eBay Canada Drops Ball On Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards, Leaving Winners In The Lurch
eBay Canada recently announced the winners of their annual Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards, granting cash prizes and other rewards to outstanding sellers on the platform.
This year's winners Jessica Oman and Johann Furrer (Storage Warrior) are 2x awardees, having also won in 2019. The husband and wife duo turned their side hustle into a full time business in 2012 with a focus on reselling items found in storage lockers, at estate sales, and via junk removal services.
In addition to running their business, the pair also host a podcast, offering tips to other aspiring ecommerce entrepreneurs and support their favourite charity, the Binners Project, which seeks to reduce stigma toward waste-pickers, while offering dedicated support staff and sorting space in Vancouver.
The awards are supposed to be a chance for sellers not just to win thousands of dollars in prizes, but also to attend a special event honoring their achievements and allowing them the opportunity to meet directly with eBay staff and Canadian government officials who oversee areas directly related to small business and entrepreneurship in the country - or at least that was Jessica and Johann's experience in 2019.
But 2024 was a different story, one that Jessica has now told through their The Business of Reselling podcast and one that eBay Canada should be deeply ashamed by.
To give you just a taste, that thumbnail shows the actual award Storage Warriors received in 2019 - alongside a paper certificate Jessica had to make herself because apparently eBay simply couldn't be bothered to have something to hand out to attendees at the event this year.
She started the story saying from the planning stages something already seemed a little off because in 2019 eBay apparently handled making all the travel arrangements up front, but this year the sellers were required to do it themselves and submit invoices for reimbursement after the event.
I've been waiting a few weeks to tell the story and to be honest it is not the story I wish I was telling. I wanted to tell you all about the important meetings we had in Ottawa the stakeholders that we got to talk to the people that we met the things we learned and the fun we had because I expected that but I can't do any of those things because unfortunately this trip...was a colossal waste of time...
...we were told that we had this trip to Ottawa we were asked to book our own travel which was not that big of a deal you know it was nice to have some flexibility over the timing of flights and where we stayed and things like that although I did think it a little strange because that's not what happened in 2019.
But I was like you know what this is a new team you know they're doing things differently it's fine, so we we booked our own travel and it was going to be reimbursed.
While it's good to hear it wasn't a big deal for them, in general many small business owners might have a difficult time swinging that kind of cost upfront - especially those for whom a $5,000-$10,000 grant would be a life and/or business changing award.
When they arrived for the event, they were surprised to find out that almost none of the stakeholders that had been listed on the original agenda were actually in attendance - including eBay Canada GM Garry Thaniel who was apparently sick with no one who could fill in at the last minute.
...in the morning we had a meeting at the pr company's office and we were given the same agenda that we had received the prior week except that none of the meetings that were on that agenda were actually going to happen anymore.
now I get it these were supposed to be meetings with government stakeholders
MPS and you can't control an MP's schedule they may or may not be available......the GM of eBay Canada was supposed to be there but got sick...they didn't send anybody in his place.
I would have expected at least a small team of three or four people to be present because this is the entrepreneur of the Year Awards, this is eBay Canada's Pinnacle celebration of its sellers so I would have expected a few members of the team to have come to Ottawa to be with us for that celebration, not just to say "hey you're awesome" but also to get some feedback to talk to sellers to find out what our challenges and questions are. to get in there and hear our voices.
And then things got really weird at the evening reception with only one eBay person who was very new on the job apparently unable to rein in some inappropriately partisan political rants by one of the government stakeholders in attendance.
and this is where it got really weird...this Member of Parliament was asked to speak and to you know say something about our achievements...but then he just went on this this anti current government rant and then went on and on about a very partisan very obviously scripted political agenda that was just tangentially related to small businesses but really was completely separate from what we were there for.
and as winners we were just kind of on the into the room going ah like this is awkward and now I don't care about the political affiliation of anybody who was at that event what I do care about is that we were told over and over and over again that we were brought to Ottawa to be celebrated that's why we were supposed to be there and that is not what was happening at all.
meanwhile the pr team cheering here here in the background while this guy went on and on about axe attacks and whatever...it was completely inappropriate and in the end it became really clear that party wasn't for us, that day wasn't for us, none of those meetings were for us...there was something else going on.
Jessica pointed out it's asking a lot for small business owners to take 4 days away from running their normal operations, and the lack of any real engagement or added value left them regretting the decision to go.
And then of course there's the award itself - which you would think would have been presented at the actual event for the photo opportunity if nothing else - but instead they were given the old "the check is in the mail" routine and had to follow up multiple times over the following weeks just to get the money they had won.
At the reception when they came up and said all of our names and said congratulations..we were all asked to come up for a photo op, we all expected to be handed our prizes and we weren't - there was no prize.
this prize comes with a not insignificant amount of money and we also thought there might be a trophy a plaque a certificate I mean a ribbon...some physical thing that we could hold up say look we earned this look how cool this is.
but there was nothing and so we were all kind of left standing on the side going gosh did we just all come here for a prize award ceremony and not get our award?
I did speak with two people from eBay Canada about this uh who admitted that what happened in Ottawa was kind of a miss, although neither of them were there, and they said that they would work on getting us a plaque of some kind but we're going on almost two weeks now and I haven't heard a followup and that tells me that it's not going to happen.
..at the end of it all we were like uh hey kind of awkward here like where's our money and then that took another two and a half weeks to get our money and I had to pressure them to get money in our hands...I just I got this feeling that there just was no sense of urgency around it like they didn't see why it was important to actually provide the prize to the winners
I had to follow up and oh the checks will be pressed on Tuesday and then they'll be sent out on Thursday and you'll get a tracking number and I didn't get a tracking number and I had to follow up with that and it's just like over and over again like why am I having to work so hard for this...
From my point of view the business award should be something where we leave that place leaning into eBay, we leave that place going "man that was amazing, we met these people, eBay really demonstrated that they cared about us, they were there for us, they elevated us"...we didn't feel any of those things. We just could not wait to get home."
And that disappointment led Jessica and Johann to an understandable conclusion - it was time to expedite plans they were already making to diversify their business outside of eBay.
I'm not going to point fingers at any specific person within eBay but a company culture that talks a big game about supporting small business owners and being there for its sellers just failing to deliver on that message in such a grandiose way it sends a message and I'm not going to forget...
...we're doing one thing for sure...which is that we're mirroring we're going to be mirroring our store on Shopify...
...I don't think it's practical to walk away from eBay and especially it's not
practical to do it just because I'm mad at them that doesn't make any sense.Strategically eBay is still going to be the best platform for our business I think for a long time to come but you know this experience definitely moved the conversations that we're having about what to do with our business in some different directions..
..This experience with the eoy awards has kind of accelerated some of those plans and so after the holidays we're going to make a decision about what 2025 is going to look like but I guarantee it will not be the status quo.
eBay should be embarrassed one of their Entrepreneurs Of The Year had an experience even remotely like this and should have proactively reached out to Jessica, Johann and all the other winners with a sincere apology and immediate action to correct the situation.
Here's a free pro tip for Garry Thaniel - you personally (not your assistant) need to immediately contact Jessica with an offer to do an open format, no holds barred "ask me anything" interview live on her podcast at a date and time of her choosing and convenience (not yours) to really listen to feedback and provide a detailed action plan for how eBay is going to make it up to this year's winners and make sure this never happens again.
