very few opportunities for career advancement.
Advice to Senior Management
Clean up the fat layer from the middle. Get rid of middle layer instead of getting rid of engineers. There are way too many directors and VPs for a company this size

Aug 19, 2008
4.0
Details
Career Opportunities 4.0
Communication 4.0
Compensation & Benefits 3.0
Employee Morale 4.0
Recognition & Feedback 5.0
Senior Leadership 3.0
Work/Life Balance 4.0
Fairness & Respect 4.0
No Opinion of CEO
“Great place to work with opportunities to grow”
Software Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States) Current Employee
Pros
With a great work atmosphere, there are various opportunities provided for individuals to shine and grow within their teams. Employee training is encouraged, and management makes every attempt to provide projects based on the type of work employees want to do. With the number of changes happening this year, senior management has been very communicative and responsive, which is great to see.
Cons
A better work-life balance atmosphere would be beneficial. Due to the large nature of the organization, decision making takes a long time as you have to go through a lot of red tape. Company seems to be more reactive than proactive, always trying to catch up with competition as opposed to setting trends.
Advice to Senior Management
Biggest question most employees ask is - Are we a Business company or a Technology company? To me, it seems we are a business company that tries to behave as a technology company. It should in fact be vice versa. Senior management needs to cleary define who we are, and work towards implementing the same. They should take calculated risks, become more proactive, and need to make decisions quicker.

Aug 19, 2008
4.0
Details
Career Opportunities 4.0
Communication 2.5
Compensation & Benefits 4.0
Employee Morale 4.0
Recognition & Feedback 2.5
Senior Leadership 3.0
Work/Life Balance 4.0
Fairness & Respect 3.0
Disapproves of CEO
“stuck in “turnaround” hell — we’ll see how it all shakes out. a lot (too much) change going on right now”
Senior Category Manager in San Jose, CA (United States) Current Employee
Pros
great brand name, real impact on people’s lives, removing inefficiencies from marketplaces - its nice to work for a company that is universally known (but sometimes passionately hated as well)
Cons
way too much bureaucracy - too much “its not on my list”, and this year, a lot of fear around layoffs and constrained resources. product changes are slow. existing processes are inflexible. the company has carved work into so many little pieces that its hard to find any ownership. too many ex-consultants and ex-bankers in leadership - we need more operating expertise to run a company. much too focused on powerpoint decks instead of real bold action and experience.
Advice to Senior Management
stop changing things - its makes everyone dizzy! buyers, sellers, employees, etc, are just trying to earn a living and do good work. you make it really hard when policies, resources, fees, headcount keep changing.

Aug 21, 2008
3.0
Details
Career Opportunities 3.0
Communication 3.0
Compensation & Benefits 3.0
Employee Morale 3.0
Recognition & Feedback 2.0
Senior Leadership 2.5
Work/Life Balance 2.5
Fairness & Respect 3.0
No Opinion of CEO
“Decent place to work”
Product Manager in Campbell, CA (United States) Past Employee (2006)
Pros
Great projects to work on, with tons of users and lots of strategy behind what is built. ROI drives everything. You also get to work with great people who really know what they’re doing. Usually, people are nice and helpful. As with most places, there is the occasional jerk or sycophant but overall, the people are great. Benefits are also on par with most large companies in teh bay area. maybe a little low, but not much. I’d prefer working at eBay over Google for sure.
Cons
Too much work, too much expected of employees, not enough recognition given for the right things - probably the same at most large companies
Advice to Senior Management
Improve work/life balance

================================

Did you notice those CEO Approval ratings?

John J. Donahoe
President and CEO
31% “Approve”

Yahoo
Jerry Yang
40% “Approve”

Amazon
Jeff Bezos
68% “Approve”

Google
Eric E. Schmidt
87% “Approve”

I guess Donahoe is as popular with his employees as he is with his customers.

