posted on March 28, 2001 12:09:46 PM neweBay could make a B2B splash
When you think of big business-to-business e-marketplaces which ones come to mind? The big auto builders' exchange Covisint, or the food marketplace Transora probably pop up. How about the mammoth collectibles site eBay?
Don't laugh, the online auctioneer that has sold such edifying junk as the raft that carried Elian Gonzalez to Florida from Cuba seems to be positioning itself as a prime hub for buying and selling stuff among businesses...
posted on March 28, 2001 12:22:31 PM new
You could smell that one coming a mile away.
8 bazillion beanie sales aren't as cheap as one or two sweet vender contracts.
posted on March 28, 2001 01:33:27 PM new
Yep this is the direction they want to take the site. When the big boys arrive there wont be any deadbeats winning their auctions since the items will have to be paid by credit card before the item ends. I knew this was happening since I was paying them at least $500.00 monthly in fees, and when I asked to remove my account they just brushed me off like yesterdays garbage(a site looking out for sellers would never turn down cash). There was a post by another member a while back that contained an article(about sun selling on ebay)where analysts said for Meg to get the growth she has planned big bucks must come in, and many dident believe it. I guess it will begin soon.
posted on March 28, 2001 01:43:46 PM new
The timing of this message string is interesting....
I just heard a new eBay radio advertisement here in Chicago, whereby eBay was proclaiming themselves not just as a collecible site, but a source for brand new electronics and other high end products at discount prices.
Being all too familiar with the corporate mindset, it is clear that eBay is attempting to make headway in the B2B direction.
It's going to be tough trying to sell Beanie Babies on eBay, when Ty starts listing their own auctions. Look for many manufacturers to head in a similar direction, as there's just too much money for them to pass the opportunity up.
posted on March 28, 2001 01:53:58 PM new
computerboy- Yes they are airing new commercials aimed towards new items. Also they are placing ads in large newspapers over the country advertising new electronics.
I think eBay will slowly squeeze out small sellers using their clever "vero" program. Its scary that a company can have sellers of their merchandise banned so easily.
posted on March 28, 2001 06:23:12 PM new
It's a strange article. It's starts out saying ebay could make a big B2B splash, then quickly changes direction and discusses big corps selling to consumers. B2B can be done through an affiliate site, it doesn't have to clutter up the main site.
If ebay gave up on the small sellers, who cares, another auction site will pick up the slack and all the buyers will follow. What other choice do they have? If you are selling what big corps can easily sell then that is your flawed business model and you'll need to change to survive.
posted on March 28, 2001 06:51:14 PM new
eBay will not force out the small sellers- as I said a month ago about this "new" direction, market forces will drive the small or occaisional seller out.
The article I read also states that fees will also need to increase to meet eBay's 3 billion dollar revenue target.
Don't think for one New York minute that our items will be with the big corporate items, or even a link to our items will be anywhere near the big corps items. There is no way eBay will allow us to list or even be near a corporate listing for the prices we are currently paying.
If we gain any benefit from big corps coming to eBay, we will pay dearly for the space along side of them.
Like I said in my post a month ago about this subject- when the big corps come, the real estate prices on eBay will go up.
You are right the bigs corps won't want their listings next to ours. The front page will become outrageously expensive, and featured listings will too. Which raises an interesting thought, there could be so many big corp listings, the small sellers will be in wasteland somewhere a buyer could only find through a Search. By that time all the small sellers will be selling elsewhere, and the buyers will follow.
posted on March 28, 2001 07:21:05 PM new
The one thing that makes me believe the site will go in this direction is the average selling price for an item is $20-$40, which if you think about it makes them around $1.30-$2.55 in fees. I think they will take a qvc type aproach where they advertise the merch for free(no insertion fees), and just pay a % of the ending cost. The small sellers will be shipped from the main site to a sister site. Meg gets upset when ebay is referred as a "flea market", and big business would never sell a new "widget" on the same site that allows a small seller selling the same widget used.
posted on March 28, 2001 07:36:51 PM new
The end of the small seller won't happen overnight, it may be a pretty slow death by attrition.
