dman3
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posted on January 2, 2001 08:24:28 PM new
I wouldnt get to exsited About ebay wanting to buy yahoo for its auctions after two weeks after 1/10/01 it wont be a big enough threat to ebay for them to have interest they to are looking to incress income not drag it down in to the pit.
Yahoo dont only have listing fees up but also fees multi level reserve auction fees.
I know this I have listed on yahoo for over a year and I have only had 5 sales there in 9 months as my listings close they will stay closed.
I will Concentrate on Ebay for now where I pay fees but my sales are very good since may and study other avenues to sell my Yahoo type inventory.
http://www.Dman-N-Company.com
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canvid13
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posted on January 2, 2001 08:28:01 PM new
In my opinion YAHOO wins either way. I think these moves are simply paving the way for a takeover by ePAY.
Another fact. You get what you pay for. I've been seeing a wave of comments here by folks listing more and more on yahoo. Now the hammer's dropping.
The fact is that it costs money to run these sites, offer horrible support and keep Meg in whatever Meg keeps.
I think the auction future has to separate the garage sale seller for the more business oriented small seller. I think that there should be different levels of fees and services. Like what Yahoo does with its merchant account but with some sort of support.
If it wasn't for ePAY taking Yahoo over I'd say this was a real opportunity for some reform of the auction biz but I don't think it's to be here.
We need an association of sellers. A group to lobby and maybe even come up with standards instead of stock option swilling goofballs.
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RB
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posted on January 2, 2001 08:28:39 PM new
Buy tables with folding legs. You can fit a bunch of these in the back of your SUV and they are easy to set up at the local flea market.
On-line auctions? DoDo Birds? Bah ....
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stockticker
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posted on January 2, 2001 08:30:29 PM new
Toyranch:
I've only been selling on Yahoo for two months and currently have about 600 items listed. I've been very pleased with sales so far. The sell-through rate is lower than e-Bay but the automatic relisting feature has also meant much lower labor costs for me. All my auctions are first bid wins and about half of my customers win multiple auctions.
I'm just beginning to develop a repeat customer base. If a listing fee is introduced, I will stop listing completely. If a Final Value Fee or reasonable flat monthly listing fee were introduced, I would definitely continue to list.
Irene
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mustpar65
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posted on January 2, 2001 08:32:31 PM new
Yahoo stock has tanked spectacularly in the last year. There must be legions of stockholders yammering "Do something! Do something!" So this is what they came up with. It won't work and they probably know that, but they're out of aces. Yahoo and all of eBiz is slamming head on into reality. Final Value Fees would be more tolerable but no doubt the yahoo bean counters realized the increased revenue would be a drop in the bucket. In theory if everyone kept listing auctions at the same rate and paid the fees it would give a big boost to their bottom line. It won't happen, they know it won't happen, they're just throwing it out there to appease the shareholders.
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twinsoft
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posted on January 2, 2001 08:33:29 PM new
Toyranch, I agree that a final value fee would be okay, but not an up-front listing fee. The price is not justified by the number of bids. This would mean the end of any competition with eBay.
So once again we're left at eBay. This week I saw an ad on eBay's home page (that's $100 plus frills per auction) for "fat burning" pills. Lose 90 lbs. in two months. The seller had 18 bids with several days remaining.
Is this the future of eBay? Will we all be left selling AmWay and amazing cleaning products in order to survive at eBay? It's sad because if only Yahoo held out for a couple more years, they could give eBay a run for their money.
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VeryModern
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posted on January 2, 2001 08:35:12 PM new
Toyranch - I would like to know if feature credits can be used to pay listing fees (while they last).
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reston_ray
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posted on January 2, 2001 08:40:10 PM new
Bobby
I've seen the number 8% discussed as the average total eBay fees as a percent of realized sales. This number would vary from seller to seller depending on a number of variables (opening price, reserves, features, final selling price, deadbeats, sell through and relist percentages etc.)