Since eBay shares hit another 52 week low yesterday
Day’s Range: 23.24 - 24.45
52wk Range: 23.24 - 40.73
Volume: 22,776,993
Avg Vol (3m): 15,025,90
Last Trade: 23.77
Trade Time: Sep 5, 2008

So it appears eBay shareholders are not thrilled with Donahoe and his management team either. Just take a look at Yahoo Finance Forum for eBay - it if full of unhappy shareholders, eBay sellers and scammed buyers complaining about eBay’s mediocre management.

============
Update 9/24/2008
Now that the eBay PR plants washed away under real posts, just a quick pulse check to see how eBay employees continue to feel about their employer. I see the CEO’s rating went down from 30 plus % down to 28% since we found the site where employees get to rate their employer and CEO less than a month ago.

1 - 10 of 129 Reviews for eBay

*

Sep 9, 2008

7 found helpful
“Why is management trying to kill the golden goose?…”
Software QA Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States)
*

Sep 8, 2008

7 found helpful
“One eBay insider’s point of view…”
Program Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)
*

Sep 12, 2008

6 found helpful | 1 comment
“Nearly 5 years there - what was I thinking…”
Senior Staff Software Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States)
*

Sep 11, 2008

5 found helpful
“Horrible for engineers.…”
Senior Software Engineer in Campbell, CA (United States)
*

Aug 22, 2008

7 found helpful
“eBay attracts a lot of great people, then the company culture beats them down and they leave within a couple of years.…”
Senior Product Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)
*

Sep 19, 2008

4 found helpful
“Great company, great purpose, no leadership, no willingness to admit mistakes…”
Senior Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)
*

Sep 21, 2008

3 found helpful
“Ebay needs to get back to what made it great, being a unique force in the online marketplace.…”
Independent in San Jose, CA (United States)
*

Sep 8, 2008

4 found helpful
“John J. Donahoe does NOT know how to run a company!…”
Software Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States)
*

Sep 16, 2008

3 found helpful
“ebay - not what it used to be!…”
Senior Director in San Jose, CA (United States)
*

Sep 10, 2008

4 found helpful
“Used to be a good place to work….…”
Program Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)

Ebay has a sizeable shareholder approved stock repurchase plan.

Here are average share repurchase prices eBay made during past 9 months.
October 2007 $ 35.36
November 2007 $ 33.23
December 2007 $ 33.37

January 2008 $ 26.71
February 2008 $ 27.52
March 2008 $ 26.44

April 2008 $ 30.61
May 2008 $ 30.76
June 2008 $ 29.08

In the chart above, we have highlighted the most likely times that eBay purchased it’s own shares based on the price of eBay stock during that month.

It becomes obvious eBay usually initiates repurchase of it’s own shares following a major drop in price, effectively propping up it’s own share price. Is this legal? You betcha it is! It also appears to be a gold mine for those who are shorting eBay stock. Armed with this knowledge, one shorting eBay shares can predict when eBay will buy it’s own shares, usually following a relatively significant drop in eBay share price, thus this share buy back artificially inflaties the price (again). Next, the market takes over, the shares begin to drop again and those brave enough to short eBay shares continue making money.

eBay shares 52wk Range: $40.73 - $23.52

As sellers and buyers continue to defect from eBay due to it’s poor management decisions, more and more investors short this stock. Just take a look at the largest finance forum for eBay shares. It is full of upset eBay sellers and those who recently made pile of money shorting eBay stock.

A year ago, Amazon Shares soared while eBay shares struggled in an effort to retain value. Those of us watching eBay closely knew that Wall Street has become aware of eBay’s inept management who was unable to react to current internet trends and threats, lack of customer service and safety across eBay properties and other issues which prompted eBay customer and seller base to migrating away from eBay and the likely beneficiary of the dwindling eBay business would be AMAZON. Next we have seen eBay desperate efforts to AMAZONITE itself, which so far has proven a complete “feeasco” as eBay management does not appear to “GET IT”, IT being the essence of makes Amazon so much more attractive to shoppers: Customer Service, Integrity, Safety and Security, Stable Selling and Buying environment at a reasonable price. Ebay needed to grow margins, so they increased seller fees and tried to ram PayPal down the sellers throats. Ebay needed perception of higher safety on their site, so they reduced transparency on its site by hiding who bids on what and removing 2 way feedback so you can no longer identify shill bidding and fraudulent buyers. This resulted in even more pronounced seller exodus from eBay so eBay begins losing it’s “edge” of having many unique one of a kind items, one cannot find anywhere else.

