posted on March 7, 2001 06:59:57 AM
Link below is to a tech trends article which analyzes eBay- seems fees need to go even higher for Meg to hit revenue goals.
posted on March 7, 2001 07:25:51 AM
eBay doesn't have to raise existing fees in order to increase their revenue.. they just have to provide more services that folks are willng to pay for...
posted on March 7, 2001 07:30:06 AM
I thought I read on one of these threads that their revenue actually went down with the last increase as more sellers gave up the perks to compensate for increased fees? I know I use the gallery less than I used to.
posted on March 7, 2001 07:38:14 AM
I agree Dottie, but I don't think that is the way ebay will go.
I think the small seller is going to get squeezed pretty hard.
I think the big boys will enjoy great favor from eBay. This includes tailoring the site to their needs.
I wonder how much effort eBay will put into catering to the small seller?
It could be the case that the collectable and used merchandise sellers will be priced out of the main site and have a secondary site, albeit with higher fees than they now pay.
The more revenue ebay gets from the big corps, the less attention and resources will be granted to small sellers.
Before it's over, we could see the garage sale item sellers pushed to a hidden corner of the site.
Or if you don't do a set amount of sales per month, you won't be able to list at the main site.
posted on March 7, 2001 07:48:50 AM
reamond: I agree with your idea that the smaller sellers will receive less and less attention from eBay as the big boys sorta take over.
For now though... the collectibles categories still bring in a lot of traffic, so eBay really can't afford to suddenly squelch the mom and pop sellers in these categories. Without the TRAFFIC coming in for these listings... the other categories where the big boys are selling would suffer.
I believe that eventually there will be an area designated for collectibles... but for now, the main site NEEDS the traffic from those listings in order to grow the other categories that are increasingly being dominated by Big Business.
YES... lots of goodies in store for the Big Boys.... extra attention on bringing THEM more business... because those Power Seller types bring in more revenue with less effort than the nickle and dimers. I'm not even including the Bronze Level power sellers in my assumptions... I believe that eBay is counting on sucking up to the GOLD level power sellers.
All in due time, my little pretties... all in due time!
posted on March 7, 2001 07:53:15 AM
Geez, folks. That's why we need a co-op? Can any of you really come up with a true alternative? Ebay is going to raise fees at some point??
posted on March 7, 2001 08:12:32 AM
canvid: Actually... I think it's too late for a co-op or any other site to really make a difference. Unfortunately, too many sellers and buyers kept their heads in the sand for too long... folks didn't want to see (or even talk about) the fact that eBay was moving AWAY from the little guys a year (or two?) ago.
This is what I believe will happen now.
eBay will grow it's worldwide marketplace... BIG BUSINESS will dominate and some moderately successful "Mom & Pop" sellers will continue to earn a fair living on the site... and some smaller OCCASIONAL sellers will unload their no longer wanted items for a decent amount of money.
The rest will find OTHER means of financial support. Go back to Flea Markets or get a real world job. *sigh*
posted on March 7, 2001 08:23:13 AM
So what will the big boys be selling?? New items? I for one would never sit and wait for screeens to load to buy new things.
One of a kind things yes, but I do not have the patience for the other.
posted on March 7, 2001 08:45:13 AM
I can't speak with certainty, but I think these large corps will demand to be separated from the flea market/small sellers.
eBay will leverage the buyers that the small sellers brought to the venue to the big corps. It's doing it as we speak.
It may be blatant, such as the portal to enter eBay may be reserved for the big boys. The small sellers may have a well buried tab or link for their auctions. The corps are getting more and more brand exposure all over eBay.
I also find that while the small sellers brought the buyers to eBay, the small sellers are not necessarily needed to keep those buyers coming to eBay.
eBay's value and product is now its stable of buyers. eBay's original value was its concept. It was soon realized as eBay grew that the concept was easy to copy. There are now a dozen auction sites that use the same concepts as eBay. The distinguishing value for ebay now is the buyers that visit the site.
Another thing that eBay is doing to further entrench its ownership of buyers is the new email contact rules. I now think that eBay is more worried about the long term problem of sellers luring buyers to other venues than losing FV fees on sales.
In the long term, it would be more harmful to eBay for sellers to database their buyers information and then use it to lure buyers away from the site than losing some FV fees. I believe the same logic follows for preventing email harvesting i.e., ebay is more worried about buyers being lured to other sites than a spam problem or losing some FV fees.
It would be interesting if we started a sellers organization wherein we accumulated a database of our buyer information. This would be a bigger threat to eBay than anything on the horizon- especially if the sellers' organization then announced plans to start their own site.
