posted on October 31, 2000 09:52:48 AM new
PC Magazine November 21st issue has a reader survey. Mind you I do not pay much attention to such things as they often are very biased.
However, among auction sites eBay gets an A Amazon gets a C and Yahoo gets a....F.
If you read the numbers, it's mostly buyers and only a handful responded for Amazon and Yahoo.
In the same report, Yahoo is the top web portal, which means that the potential traffic is enormous.
posted on October 31, 2000 10:29:07 AM new
Yahoo almost seems disinterested in their auction business.
For instance:
In spite of how eBay responds to questions, at least they DO respond. Yahoo is very negligent in this area.
eBay allows buyers and sellers to communicate with each other, while Yahoo doesn't.
eBay allows a bidder to cancel a bid - Yahoo only allows a seller to cancel a bid after a request if posted by the bidder. If the seller misses this request and the auction closes with that bid being high, a neg is forthcoming.
Yahoo has a very high ratio of deadbeats.
Yahoo doesn't get any bids on many items.
Amazon dropped the ball a long time ago.
damn - I'm starting to sound like an eBay fan, which is not my intent here
posted on October 31, 2000 10:41:00 AM new
Yahoo! Auctions does not have the traffic of eBay, but I still sell items there occassionally. However, Yahoo! has been great in addressing questions, issues and needs. For instance, I had a deadbeat bidder leaving me negative retaliatory feedback and basically getting into a flamewar on my feedback page. I wrote to Yahoo! Auctions and pointed out that the comments were in violation of the TOS and Yahoo! completely REMOVED the negative feedback and cancelled the offender's account. That's something that eBay would NEVER do (unless you get a court order to demand feedback be deleted).
posted on October 31, 2000 10:48:29 AM new
I have fewer deadbeats on Yahoo than eBay (less than 1%) and have a modest but reasonable amount of sales. I find that Yahoo does better on some things than eBay.
I do not worry about deadbeats either, I just blacklist them and relist. Yahoo does respond, but I think Yahoo is more hands-off and that's better for sellers.
posted on October 31, 2000 11:09:25 AM new
I don't know this for a fact but someone posted about not being able to get a seller's contact information on Yahoo. If that is true that's a major short-coming on their part. Maybe someone can confirm of deny that for me here.
posted on October 31, 2000 11:53:07 AM newuaru Confirm...
You cannot get info on Yahoo such as address or phone at all to my knowlege.
E-mails of bidders and sellers are surpressed until the end of the auction. When the auction has concluded, the winner and the seller can then see each other's e-mail addresses.
Additionally, most sellers who have been there for any period of time or who read these boards, put their e-mail or a link to it in their ads so that buyers can contact them.
You can also leave a message at the auction after it closes if you have lost or never received the contact information.
Some people have left those messages in people's feedback (which is not recommended )
The best resource that I have found is Auction Tamer which can be used as a tool for bidding OR selling. It will retrieve the e-mail info of the seller/buyer automatically, so if Yahoo's automatic messages are slow or non-functioning, it is inconsequential because you already have it in AT.
posted on October 31, 2000 12:19:12 PM new
I always put an easy mailto: link in my auctions for eBay and Yahoo. I don't like the fact that bidders would have to do the password shuffle to ask a question. That's dumb!
posted on October 31, 2000 05:03:25 PM new
I agree with everything RB says! Amazon's auction site is terrible. I have had some success with Yahoo but they (yahoo) doesn't seem to do very much to promote their auction site. This is a shame. Ebay has problems constantly with the site being down, pics not showing up, etc., whereas I have never experienced Yahoo with any down time. I have been listing items on Yahoo that do not sell on ebay for more than a year. I do sell things but not nearly as much as on ebay. If Yahoo put a bit of interest in their site it could really be a dynamite auction venue.
posted on October 31, 2000 05:35:04 PM new
Obviously Yahoo is not willing for some reason to do with their business plan to pay big bucks for the people needed to actively answer questions.
Perhaps if they see the right set of conditions - such as long term problems at eBay they would change that. That would also require a commitment to upgrade hardware as needed to handle the traffic.
As it is they are poised with their toe in the door and enough experience to jump in if they see the right conditions.
