EBay Cancelled Annual EBay Live!

After hosting eBay Live since 2002, EBay has finally called it quits on 2009 and have organized a different format for sellers to meet up in a smaller scale localized events.

A quote from the Wall Street Journal, the EBay spokesperson Usher Lieberman says that “at some point eBay Live got too overwhelming and it became too large to really have the sort of interactions our customers need”.

As it was stated by Ina Steiner the blogger from AuctionBytes, at its peak, eBay Live attracted over 15,000 attendees and eBay executives were often greeted with standing ovations, but soon the atmosphere changed and became “difficult”.

Skip McGrath, a long time eBay seller and author who attended all the previous events, when interviewed by Wall Street Journal, said that after eBay made several changes on pricing and listing in 2008, that the mood during eBay Live became sombre and eBay executives were greeted with boos from the audience.

The changes that eBay made that led to jeers from former supporters stem from the company’s change of policy of benefiting the large power sellers rather than small merchants. The concept of eBay as an online flea market is over.

First, eBay changed their previous non-involvement role on transactions to a more centric role in solving disputes. EBay also made it compulsory for all sellers to establish a return policy. Power sellers, are more equipped to deal with returned products than smaller sellers.

Second, eBay adopted a more sophisticated software system which will formulate FAQ sessions for the buyer to the seller in regard to an item on auction, eliminating the cumbersome process that sellers have on answering thousands of individual questions.

Third, the listing structure have changed, sellers now can make 1 listing for multiple items of different colours, paying only once for listing the same product of different colours. In the past, the same situation would have resulted in two separate listings.

Fourth, the fee for listing items became cheaper, but in comparison the commission for a sold item became more expensive. This again, made it cheaper for power sellers who list hundreds and thousands of items, but it affects the small seller who only lists a few items.

These changes were designed to shift eBay’s emphasis away from auctions style sales and more towards a fixed-price listing, which clearly benefits the power seller but alienates the smaller sellers who made eBay grow in the 90s.

The end of eBay Live is not viewed as a bad move from eBay by everyone. McGrath, welcomes the new format and adds that after “attending a localized small scale Amazon event that featured no more than 200 sellers, with a 2 hour Q&A session and a lunch box, almost all sellers left happy and clarified with the answers provided by the Amazon executives”.

It has been noted by Reuters that the move of scaling down its operations was exacerbated by the recession who forced eBay to change its marketing tactics and cut back the costs. Low key meetings would yield lower costs.

To borrow a term used by Eturbonews, “the AIG effect” has had an impact on US corporations. It seems that back in 2008 in September, just days after accepting an $85billion federal bailout, AIG executives spent $443,000 on an annual holiday package in Las Vegas.

This news created a backlash effect with severe negative publicity among the media who simply crucified several of the US corporations receiving bailout.

After this incident, several corporations such as Google, who in recent years has set the standard for extravagance in holiday blowout bashes with 10,000 people attending their party, opted for a much more modest team-focused party within departments. Other companies such as Viacom and ABC News have cancelled their annual holiday party and instead gave employees extra days off (MSN Money News).

The ending of eBay Live in favour of smaller scale meetings accommodates the sellers by cutting their travelling costs. Also, a smaller scale meeting with 500 people is much more manageable than a 15,000 strong participants.

The smaller meetings can allow eBay executives to bond with the sellers. This closer personalized interaction will allow eBay to answer any questions the sellers might have and, therefore diminishing the chances of a joyless environment.

According to some analysts, such as Geoffrey A. Fowler, writer of the WSJ, these series of moves by eBay are strategies laid out to specifically close the gap with Amazon.

In recent years, Amazon has become eBay’s main competitor with an ever-growing selection of fixed-price items accompanied with free shipping promotions, which became a popular option for consumers as they shifted their internet shopping habits.