Privacy truly IS a thing of the past. Your auction information from ages past are going to be available to buyers.
This just bugs me. Anyone who wants to do statistical analysis of what sells, where the profitable items are, etc. now have access to all MY successes and Failures (and yours too).
I pay eBay to let me make dumb mistakes. I don't see why eBay should be able to profit by selling my auction history and business records to someone else to analyze. I LIKE the fact that my old auctions go away after a few months.
It's just not right!
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Replay Media
Games of all kinds!
posted on December 19, 2003 11:00:18 AM new
It honestly bothers you or are you just kidding around? Why do you care? Isn't the information that can be gleened from such data infinitly more value than this percieved intrusion upon your privacy?
How is your privacy invaded? From Article: Personal information (usernames, feedback, etc.) and reserve prices are not included as part of the data. Did you somehow believe that the your items description, number of bids, options used, and final sale price as seen on a site with millions of users was private?
It is simply raw data which can be used to determine what catagories are most successful, what features and actually cost effective, Is it better to start high and pray for a bid or start low and pray for lots of bids. If someone uses this info to develop a recommendation for more successful listings in your catagory are you going to ignore it?
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on December 19, 2003 11:07:50 AM new
Sorry, but I predicted this years ago. eBay has never been an entity to pass up an easy buck.
Does anyone else find it strange that our auction records are purged insofar as OUR access is concerned after 90 days...but if you're an entity willing to spend $10,000 or more for access, they'll provide you with that data going back years?
As far as price guide publishers wanting access to eBay sales records, I'll take a big NO for $100, Alex. Price guides sell because people can get these nice rosy figures out of them. eBay sales are at the bottom of the price range in most marketplaces. Heck, all too often eBay has *created* the price bottom.
posted on December 19, 2003 11:50:14 AM new
Well, let's take postcards for an example.
I think selling postcards would be fun, but I know absolutely nothing about them.
Neglus posts here all the time and know s/he is a seller of postcards and could be considered an expert of whom I respect.
Let's say I want to get into that business too.
I buy the rights to the historial information. I then write a program to parse each auction, and list exactly which ones from which area and what time period sell for the most money. You can narrow this down to the specific ones that are cheapest to buy and then resell at the higher prices, thereby making your business far more efficiant than say, Neglus, who has worked years to learn that business.
Now if Neglus wants to write his/her own price guide, then fine. It's his information and he has every right to it. But why should anyone else have access to his sales records? I'll bet if I went over to Neglus' home and asked to go through his sales records, I'd get punched in the eye.
It's like buying years of experience that OTHER PEOPLE did all the hard work to learn.
Actually postcards may not be the best example, but pretend we're talking about some widget that is new and easily replaceable.
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Replay Media
Games of all kinds!
posted on December 19, 2003 02:48:56 PM new
It's called market research, it's about as common a practice as comes along. You want to be in business you probably should get used to common business practices. No companies advertising and marketing methods or the success of them is cosidered secret - it's out there for anyone that wants to do the research. Why are you more special the say Microsoft, Ford, Coca Cola or any other company?
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on December 19, 2003 03:51:49 PM new
It's like buying years of experience that OTHER PEOPLE did all the hard work to learn.
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That's like saying it's not right that you can walk into a library and look at the results of other's years of research. You pay a small fee for this in your property taxes, and if you want very current data, this you may have to pay more for in other places. Are you saying that every student should be forced to replicate their own experiments that may take years, or be able to go look at previous results. Ebay completed search is a library. Ebay owns this info and they can choose to distribute it for free or to charge whatever price they decide..
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posted on December 19, 2003 04:00:58 PM new
I think they're getting ready to start charging for quite a few things. How many here got the survey eBay sent out last week? Questions on how you keep track of this or that information regarding your sales, and would you be willing to pay for that info and, if so, how much, etc. Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there --Clare Booth Luce
posted on December 19, 2003 04:41:13 PM new
"walk into a library and look at the results of other's years of research."
But those people CHOSE to publish their work. Why can't you go to the library and look up the secret ingedients to Coca-Cola? BECAUSE THEY DON"T WANT IT PUBLISHED.
Same thing.
"Why are you more special the say Microsoft, Ford, Coca Cola or any other company?"
Because they are publicly traded corporations and their books are open by law, while I am not a publicly traded corporation. My business records and sales are simply no one's business but my own.
If the information is going to be available, then make it available to everyone. If you charge $10,000 for it, before long only big companies will be able to compete on eBay because they will have better information than the little guys. As it is right now, we're all equally knowledgeable or ignorant.
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Replay Media
Games of all kinds!
posted on December 19, 2003 05:04:53 PM new
Your business records and sales are not going to be known to anyone unless of course you are the sole seller in your catagory. Otheriwise your results just become part of the mass of results that are used to compile statistical data.