Now one year later, we have the benefit of viewing Quarterly Reports of both ecommerce rivals to see who is successfully adapting to constantly changing economic and market conditions. Those who successfully adapt turn out to be winners leaving the ‘has beens’ to dwindle. As I write this, AOL comes to mind.

When a single company reports earnings for a quarter, it is healthy to relate those earnings to the one of it’s closest competitor as well as the market segment as a whole so we can get a true feel if the Company is doing well in the current economical conditions. I have waited for Amazon’s Q2 Report so we can compare eBay’s performance with Amazon numbers.

ACTIVE USER GROWTH

AMAZON = INCREASED TO 18%

The number of total active customer accounts also jumped, rising 18 percent to more than 81 million

EBAY = CONTINUES FLATLINING AT 1%

The number of total active user accounts rose only 1 % to 84.5 million compared to second quarter 2007

MERCHANDISE SALES GROWTH

AMAZON = 35% growth

North America segment sales, representing the company’s U.S. and Canadian sites, were up 35% from a year ago to $2.17 billion.

International sales, representing the company’s U.K., German, Japanese, French and Chinese sites, were up 47% to $1.89 billion.

Excluding the impact of foreign-exchange rates, international sales grew 34%. (Any company still growing US centric sales at pace with foreign sales - you have to tip your hat at least a little)

EBAY = only 13% growth

The Marketplaces business unit, which consists of eBay, Shopping.com, StubHub, Kijiji and other ecommerce sites, had a strong second quarter, generating $1.46 billion in revenue, equating to 13% year-over-year growth

Gross merchandise volume was $15.68 billion for the quarter, an increase of 8% over the second quarter of 2007.

IMPACT OF SLUMPING US ECONOMY

AMAZON : SAYS IT’S POSITIVE

Chief Executive Jeff Bezos said Amazon suspects increased fuel prices may give it a “relative advantage” over other retailers.

“Even just driving 10 miles these days is a few dollars worth of gasoline,” he said during a conference call with analysts. “And consumers, we suspect, are beginning to take that into account and try to do trip consolidation. So our free shipping offers and Amazon Prime are clearly of even more value to customers under that set of circumstances.”

Sales were strong in several sections of Amazon’s massive marketplace. Chief Executive Jeff Bezos also said Amazon’s Kindle digital book reader was gaining readers, while the number of independent sellers offering goods on Amazon’s site continued to grow.

EBAY: STATES IT’S NEGATIVE
Despite a gain in the number of items sold, the average selling price of goods on eBay declined 6%. That means items are selling, but at lower prices. Lower prices hurt sellers and are particularly painful to eBay under its new fee structure, which grabs the most revenue from percentage-based fees on the sale price of items.

Chief Financial Officer Bob Swan also attributed some of the declining growth in eBay’s core shopping business to a slowing U.S. economy. Growth was flat in eBay’s autos business, which brings in about 20% of the revenue for its shopping sites. Swan also said the softening economy was leading shoppers to buy cheaper items.

True, the economy is taking some toll on eBay’s business. But a bargain site like eBay could also have benefited from a weakening economy as increased volume from deal-oriented shoppers makes up for the decline in selling prices.

Moreover, eBay’s growth has long trailed growth in the overall e-commerce market. The U.S. e-commerce market is expected to grow 17% this year, according to Forrester Research (FORR). But revenue in eBay’s U.S. marketplace grew just 12% from a year earlier.

