Despite Strike, eBay Sticking with Changes

Just as Hollywood's writers are coming off their strike (and as we get back to work here at ATR) eBay sellers this week have taken up the online picketlines in protest to some unpopular changes that many say will adversly impact them. These include a fee hike for sellers and a new feedback system that essentially wipes out the opportunity for sellers to leave comments about buyers. The worldwide boycott of eBay began Monday with the proposed changes taking effect today. As reported widely, including in the Seattle Times, despite the strike, eBay said today that it is sticking to its plan.

Unlike the Hollywood scribes, who could speak with one voice through the Writers' Guild of America, it is impossible to get a single statement from the informal alliance of striking sellers that fairly synthesizes their thoughts. The closest thing to such an official spokesperson might be Valerie Lennert, an Anaheim, Calif., woman who sells doll clothes on eBay. Lennert, who told the paper she quit her job as a social worker in January to become a full-time eBay seller, says that eBay is "gutting the entire system we're familiar with" and has utilized YouTube to broadcast her call to action. Lennert says she made the video in part because eBay has banned her for communicating her opinions.

It is hard to determine just how effective a worldwide strike against the nearly monolithic eBay can be. Though faced with competition from an array of niche and category-specific online auction venues, eBay seems unconcerned about the boycott. Company spokeman Usher Lieberman said yesterday that eBay isn't considering altering or postponing its policies due to the outcry. "We've had hundreds of threats in the past, and they don't seem to have had much impact," he told the Seattle paper.

CRITICAL MASS NEEDED

Without sufficient support from one crucial community of eBay sellers, the current boycott is likely doomed. The 400-member Professional eBay Sellers Alliance is not supporting the strike.

"When you're at a size like our sellers are, you're running a business, and trying to make money to pay for employees, rent, warehouses," Brandon Dupsky told CNNMoney.com. A PeSA member and former board director for the organization, whose members report collective annual grosses in excess of $400 million, Dupsky noted that the strike might not have the desired effect.

"A boycott would only hurt yourself more than it would ever hurt eBay," he said.

Rene Spellman of Granada Hills, Calif., told ATR that she is taking part in the strike to make her voice heard as loudly as possible. "It seems to me that eBay just doesn't care about those of us who use it most. An individual can't get the company to listen to anything. They are impossible to deal with and getting worse every day," she said.

Spelleman, who, with her husband, Geoff, sells "everything from vintage linens to out-of-print technical manuals and whatever we think has value," thinks a strike may be the only way to get the message of disgruntled sellers across. Geoff Spellman agrees.

"Have you read any of the comments the company has made so far? It's like, 'Let them eat cake, we're eBay and we can do whatever we want,' and that's just how they treat us," he said. The Spellman's are planning to use a variety of online selling platforms to keep up their sales during the strike. "Who knows?" Rene Spellman concluded. "Maybe we'll never go back."

For a list of some of the myriad venues on which to sell items, click on our Resources page.

(We loved the great art we found for this story, which we shamelessly pilfered, though we feel kinda bad about it now. We found it on the eMediaWire site, where the press release service was spreading the word about (get this) a new website devoted to BOYCOTTS. The stated mission of the site, Boycott-Now, is that, "Now anyone and everyone the world over can start a grass roots boycott against any unprincipled company or individual." Our guess is that it might only be a matter of time before SOMEONE starts a forum there about eBay.)