If it is valid, and it is for me, then YAHOO will have to perform at a similar cost to be effective.
I took a quick look at my numbers for YAHOO and I could absorbe a one time listing fee but additional relist fees would jump the cost up to over 20%.(20 cents per $10 item X average of 7 relists and a factor for items that never sell or go deadbeat/refund).
I can't operate at an effective 20% listing fee for sales.
I can raise my prices, be selective with items offered and look to pulling traffic to a Web site but it will mean a major reduction in listings.
I like YAHOO, have very good feedback numbers, want competation for eBay and would like to support their efforts but not at the expense of ongoing money out of my pocket.
They have to leave us room to run profitable businesses. Take 12% of gross away from most sellers and it would be a huge percentage of their net profit.
(Darn it, wouldn't you know. We have a big game and the quarterback shows-up with his arm in a sling from a New Years weekend accident)If this last comment dosen't seems to make sense, ask Bobby how he's feeling.
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toyranch-07
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posted on January 2, 2001 08:42:29 PM new
First of all, I don't know that this is 'written in stone'...
Although it is now written here:
http://auctions.yahoo.com/phtml/auc/us/promo/fees.html
They are seeking input.
They don't want to kill their site (although it may appear that they do)...
This is a SERIOUS issue for ebay buyers and sellers!
ebay pays a LOT of attention to the competition. If the competition blows it's head off with a shotgun, look for things to change in a major way (and not a good one) at ebay as well! Right now, Yahoo! Auctions ARE the competition.
VeryModern... Will you email me please?
http://www.millionauctionmarch.com/
[email protected]
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AnonymousCoward
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posted on January 2, 2001 08:56:31 PM new
From Yahoo's site
Is there a fee to sell on Yahoo! Auctions?
http://help.yahoo.com/help/auctions/afee/afee-01.html
Listing fees
http://help.yahoo.com/help/auctions/afee/afee-02.html
Will I be charged for resubmitting an auction?
http://help.yahoo.com/help/auctions/afee/afee-03.html
When and how will I be billed?
http://help.yahoo.com/help/auctions/afee/afee-04.html
Examples of Listing Fees
http://help.yahoo.com/help/auctions/afee/afee-05.html
[ edited by AnonymousCoward on Jan 2, 2001 09:05 PM ]
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reston_ray
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posted on January 2, 2001 09:15:47 PM new
MAM - TO THE REAR - MARCH !
I would like to go to sleep but can't with what seems to be some loud cheering coming from the direction of San Jose and fireworks lighting up the sky.
Whatever could that be?
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franko122
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posted on January 2, 2001 09:24:45 PM new
Bad timing Yahoo. I agree with most here. I've been following this for a long time and the tide of seller favor was finally just turning Yahoos way. Another couple months and they'd have most of us there.
Instead they are putting an end to a good thing. Monthly fees or FVF's would have been a welcome event. Listing fees are the wrong thing for Yahoo at this point though. Listings will go down, bidding will go down, sellers will leave...
It's a downward spiral from here I think. They need more bidders before they do listing fees. The risk on Yahoo is not finding a bidder and thus no sale. That was mitigated by free listing. Now they have added a listing fee. I am risking my money and the very high potential for no sale. That makes no sense. That is not the way to entice sellers.
The only possible good thing I can see coming out of this is the junk listings going away. They've already addressed that in several other ways though. 1.) 1000 auction max and 2.) search returns items with most bids first.
Yahoo had a serious chance to take a bite out of eBay's business. Now the only biting will be eBay when it slaps down it's offer to buy Yahoo in a couple months.
Short Yahoo, this is a desperation move and I smell a big stink coming!
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IMLDS2
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posted on January 2, 2001 09:27:14 PM new
Thank goodness this happened BEFORE I started switching over!
I'd listened to everyone regarding Yahoo and thought I'd give it a few months try..heck it was free.
Guess I won't be changing over that is for sure!
