http://www.rexxsales.com

Too bad they didn't shove the mass manufactured stuff to Express and retain the online auctions for used/vintage/antique/bulk inventory.

This is what you get when a bunch of consultants attempt to run a site based on data and theory instead of customer needs and innovation.

Of course, eBay execs claim that the site is headed in the desired direction. I guess someone is holding the charts upside down, eh? ;-)

eBay however, has no excuse to hide behind the economy declining curtain, except for the fact the CEO is unwilling to admit he had led the marketplace down the wrong path.

Draconian policies and failing infrastructure combined with search that returns irrelevant results, and the worlds worst customer service has been slowly bringing eBay down for years.

Enter Mr Donahoe and his “new coke – green ketchup – disruptive innovation' plan for eBay, and the skids of failure received a new layer of grease.

Ebay has historically out performed the brick and mortar retail segment as well as the stock market during past recessions. Ebay's 2008 holiday failures can be placed squarely on Mr Donahoes failed policies and poor implementation of changes brought to the site.

When times got tough, buyers used to flock to eBay in search of incredible deals on unique items as well as scoop up second hand goods to help stretch their dollar.

Then came John Donahoe, the killer of small sellers, the eBay suicide king, leader of the gang that could not shoot straight.

Under Mr Donahoe's leadership, eBay is being converted into a high priced shopping mall at the very time that retailers of new merchandise are filing for bankruptcy in numbers never seen before.

Mr Donahoe's choice to eviscerate the core of eBay by purging small sellers could not have come at a worse time, for both buyers and sellers. eBay's poor holiday season statistics make the point quite clear.

eBay's quarterly reports are dismal and it's stock price which has seen its value drop by 2/3 since Donahoe assumed control, sinks to a new low almost every week. Page views have reached new lows – down 30% Oct 2008 compared to Oct 2007.

This decline at eBay started to set in long before the economy displayed signs of recession, and runs completely contrary to eBay's historical success during tough economic times.

Ebay has always offered the worlds worst customer service, recent staffing cuts have served to exacerbate this problem. Recent changes to the help system, which made live help nearly invisible to members was rolled out without so much as an announcement.

Ebay has alienated buyers with forced search methods that do not return what buyers want to see.

The failed default Best Match search does not allow buyers to search, but instead shows buyers what eBay has determined they want buyers to see. Best match frequently buries real bargains on pages so deep in results that buyers never see the best deals.

Sellers that pay to place listings see those paid listings deliberately disadvantaged in placement in favor of a class of sellers that pay nothing to list items. These Diamond sellers flood the core and drown the small sellers that pay to list and thus subsidize the free listings Diamond Sellers receive.

eBay has further alienated sellers with a draconian DSR policy which is not the tool promised to sellers. Instead, it turns out that DSR's are really a weapon pointed at sellers heads that only delivers suspensions not information to foster improvement.

Sellers are frustrated by eBay's failure to address the increasing frequency of non paying bidders. NPB activity has increased since implementation of the one way feedback policy. The issue continues to be ignored as eBay profits from re listing of unpaid merchandise.

EBay further alienates both buyers and sellers with a crumbling IT infrastructure that is subject to rolling 'glitches' on an almost daily basis. Glitches that effect payments, shipping, searching, access to funds, correct payment information, delayed revenue transfers and others cause buyers and sellers alike to give up on the company that suddenly can't get anything right anymore.

As eBay continues to deteriorate, they have become less of a venue as they now want to dictate every facet of a sellers business from retail pricing and fixed shipping costs to what kind of feedback sellers are permitted to leave buyers. eBay seems unable to get anything right themselves, yet they dictate what sellers must do. So much for the claim of being a venue.

Mr Donahoe and the rest of his executive leadership team keep their heads buried firmly in the sand. They only pull them out for the occasional press release to parrot Donahoe's claims that “all is well” and “everything is proceeding according to plan”, while ignoring the roof that is obviously falling in around them.

Add the fact that as the marketplace crumbles, eBay continues to steadily increase fees and it is no wonder why so many sellers have opted to migrate to other marketplaces and open their own web sites.

Recent forcing of PayPal has served to further increase fees paid by sellers, lowering profits and driving even more sellers from the marketplace.

This company is failing on every level. Emperor Donahoe continues to fiddle as eBay burns.

Will shareholders step in and call for the removal of eBay's current leadership or is John Donahoe the next poster child for failed CEO's?