I completely agree with you, but at the same time I think that the financial backgrounds of a potential competitor must be extremely strong, not an easy task to accomplish...
I think it would be easier for major internet companies, to take over and create their own online auctions site. They have the money and the community...
sonia
· 1 year ago
This is quite possibly the dumbest write-up on eBay I've read recently... but the title had potential. eBay does need to find itself, but not in the way you describe. 1) Auctions can only take the company so far. Most of the recent growth is driven by their international businesses and PayPal. Also, other large companies have tried their hands at auctions (remember Yahoo?) and there are other smaller marketplaces out there already. But eBay has the traffic and that's what most sellers ultimately rely on.
2) Changing the UI into Web 2.0, Web 3.0, blah blah will have little impact on topline growth. It will make for a more pleasant experience, but it won't make a measurable difference. Only the most stuck-up UI prima donnas will exit eBay because of its hideous design.
vanguyafo
· 1 year ago
Is a site like Etsy.com a potential competitor. They seem like a young artisanal ecommerce marketplace that is very Web 2.0 savvy.
john
· 1 year ago
Have to agree with Sonia - this is an incredibly ignorant writeup of eBay's ups and downs over the past couple of years. Its true that eBay has been drifting between major decisions: a couple years ago it was all about auctions, more recently the marketing messages have been more about the more convenient buy-it-now option. But the fact remains that eBay is much more than an auction company, and the company's success is not purely derived from its auction business - that's a ridiculous suggestion. Simply look at completed items on eBay (or read their financials) to get a sense for how many buy-it-now sales go one. I use that format myself as a seller on a regular basis.
Also - the picture in your article isn't even of the eBay web site. The eBay web site has been upated a huge amount over (too much?) the past 18 months, what were you looking at???
Mozelle
· 1 year ago
eBay is unique because you can buy two ways. Auction or Buy Now! Both are essential! Some people don't want to wait! They want it now at the price advertised! Others want to bid and that's okay.
With Buy-Now there is no shill bidding. Sellers know what they want for an item and buyers know how much they will pay. Auction really makes no difference!
I think eBay is making the right move! Retailers, wholesalers, and liquidators all will find the 35 cent listing fee to their liking. However, competition will be fierce! One can only sell an item so low before losing money.
Millions of new listings will show up guaranteed!
IdeaTagger
· 1 year ago
As an outsider to a company's operations, it is far too easy to draw incorrect conclusions about what the company should or should not be doing. The company itself however has access to a lot of data that will guide its choices.
Ebay obviously has data that suggests a trend in usage towards Buy It Now and away from auctions. Personally, I always saw online auctions as a fad and never liked them. I have always used Buy It Now. I guess Ebay are seeing data that suggests more people are behaving similarly.
Fred
· 1 year ago
Actually the article is almost to the point. What’s missing is this. EBay’s biggest problem has always been with posting fees.
Up front fees have always been too high. I have been selling since 96 and have seen the degradation of listings due to this. They should drop listing fees across the board.
Nothing is more disparaging to a seller than seeing only 2 out of 10 items sell when items are listed competitively priced according to recent actual sales on eBay.
We look at recent passed auctions and start our auctions for identical items generally 25% lower than the average 90 day historical closing price of items that actually sold. Now this item may still not sell. Not because there is anything wrong with it or anything is different compared to the other previous listings, it simply may not have sold because the buyer who needs it has just not looked for it at the time it was listed.
I have sold hundreds of items that took 2 or 3 times to list. For instance a doohickey I listed for 100 at auction had no bids 2 times and the third time it gets bid up to 175. It happens all the time. Unfortunately I am stuck with the listen fees for the first 2 listings. EBay has a non sale credit system but it comes far short of a sellers needs. Also if and ad does not render a sale after a third listing we throw it in our store. It could sit there for 3 months before it sells but the posting fees for store items is so low that it is feasible.
