A Personal Blog
No More Bloggers on eBay
Just a note that I received an email from eBay today that selling of blogging services will not be permitted on eBay. This is in adherence with their long-standing policy that items sold on eBay must in fact be items and that services do not qualify.
Fair enough. And I appreciate eBay letting the auction run its course, since I know they were aware of it during the auction process.
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| Print article | This entry was posted by Jeremy Wright on December 7, 2004 at 2:25 pm, and is filed under Blogging. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |
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about 7 years ago
Wow, a whole industry was birthed and died in less than a month. That must be a record even for Internet time! ;)
about 7 years ago
Jeremy,
Do you know what their aversion is to selling services to the highest bidder? For a company as innovative as eBay, this seems our of whack. Perhaps it has something to do with the inherent difficulty of assigning value to a service, but when a 10 year old gilled cheese sandwich sells for over $28,000, I’d say value it out the window.
Dave
about 7 years ago
That’s somewhat outrageous on eBay’s part, considering that they have a category called ‘Web & Computer Services’ located under Home > All Categories > Everything Else > Specialty Services
about 7 years ago
That’s too bad.
I applaud you for your innovative idea Jeremy. It’s seems a bit short-sighted for eBay to take this position.
about 7 years ago
I do not see a difference between your blogging service and the resume writing ones. One of the men has sold quite a few and has a lot of happy customers. If you can’t do it neither should he.
Although I’m glad your auction went through they really should stop the auctions if they are aware of it because it’s misleading. People think they can do it because auctions actually went through.
about 7 years ago
Can’t you circumvent this by writing a little blogging booklet, selling it, and throw in “3 months of blogging” on top of that? Or would eBay not appreciate that either.
about 7 years ago
I think a great part of the reason they didn’t just remove the auction was for PR.
As well as that, all the services in the Specialty Services section are very well defined services. eBay is not a job marketplace and should not be treated as such.
There’s a difference between saying:
“I’ll make you a resume.”
and
“I’ll do something along the lines of blogging for three months as your employee.”
And you can’t expect eBay to sift through every auction in order to find people offering poorly defined services. It happens that Jeremy advertised this all over, on his hugely popular blog, and had a press release.
about 7 years ago
Also, why didn’t you check the rules before starting the auction, in order to make sure that you were within the boundaries. You must have had an inkling that just maybe they don’t allow services and it’s worth a quick check.
about 7 years ago
I’ve actually emailed for clarification, though it may take a few days to respond.
In all honesty, eBay has their own rules for their own reasons. If one of those is that (for a variety fo reasons) certain “services” are allowed, that’s fine by me.
I’ll let y’all know if I get a response.
about 7 years ago
In response to “why didn’t you check the rules before starting the auction, in order to make sure that you were within the boundaries”:
To be honest, I didn’t expect it to sell. And, I emailed several friends at eBay to let them know about it. It’s not like I was trying to be sneaky.
about 7 years ago
A slight re-working of a Bladerunner quote fits here i think….
“The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long – and they have burned so very, very brightly, the eBay blogger auctions.”
;)
about 7 years ago
My thought is that your passion made a huge impact not only at eBay, but also in other traditional media sources, and that in it’s self is a great accomplishment.
about 7 years ago
Darn, I was really hoping to buy a blogging ghost soon!
about 7 years ago
I can’t say I didn’t see it coming. I did expect eBay would shut it down but it’s commendable that they didn’t. Plus, with all the press you got, I think it would have been a public relations nightmare. Hey it was free advertising for them, right? :)
Aaron
about 7 years ago
I’d say it probably comes down to the difficulty involved policing services… With a lamp, cell phone or even an old grilled cheese sandwhich you have a decent idea of what you are getting and what the respective retail market value might be. With professional services it has a greater degree of variability.
I’ve seen web design services offered many times before… perhaps they are counting the finished website as the “item”. In this case you could argue your “item” is the finished posts – roughly 200 posts delivered over the course of 3 months.
about 7 years ago
Yeah, I hear you. I took your idea and tried to auction my services off on Ebay for a local charity, but they shut me down as well.
about 7 years ago
Hmm, you should start a blogger auction house. :-)
about 7 years ago
I’ve got enough on my plate, thanks :p