Imagine if a few thousand sellers databased their buyer info, and sent an email stating that they had started their own web sales page - and as a valued customer, offer them a 25% discount on anything at the site.
I think many of us saw these new rules as revenue protection rather than a method to keep buyers at eBay for the new corporate clients. I think we were wrong.
[ edited by reamond on Mar 7, 2001 08:59 AM ]
posted on March 7, 2001 09:10:52 AM
reamond: naw... I think that too many sellers were scared off by the short term pain of doing anything other than eBay to see the benefits of the long term gain that would have resulted.
the race is over....
sellers either need to find ways to compete (or stay alive) in spite of the big boys or move on to something else.
I think we have 6-8 months left to create a co-op. Right now there still many small sellers on Ebay which keeps us together as a group. Once the platform is gone then we all splinter.
We need a co-op. It's a shame that more people aren't willing to help make it happen though....
posted on March 7, 2001 09:25:07 AM
If folks couldn't get organized a year ago (when there were MORE of us and we were STRONGER as a group) then I hardly see where by some miracle folks are going to get ORGANIZED (stop bickering) and get something together in the way of a Co-op site that would be successful. Sellers get easily distracted by the details of starting up a Co-op... they don't have time for that... they're OnLine sellers, not PC Techies and Auction Managers. *shrug*
In order for a Co-op to even work, the sellers would need to draw in the BUYERS.... I just don't see that happening, realistically.
Find an EXISTING site that will sell it's soul to the Mom & Pop sellers and not forget who brought it to the dance at Midnight (IPO time) and you might have a snowballs chance in .... well, you know where! *sigh*
There are several reasonable sites... but NOBODY has formed a large enough group of Sellers AND Buyers to relocate at ONE SITE that could make any impact.
Folks will grumble about eBay and pay the fees... pay more, get less... WORK harder... or they'll stop making enough money to make it worth their while... and get out of OnLine Sales.
(I hate to sound so blah about it all, honest!)
posted on March 7, 2001 09:26:35 AM
Is't ebay like that now. They separate the Auto's from regular ebay. I don't think they remember, at least not Meg as she wasn't around, why ebay was started. It was because of Pierre's girlfriends Pez collection. Now that is a small seller business. They are the ones that made ebay and now do you think they will dump them. I personally do not buy new at ebay and never will. I never look at the new items. I would rather pay more in a real store than get what I can't touch at ebay. Maybe this will be a plus for the Mall business again.
According to the news articles Meg is worth 800 million dollars right up there with the sports figures. Just how much do you need to live on darn I wish I had 1 million. I guess I am just venting. Thanks for listening. Does anyone use ManageAuctions.com? If someone does how do you like them?
posted on March 7, 2001 09:26:37 AM
I don't know if this really affects what has already been discussed, but it maybe me think a little bit more about the fact that buyers' habits (and thus sellers' success or lack thereof) can be affected to different degrees.
Some buyers browse for items strictly or largely by crawling different parts of the category trees. Depending on the categories of course, they'll see more and more of the "big boys'" stuff, so "smaller sellers" would likely get crowded in among more and more auction lists.
Some buyers browse for items strictly or largely through the search capability, often making small refinements to the search to exclude redundant or already-found items, will tend not to see much or any of the "big corp" stuff. (I browse 96% by search and 4% by "view seller's other auctions, and I've yet to see something listed by a big-name retailer. ) Small sellers will continue to stand out or have the run of the field with heavily search-oriented buyers.
Of course, this is really more of a continuum than an either-or (i.e. a lot of buyers won't be just mostly one or the other). Plus there are other factors, such as downtimes or other concerns (e.g. spam, resetting or ignoring people's notification preferences) to affect buyers as well, but buyers who mostly use search will still find collectibles fine. Whether enough of the category-using buyers start getting tired enough of wading through growing listings to start using search enough to compensate, I wouldn't know.
Just a few thoughts...
----
What's being done in the name of direct marketing nowadays is crazy.
The above are all just my opinions, except where I cite facts as such.
Oh, I am not dc9a320 anywhere except AW. Any others are not me.
Is eBay is changing from a world bazaar into a bizarre world?
posted on March 7, 2001 09:29:31 AM
In any event, I suggest all sellers create a usable database of their buyer information. It could become very valuable.
[ edited by reamond on Mar 7, 2001 09:40 AM ]
posted on March 7, 2001 09:38:54 AM
Also, I have to say I with Libra63. I buy stuff from eBay that I have trouble finding in local stores. I'm not going to bother with items that I could get out of my chair, onto a bicycle or into my car, and on my feet, to go to a B&M and see all aspects of the item, instantly compare it to similar items sitting right next to it, and that I can pay for without having to decipher a privacy page to figure out whether I trust the company enough not to add me to some additional mailing or calling lists.
