Home Decor and Collectibles
A session was held with the new Home Decor/eBay Design Director and included spirited discussions and ways this will be presented to eBay members. This could include using collectibles/antiques in decorating, finding a personal decorating style, etc.
I'm not sure if even eBay is completely clear on how this will all unfold, but it could be interesting. This is another program that many of us asked "why?" when the presentation was over. The group of Collectibles folks at my table were a bit confused as just what will be accomplished and why this is particularly needed.
We Want an Easy Button
Several times we asked for an easier way to navigate the complicated site that eBay has become. One person suggested an "easy" button. Several of us lamented about how search doesn't pull up anything but listings. This is especially important when looking for particular articles or help on the eBay site. There will be a change and eBay will soon have a search function that encompasses all of the eBay site - community, technical, resources and listings. Personally that can't come soon enough!
My Two Cents
Although I always enjoy the energy and people at the events I've attended, this year I came away from the Collectibles Summit and eBay Live! with a little more frustration than usual.
eBay is trying too hard to be too many things. They are a marketplace and obviously the biggest in the world. When my three year old grandson tells relatives they can buy the toys he wants on eBay, the company is doing something right and certainly reaching all age groups. (And he doesn't watch TV or see the commercials).
But what I would really like is to see eBay to become the best at what they are now good at -- helping us buy and sell items.
More work is needed to make it a safer to buy and an easier marketplace to navigate. I would like to feel like eBay is actually LISTENING to our concerns and problems and certainly be responsive to them, it would be great if they were more effective when dealing with deadbeat sellers/buyers and especially getting rid of those sellers who deal in fakes and shilling, which is still a HUGE problem in the pottery areas.
When attending the first eBay Collectibles summit years ago the fakes/shilling/private feedback problem in the pottery areas was a big topic of discussion. As far as I can see, very little has been done in that particular field -- it still remains a Buyer Beware situation, with no official recourse for those who are taken advantage of.
The web is social enough and eBay doesn't need to help us be social, especially when many of their programs do not let you reach out beyond their web site. The only web they allow is their own.
- For example there are some very informative Guides and Reviews, but a writer is not allowed to cite additional sources off of eBay, which could bring added value to the content.
- The early examples of eBay blogs also have me shaking my head. Free blogging tools are easily available to everyone, why I would want to confine my blog to eBay, with it's many rules and stipulations, is perplexing. When looking at the blogs, what I see so far are a multitude of blogs with listings of items for sale and some rantings about deadbeats. If I want something for sale I'll go directly to the listings, not wade through blogs to find something.
- Collector's Corner looks like a slicker rehash of an early eBay section on Collectibles that was quite informative, but taken down several years ago. This is much slicker and certainly not as informative. Surprisingly for eBay, there were a few links to outside publications in this section. I clicked on them expecting to see the subscriptions offered as an auction item, but was amazed when the link went right to the individual publication web sites.
-
Kaboodle/MyCollectibles
This is the one new eBay offering that I feel really could be used by collectors -- especially the non-web savvy who are passionate collectors and want to show off their pieces. Folks can very easily put up pictures of their stuff, along with blurbs on what they are, etc. A great way to share their collections. It took me just a few minutes to set up a page that came out looking pretty good (chocolatechip).Biggest complaint, a look at MyCollectibles a week later also shows many sellers using this as a way of expanding the reach of their listings. Again, I don't want to see items for sale here, unless it's an occasional piece in a collection.
Comments and throughts are always appreciated.
For comprehensive coverage on the eBay Live!, the AuctionBytes team is out in full force covering all aspects of the event.
