jamesoblivion
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posted on October 20, 2000 09:23:36 AM
*sigh* This was actually attributed to her:
Stressing that the company was "pleased" with the growth in its member base, eBay chief executive Meg Whitman said the company was not overly concerned with the decline in gross merchandise sales per member.
From this article:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-3239293.html?pt.ms..feed.ne_home
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smw
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posted on October 20, 2000 10:11:51 AM
Ahh...Meg should keep her cards closer to her vest.
Could this be the first public utterance of a long range plan to expand away from the "per member listings" that built eBay and towards a fundamentally different business model ?
Or perhaps to expand to areas and build a base of revenue where the percentage of eBay revenue from "per member listings" are less significant to the eBay bottom line? This would allow eBay to provide even less support to the small sellers. eBay could then not actually do anything to get rid of the small sellers but rather watch as attrition takes care of the problem.
On another happy note ....part of the letter that was published on the AB was about eBay migrating to an API platform to allow outside developers more latitude. As I understand this platform, in theory, it would then be possible to bid on auctions on eBay from other sites without actually going to eBay.
I may be wrong but this is how it was explained to me, and, if it is correct then eBay is planning a major shift of some sort.
Oh..and they plan to migrate to the new platform by sometime in November, just the right time to screw up Christmas.
Everyday is an adventure.
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radh
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posted on October 20, 2000 10:17:56 AM
eBay has a legal responsibility to its shareholders to explain that this decrease in sales per registered userid is not a cause for alarm.
eBay now has 18.9 million registered userids.
As discussed frequently on messageboards throughout the OAI, there are MANY single individual real live human beings at eBay who have MORE THAN ONE USERID.
I would not take that bservation by Meg Whitman in the highly personalized way shown in the first post to this messagethread.
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kathyg
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posted on October 20, 2000 10:34:18 AM
smw: I couldn't agree with you more. Especially when considering thier very ambitious goals for growth in revenues over the next few years. The small seller is clearly not a significant factor in eBay's vision of thier future.
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snowyegret
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posted on October 20, 2000 10:47:22 AM
Just another online store
uhh, uhh, uhh, what a bore!
Lyrics to the saddest song ya ever heard!
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mballai
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posted on October 20, 2000 10:55:36 AM
One of the reasons for the decline is other auction sites. I no longer automatically put another quarter in eBay's slot machine if something doesn't sell--I move it over to Yahoo and see what happens. I also put first run auctions there as well.
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surrrfurtom
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posted on October 20, 2000 05:44:30 PM
While we're not talking about eBay stock as this isn't a stock investment board, I personally think eBay stock is still way over valued. I'm sure they have some aces up their sleeve to try and jump start its valuation...but the bottom line is that its present price still reflects a very robust economy and an extremely high growth rate.
If the economy ever sours (and it will) eBay will be hit hard. Discretionary spending for collectibles will evaporate. After one of the longest economic expansions in history do you think the odds favor a continuation ....or a slowdown? If I had to bet I'd think that odds favor the economy slowing.
So....think twice before giving up your day job.
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VeryModern
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posted on October 20, 2000 05:58:47 PM
I interpret it to mean exactly what she says - that she is not terribly concerned about small sellers dropping to the wayside.
surrrfurtom - I agree completely and many segments of the collectable market have already dropped dramatically. The high high end will be insulated, but this is a very small portion of what is offered on ebay.
I have been telling my husband for two years with all the collecting/hoarding going on - sooner or later this stuff is going to spill into the yard (as is sale) and people will find there are no buyers. The obvious example is Beanie Babies. You can only fool the people for so long.
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chum
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posted on October 20, 2000 06:00:56 PM
After one of the longest economic expansions in history do you think the odds favor a continuation ....or a slowdown? If I had to bet I'd think that odds favor the economy slowing.
Not to change the subject but I really am worried that if the other party enters the oval office the economy will go down the drain like it once was. Now on to the subject at hand eBay lol. I wonder if that gross total was without deadbeats? My deadbeats are around 15-20 out of 100 on eBay. Since Yahoo started CC verification the amount there is around 3-4 per 100. The minimum feedback rating works well too. You know during that elian gonzales stuff that raft went for over 1,000,000.00 so that is probally included in Megs numbers lol. Makes me wonder sometimes.......
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SPEEDTICKET
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posted on October 20, 2000 06:58:25 PM
dont get me wrong i still love ebay but as of late my sales have dried up and i got tired of paying their fees so i have been using YAHOO AUCTIONS more then i have been using ebay as of late
K MCDONALD
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