posted on October 28, 2000 10:23:24 AM
I enjoyed the article and saw it as much as a cautionary tale then something to be taken absolutely literally. I am a regular Salon Reader and TT poster.
And have enough experience on ebay and the internet generally to understand in order to survive on ebay, especially in the current market, one has be able to be able to read and adapt to the current changes, and have a nitch market to use as one's bread and butter.
The author isn't blaming ebay, she is saying that the market has changed. And yes, it is lot of work, as a sole owner, operator to have the volume necessary to get by. Especially in the collectible market....if you are selling new goods, you will have a better shot. Just in saving time in relisting, instead of having to write and photograph and list every single item. At a certain point, one has to know when one is burning out, and allow for downtime to recharge.
It is work intensive work...and it can be discouraging to have all your go to nothing because the highway breaks down.
And Ebay does owe the sellers good service, because we are paying the freight.
Other than that, Ebay is the only game in town and we are stuck with em, such as they are....and it would be nice if they got the data base to work as intended.
I don't know if I am going to bet my future on ebay, but.....
I do know that there will be a shakeout of sellers coming---
and the ones who will get by will be the ones who stay on top of customer service, provide credit card service, and ship when paid.
Otherwise, a buyers market prevails, and those who will last are those who are prepared....
posted on October 28, 2000 10:58:06 AM
Nice work of fiction. Just another cheap shot at ebay and not admitting to herself "I am to blame".
Ain't Life Grand...
posted on October 28, 2000 11:09:42 AM
reamond: I read F***edcompany.com every day. I love it. As the cluetrain manifesto says---marketplaces are conversations. and FC is the party line of the marketplace (one that many dot com businesses consider a royal pain in the hiney). What I take away from FC (and from my experience working for a dot-com that went belly up) is that visions of big money blind people to many matters---practical, aesthetic, moral and financial. I also think that's what happened to the writer of the Salon article--she was "doomed" through her inability to regard this influx of money she received at first as a lucky streak brought about by a confluence of timing and knowledge. Practical and financial vision in her case was lacking.
In my post at the beginning of this thread,
I stated that having never seen the big money from eBay I have never been disappointed by the small but steady sales I have had. I believe there will always be a space online for someone who wants to make some money but doesn't aim to get rich---if not on eBay, then elsewhere. You're correct, I think, in predicting that eBay in particular will become a place where full-time non-corporate sellers go belly up. Ebay will court and encourage big biz at the expense of the little sellers, but I also think that those of us who just want to sell a few collectibles and buy a few collectibles will always be here. Making a LIVING off eBay for a small seller is presently difficult and I believe it will get harder, if not impossible, but that doesn't mean small sellers won't be around. But expectations have to change with the times.
Outside of eBay, I think possibilities are wider for microbusinesses. Amid failure after failure of giant dot coms, and the crash n' burn of plenty of smaller ones like the one I worked for, I see small business in niche areas who are doing great. They are NOT getting rich---but that's not their goal. They are getting tons of customers and making a good living--which I define, basically, as an ability to live a middle class lifestyle with a home of their own, a car, and a nice vacation every couple of years. Different people define it differently, but for the sake of my arguement here, that's what i mean by "a good living".
I'll give one example of a successful business model along these lines that I'm familiar with: in one specialty area of interest I have----a specialty area 99.99 percent of the world knows nothing about and doesn't care to----I know of a website that was put up by a couple with a part time mail order business that had been just breaking even for several years...Then they opened their cyber doors. They placed no ads, just used the exposure of Yahoo's search engine---when you type in this subject, you get their page first---and from all over the world, the people who are interested in this niche area came steadily, and so did the orders. They went from ready to quit to thriving, and now one of the couple works the site full time and the other could afford to quit his job also but probably won't because of their fears about the economy/dot-com industry, though not because of a present downturn in sales--just common sense.
This picture of success doesn't mean they could or should expand, take on employees, go brick n' mortar, invest in banner ads, etc. It's not THAT kind of success---the kind people in bigger businesses seem to value. To this family, success means that they have little or no debt, pay their bills on time, save for the kid's college fund, and build an addition to the house if they have a specially good year. They do think of the future and they are currently building their customer base slowly by doing certain highly targeted kinds of marketing within the larger field associated with their products. The level of growth is slow but their sales are maing small but consistent gains. And they are happy with that level and those sales. They haven't risked any big money so if it all crashes tomorrow they could still go out and get jobs and life would go on. (Well they do call an investment of 1,000 by a relative for extra stock "venture capital". In this instance---not in all instances---big business isn't interested in taking over something like this. There's not enough interest in this little tiny area for a corporate presence to make what they think of as serious money. But there certainly is enough interest for a family to make a good living.
Not everything has to be taken to the millionaire, interview-me-i'm-a-cyber-ecommerce-star level. Some people are happy just to make a living doing something they love. And I think these are the types of people who will be the success stories of the internet---to themselves, anyway. And to me. Big business and microbusiness both have goals and they both have advantages--different ones---and they have different levels of what they call success. I think Ebay defines success like the big boys do, so they will play by the big biz rules. Those who define it like the couple I mentioned will probably need to go elsewhere. There is no use crying over this.
Everything will change, and is changing, and in my mind it's going to take money AND flexibility, but the bigger you are the more you will need both. And even if you have both a lot of people aren't going to be around in 5 years. I believe eBay will be there and it will be made up of corporate sellers and hobbyists who are doing it for pin money. I also believe there will be be tons of microbusinesses online but they won't be on eBay most likely. Who knows? It will be fun to see all the changes. I try never to think of anything as permanent, since my religious teachings regard that as "maya"---illusion......of course, YMMV.
posted on October 28, 2000 11:59:54 AM
bridgi, this is indeed what will happen to me and thousands of other sellers and buyers. I don't want to be a millionaire, I just want something to keep my life a little more enjoyable and sure, I do like the extra money.
In the past there was a thread about how many of us use the internet because we are physically disabled somehow, some partly, others completely. And it has kept our spirits up.
However, when a big giant like ebaY now comes charging at us, forever changing things with no explanation, we tend to become a tad addled. So I really hope that there is something out there waiting for those of us who don't want to be in the spotlight, we want fair treatment, like everyone deserves.
Change is a fact of life. Equal treatment is also a fact of life, much denied, but there just the same.
I just got a realllllly nice email from the author of the article, and she is very friendly -- ya know, what we put in feedback about, "*excellent communicator*"??
LOL
I forewarned her that I'd never personally seen ANY article about eBay EVER provoke sooooooooo much discussion, not ever!
I think abacaxi was correct. This woman could easily support herself WRITING.
. In this instance---not in all instances---big business isn't interested in taking over something like this. There's not enough interest in this little tiny area for a corporate presence to make what they think of as serious money. But there certainly is enough interest for a family to make a good living.