This weekend has been an adventure in the Northeast with the arrival of our first snowstorm of the season. Hopefully, shoppers who can't make it out to the malls and retail stores will turn their attention online to finish their holiday shopping. Usually, bad weather translates into more Web surfers, so let it snow!
Speaking of storms, we received a flood of emails after running an article in this week's Newsflash newsletter about eBay glitches. There have been numerous reports of technical problems on eBay, including limited search results, which were never posted to eBay's announcement boards. I'm reprinting the article in this issue because it contains important information.
When eBay did account maintenance on November 22, a technical glitch made sellers' "Blocked Bidders Lists" start acting odd, and many sellers' lists have disappeared entirely. eBay never notified its sellers of this problem, and still has not notified sellers, which I consider inexcusable. Also disturbing is the high-handed manner their customer service representatives are taking in blaming users for not backing up their blocked bidders lists.
You should start backing up everything! This is a good business practice, but for obvious reasons, we all tend to slack off at least occasionally. Make it your New Years Resolution to get into the habit of backing up files. (I have an Iomega Zip drive - the disks store much more than a simple floppy disk.) I even back up some of my email files, including email addresses.
Only eBay knows the cause of their site problems. eBay changed the Item Information page in July, and at some point over the summer made modifications to the site due to the MercExchange patent lawsuit (according to SEC filings). eBay has also been rolling out new initiatives, including 1-day auctions, and these changes may be at the root of the problems. The bottom line is that individual sellers are wasting time and are losing money.
eBay gets my "Grinch" award, not for the glitches, but for not reporting the problems, not communicating with users, and not being more proactive in helping users resolve the problems.
You should also know that I have been getting reports for a long time now that PayPal winning bidder notification emails are going out intermittently. We first reported a problem with this feature in June http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y03/m06/i11/s02. PayPal has not gotten back to us about more recent reports of problems with this feature. Don't assume your winning bidders are being automatically notified by PayPal!
Christmas is 3 weeks away. I hope you have good online shopping and selling experiences. (Don't forget to check out the Buyers Market ads for gift ideas http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/market).
I'd like to thank you for reading AuctionBytes. David and I have been publishing since 1999, and continue to marvel at the diverse and intelligent community of online merchants. We will continue to bring you AuctionBytes-Update twice a month at no charge to you, thanks to our sponsors, whom I'd also like to thank. Craters & Freighters has been advertising with AuctionBytes since 2000! They are an outstanding service for shipping large and awkward items, and David and I thank them for their continued sponsorship and support!
We have many other long-term advertisers, and I'd like to thank them as well. Please check them out (they are listed at the end of every issue), and tell them you saw their ad in AuctionBytes!
About the author:
Ina Steiner is Editor of AuctionBytes.com and author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). She has a background in marketing and research in the high-tech and publishing fields. If you have story ideas, comments or questions, send them to ina@auctionbytes.com.
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