Do you honestly believ that individulal sellers ar going to be forced out b this move? If you have a quality product and good service then what are you worried about? You over head is certainly lower than the "big guys" and to hear the regs on thisboard speak you would think that feedback is the be all and end all of ebay success and certainly the larger retailers that sell on ebay as a general rule have far from spotless feeback records.
Either you believe in your business module or you don't but to believe that this spells the beginning of the end of small sellers is smacks of Chicken Little.
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on December 19, 2003 05:17:44 PM new
I'm probably over-reacting. But I've always believed that "knowledge is power."
Now there is more knowledge available to the guys who can pay $10,000 than there is to the rest of us. Yes, that can make a difference, and possibly drive some sellers out.
I've always considered eBay a level playing field- a true open market. It's not so level if the big guys have useful information that isn't available to the rest of us.
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Replay Media
Games of all kinds!
posted on December 20, 2003 07:58:38 AM new
"I've always considered eBay a level playing field- a true open market. It's not so level if the big guys have useful information that isn't available to the rest of us."
The information is already available to all to see...just do a completed auction search. Repeated completed searches over a period of time will give you data on all the other sellers in your field.
Realistically...this data is being purchased by companies who are in turn offering it to the ebay seller for a much smaller fee than $10,000 a year.
posted on December 20, 2003 08:58:14 AM new
Replay - LOL! Like I have sales records?? I'd offer you a cup of coffee and DARE you to try to make something of my records!!
Which brings up another point..Vendio has all my data..was hoping they were going to develop some meaningful reports or at least SOME kind of reports for us!
posted on December 20, 2003 09:49:41 AM new
The item descriptions may be copyrighted to the seller as well as the seller's trade/business marks appearing in the description. It requires a written and signed agreement to grant rights in your copyrighted material.
But, to make the new system work for you, you may want to start putting your username and email address in your descriptions -- eBay is not archiving your username with the item description.
Also- for those of you who pay for bandwidth/hits for your pictures and you have linked the picture in your decsription, eBay's system may also be calling up the photo each time someone brings up you old listing.
There is also another way to use the system. Make your entire description a picture and just put the html for the picture in the description. This also allows you to change the description anytime you want.
posted on December 20, 2003 04:34:23 PM new
Neglus - Sorry I had to use you as an example, but you're about the only seller here that I know what you sell.
Your auctions are great by the way!
"There is also another way to use the system. Make your entire description a picture and just put the html for the picture in the description. This also allows you to change the description anytime you want."
I'm amazed eBay hasn't "outlawed" this practice. It's really easy to change the description of an item after it's been sold or even while the auction is running. I've never done an auction this way (small images load quicker), but I know of several sellers who have their TOS done up like this.
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Replay Media
Games of all kinds!
posted on December 20, 2003 06:10:47 PM new
Ebay is the stockholder's mothership now.
Meg has to squeeze the last drop of milk out of her cash cow to make them money.
Quote:
Heck, all too often eBay has *created* the price bottom.
Endquote
That is the truth! It must be heartsickening for some collectors to come look at ebay and price compare what they bought before ebay reshaped the availability of "rare" items.
Ebay also might be adding more chum to the waters to get the higher end retailers onto their site? I know that a lot of consumers automatically think "deal" is an anagram for "ebay".
Whether they research or not!
Anyhooo...for us "down on the ground" folks, it must be nice to know that we KNOW how to use the research that is provided for free...for now!!!
(hey ebay, add more items to your "watch" feature!)
J
~~~~~~~~~~~**~~~~~~~~~~~
All the monkeys aren't in the zoo,
Every day you meet quite a few,
So you see it's all up to you.
You can be better than you are,
You could be swingin' on a star
posted on December 20, 2003 07:28:06 PM new
Reamond,
If you make your description a picture you have lost out on any search words that are not in your title. "Search description" would not find anything in a picture description. I am not sure if eBay searches metatags. Before anyone suggests putting a bunch of search words in a small font in the background color, remember that there is a definite rule against that.
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The illiterate of the future will be the person ignorant of the use of the camera as well as of the pen.
Maholy-Nagy, Vision in Motion, 1947
posted on December 20, 2003 07:35:13 PM new
You can put the search words in regular color and font as text below the picture - just use a chain of descriptive words, there is no rule against that as long as they are actually descriptive.
posted on December 22, 2003 06:05:26 PM new
I don't think this is that big of a deal. Someone selling postcards isn't going to fork over 10k to see what they sell for. If you want to do the research, you can do it right now, and track things for as long as you want. This is something that will be sold to large companies who need this type of research, it won't really affect anything in my opinion.
