I've just received this email:
Dear [name],
The time has come for us to say Thank You and Goodbye. After three years in operation the eSayers member panel will be closing at the end of the year.
Before we ‘sign off’ we thought we’d share a few highlights of what eSayers has helped us achieve over the past 3 years…
From a buyer perspective:
We’ve been working hard over the past few years to improve your shopping experience on eBay. Your feedback has helped us make a number of pretty big changes. Specifically, you told us you wanted:
• Excellent overall customer service (from both eBay and sellers)
• Better rates for postage
• Faster postage
• Guarantees and returns policies
• Easier access to trusted top sellers
• Branded products – at great prices
Your feedback has helped shape the recently launched Top Rated Seller program, and Minimum Seller Standards. We’ve also increased the number of ‘deals’ available each and every day and launched the eBay Fashion Gallery to keep up with the buyer demand, and we’ve increased the number of ways you can contact eBay in the event of a problem including 100% phone support available to all members 24 hours a day.
From a seller perspective:
We know changes introduced by eBay often have an impact on you and your selling; what we came to understand through your feedback was how we could minimise any potential impact. You wanted:
• greater notice periods of change
• tailored communications about how changes may affect you
• a central location to access detail on changes
In 2009 we committed to making major changes only 2-3 times a year with a much greater notice period (60 days in most cases). We also launched ‘Inside Selling’ as an information destination for sellers.
We also learnt how eBay could better partner with you, particularly through the Global Financial Crisis. You provided valuable opinions about the exclusive postage deal between Australia Post and eBay on behalf of our sellers. This feedback was crucial in shaping the deal and ensuring that that it would meet sellers’ needs.
More recently many of you told us you wanted to take the risk out of selling on eBay and we responded with a new pricing structure that eliminates insertion fees for consumer sellers for up to 30 listings a month.
Where to from here?
We hope that you’ve enjoyed your experience as an ‘eSayer’ and wish you all the best for 2012. As the online world continues to grow and evolve, our aim is to stay at least one step ahead of the rest, offering both buyers and sellers the best experience possible.
Understanding our customer and their needs remains as important as ever so we may be seeking your feedback again in some way, shape or form before you know it.
Thank you and goodbye,
The eBay and eSayers Team
From my perspective, eSayers heard what it wanted to hear. I can confidently state I have never, as a buyer, asked for "branded products" on eBay. I can buy them elsewhere. What eBay offered was something else, unique at the time.
If I were a seller on eBay, I'd be extremely frustrated with the lack of hearing eBay has extended. Even the above email from eSayers barely even attempts to disguise the fact that eBay is not listening to sellers.
Of course, eBay is run as a business... It's in the business of making money. It doesn't have to listen to the sellers who use it. After all, as sellers are told, they can go elsewhere if they don't like it.
(That there isn't really anything COMPARABLE to eBay in terms of reaching potential buyers means that "they can go elsewhere" is actually an empty and meaningless statement of choice. It's a bit like pouring fouled air into a sealed room and telling the occupants they don't HAVE to breathe it in... they can stop breathing if they wish.)
I appreciated the opportunity to be part of eSayers. I was sceptical from the start about its worth and the type of questions to which we responded. I am sorry that my scepticism was justified.
