Hrm.  Any idea on where it is exactly, Brette?

I'm pretty sure Paypal's interface was designed to be as counter-intuitive as possible.  

I wonder if the "strike" is working (at least in the D&D section). I've noticed recently that the number of items was around 4800-5000 but now it is at 3600.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/19/smbusin ... 2008021923

actually I think the day after the strike will tell, if everyone waits till it over and then there is a big surge of new listings on the day after it finishes not much has really changed has it..

Brette:)

edit: the rpg section at the moment is sitting just under 6000 items, I've never seen it this low... is has been stitting around the 8000 items after christmas, but before that is was always around the 10,000 item range...

I've been toying with my first ever "lot of junk" which I am quite certain no one here wants, but might be able to get me around $5 after fees. Heh, and then there are those board games... so many of them to find homes for. Oh well. Boycott it is!

bar for a cpl of BIN re-lists which i have up, i havent bothered with anything this week either.

over the weekend when i have a minute, i will be closing my ebay shop thingy too.

always amazes me. ebay make a tidy amount of cash, yet as usual with the human capitalist, they are never happy with their lot, they always want more more more more.

sad

Al

The problem is it needs to be a sustained boycott, like an embargo. A little here and there isn't going to do much, really. Now, if they could get dropped to less than 5 million total auctions... that might make them see something, but if its an anomaly (happens only once) than its not significant. Stupid statistics. Let's make some up.

Badmike wrote:It probably sounds worse than it looks, but listings are down 15% (over a two million less than usual)  and Ebay's stock has been trickling down all week...it's about to go lower than $27 a share.  Reality may be that this is the typical post holiday drop, but perception is going to be that the boycott is beating the crap out of them.  If stock continues to drop by close of Friday and the listings drop below 11 million....it's not going to look good. If I where Donadumbledore I'd get some damage control started up now for the inevitable media onslaught this weekend.  If by some miracle stock drops below $25 (it's all time low) and listings dip below ten million, Ebay's braintrust has a bona fide disaster on their hands....

Mike B.

I hope they freak.  Not likely, but it does my heart good to see it having a noticeable effect.

There's all kinds of statistics flying around. Combine with this the fact that eBay, traditionally, does not actually release any of its statistics (except for those required by the SEC), and it's kind of hard to tell what's going on. Two examples:

Wired says "no effect" ... global listings up, U.S. listings down:

http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/02/ ... ott-3.html

Yahoo says "definitely an effect":

http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/80377/ ... ome-effect

The most important statistic of all, of course, is going to be share price, which Mike has already noted. When you get right down to it, eBay does not answer to buyers or sellers ... it answers to its shareholders. If the stock continues to plummet, it would be worth buying 10 shares in time to attend the next open shareholders meeting ...

+++++

Another factor will be coming into play soon. eBay's absurd new rules, specifically the huge increase in seller fees and the inability to do anything except give buyers sexual favors in terms of feedback, are coming into play real soon. I still say sellers are going to leave the site in waves when they realize that they are totally at the mercy of every feedback extortion scheme ever invented.

Fewer sellers = fewer fees. That's the kind of language that eBay — and it's shareholders — understand. I've mentioned this before, but I'll repeat it once more: 10 years from now, a professionally trained historian is going to write the definitive history of eBay ... and he or she will point to this feedback debacle as the single worst decision in eBay history. Book it.

benjoshua wrote:
I hope they freak.  Not likely, but it does my heart good to see it having a noticeable effect.

I hope they freak too....badly.

Well today was the first day in our area of collectibles that I noticed a 50% or so drop in total item availability.  I personally posted a few on Sunday but am down to under 25% of my usual.  It is really tempting to just call them (ebay) idiots and leave it at that but I too am hoping for some really great (as in small) numbers over the next few days.  It frequently amazes me that (supposedly) educated people can make such brutally silly mistakes because of greed.  

Thanks for all the great links folks - you know who you are.  Highly informative stuff.

Joe