Alert: "Jim Cramer" (CNBC Shill) just did a whole piece on E-Bay Turnaround...

He says the new guy is good...doesn't belong on his "Wall of Shame" and while E-Bay Users might not like him...he's putting in some good stuff that will make the Company Money (according to Cramer).

He says the guy has put in "free shipping" and he's going to sell off SKYPE (spelling) which will bring in some new money to the stockholders of "E-Bay" and that he thinks this company is a "BUY, BUY, BUY!"

I wonder how you folks here feel about this. If the new CEO has indeed put in "Free Shipping" that would seem to be good...but is it real?

:shrug:

BTW! Cramer said to BUY "Pay Pal" because it's just a GREAT STOCK...and E-Bay is the chief beneficiary of it. :eyes: How do you E-Bay sellers feel about Cramer (CNBC's) Pump Up?

I offer it on fixed, higher priced items, but unless you can fit your merchandise into a flat rate box or it can go by media mail you could really screw yourself out of profits.

...so far anyway. there's lots of hoo-hah about all the great changes eBay is making for sellers, but the fundamentally bad changes made over the past two years remain:

- no negative feedback can be given to buyers
- detailed seller ratings which are used to punish sellers while buyers aren't told this will be the result of "less than perfect" ratings
- sellers are guilty until proven innocent on paypal disputes, especially on international transactions
- sellers cannot accept money orders or checks and must redo their listings to reflect this to stay compliant

Just a ruse, apparently.

I haven't liked the way a lot of sellers jack up shipping costs, but this is no answer. Mandating actual costs would be better.

We didn't have to offer free shipping, but were encouraged to do so with a double final value fee discount. I used it a lot, and it actually saved me quite a bit on my FVFs. Have not calculated whether I in fact came out ahead, though, as opposed to if I'd just charged shipping to begin with. I suspect it came out about even, but buyers like that "Free Shipping" concept (even if the item price in fact has been raised to cover the shipping loss). So it was good in the sense of encouraging people to buy.

In any case, that's ending at the end of the month, unless they extend it again (they already extended once or twice).

I would imagine both eBay and PayPal are good stock buys, though, because they're the only ones in the game who are raking in any appreciable money.