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Is One Customer Group More Important Than Another?
I've been a member of eBay since 1998. This was before PayPal, before Buy It Now, and even before most items had photos. I've been both a buyer and seller, and as the company has grown, it has added new policies and features designed to improve the experience for everyone. But with its recent policy changes, does everyone still benefit?
Today's lead 1to1 Weekly article looks at how new policies are improving the customer experience. The company has made it easier to pay for products. eBay now requires a growing number of sellers (new signups, established sellers with short track records, and some categories like computers) to accept credit cards. Buyers can also save time when shopping with multiple eBay sellers, as its payment site, PayPal, now allows buyers to aggregate several purchases under a single payment checkout.
But in thinking of improving the customer experience, some sellers feel they have been left out. Seller fees have risen and feedback policies have changed to the buyer's advantage, for example. Our companion in-depth article looks at the changes from the seller's perspective.
It brings up the issue of how to serve different customer groups. After all, both buyers and sellers are eBay customers. What do you do when improving one experience causes the other's to suffer? It's a struggle for many companies, not just eBay. How do you serve different customer groups differently without alienating one of them?
eBay has always been sitting on a hot tub serving individuals in a many-to-many format that is really tough to handle. The latest changes will help put the portal more in line with many outstanding corporate e-commerce sites that provide excellent service. The key to servicing different customers is to respond precisely to their different needs while being able to scale the level of service when the volume calling for it.
Liz
Interesting question - but I think the simple answer is that at the end of the day, the enterprise (Ebay or whoever) will cater more closely to the needs of the more scarce resource. Vendors (after a while) become an abundant commodity while one can never have enough paying customers.
This will dismay some sellers - but frankly Ebay will survive their loss
I recently tried purchasing a car on ebay for my son. The car was
listed as being about 30 miles from our home. I bid and won the
auction, but the seller then wanted the money wired to a third party
bank account in Las Vegas before we could see it. On the listing, cash
in person was acceptable.
I alerted ebay (no easy matter by the way) to the possibility of
fraud. There was NO response to my first two emails for two days and
then I received a form letter type email. Not very confidence
inspiring. Since that time the seller re-listed the car on ebay and
sold it to someone else. Last week (a month after the fact) I was
notified that the item had been removed and that my bid was cancelled.
While I realize that ebay cannot be responsible for fraudulent
sellers, they need to be much, much more response to reports of
suspicious activity.
In a different issue, I purchased a cell phone on ebay a couple of
years ago. The listing stated the phone was like new and ready to be
activated. When I got the phone and tried to activate it, Sprint
informed me the phone was stolen and could not be activated. After an
appeal to ebay and PayPal their subsidiary, it was determined that the
fact that the phone was stolen and could no be activated was not
material grounds to void the sale and refund my money.
Caveat Emptor
Something to add to the sellers experience over ebay.I would defer with you about ebay being pro customer experience, in terms of their policies. Today i felt the need to sell an equipment on ebay, even though i had signed up years ago, and have been receiving promo mails, i had to sign up again, as the request for " forgot your password" was not heeded to...never got the assured mail of the password.
Secondly, when they asked for a payment option, i wanted to opt for "buyer picks and pays" option. All the options beside the PaisaPay ( payment gateway in India) were disabled.
Finally with all the hit and trials, i gave up and have decided to use a local auction site to sell my equipment.
So much for improvement of customer experience.