EBay on Working Lunch

On Thursday Mark Lewis the head of eBay UK appeared on the BBC2 “Working Lunch” TV program. The parts relating to eBay came in two sections a general piece with Dan Wilson the former face of the eBay University in the UK and now successful writer. He spoke in an upbeat manner regarding the opportunity for the small seller to build a successful business selling on eBay.

The second part consisted of Mark Lewis discussing eBay with presenter Declan Curry and answering some emails that had been sent in by viewers. The biggest bone of contention appeared to be the fact that eBay now insist on items such as CDs and DVDs being offered for sale post free. As one person pointed out all that this means is that the cost of shipping is added to the price of the product which means a larger final valuation fee for eBay. Lewis claimed that this was not so but was purely because the buyers demanded it. Therefore it seems strange that you pay shipping when you buy these items on Amazon.

The point was also raised that small sellers are leaving eBay in droves and going to alternative sites something that was also denied. If you look at the interview I think you may come away, like I did, with the impression that eBay would like to do away with both the auction element of their and small sellers in general. Perhaps they see providing a sales platform for bigger companies selling new products the way forward.

If you missed Thursdays “Working Lunch” you can view it for the next few days using this link.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00p04b8/Working_Lunch_19_11_2009/

The eBay piece starts about 7 minutes into the program.