If my scenario doesn't hold water for you - think about it this way------
If you think that eBay will allow small sellers to sell with the big dogs, then why don't small sellers have kiosks or space at an expensive mall or storefront? It is the costs involved that drive the small sellers away from large malls.
Car sales work the same way. New car dealerships welcome other new car dealerships to their street- ever wonder why so many car dealerships are located together? Whoever comes to look at a Ford, may want to see a Honda too. But new car dealerships will HOWL if a used car dealership were to locate near them. Used car dealerships are generally found in low rent districts, the new car areas are too expensive.
This is what will happen to auction sites that successfully cater to large corps. Small sellers won't be asked to leave, the costs will force them out.
Any secondary site for small sellers will wither also, as the big boys will DEMAND that buyers be directed to their sites first.
We may see it cost $30 for a 3 day listing before it is over, but make no mistake, you will not pay $2 for a listing in the same place as a major vendor,.
posted on March 28, 2001 07:49:21 PM new
Here is the worst thing about the whole deal- the small sellers brought the 22 million users to eBay.
Ebay has monetized those 22 million users and is marketing them to big corps - they are selling what we worked to build and we get nothing for it - except higher listing prices.
However, there is one thing every seller should be doing- build a data base of your customer information ! Email addresses,names, shipping addresses, and any other useful information you can gather.
2 years from now you may regret not retaining this information if you plan to continue selling online.
posted on March 28, 2001 07:58:15 PM new
This happen to me when I was selling my Sports memorabilia at sports shows.
The Manufacturers of my products started to show up and sold the products are purchase from them at 40% above wholesale at the shows! This ran my business into the ground. I haven’t done a sports show in three years. Every time you think your goanna make a go at it, something pops up! If Ebay allows this to happen and they will, their lose money in the long run, New buyers will not paid full retail for their items.
posted on March 28, 2001 08:51:38 PM new
USAToday had another good article, I think reamond, you were thinking of this one,
"We're a marketplace that is akin to Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange,'' says Whitman. ''We've never been an e-tailer; we manage a marketplace of buyers and sellers."
posted on March 28, 2001 09:25:38 PM new
I don't know about this...I think that in many ways Ebay has a life of its own independent of the direction Meg & Co, would like to take it. I certainly agree that in one year, there will be more big businesses on Ebay. And for those that sell items that are already commonly available, there will be more competition ahead. Relatively speaking, this has already happened even in my niche. A year ago, most of the items I and a few other people were selling were handmade and started low, but ended up with high final bids. Bigger importers came in with similar items made with cheap overseas labor, but made the mistake of starting bids way too high and got few sales. Eventually they seemed to decide that the below-retail selling prices weren't enough to justify all the work and left to go back to selling at trade shows or through catalogs or wherever it is they sold previous to trying Ebay, leaving us smaller sellers to market our goods in the same way we did before they arrived. I still do pretty well although the bids overall are not as high as a while ago, but I have no real complaints.
I'm not wholly convinced that just because huge businesses come to ebay they will stay at ebay. I sense that a lot of them just don't understand the mentality of the ebay buyer yet (and might not like it when they understand it). As a former worker in the dot com industry, I know for a fact that even now, many brick and mortar companies have stars in their eyes when it comes to the viability of their web presences and are not going to be happy with small numbers. I am not at all sure that even with vast amounts of marketing dollars they can reshape the Ebay buyer into a buyer of mass market goods who is also interested in purchasing at or above retail prices. They could have one or the other but both, it seems to me, will be damn near impossible.
I'm not saying some sellers won't be majorly affected, but I don't think Ebay will turn into a new-stuff-only marketplace as long as we can still search by keyword.
