Who ever said selling platforms were a democracy?
I have been reading various articles, blogs, forum posts and tweets lately about changes on many ecommerce platforms. There have been changes lately on a lot of the platforms which has cause a large amount of venting. So that is leading me to wonder, who ever said that the selling platforms are a democracy.
Somehow users of the various platforms came up with the idea that because, they use, promote or are otherwise involved in a platform that they have been given a vote in how that platform does it’s business. Yes they have put time and energy into promoting the site but ultimately they are promoting themselves. If the site grows they get either more sales or more choices of things to purchase, if the site fails they move on and start the cycle again.
Only the individual user knows what drew them to the site in the first place and that reason is why they have devoted the time to it. The problem with all that is that does not give them a true say in how the site evolves.
All sites have owners and some even have investors that have a larger stake in the development of the site it is their name and their money involved in whether the site thrives or fails. They hopefully have a development plan and an idea of where they are going and how they want to get their. The owner of the site has the big picture and whether the site has 100 users or 1,000,000 it is impossible to please all of them no matter what they do. Plus it is not their job to please everyone their job is to develop a site that will be successful moving forward.
Venting and ranting or cheerleading and spamming with do nothing to help a site in the long run as both of those things have the potential to drive off the very thing that is being sought buyer and sellers. Every site has its flaws, glitches and problems but also has its own outstanding features, but broadcasting the good, the bad and the ugly does nothing but make the broadcaster feel better.
Responsible site owners do listen to there users but the voice of reason gets lost in at daily barrage of opinions. If you have a constructive idea voice it but you need to ultimately understand the site is not yours and unless you plan on investing quite a large some of money your voice will only be one of the many and never really have a vote in what will happen.
There can only be one captain leading the ship otherwise it would spend its days going in circles.
Some platforms seem to be going around in circles even though they have a captain.
Joking apart, I agree with you and because many forums tend to ‘dwama’ I find myself avoiding them.
Life is too short to stir up ugliness and as independent sellers if a venue or platform does not meet our needs we are free to move on.
Broadcasting the good, the bad, and the ugly does help the broadcaster but sometimes also serves a useful purpose like helping stock analysts know what is really going on with the site functionalities. For example, eBay users have expressed frustration with the Best Match search and have pointed out specific instances when the search is obviously broken.
I do completely agree with you that a venue owner and the investors have the only “true direct votes” in how the site operates. Any venue owner obviously wants to broadcast only the “good” and not the bad or the ugly. Before eBay users had the ability to blog and tweet in the way they do today, the analysts often received an incomplete picture since they were shown only the good. I think that broadcasting can serve a useful purpose if it helps analysts get a more complete picture of what is actually happpening. That way, investors can cast a more appropriate vote.
As a paying customer of any venue, I have certain expectations and when those expecations are not being met I express my frustration (broadcasting the bad and the ugly is one form of expression). And while I don’t get a direct vote in how the captain of the site will navigate a venue, I do get to “vote with my dollars.” More and more eBay sellers are voting with their dollars and are taking their variety of goods to other venues.
So, while we as sellers don’t have a direct vote (democracy) in how the ship will run its course, our indirect votes do matter because a passenger ship that only runs half-full all the time is not self-sustaining. If a few passengers don’t ride then the vessel still sails but too many empty cabins and the captain has to start laying off some of the crew and making changes that will ultimately bring back more passengers or else the ship ultimately ends up in drydock.
I really like this post. It’s really important to remember, I think that we all may use a given site but we don’t “own” it. Taking changes less personally would go a long way to everyone being less stressed.