Carole
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toyranch-07
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posted on January 2, 2001 09:39:13 PM new
You know, I don't buy all the stuff about ebay going to 'big sellers' only and all that...
ebay looks at itself like a city. There are different areas of the city, and different interests.
There's the Disney area...
There's the car area...
There's the new stuff area, the book area, etc. etc.
And there's an antiques area and a flea market, etc. etc. etc...
Can they all co-exist on a website and all make money and not exist to each other's detriment? That's the question...
The problem is that without viable competition, it becomes evermore a 'company town'.
If the economic climate of Atlanta becomes bad, folks can and will move to Miami or Chicago. If they couldn't move, well...
That's why this is not ONLY a Yahoo! issue, but it's also a MAJOR ebay issue!!!
http://www.millionauctionmarch.com/
[email protected]
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heygrape
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posted on January 2, 2001 09:48:22 PM new
Toyranch--Please PLEASE Don't Help Us anymore! You've done quite enough! 
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vorlon4
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posted on January 2, 2001 09:56:30 PM new
Toy:
Please pass this on:
I am one of the many that sell on Yahoo but listing fees will kill me. There is not the traffic to justify spending my money there.
I would HAPPILY pay FVF's. (Honestly I'd prefer NO fees but if I have to pay a fee at all it would be an FVF)If I sell I'll be happy to pay-but there are too many times I would have to have eaten the fees because of non-sales.
I would seriously curtail my listings there. (I currently do 20-25 auctions per week with decent sell through, but tight profit margins.)
Please pass this comment on:
You are greed-bay's only serious competitor- PLEASE DON'T SCREW IT UP! This wrong headed plan will do just that. Unlike Ebay PLEASE listen to your users.
THANKS Toy!
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ploughman
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posted on January 2, 2001 10:19:13 PM new
I too would have to agree that they're really shooting themselves in the foot if they charge listing fees. They don't have the pageviews or sell-through to support it. It's already at the point where many sellers have to pay to feature auctions.
This comes at a terrible time, too, as it'll help cement eBay's dominant position and lead to even more new fees over there. No doubt their biz whizzes have decided the economy is slowing and eBay needs to make more of its revenue in upfront fees that get charged whether a sale is made or not.
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reamond
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posted on January 2, 2001 11:00:58 PM new
What would be nice is if Paypal or another payment processor would develope an online auction/straight sale based on the Napster model.
We could store our auctions on our own computer for free. The payment processor would prevent fraud and provide instant payment to the buyer.
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BlackCoffeeBlues
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posted on January 2, 2001 11:10:59 PM new
Now who in their right mind would pay Yahoo to list something, when you could pay eBay and get drastically better results???? Yahoo is where I've listed things that wouldn't sell on eBay, and I figured there was no big risk in letting them sit on Yahoo for a few weeks. Even then, I've only sold about 2 items on Yahoo out of several auctions listed, and those 2 items went for the first bid (under $3 each!). Why would I *pay* for that?
Like others have said, a FVF would be just fine, and very fair to all parties IMO.
I do have credit with Yahoo from "converting" my eBay feedback into credits to use on auctions. I wonder if they apply to all fees, or if the credits can only be used on special feature stuff?
Point is, even with over $150 "free money" to spend on Yahoo, I STILL don't list over there, because no one BUYS my stuff over there!
Sheri
[email protected]
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outoftheblue
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posted on January 3, 2001 01:03:08 AM new
BlackCoffeeBlues
I would say hang in there, it takes a little time to build a following on Yahoo, however, with the fees you would have to pay (for very little reward) while building a customer base....
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deco100
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posted on January 3, 2001 01:18:52 AM new
Ahh,is this just the tip of the iceberg? I see this as a portent that egreed will also raise it's fees in the not so distant future.
