posted on May 24, 2001 09:40:39 AM new
Amazon auctions could easily take advantage of the miscues eBay is making that are alienating sellers. Obviously Amazon auctions suffer from meager viewership and sell-through. This could change if they cater to those alienated by eBay and take a more proactive approach to promoting their auction and Marketplace venues.
Some suggestions for improvement are:
- Amazon should freely allow sellers to post all the external links they want on auction ads promoting external businesses. This would run counter to eBay eliminating links and would be a selling point to entice sellers to come back. What does Amazon stand to lose?
- Amazon should heavily promote Amazon Marketplace as an alternative Fixed Price marketplace to Half.com. Start an email campaign promoting both the auction site and Marketplace to Amazon's 10-20 million loyal customer base. Few know these alternative Amazon buying/selling venues exist. They already send us targeted emails promoting new stores and sales, why not do the same aggressively for the auction and Marketplace business? An email campaign is virtually FREE advertising, and links within the email are an easy way to drive traffic to the site.
- Drop auction listing fees and move to a success-based Final Value Fee based model. They could increase the commissions they receive on successful sales to 10%. This would definitely bring in sellers who pay nothing if they can't sell. Constant promotion of the auction business would bring in the buyers and consequently drive Amazon's revenue growth.
- Now that eBay is venturing into the "e-Store" marketplace, I suggest Amazon drop the monthly fee for ZShops and offer ZShops for free to all sellers. Instead generate revenue from a 10-15% commission on each sale as Half.com does. Thousands of loyal "Half.com's" would emerge generating Amazon millions/billions in revenue. Amazon should really focus on taking a piece of every transaction that's made on the Net instead of being the sole seller.
- Continue to maintain high customer service and focus on serving your seller base, another area in which eBay could use work.
- integrate and promote the Amazon Payments service as the defacto payment mechanism throughout the site, whether auctions, Marketplace, or ZShops. Nearly every e-Store would love some sort of integrated payment solution that's available to customers. They could shove PayPal aside! No need for it.
If Amazon focuses on making buying and selling EASY and ENJOYABLE for everyone, their piece of the e-Commerce pie will skyrocket. Use eBay's foibles to your benefit.
I'm sure other ideas will come to me, but I suggest we start contacting Amazon about changes we'd like to see to their Auction business that might stimulate growth. What they're doing now isn't working! Now is a golden opportunity to make strategic moves to move in on eBay.
Same could be done for Yahoo. If either of these 2 want to make headway on eBay, there's no better time than the present. If enough sellers make the case before these 2 behemoths maybe they'll awaken and take action.
posted on May 24, 2001 12:55:18 PM new
If you don't have a listing fee sellers will
fill the auction with junk and stuff with high minimum bids/reserves: from the seller's point of view so what if this stuff sells very slowly--it doesn't cost them anything except their time (and with auction software very little of that). Bidders are simply not going to buy at auctions with large amounts of this type of merchandize. Why don't you understand this?
posted on May 24, 2001 01:07:26 PM new
eSeller has some good ideas and I really beleive that eBay after getting themselves rich, have decided that the little guy is not worth the effort anymore, yahoo and amazon if they get their heads out of the sand could swoop in a kick butt....but will they? small sellers need a new home, eBay now sleeps with the big corporate's and have little use for the rest of us....I hope that the other 2 big auction sites will wake up and smell the money!
posted on May 24, 2001 01:15:02 PM new
eBay has more junk than any site I've ever seen and they still get good sell-through. That's what the handy Search facility is for --- to allow one to weed out the garbage.
posted on May 24, 2001 01:20:42 PM new
tohellwithebay,
They aren't going to do anything unless we voice our concerns directly to them. I think one of their problems (i.e. Amazon, Yahoo, MSN, etc.) is they don't know what it is that they're doing wrong. Might be some apathy on their part as well and lack of focus. Amazon, Yahoo, and MSN certainly have the savvy and financial resources to give eBay a run for their money if they'd only focus on this market segment and learn from eBay's positives and negatives. eBay does many things well, for example marketing, but they have a ton of heavyhanded tactics we buyers and sellers could do without. This is where other venues have a chance to capitalize if they only recognize and seize the opportunity.
posted on May 25, 2001 05:36:01 AM new
With Amazon's 39.95 a month plan, Payment system, and brand name recognigtion, they could EASILY turn their lagging auctions and storefront business around. List 130 items a month and the seller is WAY ahead. By catering to small sellers they could could make much $$$ and beef up their bottom line. Everything is in place except the marketing and some tweaking for site reliability.
posted on May 25, 2001 09:33:03 PM new
What's sad about this situation is, even IF yahoo or amazon took your advice and gained on ebay, what do you think they would do next? Lets see...Raise their prices!!! These are big corporations, if they had the market share that ebay has they would be doing the exact same thing as ebay is!! That puts you in the same boat. Until a site like libertybid or some kind of coop or nonprofit that has the user's wants in mind things will never change. That's the sad part but, the more competition for ebay the better it is for us all.
posted on May 31, 2001 04:14:20 PM new
I beg to differ.
Amazon Marketplace is Half.com.
Amazon ZShops are eBay Storefronts.
Amazon Auctions (currently a total flop) is the eBay auction venue.
Amazon would like some of eBay's action. Don't count out Amazon Auctions until they definitively kill it. A few tweaks and it could be 2nd to eBay. God knows there isn't a clearcut #2 right now!
posted on June 21, 2001 08:42:56 PM new
Amazon outshines ebay 7 days a week. Not nearly as many shoddy buyer/seller transactions on Amazon and less to few kids using mom and dads ID's. Other than the fact that Ebay stole Amazons best features, Amazon continues to go in more professional directions. Amazon may profit in the long run over ebay's demise. I really hope they do.
