Once EBay completes the spin off of PayPal, and now their Enterprise unit, they should redouble efforts on actually innovating in the online market place experience. After nearly two decades of being in the business of helping buyers and sellers come together, they should’ve figured out quite a few things that they seemingly haven’t figured out.
- They allow bidders (buyers) who win the bid to pull out after winning the bid, by simply not paying for the item.
- Their customer service is horrible, they focus solely on deflecting the customer. They take no accountability to follow through with individual customers and spend most of their time quoting policies.
- They allow buyers to return, get a refund, and have shipping paid for, all at the expense of the seller, even if the buyer has not only used the item for several days, but modified it.
Many of these policies open the door to fraud on the part of both buyers and sellers. When you discuss these matters with their customer service department, all they do is quote the bible of policy. I know these aren’t simple issues to deal with, but these are things you have to deal with if you want to foster an ecosystem of buyers and sellers.
I would think 20 years would’ve been enough time to be more creative than the policies they currently espouse. Policies that are about as creative as any Joe Schmo could come up with, without any expertise in buying and selling.
Maybe now is the time to get the strategic ducks in a row and show us what one can do when they put some focus into their business. Maybe they can take a bit of their own medicine, guidance they provide to sellers: “Become a better seller by providing excellent customer service…”