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tvstevie
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posted on January 3, 2001 02:28:53 AM new
I have submitted the URL for this thread to Yahoo through the feedback form on the auctions help site. Maybe some YAHOO will take the time to read it and respond.
http://www.midsouthsports.com
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Powerhouse
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posted on January 3, 2001 02:53:09 AM new
Gee, guess Yahoo had to start charging fees to cover the cost of the overhead they generated when they decided to require bidders to submit a CC#.
Smooth move.
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toolhound
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posted on January 3, 2001 03:28:59 AM new
I think that is good news. It will weed out all that junk that you have to look through to find the good stuff. I see items that have been running for a year and are not ever going to sell.
If an item is not worth the .20 cent listing fee then it probably was not going to sell anyway.
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paintpower
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posted on January 3, 2001 04:19:18 AM new
Yahoo fees means I'm outta here. Not only does the stuff not sell, it does not get the hits necessary to sell and then when I did get lucky and someone bought, they never paid. I have had so many deadbeat bidders over on Yahoo. With only a 5 cent difference between listing on Ebay and listing on Yahoo, Ebay gets my vote. At least stuff sells over there and gets the traffic.
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pickersangel
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posted on January 3, 2001 05:00:52 AM new
I have to agree with everyone else. I'd be willing to pay FVF on items sold, but there just isn't enough traffic on Yahoo! to make it worth my time to pay listing fees. As it stands, I post the inventory I don't have listed on Ebay over at Yahoo!. It's a nice plus if it sells, but most of it ends up being resubmitted. The attractive part of Yahoo! is the fact that it's FREE. It's certainly not that I can generate any substantial revenue on that site.
always pickersangel everywhere 
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canvid13
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posted on January 3, 2001 06:36:17 AM new
Geez, Yahoo has really blown it. If you look at their insert fees they actually are higher than ePAY! For me it's the relisting that really bugs me. No way am I going to pay for each relist and have Yahoo tell me to change my price or how I list. I've been doing this long enough to not need their expert advice! They should've just charged fees for sales, not lists.
I don't want anything for free. I have no qualms paying for a service. While Yahoo has announced fees they are not announcing any new service or support exept for giving you credits for deadbeats??
I think though it's time to walk the walk. I was given over $1500 in credits to my yahoo wallet for my feedback. I currently have around 75 auctions live on yahoo.
After this note I am going to pull them all. If enough of us do this maybe, just maybe, they might get the message!
If you decide to follow and do the same leave a note about it in this thread.
Jamie
lapman13 on yahoo
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canvid13
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posted on January 3, 2001 06:59:00 AM new
I just cancelled 68 auctions on YAHOO. It's just a personal statement. While they won't lose any money they will lose page hits. My listings avereraged 15 per listing.
I'm curious to see if anyone else is willing to cancel their auctions to send a message in the clearest way possible??
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molly001
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posted on January 3, 2001 07:24:32 AM new
I'm with you Jamie.
I, too, couldn't really see the point in leaving my current auctions running or starting as many new ones (plus relists)that I could before the 10th....
No "messages" could be sent that way.
I have some item descriptions that I have to retrieve and save and then I will be closing my auctions. I must humbly admit, I only have 10 to close but, hey, guess it's better than nothing.
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toyranch-07
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posted on January 3, 2001 07:27:40 AM new
The listing fee, they say, is to help stop junk listings on their site. Obviously, it would do that, but then it will also stop most all listings on their site...
Anyone have an idea of another way to stop all the junk listings?
It's a really annoying aspect of Yahoo! auctions that there are endless listings for auctions that are more advertisements than actual auctions. Because it's free, and there are auto relist features, some folks just bang out the same ads for their websites, etc. time after time. It clutters the listings and drives bidders away (making it harder to sell actual items)...
Of course, I don't buy the assertion that this is the ONLY reason to implement the fees, and I doubt anyone else does either, but it is an aspect of the listing fee. If there were a FVF to generate revenue, how could the junk listings get weeded out?
http://www.millionauctionmarch.com/
[email protected]
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