Governor Marley

The recent ruling against ebay in which there were fined £31M over selling fakes has a deeper seedier issue associated with it. In the background there’s a clear restriction of trade issue, there’s a battle to ruin consumer choice and ebay have to win their appeal.

The European Union need to step in here, slap the French courts around a bit and point out to them that freedom of trade is one of the core principles of the European Union, these are core foundations and companies simply can’t get away with this.

However this is an issue involving ebay and the European Union, come on, clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am stuck in the middle with you.

Two of the most incompetent buffoons around clash, the result is likely to be chaotic but ebay must win. Read the rest of this entry »

Ebay live has just finished and I’ve been following events. The disappointing thing is that I’m reading a lot of negative comments. Although I’m mightily disappointed with ebay, it’s clear that many other people are too.

However that aside, the ebay execs just don’t get it and I’m at a loss to understand how they can’t get it. The simple, plain facts are, DSR’s are a joke, the new feedback system is a joke. Auction wreckers have been causing havoc in the UK and all ebay can say is that a means of withdrawing feedback will be available by the holidays. Quite frankly it’s inexcusable that it takes this long to put something right.

I wouldn’t hold your breath awaiting that though, the sellers hub, the much heralded sellers hub, is itself an absolute joke too. How many jokes are ebay going to pull before they realise that their jokes just aren’t funny?

Read the rest of this entry »

Enough about Ebay already, I know I know. I’ve been very critical of ebay and remain so. Indeed I’d say it’s getting worse with the new 30 day non performing seller rules. Ebay are kidding only themselves with these changes and in times of a global credit crunch, they really are making some amazing decisions.

I listened to an ebay town hall the other day, I doubt I’ll bother again. The major issues really weren’t addressed. I know it’s not good to let the screaming mob into the hall, but Linden Lab, who run Second Life, really do face their customers a lot better than ebay do. Does this mean Linden Lab don’t make decisions to annoy their customers? Heck no, but they face their customers, Linden Lab have balls, ebay are like eunuchs in comparison. Ebay could learn a lot on customer relations from Linden Lab. Until recently I would have said Linden Lab could learn a lot from Ebay on how to support commerce, but ebay’s recent moves mean I can’t even say that anymore.

However, I have found a silver lining for ebay. This comes in the form of Richard Brewer-Hay’s excellent Ebay Ink blog. This is a blog, from the heart of ebay, where customers feel they really are conversing with ebay. This is a blog more in keeping with the kind of rapport that Linden Lab encourage. Read the rest of this entry »

I won’t sell on ebay these days, I wanted to but I saw the announcement on the forthcoming changes earlier in the year and decided I didn’t like the policies. Now those policies are kicking in and the reaction is largely negative.

The new feedback changes are in place in Australia and the UK, and they’ll be coming to an ebay venue near you soon, the 19th in North America. The initial response is a tale of woe, there’s much wailing, there’s much gnashing and there’s much mention of eBid.

A few things strike me about this, first of all communication, the sheer number of people complaining about the feedback changes on the UK discussion boards suggests that ebay’s communication doesn’t reach the number of users it should. This is backed up with the new popup message users get when they leave feedback, the message tells users that sellers can no longer leave negative feedback, so that users should be honest with their feedback. This sounds noble, however the impression many have from the message is that it is encouraging them to leave negative feedback. However it all boils down to ebay knowing people don’t read their news messages, why else would they need to include the popup.

Then we have the issue about customer service, ebay have annoyed their customers with this move. This is a bit of a no no in business terms, you don’t go around annoying your customers in this fashion, it’s not a sensible thing to do. Ebay officials have responded that a feedback hub is coming at the end of May, that this may allow unfair feedback to be removed. However it is sheer idiocy on ebay’s part not to have had this facility in place before the changes were made. Read the rest of this entry »

“tax doesn’t have to be taxing” is the slogan from the UK tax authorities, oh yes it does is the answer from UK citizens. However it’s not just in the UK where tax is taxing. There’s a whole plethora of ways where tax authorities are looking to tax their citizens and in terms of virtual worlds, they’re starting to dip their toes in the waters and work out how to tax those who run virtual business.

Second Life is one such virtual world, one whereby Europeans have been battered by value added tax since October 2007. Well people have to pay taxes right? Moaning about them is silly, but, and it’s a big but, when VAT was introduced to Second Life it created a major anomaly for European users, and it’s in this area that the tax authorities need to grow up. I’ll touch upon areas where users need to grow up later.

VAT on electronic services was introduced to “level the playing field” for European business. Prior to this change in legislation we had the situation whereby a European firm had to charge VAT on electronic services, but American firms selling to European users did not. Ergo European business complained and rightly so, their bills were higher and the law was changed and sweetness and light blossomed, foreign service providers who crossed a certain turnover threshold were now being requested to charge VAT on their products, ensuring European firms weren’t disadvantaged…until virtual worlds came into the equation.

Virtual worlds complicate matters, they cause chaos. Now a European small business in Second Life is billed tier payments plus VAT every month, putting them at a disadvantage. Inworld payments are not considered services for tax purposes (nor should they be at this moment in time, they’d be impossible to audit). This means a small European business cannot offset VAT as they usually would, meaning the playing field is no longer level, indeed it’s the very playing field that the legislation was brought into prevent. So what do the European Union tax experts say when presented with this disparity:

“One consequence is that a foreign supplier faces essentially the same tax obligations as an EU supplier, thus assuring a level playing field for all.”

You see, when faced with disparity, they don’t listen. They’re too busy with their noses in the tax trough to realise the situation is the exact situation that the legislation was introduced to prevent. Of course there’s not enough business players in virtual worlds yet for pressure to be applied. European politicians don’t answer their citizens, well mine doesn’t. My UK represenatative answered me, but told me it was a European issue, as did the UK tax authority, but my European elected representative couldn’t be bothered to answer and when I finally get an answer from a European bureaucrat, they completely ignore the issue. They need to grow up and meet people halfway. Charge VAT on the premium membership, fine. Not on the monthly tier costs that cause such disparity.

Then there’s the other side of the coin, tax, employment and legislation and this is an area where users need to grow up. Read the rest of this entry »

Ebay’s proposed new feedback changes are quite frankly so ridiculous that I’ve had to read them twice to make sure it’s not a wind up. I’ve checked my calendar to make sure I haven’t slipped into a time warp and came out on April 1st, but alas, they really are serious.

This is the real issue: “Sellers will no longer be able to leave negative or neutral Feedback for buyers. This change will occur in May, 2008.”

I’ve seen some ridiculous policy changes in my time on the interweb, I’ve seen absurd decisions, but this really takes the biscuit. In short ebay are leaving the door wide open to buyers to extort sellers by threatening them with negative feedback and there’s nothing sellers are going to be able to do about it.

The issue regarding tit for tat feedback is something that needs to be addressed, but to come up with a solution that creates a worse situation really takes some doing. Even this early in the year I doubt I’ll see a more absurd policy change all year, ebay, you really do deserve to win awards for this one. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m declaring 2008 the year of twitter type blogging. This means I’m going to do lots of short updates!

Ok ok as it’s been ages again, I’ll start by saying that I don’t know what’s worse, Scoble being banned by facebook or being let back
in. He either deserved the ban or he didn’t and it’s disappointing that the issues he raised are now being brushed under the carpet.

However there are some important points raised, who owns our data? Surely, we should own our own data shouldn’t we? Is it right that companies can say we’re not entitled to own data supplied to us by friends?