Ebay's Fall Update 2021 - Sorry Postcard Dealers And Collectors.

So ebay has just released another dreaded seller update for the fall. No massive earth-shattering changes per se except those who sell and buy postcards.

Instead of the multitude of categories by states, topics, regions, countries, etc. etc. there will only be TWO categories - topographical and non-topographical. That's it! Granted anyone with an ebay store can make any category within their own store, it's going to be very difficult for anyone to just browse. Use those search engines I guess and hope for the best. Change is coming October 14th. Sellers adjust your listings as needed.

https://pages.ebay.com/sellerinform...iew2021.html

I assume they will expect sellers to use item specifics. Agree that it will be a mess throwing all the states together!

I think that by the time I'll want to unload my collectibles, ebay will be utterly useless as a means of getting rid of them.

It really does feel like it will be more work for the sellers and more difficult for buyers to find items. At least for the collectables it feels like item specifics are very redundant. Isn't that what titles, descriptions, categories and search engines are for? Which has been part of ebay for 20+ years? It's also just a lot more busy work for those who already have listings created. I've been slacking off on creating new auctions (busy with other things really like kids/school/etc., but things like this really pushes me to say forget ebay forever and just go with Delcampe or something else.

And yet they retained the state-specific categories for... license plates?

I'll repeat what I've been saying for years: I don't believe that a single decisionmaker at ebay at any level has actually ever USED ebay as either a buyer or a seller.

The decision makers at ebay probably are paid enough that they have no need for picking up spare change by selling on ebay or no need to hunt for bargains on ebay.

Well my point was not about compensation, but rather the lack of firsthand experience on either side of the table with respect to the platform they are governing.

Yet the ebay stockholders (including the employees shareholders), the people who actually matter to public companies, are quite happy with how the company is being managed.

Closed at $73 (close to all-time high) a share today and the 5 year growth is great.


Its been said before...buy some ebay stock and it will help you feel better when you get frustrated.
Don

Edit: In my opinion the ebay decision makers care about the stock price and the shareholders and Joe stamp seller is not even close to being on the radar screen. At best ebay would probably be willing to sit down and listen to the big stamp sellers like NY Stamps or Noble, look them in the eye and tell them how much they matter, and then walk out of the meeting laughing.
Public companies care the stock price and shareholders, it is just the way it works. <shrugs>

I don't want to get too off-topic here, but I have worked for publicly-held companies. Management is interested in 2 things: quarterly profit #'s and public image. Employees had plenty of complaints, yet they went completely unaddressed except for those few issues that management could 'spin' into a PR+. It was ALL about keeping stockholders happy, with upper management being large stockholders themselves. Working for a publicly-held company (without stock options) can be horrendous. Working on ebay may very well be similar, for the same reasons. Unless, of course, seller/buyer dissatisfaction affects profits.

Having said all that, I now work for (through buyout) a Fortune 500 (100??) company and have had very few of the complaints that I had with the previous employers discussed above. I guess there are good apples and bad apples.

Here's to hoping no one finds a worm in their apple.