Since May, Ebay has blocked all the listing in Ebay Taiwan under NT$ for most of ist international site. This means when the user around the world use simple search function, and select items worldwide, all items listed around the world in all currency should appear in search result, including US$, Euro, GBP, AU$, CHF, NT$ and so on.
But now, items in NT$ are no longer appear in the simple search result worldwide, while all other currencies will included in the hit. While Ebay blocked all listings in Taiwan shipping worldwide, Ebay Taiwan heavily promoting its user to list their item in USA, UK and other Ebay site, and tell its user when they list in Ebay Taiwan, the chance of item being sold is very low (without informing its user that their listing has been blocked by Ebay for the international simple search).
This is in contradiction with Ebay spirit, which branded itself as the world’s largest online market place. Which the user can list the item in its local Ebay website and enjoy the global sales.
But what happened in Taiwan was Ebay first blocked the chances of Taiwnese item aperar in the search worldwide without inform its user (The shipping worldwide function still exist) and instead of invest in positive promotion, they provide the misleading information to encourage its user to list the item in other website, which is unfamiliar to its user and maybe have greater language barrier. Such action has not been seen often in all other Ebay sites.
I am not sure if this is a sight that Ebay will loss out the battle to Yahoo, like many years ago that Ebay pull out of Japan losing battle to Asian online market place Yahoo. And it will be very interesting to see what is Ebay’s next move, and its slightly misfortune.
In the meantime, bargain hunter’s or dead hard collectors will have bit more difficult to see some cheap items or rare items in simple search. Because even the cheapest and rarest item listed under NT$ will not appear in your search hit…….
