eBay Live - Somebody Get Me A Helmet!
Hi gang,
Well, I’ve got a lot to digest after 3 days of eBay Live here in Chicago. I’ll be posting thoughts/announcements all week, but here are my overall impressions:
1. I thought eBay Live Boston last year was too quiet - until this year. I would be really surprised if there were more than 6,000 attending this show - that’s less than half of the attendance of eBay Live as recently as 2 years ago. The large sellers like me were almost completely absent - only 25 of the top 100 registered for the show, and I don’t think all of them actually showed.
2. There are some very, very , very angry eBay sellers right now. What scares me is that for every 1 angry seller who attended, there must be hundreds of angry sellers who didn’t attend.
For the first time ever, an eBay executive was booed at a keynote address. Lorrie Norrington, eBay’s new President of Marketplaces, was soundly booed by hundreds of people on Friday when she spoke about the recent changes to Feedback.
Unfortunately for eBay, that trend continued through 2 town hall meetings on Saturday. Brian Burke, eBay’s head of Feedback, probably should have worn a flack jacket and a helmet through both town halls. There were multiple times in both sessions when a critisicm from an audience member caused the entire audience to erupt in long applause, followed by jeers and hecking from the audience.
3. Nothing really happened this round. There were no major announcements, but indications that more changes were on the way in the next 6-8 weeks.
I have lots of thoughts on this conference - standby for much more on eBay Live 2008.
-Kevin
http://inflatablemadnessdvd.com
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June 22nd, 2008 at 10:32 am
amazing front lines insights, kevin. it really seems like things are changing.
so, if not through ebay, then how are these successful sellers making up the money they once hauled in through their ebay presence? or are they still there making money, just not happy.
June 22nd, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Rich, the mantra for the large sellers for the past year has been diversify, diversify, diversify. In fact, I’ll be dedicating an entire blog to that topic soon.
-K
June 24th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
THEY SUCK
July 2nd, 2008 at 7:41 am
Aren’t we all just waiting to see who will be the next TOP DOG in the on line auction biz. THIS powerseller (4000+ 99.7%) will lose no time in moving on. I was at the convention - where was everyone else? ABOUT FEEDBACK RATINGS: I HATE THAT I CAN’T WARN OTHER SELLERS ABOUT DEADBEATS. Biggest piece of nonsense for this seller: If I SHOW the shipping & handling? Why would you buy and then give me a low star rating? Idiot!!!! My banned buyer list is growing by leaps and bounds.