My final word would be to encourage all sellers to develop keyword-specific searches and remind their buyers to use them. No matter how many cheap new chenille bedspreads Sears lists in the 'linens' category, a word search under 'vintage chenille" will always bring up the older chenille that many people specifically look for. I put it in all my EOA letters...'search for my items with Keyword: Widget".
posted on March 28, 2001 10:30:06 PM new
The problem won't be finding small sellers through a word search - the problem will be being able to afford listing prices.
Corps will cause the listing prices to go through the roof.
Any price competition for new items will be settled quite quickly, and the big boys will win. However, I don't think there are too many small sellers selling the same products as the big corps- therefore, it will be a fight for eyeballs and disposable income of buyers.
eBay will promise almost anything and jump through hoops to get these big guys on board - even at the small sellers expence.
eBay makes more profit from the big boys too. It is much more cost effective to have one seller with $1 million in sales a week than 100,000 sellers with $10 in sales a week.
This new direction may be another reason eBay just made it against TOS to sell your username/feedback. Smaller corps may come in and offer to buy usernames and feedback to use at a B2B and B2C site.
posted on March 28, 2001 10:58:06 PM new
What eBay wants and what eBay gets are two different things. eBay is marketing the sheer number of customers. However, unless businesses are willing to sell below retail (and probably below wholesale), I don't think they will succeed at eBay.
eBay bidders want it cheap. I don't think they will buy from "just another" online store charging retail prices. eBay is a logical clearinghouse for discontinued/liquidation items, but as for retail, I have serious doubts. Couple that with the serious amount of customer support required to sell through eBay, and I'd say forgetaboutit.
Given ten years, it's possible eBay can wean their buyers away from collectibles auctions. Then again, the buyer base may simply walk.
posted on March 28, 2001 11:00:07 PM new
reamond, realistically, how high do you think that prices to list will go? Double what they are now? triple what they are now? Even at 4x what they are now, for me (a 'small' seller, about 5000 last year), they would still be extremely cheap. I am a former seller at live venues (over 10 years, almost 15) and I've never had it so good as I do on ebay in terms of the profit vs. cost to sell. my perception is that many a small seller on ebay actually does not have a good grasp on the often astronomical cost to run a 'real' business when I hear them complaining about a 30 cent fee to list or the 5% final value.....In the real world, costs are huge, rents are high, credit card processors take a hefty chunk----many businesses can't make it. and still, many of us with small businesses survive and do well. Even with far higher fees (if indeed ebay does raise fees significantly) Ebay would still be a bargain. Trouble is that it takes having a basis of comparison to see that, IMO.
i certainly think Ebay is looking to increase the final prices and thus the final value fees. i do not agree that they will raise fees to the point that small sellers will be eliminated. You are making the 'camel's nose' argument, implying that letting the camel get his nose into the tent will mean he will end up taking over. I simply don't think that's true.
And for what it's worth, my own local mall has department stores, antique stores, AND a 99 cent store all under the same roof....since a different customer base exists for all three types of shopping experience, they all seem to do quite well.
posted on March 29, 2001 08:10:44 PM new
brighid868- I know of Malls like you speak of too- they are the run down malls where all the major retailing anchors have left for the newer malls.
As far as how much listing fees will increase? How much can you afford ? Can you pay the same for square footage as Marshall Fields or even Wal-Mart? How about BestBuy? These are the types of companies you will be competing with for eyeballs and disposable income of buyers. Remember, the competition is not product against product, it is for buyer eyeballs and that translates to space on the browser page- which will become very expensive.
While a buyer may buy a $40,000 Sun server and your used widgit, you will pay dearly for the right to have your used widgit in front of the Sun buyer.
eBay has leveled off at about 5.8 million items. How many more items can the site have and still be browsable or searchable?
The solution is to raise listing and FV fees, which will hold listings down to a managable number and also increase revenues.
Look for another raise in rates in less than a years time.