If you are an eBay seller, you may want to checkout AMAZON, it appears that AMZN is attracting buyers and sales on Amazon are increasing while eBay sales continue to shrink. Amazon is lot more stable, management wise so your business is SAFER on a professionally managed marketplace. On eBay, one day you are a star, next day a BOT will block you from selling and PayPal will freeze your assets, effectively ruining your business. If you are an eBay seller, it’s definitely worth testing the AMAZON waters, many many eBay sellers already are and YOU do not want to get left in the dust with the group of eBay sellers being slowly bled to hang “GOING OUT OF BUSINESS” sign on their eBay store. Check out this newsbyte Amazon says active seller accounts up 18 percent

If you are a shareholder, it’s nice to have a comparison of the two e-commerce rivals handy to assist you in recognizing how eBay management fares in adjusting to current economic trends and conditions.

Check out the eBay stock forum on Yahoo Finance.

This image was lifted from eBay Seller Central Forum, directly off eBay site. There are many hot topics discussed, not many pertain to actual selling on eBay, most voice outrage over new eBay policies and contempt for the new direction eBay management took since the beginning of this year.

After eBay posted the Q2 earnings, one of many topics appropriately titled “eBay stock soars today!” discussed why the shares fell so badly inspite of seemingly good looking quarterly report. It is a long thread, worth reading. I think this one post is worth saving and reprinting here, just in case the eBay censor accidentally deletes that topic also:
—————————————————————————
If we focus on improving velocity we know we’re going to monetize that in new and different ways. - John Donohoe

While I don’t like some of the changes ebay has made this year (and far too many at once, it’s like trying to bolt down junk food) I’ve never been a rabid antibayer.

But I am very doubtful that the new management at ebay is going to make anything positive happen.

My view is strictly subjective.

What, exactly, does the above sentence by CEO Donohoe MEAN?

Speaking in shorthand buzzwords means (to me) that you are either hiding something you don’t want out in the open, or to impart an impression of competence that is not necessarily there.

Many listening to this kind of talk will be intimidated by it - fearful of bringing the speaker up short by asking him to state clearly and in English precisely what he is saying. Specifics.

They would be afraid of being considered “out of it.”

So it serves to allow the CEO to get away with impressive-sounding verbiage, a demo that he is so “on top of it” that to question him, to pin him down, would make the interlocuter seem a backward-looking dullard.

Here’s another word that Mr D used in his interview with a stock analyst (posted here earlier): incentivize

Huh?

When puerile stuff like this passes for high-level management skills, Mr D is not to blame. The Ebay Board of Directors got hornswoggled by Sizzlemanship. (Imagine the short shrift a sizzler would get from a plain speaker like Warren Buffett)

Decades ago a super salesman named Wheeler penned a best-seller called Sizzlemanship. It told salespeople throughout the world “to sell the sizzle, not the steak.”

Buzz it up, paint words that sound good, even if they be so vague as to be meaningless.

It this is the kind of con that rises to the top in corporate America, if Mr D’s sizzlemanship is multiplied several thousandfold in the nation’s multinational corporations — it is time for either investor revolt or a people’s revolution.

Or we’ll all be headed into a sizzling black hole.
—————————————————————————

Check out the eBay Stock Forum on Yahoo! : it appears there are hardly any investors left with faith in this company. eBay shares plunged 15% after eBay announced their User growth continues to stagnate at 1% and GMV growth is now reduced to 9%.

This YouTube video illustrates how recent eBay changes “protecting bidder’s privacy” affect you as a buyer when you decide to participate in bidding on eBay items. eBay touted that they are removing transparency from bidding process to protect you. I have a different opinion. eBay prefers to let shill bidding rampant on their site and now you cannot detect it because you have no way of knowing whom you bid against. When sellers shill their items, you as a buyer pay more and eBay makes more money. Simple.

Watch this YouTube eye opener!

And check out other awesome videos by the eBayPirate.
Remember: S.A.F.E. = Stay Away From Ebay

There were times not so long ago that any time there were some negative news about eBay, the eBay PR department would issue some positive news fluff PR releases and effectively counter the negative news with positive.

Lately, there are so many negative news articles in just about all major media that it is simply impossible for eBay PR to cover up all that negative publicity.