So the big company stuff being on eBay is of no interest to me at all, and probably won't ever be. Given that I'm searching instead of browsing by category, it is in a sense irrelevant to me, except for whether things done to benefit the big-name sellers end up interfering in my enjoyment of buying stuff from the small sellers.
Given how eBay has been messing around with all sorts of intrusive direct marketing companies (bringing in DoubleClick, Annuncio, changing or even outright ignoring notification preferences, etc. ), plus how buyer email addresses were being harvested by other spammers, I've been enjoying eBay less and less for these other reasons, however.
So perhaps much of this "big-name" stuff has been sweeping by out of where I'm (intentionally) looking, but I wonder if it's been causing waves and creating other effects that I have been increasingly unhappy about.
Of course, for every buyer from "small" sellers that is getting annoyed for some reasons and bidding less as a result, there could be several new buyers attracted by the "big" sellers' stuff, or a combination of "big" and "small." Hard to say.
posted on March 7, 2001 09:49:42 AM
Another thing the big boys will have is free listings. In most retail stores everything is consignment. So most likely they would pay ebay a FVF only. Small sellers will be forced out to sites like bidville, etc.
posted on March 7, 2001 09:53:40 AM
The big boys are having an effect. The article said Sun had sales of $25 million on eBay and 25% of Sun's customers on eBay had never purchased from Sun before - and it was an "experiment". Sun doesn't sell consumer products- it sells net backbone appliances [servers etc.]
eBay would love to replace each of us with a Sun.
There is no way eBay can take its revenues from $400+ million to $3 billion in 5 years with garage sale items.
Someone is going to get the chicken and the small sellers are going to get the feathers.
posted on March 7, 2001 10:14:58 AM
I agree Reamond. However, there is a good chance that most of the big sellers wiil not have the kind of success that Sun has had. It all depends on what they are selling.
Of course the direction Meg has opted to follow will have most of us small sellers out of there. If the big guys don't make it and the small guys are gone, what will she have left?
And the traffic they get has come from the unique and desirable products the smaller seller has provided. Without that traffic, even the successful big players will soon find their profits shrinking.
And meeting grandiose goals will be the least of Meg's problems. If she has foresight, she will do everything in her power to keep the little guys happy--even if that means keeping their fees down.
We all have other options and I've seen my B&M mall sales increasing tremendously in the last 3 months. Why would I choose to put my best items at ebay if I can get better prices at the mall? Could it be that the buyers are already leaving old ebay?
posted on March 7, 2001 10:20:09 AM
We all have other options and I've seen my B&M mall sales increasing tremendously in the last 3 months. Why would I choose to put my best items at ebay if I can get better prices at the mall? Could it be that the buyers are already leaving old ebay?
I would say so, and many sellers are leaving as well. Just think no more deadbeats, outages, postal fees, wheres my item emails, etc. I think alot of us would be alot happier without these headaches. Alot of sellers including me have been to dependent of eBay, and lost touch with real life sales.
posted on March 7, 2001 10:24:09 AM
I really don't think eBay values the small sellers in their future plans.
Follow the money. It would be far easier to replace or even forgo the $300 more or less million that the samll sellers generate - although I don't believe we generate that much of the current 400+ million, than to generate another $2.5 billion from garage sale items.
Bottom line- if eBay can generate $3 billion or even $2 billion without small sellers they will. Also remember the costs per dollar of revenue of small sellers compared to large sellers. The costs for small sellers might be as high as 40 cents on the dollar, where the big sellers are probably 2 cents on the dollar. With this scale, ebay will not have to have a 50% yearly increase in gross sales figures with big sellers to reach $2-3 billion in revenues.
I believe you are correct on all counts! Reading your original post above really woke me up and altered my way of thinking. I think the situation is more dismal for the little guy than we ever imagined.
The buyers IS eBay's commodity, and the only way, as you say, of challenging and competing with eBay in any way, shape or form is to amass a database of customers. I believe the reason the e-mail thing came into effect, as well as the constraint of trade, was to make it much harder to do so. They want no theft of their commodity (the buyers, not the FVF which are drops in the bucket compaired to what the buyers mean in $$ when the big businesses take over...)
We, as sellers, are nowhere near ready to start our own auctions that will actually work. We've got some real work to do first, and it includes:
1) making sure that our customer service is second to none to attract repeat buyers and have them want to join a newsletter list
2) Grow your newsletter list subscribers, and keep them informed of new auctions, new items you have up; offer discounts to repeat bidders, either with coupons sent with the or by e-mail
3) Once the majority of sellers have done this, construct an auction format
4) E-mail your entire buyer base when you have moved there and offer a substantial discount for say, the first month, to get them used to the new format, etc.
