posted on January 3, 2001 12:56:11 PM
I have to agree with just about everyone else that this will be the death of Yahoo's auctions. I have been selling there for about 6 months now, but will most likely quit altogether with the new fee structure.
I understand their position, but I don't think they understand just how fast the site will drop. Sales have been decent on Yahoo, and are mainly profitable due to the fact that there is no listing fees. With the new fees, my personal listings will drop from about 600 a month, down to less than 50, just to let people know I'm still out there. I have no problem paying a final value fee. It's the listing fees that will kill us, if an item sits there unsold for months.
While many have continued to ridicule Amazon, I have done extremely well there. I pay my monthly fee and can afford to have an item not sell a few times around. I do expect quite a few others to look at Amazon as a viable alternative. I would consider listing more items on Yahoo, if they made a merchant subscription available. This could allow them to reap some additonal profits without causing a mass exodus from the site.
posted on January 3, 2001 01:00:50 PMtoyranch: They encourage users to set up auction booths and use the free classified listings for fixed price sales and promote those classified listings through more highly sought items listed for auction.
Free classified listing are for fixed prices sales?
Hmmmmm.
What's the "Buy Price" at Yahoo!Auctions for then?
posted on January 3, 2001 01:04:34 PM
I am wondering if there was any pressure on Yahoo from Yahoo store owners. I believe a Yahoo store costs a minimum of $300 per month to rent. A Yahoo booth was free.
posted on January 3, 2001 01:34:10 PM
Here's the first discussion:
Chat with the Yahoo! Auctions Team
Chat with the Yahoo! Auctions team about the new policy and site changes. The Yahoo! Auction team wants to answer sellers’ questions about the addition of listing fees, added services and the ban on certain hate material, or any other questions you may have about Yahoo! Auctions. Join us on Thursday, January 4th at 1pET/10aPT.
posted on January 3, 2001 01:36:14 PM
I have posted this before in the Yahoo forum, but I'll post it here again. I would GLADLY pay Yahoo fees if only they would FIX THE LISTING ORDER BACK TO TIME ENDING!!!! I am already paying Yahoo to feature my items. At 10¢ per day or more, it really adds up considering I'm talking about $5-$25 items. I feel that I have to feature to get my items seen in the first place thanks to the double-whammy of the wacky listing order and the inadequate category listings for the merchandise that I sell.
I'm not going to continue listing if I have to pay feature fees plus a listing fee. Just not viable for me.
I'm happy to pay Yahoo for the service they give me, but I am a bargain hunter. I will list my items where I get the most value for my money. Fix the listing order and the categories, and Yahoo goes back to being a total bargain. Leave everything as-is and listing fees at Yahoo are pretty laughable.
I am realistic. Yes I would prefer free. Yes I would prefer a final value fee. If they insist on a listing fee I would pay it, if the value were there. I understand that Yahoo has to make money and I also understand that advertising revenues are down. My beef is not paying fees. I just want my money's worth, that's all.
There's one more thing that no one has mentioned, but it is a big issue for me. THE ONLY WAY TO PAY YAHOO IS BY CREDIT CARD. Ebay lets you send a check or money order if you prefer to pay that way. This could potentially cause a problem for me, and probably for others as well. Yahoo should really examine some further options. They may lose some of the few people who would actually have been willing to pay them, if they don't.
posted on January 3, 2001 05:28:00 PM
toyranch, I have been thinking about the "chat" and it sure smacks of the time that ebay raised fees and then came to the boards where everyone screamed. The result was a "lower" increase of course and many people speculated that it was orchestrated this way.
IOW Yahoo says "listing fees" and then backs down and goes the the FVF route instead, or some other such less egregious thing which the masses are then supposed to be grateful for.
I dunno what the truth is here, but this smelllllllls like Ebay to me.
posted on January 3, 2001 07:10:05 PM
I doubt that they will take it back. But rather that we need to believe that they want to see sell through. FVF only would do nothing to discourage the presence of mass quantities of no-bid closings. The "seller's rewards" was a total flop - the limit of 1000+ auctions per month was too high to have any noticable effect and they coupled it with the stupid listing order initiative which sabotaged most of the site sales (and even views). If they reduced the base max no sells to something much lower and left the order alone the concept might have worked. Instead the they are reacting to the list order induced dropoff with radical surgery. I believe they fully expect the quantity of listings to drop by 90 to 99 percent but the sell through to go up to at least 20-30 percent and the remaining sellers to be happy at not being buried. Hobbyists using the free aspect to run penny-ante auctions, and sellers sitting on low demand or overpriced inventory are SOL. Whether the result will be to change the "vast wasteland" to a ghost town (e.g. amazon) or a much smaller but prospering market only time will tell, but most categories seem to sell sufficiently better on ebay that there is little reason for sellers to pay yahoo instead. For those only willing to list free, I think the most to realistically hope for is more promotional bonus free credit programs.
