Community
How to Damage an Online Comminuty
So I was thinking the other day about how eBay has recently alienated it’s entire community. A few years ago, eBay was truely on the forefront of understanding what the next great thing on the Internet was going to be. That is, community.
Of late though, eBay has made some poor decsions that have significantly impacted their own community in profoundly negative ways. A few months ago, eBay first changed their rating and review system in a way that angered many loyal community members. Next, eBay started veering away from what used to be it’s real business advantage, creating a consumer-to-consumer community where we can interact with each other selling and buying our own inventories. eBay now seems to be favoring large retailers and their “power sellers” more so than the loyal community that put them on the map.
Instead of working to better understand the needs of the community that they created from the ground up, eBay is turning itself into a basic online retailer. “Buy It Now” was a good idea that they’ve let loose to kill their community.
Where eBay and many other companies have gone wrong is in understanding this new truth:
People that purchase your products and services are no longer customers, they’re community members!
Today, anyone can say anything about your company in seconds. And, when this is damaging, it’s like a snowball rolling down a hill, growing bigger and bigger, turning into an avalanche unless you hustle to stop it. Right now I see eBay and a lot of other companies sitting at the bottom of a mountain as they throw rocks, waiting for an avalanche.
Companies cannot treat thier community as faceless customers without an identity. Today, everyone has a voice and an identity online. And, we all want to be heard and respected. To fail to understand this is to doom yourself online.
As for eBay, it’s not too late to turn things around and to mend what they’ve done to their relationship with their community. They will have to make big decisions though. Only time will tell if they can repair the damage and save the community that they themselves forged.
