Is eBay Putting You Out of Business?
It is amazing the logic Mr. Brian Burke at eBay uses. He states, and I quote "Digital goods are often reproduced at little to no cost to the seller. On eBay, this creates the potential for Feedback Manipulation (both real and perceived)".
To speak to the costs of reproduction, One wonders what he might say to the concept of drug companies spending untold amounts of money on research and development, then being able to manufacture their product for nearly nothing. This of course, does not change the fact that large amounts of money have been spend on the development of the product.
The question may also be asked: just what does the cost of producing a product have to do with a product or service being able to survive in the free market? Just like any other product out there, the development process is not free. Why should a digital product be treated differently? Just because the form is electronic, that makes it no less valuable or worthless in and of itself. I've paid very little for digital products which I felt were worth far more than what I paid. To Mr. Burke, the expense and time involved in the creation of a digital product is worth nothing at all.
eBay makes the claim that I have somehow been victimized by being able to buy a good product at a reasonable price. If anyone can decipher this line of logic, I beg of you, explain it to me. Wasn't it eBay who have made digital delivery a possibility in its site's listings? And were eBay users completely unaware of this development?
Now as for feedback manipulation, bad feedback can be gotten from a buyer for even a sale of one cent! As for myself, I know I have left unfavorable feedback to sellers for extremely small ticket items - cases where the product was just not worth even the nominal price paid. the price of the item is not really that relevant to customer satisfaction, no matter how much or how little is paid, the buyer can still feel as if they have gotten a bad deal.
eBay's listing aren't free. The seller still has to pay to list his products.
As for me, I am still at a loss to explain why eBay would seemingly want to destroy an industry over a problem with more than one simple, easily implemented solution. eBay is in the business of providing a service. This service is advertised as being an effective way to sell and promote products and services at a low price. eBay has now decided that entrepreneurs that have created products to fill niches in their service are exploiting them.
One of the solutions to eBay's supposed dilemma is to just ignore feedback for items selling for less than a certain amount, or to discount such feedback.
It is hoped that eBay will soon revise this policy which is doing such damage to many of their users. There have certainly been adverse effects to businesses utilizing eBay as a venue for their wares from negative feedback - however, as stated above, there is in fact an easy solution to this. The digital segment of the eBay marketplace is growing quickly, and as with any other market segment, opinions may vary as to the products themselves.
Let's all work together to get Ebay to take a more realistic and humane approach and to simply use good business sense and straighten this whole mess out.
Just my 2 cents worth.
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