As eBay gets negative billing on Major media, as opposed to few independent blogs, millions of readers become will suddenly have confirmation of their own “hunch” that ‘there is something rotten in the state of eBay’.

• Forbes : Reserve Not Met, Gurus Dump eBay advising investors to dump EBAY shares 02.25.08
• Forbes on eBay losing counterfeit lawsuit to Hermès in France 06-09-2008, summarizing other ongoing lawsuits by major design houses against eBay.

• Business Week Auctions on eBay: A Dying Breed on 6-3-2008: As consumers opt for fixed-price purchases, what happens to the company that perfected the art of online bidding—and the scores of e-auctioneers?
• Business Week eBay Auctions: Going, Going… on 6-19-2008 :
  The thrill of the hunt is fading for buyers, and longtime auctioneers aren’t happy with higher fees

• 
  Sunday Times UK Edition on 6-22-2008 : eBay’s small sellers rebel. This year’s conference took place in Chicago and was the most controversial in the seven-year history of eBay Live. The company had been expecting 10,000 people. It looked like half that number had turned up and the exhibitors’ hall seemed to have been reshuffled to hide the gaps.

• Australian News.Com.Au : My way or the highway, says eBay on 6-18-2008 : EBAY Australia has fired off a strongly worded letter to its 5 million customers, warning that failure to comply with its new PayPal ruling will result in an immediate removal of product listings. This is the strongest sign yet that nothing will stop plans to make PayPal, an eBay subsidiary, the only electronic payment mechanism available on the auction website. EBay’s directive comes despite a preliminary ruling last week by the competition watchdog that restricting transactions to PayPal would be anti-competitive.
• 
  NY Times EBay Tries to Buy a Little More Love From Sellers on 6-20-2008 : The key problem with eBay is that the value of what it offers has not kept up with the price it charges sellers. Between the fees to list items on eBay — essentially advertising — and the PayPal transaction fees, eBay often charges about 13 percent of each transaction. Sellers can pay a tad more, about 15 percent, to sell items through Amazon.com’s Marketplace service, where they get a little more protection against fraud and a site that arguably offers a better experience for their buyers. Or they can set up their own Web site and buy advertising and transaction services a la carte — an ever-more-effective option as people increasingly shop through search engines. These days, many consumers associate eBay with fraud and scams as much as they did with unique items and bargains a few years ago.

• 
  Wall Street Journal EBay Angers Sellers, Pleases Buyers on 6-24-2008 : EBay has operated a feedback system that let buyers rate their experience with sellers and vice versa. The company has now shifted to a system under which only buyers rate sellers. The sellers say that leaves them open to forms of blackmail and extortion by buyers, such as threatening to leave negative ratings if sellers won’t make such concessions as giving partial refunds to buyers who contend they pay too much.

• Wall Street Journal EBay Gets Little Love from Software Makers on 5-22-2008 : Software & Information Industry Association says many of those programs are pirated, and it hopes to publicly shame the e-commerce giant into cooperating with the software industry’s anti-piracy crusade. The software-industry trade group criticized eBay for being “totally non-responsive” to its efforts to eliminate fake or copied software from the auction site, says Keith Kupferschmid, the head of intellectual property at SIIA.

Check out the comments on the above articles. There are thousands of unsatisfied eBay sellers and buyers reacting to recent eBay changes.

eBay shares fell from $30.38 to $28.17 in past 30 days. Yahoo finance forum for EBAY stock is flooded with unhappy EBAY sellers and buyers who resourced to account for their negative experiences with eBay and PayPal there as more and more eBayers realize that eBay will not listen to any other voice of reason but it’s Shareholders and financial bloggers are also noticing the trend: Here is a lates article eBay Falls from Grace from Yahoo Tech Ticker Blog

Lots of eBay sellers are asking what are other places to sell online aside from eBay.

There are the usual good suggestions like
amazon.com
base.google.com
craigslist.com
ioffer.com
ecrater.com
rubylane.com
ubid.com
ola.com
ebid.net

Each seller presents a unique set in the type of items as well as sales preference format. I cannot say enough of good things about Google when it comes to eCommerce.