I know some have newsletter lists and a list of clientelle, but not nearly enough sellers do. It has to start becoming a common practice, and the average seller has got to start really learning about and practicing great customer service.
The reason Golds and some other auction sites didn't last is because we thought - build it and they (the buyers) will come. They aren't going to. They are used to ebay's format, etc. and don't want to leave. There will have to be some incentive, like a known seller recommendation and some great discounts, to get them to try somewhere different.
I think if we start NOW, we are probably a year away from making this happen.
I believe if a co-op is formed, it should be to help sellers work in this direction through perhaps customer service training articles, how to construct a good newsletter to keep a buyer interested, conflict resolution (for those "tougher" customers).
reamond, (who is now my guru) - what do you think of what I've said?
posted on March 7, 2001 10:53:18 AM
The buyers are gone.
My sales are down.
The deadbeats have increased.
Yada-yada-yada
I've been reading the same thing on these boards for the past 2 years.
As always, all of the above depends on what you sell.
My sales aren't down, and I seem to have plenty of bidders/buyers on my auctions.
I also average 1 deadbeat per 100 sales, same as I did almost 4 years ago.
Is eBay going to cater more to the BIG retail sellers than they will be to us small time antique & collectible sellers?
Well duh, no kidding, why wouldn't they?
If you want to survive in the future on eBay, you will need to adapt, which is what I've been doing for the past 4 years.
eBay has no intention of getting rid of the small time antique & collectible sellers, and why would they? Every bidder that enters the doors of eBay, whether they're looking for a computer from one of the BIG retailers, or just looking to purchase a new pair of shoes, becomes a potential customer of mine, and vice versa. BIG retail sellers can be good for my biz, just as I can be good for theirs.
There's no reason why the BIG retail sellers of new items can't co exist with the smaller antique & collectible sellers.
What do you think has been taking place for the past 3 years?
IMO - the more the merrier.
Meg's way too greedy & power hungry to let even a few M pass through her fingers, so I think my future is just as secure as it was 3 years ago.
Small time sellers may not make much of a dent in the BIG picture, but just the same they generate millions of $$$ each year for eBay, and I doubt like hell Meg gets tired of counting our money.
posted on March 7, 2001 11:06:06 AM
Each of us databasing our customer info will be good business. However, if we found a way to start a seller co-op to accumulate the database, its value soars.
The auction site co-op is a dead letter without this database, and the ability to leverage the database. There are dozens of auction sites now with no traffic.
It will also be far cheaper to start a co-op to assemble a database than to start an auction site.
Once the database is sufficient, the co-op would either buy an existing auction site and re-vamp it or start from scratch.
If we assembled a cogent and large database and partnership, it can be taken to the bank.
We would also skirt spam laws because we have legitimate business contacts with the buyers.
I think the best form for the co-op would be a Limited Liability partnership.
What the co-op would need is server space and software which the member seller just forwards a copy of his/her EOA notice to the co-op's email address, and the software pulls the email addys, category of purchase and any other info that would be important and places it in a database.
I think we would need 10,000 sellers for the database to reach critical mass.
The alternative is for individual sellers to start a newsletter and each seller start weaning his buyers away from eBay to direct sales.
posted on March 7, 2001 11:07:41 AM
It might be that the co-op idea is used to first create an active chat board free of commercial restrictions.
It could then grow to offer instructional services, cross promotional efforts for all online selling activities (all auction, fixed price and web site listings)and then add classified/fixed price selling.
If it grew in time to have sufficient traffic an actual auction site might be started.
OAUA, or a marketing affiliate they create, could be an existing non-profit used to achieve these goals.
They have a chat board up and running but it has low usage. If no sizable number of sellers will move some of their discussion to a free, member controlled chat board anything beyond that is moot.
posted on March 7, 2001 11:09:14 AM
If her plans include raising the FVF percentage, it may well get rid of a good number of smaller sellers. Like reamond said, we are more costly, per item, to maintain than the big guys are.
One may say that the "big guys" will be affected by FVF increases, etc.; well, not if ebay makes seperate contracts with the corporations that do not follow the same fee structure the rest of us have.
reddeer (also a guru in my eyes), sales may be great for certain sellers (I listed some items on sunday and have bids on five already! I'm happy), does not mean that ebay doesn't also have plans to leave us eventually on the wayside no matter how much adaptation we make. The final adaptation may be to go gold powerseller or go!
A dramatic increase in FVF's with seperate contracts with the big corps would kill most of us, including me.