The timing of this with reports high level discussions and deal rumors between ebaY and yahoo! make one wonder about some very dark possibilities. Many assume the new federal administration does not believe in antitrust enforcement.
[ edited by figmente on Jan 3, 2001 07:18 PM ]
[ edited by figmente on Jan 3, 2001 07:48 PM ]
posted on January 3, 2001 07:34:05 PM
Yup. Starting January 10th - Yahoo fees start at 20 cents and go up to $2 & change... I was just reading their listing fees on their site tonight cos I JUST started listing there. Sheeeesh. Happy Screw Year.
posted on January 3, 2001 07:40:40 PMI believe they fully expect the quantity of listings to drop by 90 to 99 percent but the sell through to go up to at least 20-30 percent and the remaining sellers to be happy at not being buried.
That might be true for the first few months. But when Yahoo is down to a couple of hundred thousand listings, buyers will begin to find that the simply can't find what they are looking for on Yahoo most of the time. Then they will go to Ebay and find the item there. How many times does this have to happen before the buyers stop looking at Yahoo?
When the majority of sellers leave, the majority of buyers will soon follow. People will find that they are making far fewer sales than they did when the site was free. So another wave of sellers leave. The downward spiral continues....
posted on January 3, 2001 07:57:57 PM
I agree amalgamated2000.
I have been selling on Yahoo almost exclusively for a year (start date 1/1/2000) and it has just been in the last 2-3 months that I have felt that there were large numbers of people searching Yahoo along with Ebay ISO a deal.
Reason is primarily twofold.
Auction count has been high so there is was a likelihood of finding what you wanted, and as the seller base has grown, so has the buyer base since sellers buy too.
As the sellers leave, so will the buyers.
We *just* got a good selection of offerings on Yahoo amassed and we need every single one of them. Otherwise, what you have left is a mass produced, mass marketed BORE to wade through and no one is going to bother.
posted on January 3, 2001 09:10:00 PM
Sorry to keep defending Yahoo, but this seems in line with the way things are going on the web these days. A lot of .coms are going down because they're not making money. I read today that something like 1.5 billion dollars of investment money has been flushed down the toilet with them. Yahoo is legitimizing its business by starting to charge for its services, and others will follow.
The entire Internet is maturing. Investors in .com stocks are realizing that P/E ratios really do matter and that companies actually need to make money to stay in business.
Take FreeInternet.com... I think they made more money on the outrageous prices they got for all their office equipment at auction after going out of business than they did while they were still operating.
If you read closely the responses in this thread, there seems to be a general agreement that Yahoo! charging fees would not be out of line, but rather they manner in which they are planning to charge fees is going to make listing auctions economically unreasonable for most sellers due to low sellthrough and a high non-paying bidder ratio.
I believe that most of us definitely WANT Yahoo to make money and be successful and vibrant, but we are concerned that they are going to harm their site significantly, and possibly irrepairably by alienating a large segment of their userbase with the implementation of listing fees, as opposed to a different kind of fee structure.
An analogy...
Let's say the power company in your area stopped charging by kilowatt hour and started charging by square footage? You have a 1500sf house, so you pay $300 a month for electricity. Someone with a 1000sf house will pay $250, and those with 2000 sf houses pay $350 and 3000sf houses pay $450, but then so do 5000sf houses and 10,000 sf houses because $450 is the max limit.
Everyone in 1500 sf houses will move, because at $300 a month, no matter what they do to save money, they can't afford to pay that much. Those in the 5000sf houses are really happy, because their bills have gone DOWN. But the 5000sf homeowner goes down the street to grab a burger, and the restaurant is closed. There isn't anyone to work there. All the people who might have a job there moved, because their bills were too high.
We're just saying that if they want to charge, they should charge by kilowatt hour, not square footage. They say it will drive out the riff raff... sure it will, but if there's no riff raff, there isn't anybody to clean those big houses or fix the plumbing or flip a burger for them...
I get an e-mail from YAHOO! saying they were charging a fee now (the 10th) I list over $5000 to $10K a month on YAHOO! even houses, cars, etc.. I guess I sold about... ahhh, $200.00, 1/2 of the winning bidders never pay or respond to my e-mail. AND I must have spent that much on featured listings, For me to pay them for that service is outrageous! and by the way, eBay goes down at the same time I get the e-mail - that's a day after I get an e-mail from a bulk emailer selling 100,000 eBay e-mail address. NOW - I see on CNN YAHOO! has a "stand against hate" taking all NAZI MEM off the auction site! WOW! lot to absorb! What the heck is going on?! it's to obvious to be real! I mean, Who would be stupid enough to plan a stock manipulation game like this. The kicker is, I'm not sure whos going to be the winner! at first it was eBay, then eBay goes down and YAHOO makes the anti NAZI PR... WOW! is this a case of triple reverse psychology.
posted on January 4, 2001 03:46:22 AM
I'd jump over to Yahoo in a minute if they could get rid of the non payers! I like the features way better than the bay.
Rocker