The other thing is that they seem to advertise far less. Every time I see a slew of eBay ads, sales go way up. And when I see no ads for a few months sales drop like a rock.
eBay has seen buy it nows or store items growing more than auctions not because of anyone’s stupid theories of safety, security blah blah or how ugly the website is.
It is actually this simple. Many sellers including myself have gained enough capital from auction listings to buy inventory and open eBay stores. So items sit in a store for a few moths and then sell
For a few years now little by little eBay has been making it more difficult for the newbie’s to start off small to work their way up to stores. This is why you have the store ratio or buy it now ratio growing faster than auctions. Simply put eBay and its wise men have gouged the little guys so much they cannot grow, shunting its own growth. If you kill all the kittens the cat species will eventually die off.
They have always had faith that their will always be new users. But there is a saturation point to everything. They are approaching it quickly.
maybe they should have spent a little more money on customer service i.e. taking a closer look at ridiculous dispute that has caused them to ban millions so sellers who in turn tell their friends of their bad experiences. I am sure for every good seller eBay has banned for the wrong reason, they have lost 3 potential users. Word of mouth works both ways.
randy
· 1 year ago
All this talk about listing fees going down but not one word about the final value fees going up 50%-100%. Ebay claims some big announcement about fees going down when in reality for a completed transaction, the fees are going up. Sellers are tired of being lied to. Sellers are ebay's customers not buyers.
Buyers have all of the power currently. A buyer can rip off a seller and the only feedback a seller can leave would be positive.
You should see the new ebay auction item page. What a mess.
sachinag
· 1 year ago
Check us out at Dawdle - http://www.dawdle.com - we're the largest online marketplace for new and used video games, systems, and accessories. We're now the cheapest media marketplace with 11.99% commissions as opposed to the 15% plus fees on Amazon, eBay, and Half. (We just tried to be price neutral with eBay when we soft-launched last November.)
There are plenty of other marketplaces, such as Etsy, TIAS, and Abebooks that may have what you need in certain niches.
o.c.d.collectibles
· 1 year ago
There is one business that looks interesting..as a matter of fact, they were one of ebays "affiliates" and have a site of their own that they are carefully positioning themselves to be what ebay no longer wants to be,a collectibles and antiques market with it's companion auction site.
Ebay should be glad to get rid of their "flea market sellers" and feel relief that they no longer require that type of seller to make them successful. In the past, this particular type of seller was who made ebay who they are today, and from the very beginning, they took ebay to the heights of success that no other company could come close to.
So now these sellers will move on to the best place that's offered, they are now ripe for the picking, and any company with experience in the technical, financial, and social support sectors will be able to welcome these sellers with open arms. It will be their gain, and ebay's loss.
Mike Prystock
· 1 year ago
Remember a month ago when eBay announced it was closing down eBay Live Auctions? There is a lawsuit against eBay filed by buyers for shill bidding and now lawsuits have been filed against eBay Live for offering a competitive edge to a few live auction sellers who may have reaped millions in revenues by using an option/tool to flood the front of eBay core categories (during the last few years). The story is being followed at http://www.legaleagles.wordpress.com There's much more to this story then anyone could have imagined.
Cash Back Gal
· 1 year ago
For a long time eBay has failed to make a connection with sellers and in the process eBay has created an hostility between its sellers and buyers. I feel this dichotomy culminated May 19, 2008 when eBay set forth its "No negative feedback" policy. Come May 19, 2009 the only members on eBay who will have negative feedback are sellers. Simply, you can't get a negative if you don't sell.
Feedback was the foundation of eBay and what made it work. Buyers used to beg sellers to give them feedback. Now that the feedback pendulum has been swayed to the favor of buyers, it's really eBay who suffers with seller disention. eBay will lose ground one seller at a time.
Meanwhile new players and favorites are popping up, like Bonanzle, which now tops 10,000 users and has a nice layout. Things are starting to rock and roll. Then there's eCrater (bids), Etsy (handmade items), Ruby Lane (antiques), and of course, and Amazon (fixed price goods).
Super blog about eBay. I agree that eBay needs to find itself.
