Seems like we
spend a good deal of time trash talking eBay. It’s nothing personal, we are
fans, but so many things they do just leave us scratching our heads here at Foxliquidation.
Take for example a fairly innocent new eBay program of branded packaging,
sounds like a good idea and how could they mess this up? Well where to begin
with this! Let’s go point to point on some of the various missteps with eBay
packaging.
1.Messaging–
A classic example of read the fine print here. So you get your order of branded
eBay boxes and they look great then you notice the tagline under the logo “Put
this box to good use start selling on eBay.” So my question to the marketing
department of eBay is this… in what universe would I want to encourage a
customer to become a potential competitor???
2.Conflict
of interest- So eBay is now in the packing material business so how does this
effect the many eBay sellers that specialize in selling packing materials? Did
they take into consideration the negative impact that this would have on this
niche of marketplace sellers?
3.Pricing–
a quick spot check on a few of their branded items reveals there are no deals
to be had here. Prices for similar unbranded products could be found at half
the cost! So why would any seller want to spend double the price to promote
eBay?
4.It
stinks!– Seriously reports on their branded packing tape is that it has a
strong and unpleasant odor and is of inferior quality.
5.EBay
and their poisoned gifts– eBay recently raised their prices for store
subscriptions so to numb the pain a bit they have decided to issue quarterly
coupons that vary in value depending on your store subscription level. Does this seem like a nice perk or a poison
apple? Do you really want to give eBay more money to use the coupon for their
branded overpriced merchandise?
Don’t
get me wrong on this initiative, I think that it’s a good idea but they have a
lot of room for improvement. At minimum pricing needs to be at least
competitive to unbranded materials.
Quality materials also essential unless they want to be associated with stinky
tape. Lastly they have to address that
crazy messaging, sellers are having a tough enough time, why try to undercut
them more?