• Search Google for your product.
  A good example is a search for
  RCA Victor Phonograph
  then pay special attention what comes up

  I see:
  craigslist
  GoAntiques
  and independent websites on page 1 results of Google/Google Base results

  This will help you identifying sites you can list your products THAT COME UP ON GOOGLE search well

• If you have unique product that is not common you can build your own store under your own domain name and come up almost immediately on page 1 Google search

  Do a Google search for Mosaic Mailbox and you will see our site with custom mosaic mailboxes as #1 on Google search results. It’s only a spiffed up WordPress blog and it took about 60 days to get to#1 spot on Google natural search results.

• Did you know you can IMPORT your eBay store listings to homestead store hosted pages? You can create a homestead store and import your eBay listings with few clicks of a mouse into a homestead store front Your import options include:

  The ‘Build Catalog Using eBay Listings’ feature, which allows you to create products from your eBay listings and then select the products you would like to copy into your Homestead Storefront catalog. eBay listings include eBay Store and individual listings based on your eBay seller account. You’ll find the ‘Build Catalog Using eBay Listings’ option in the ‘eBay Tools’ area of Store Administration.

  The only drawback I see with Homestead hosting is their unstandard web addresses they assign to home page and product pages.
  If you check out the featured sites here you will notice that the catalog item pages have this “bok?” in the web address which makes it rather difficult to move your store to another web hosting provider. So you may want to consider using a standard web hosting company who offers osCommerce store web hosting and enter your items manually so if in the future you want to move your store, you would not be stuck with a proprietory platform.

• Remember to register your domain name so your ecomerce livelyhood will not depend on whims of a 3rd party. You can move your store to another web hosting company any time as long as you have your own domain name, remeber if your store is http://www.ebay.com/antiquetreasures or http://antiquetreasures.ecrater.com the moment you leave those websites, your store and your customers will go poof! So placing your store under your own domain name, such as www.antiquetreasures.com is critical to your long terms success.
  

The reports from eBay LIVE! are quite interesting.

First this YouTube video shows a ghost town in the conference room that should be full of eBay Power Sellers (Note: eBay does not allow video taping eBay live sessions, now you know why)

Then AuctionBytes transcripts some of the eBay LIVE! Q and A sessions,

Oooooops Griff, don’t you wish you kept your mouth shut? Remember eBay is all bunnies, daisies and lollypops!

where eBay spokesman Griff declares:

Griff: We had to make these changes because, without buyers, there will be no eBay in two years.

“Bullshit!” someone says.

“No bullshit,” he responds; “absolutely true. The rate of decline in the growth of buyers…it was ripe for buyers going other places, and if the momentum starts, eBay is over.“

EBAY shares opened at 28.85 and are down over 3% to
Real-time: 28.24 Down 0.93(3.19%) 3:21PM ET as I write this post today.

For those who don’t know, Leo Leporte has over 2 million listeners on his podcast TWiT, and his weekend radio show (KFI-AM) in Los Angeles which is also podcasted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Laporte

You can listen to this MP3 broadcast snipped from Leo’s show (4.6 Megs)
where Leo Raporte and Dick DeBartolo account how they were scammed on eBay. They both used PayPal to pay for transaction and lost their money because in reality, PayPal protection was non existent. Listen to the podcast, it’s about 10 minutes long and will open your eyes and hopefully raise your caution when considering buying on eBay :

Click here to listen to the PodCast by Leo Raporte and Dick DeBartolo

After getting burned twice, this time for $2,200:

“eBay doesn’t seem to do very much to prevent [scammers] or discourage [scammers].”

“We’re not protected…[regarding Paypal]“.

“I will never buy anything on eBay ever again….and I going to go on my radio show on a regular basis and tell everybody that.”

Source: See show 588, about 1/2 way down the podcast.
http://twit.tv/dgw588 (Our recording starts at 7th minute of the original PodCast)