I had the misfortune of buying what I believed was a car from a private seller on eBay but it turned out to be a dealer who had eBay accounts all over the place and after being conned I managed to connect the accounts to eight other accounts using telephone numbers and different cars he had sold and soon discovered other people were also looking for the same scam artist
In the first instance DO NOT CONTACT eBay as they are particularly keen to hide such activities from the public in an attempt to reassure members that it’s safe on eBay and will hide behind the data protection act if asked for detail needed in order to take action yourself.
DO REMEMBER TO SAVE OR PRINT the pages relating to any wrong doing before eBay removed them and changes the data in order to claim that you were not in fact the winning bidder as happened in my case and don’t be put off perusing eBay when they suddenly start replying to you complaints in a foreign language such as Flemish.
You can be sure eBay collected it fees from the person who conned me and have access to IP Addresses and bank details to stop these people opening a new account so from a commercial perspective they are on the side of the criminals however help is at hand with sites such as www.Ebuster.co.uk, www.GoofBay.com which helps monitor and catch these criminals.
Shill bidder are rewarded by eBay and just in case they go too far in pushing the price up then eBay comes to the rescue with second chance offer so get it out your head about eBay helping protect members as they are not the solution when they are part of the problem and remember that the next time you suddenly find you won after all.
One last little tip is to save your time from complaining on eBay forums as you will soon discover such unfriendly topics are weighted to quickly disappear off the bottom of the screen and don’t believe all them cars that went unsold with no reserve at £0.99 with no bids as it’s a clear manipulation of the data by eBay as I have witnessed this myself.
All Comments
I think it would be easier for major internet companies, to take over and create their own online auctions site. They have the money and the community...
1) Auctions can only take the company so far. Most of the recent growth is driven by their international businesses and PayPal. Also, other large companies have tried their hands at auctions (remember Yahoo?) and there are other smaller marketplaces out there already. But eBay has the traffic and that's what most sellers ultimately rely on.
2) Changing the UI into Web 2.0, Web 3.0, blah blah will have little impact on topline growth. It will make for a more pleasant experience, but it won't make a measurable difference. Only the most stuck-up UI prima donnas will exit eBay because of its hideous design.
Also - the picture in your article isn't even of the eBay web site. The eBay web site has been upated a huge amount over (too much?) the past 18 months, what were you looking at???
With Buy-Now there is no shill bidding. Sellers know what they want for an item and buyers know how much they will pay. Auction really makes no difference!
I think eBay is making the right move! Retailers, wholesalers, and liquidators all will find the 35 cent listing fee to their liking. However, competition will be fierce! One can only sell an item so low before losing money.
Millions of new listings will show up guaranteed!
Ebay obviously has data that suggests a trend in usage towards Buy It Now and away from auctions. Personally, I always saw online auctions as a fad and never liked them. I have always used Buy It Now. I guess Ebay are seeing data that suggests more people are behaving similarly.
Up front fees have always been too high. I have been selling since 96 and have seen the degradation of listings due to this. They should drop listing fees across the board.
Nothing is more disparaging to a seller than seeing only 2 out of 10 items sell when items are listed competitively priced according to recent actual sales on eBay.
We look at recent passed auctions and start our auctions for identical items generally 25% lower than the average 90 day historical closing price of items that actually sold. Now this item may still not sell. Not because there is anything wrong with it or anything is different compared to the other previous listings, it simply may not have sold because the buyer who needs it has just not looked for it at the time it was listed.
I have sold hundreds of items that took 2 or 3 times to list. For instance a doohickey I listed for 100 at auction had no bids 2 times and the third time it gets bid up to 175. It happens all the time. Unfortunately I am stuck with the listen fees for the first 2 listings. EBay has a non sale credit system but it comes far short of a sellers needs. Also if and ad does not render a sale after a third listing we throw it in our store. It could sit there for 3 months before it sells but the posting fees for store items is so low that it is feasible.
