Thursday, April 02, 2009
When schwag goes bad – eBay sends me a gift
I have a little eBay problem. The auction website has grown my minor record collecting habit into a full-blown epidemic. I’ve been on the site for 10 years, and have thousands of searches stored in RSS format, which I compulsively refresh every few hours. Sometimes sellers use techniques for upping hits on their items, such as using blocks of keywords unrelated to the item. This makes my searches return dozens of unrelated items. I flag these auctions, which takes about 30 seconds, no more than a few times a week. Today eBay sent me a weird little notebook in thanks for being part of their “enhanced member reporting program.” Is that what I was part of? I had no idea.
What’s the problem with this? Well, symbolic recognition (stars, votes, friends) is the standard for online communities. When I reported items, I was mainly just happy to get them off my screen, and the sellers rarely spammed again. To receive a physical object for activities I didn’t intend to get paid for was a strange violation of accepted standards. It made me feel like some kind of paid informant - an e-snitch, if you will. The gift itself seems made for snitchery, too, like I’m going to sit around and take detailed notes on items I deem to be unfit for posting. In short, it had the opposite effect on me that eBay was hoping for.
That said, it is a pretty nice, compact, real leather notebook that I will likely use in the future. At least, when I won’t be made fun of for having an eBay-branded notebook.
What’s the problem with this? Well, symbolic recognition (stars, votes, friends) is the standard for online communities. When I reported items, I was mainly just happy to get them off my screen, and the sellers rarely spammed again. To receive a physical object for activities I didn’t intend to get paid for was a strange violation of accepted standards. It made me feel like some kind of paid informant - an e-snitch, if you will. The gift itself seems made for snitchery, too, like I’m going to sit around and take detailed notes on items I deem to be unfit for posting. In short, it had the opposite effect on me that eBay was hoping for.
That said, it is a pretty nice, compact, real leather notebook that I will likely use in the future. At least, when I won’t be made fun of for having an eBay-branded notebook.
Labels: ebay, internet, marketing, notebook, padfolio