The other thing is that they seem to advertise far less. Every time I see a slew of eBay ads, sales go way up. And when I see no ads for a few months sales drop like a rock.
eBay has seen buy it nows or store items growing more than auctions not because of anyone’s stupid theories of safety, security blah blah or how ugly the website is.
It is actually this simple. Many sellers including myself have gained enough capital from auction listings to buy inventory and open eBay stores. So items sit in a store for a few moths and then sell
For a few years now little by little eBay has been making it more difficult for the newbie’s to start off small to work their way up to stores. This is why you have the store ratio or buy it now ratio growing faster than auctions. Simply put eBay and its wise men have gouged the little guys so much they cannot grow, shunting its own growth. If you kill all the kittens the cat species will eventually die off.
They have always had faith that their will always be new users. But there is a saturation point to everything. They are approaching it quickly.
maybe they should have spent a little more money on customer service i.e. taking a closer look at ridiculous dispute that has caused them to ban millions so sellers who in turn tell their friends of their bad experiences. I am sure for every good seller eBay has banned for the wrong reason, they have lost 3 potential users. Word of mouth works both ways.
Ebay claims some big announcement about fees going down when in reality for a completed transaction, the fees are going up.
Sellers are tired of being lied to.
Sellers are ebay's customers not buyers.
Buyers have all of the power currently.
A buyer can rip off a seller and the only feedback a seller can leave would be positive.
You should see the new ebay auction item page. What a mess.
There are plenty of other marketplaces, such as Etsy, TIAS, and Abebooks that may have what you need in certain niches.
Ebay should be glad to get rid of their "flea market sellers" and feel relief that they no longer require that type of seller to make them successful. In the past, this particular type of seller was who made ebay who they are today, and from the very beginning, they took ebay to the heights of success that no other company could come close to.
So now these sellers will move on to the best place that's offered, they are now ripe for the picking, and any company with experience in the technical, financial, and social support sectors will be able to welcome these sellers with open arms.
It will be their gain, and ebay's loss.
There's much more to this story then anyone could have imagined.
Feedback was the foundation of eBay and what made it work. Buyers used to beg sellers to give them feedback. Now that the feedback pendulum has been swayed to the favor of buyers, it's really eBay who suffers with seller disention. eBay will lose ground one seller at a time.
Meanwhile new players and favorites are popping up, like Bonanzle, which now tops 10,000 users and has a nice layout. Things are starting to rock and roll. Then there's eCrater (bids), Etsy (handmade items), Ruby Lane (antiques), and of course, and Amazon (fixed price goods).
Super blog about eBay. I agree that eBay needs to find itself.
Check out my blog article:
Amazon versus eBay: who wins?
http://www.cashbackatebay.com/Amazon.html
In the first instance DO NOT CONTACT eBay as they are particularly keen to hide such activities from the public in an attempt to reassure members that it’s safe on eBay and will hide behind the data protection act if asked for detail needed in order to take action yourself.
DO REMEMBER TO SAVE OR PRINT the pages relating to any wrong doing before eBay removed them and changes the data in order to claim that you were not in fact the winning bidder as happened in my case and don’t be put off perusing eBay when they suddenly start replying to you complaints in a foreign language such as Flemish.
You can be sure eBay collected it fees from the person who conned me and have access to IP Addresses and bank details to stop these people opening a new account so from a commercial perspective they are on the side of the criminals however help is at hand with sites such as www.Ebuster.co.uk, www.GoofBay.com which helps monitor and catch these criminals.
If your not convince that eBay are involved in such illegal activities then see http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/24/ebay_sh... that will maybe change your mind.
Shill bidder are rewarded by eBay and just in case they go too far in pushing the price up then eBay comes to the rescue with second chance offer so get it out your head about eBay helping protect members as they are not the solution when they are part of the problem and remember that the next time you suddenly find you won after all.
One last little tip is to save your time from complaining on eBay forums as you will soon discover such unfriendly topics are weighted to quickly disappear off the bottom of the screen and don’t believe all them cars that went unsold with no reserve at £0.99 with no bids as it’s a clear manipulation of the data by eBay as I have witnessed this myself.