posted on April 2, 2001 08:51:29 AM
"Meg Whitman, eBay's president and CEO, has made the storefront project a "top priority" for the company, according to the source. And it's a central part of eBay's long-term goal to rival Amazon.com and Yahoo! as the biggest Internet commerce company in the world.
"They've been working on this for a while," the executive said.
EBay started developing the storefront offering about four months ago, according to the source. In mid-January, eBay registered two domain names - "ebaystorefront.com" and "ebaystorefronts.com" - although neither is live.
Kevin Pursglove, an eBay spokesman, said only that the company is evaluating whether or not to launch such a storefront offering, and he said no firm launch date or timetable has been set. He also said "eBay Storefronts" is not necessarily the official name of the project. "Right now, we're getting feedback from the users, and there was pretty strong acceptance and encouragement of [a storefront service]," Pursglove said.
EBay is, in fact, moving very aggressively to roll out the storefront plan, according to the source familiar with the initiative. The reason: Storefronts are a critical missing link that will help eBay extend its power in auctions - it recently posted its 500 millionth auction listing to date - to other forms of e-commerce by further locking buyers and sellers into its system."
"According to a source inside eBay, the various pricing models the company is considering include charging merchants a fixed fee for each transaction, a percentage of merchants' gross merchandise sales or a flat-rate monthly fee."
"One of the problems eBay faces is that an undisclosed percentage of transactions occur outside its service. Buyers and sellers often hook up after an auction fails to meet a reserve price, and eBay has no way to get a piece of the final sale. EBay refers to these as "gray market" transactions and in January it took a key step to reduce them by hiding the e-mail addresses of buyers and sellers from one another. EBay said the new policy is intended to reduce spam, but it was widely interpreted as a way to ensure that all transactions go through its site.
EBay Storefronts will further address the issue of "transaction leak" by letting small and midsized businesses - or even large companies - operate their own e-commerce sites directly through eBay."
posted on April 2, 2001 09:02:18 AM
I think the fee based mentality can only carry eBay so far. It's time they look at their service contracts and "provide" for a better community.
posted on April 2, 2001 09:34:34 AM
Reddeer: I think you are absolutely right. In fact I would go as far as to speculate that there will be an automatic link added to an auction page to the storefront. I also think eBay is going to try to come up with a way to restrict the use of links to other sites from auction pages using Java or some sort of code.
I think too it will affect how eBay allows Dutch auctions to be conducted, since in reality a lot of Dutch auctions are really fixed price, and BIN could be affected too. This move by eBay has the potential to create sweeping changes to differentiate an auction from a fixed price sale, and eBay will have clearly define what its criteria is for both.
I suspect that this move will affect sellers who list repetitive auctions for the same stuff, or sellers of new stuff. eBay could require these sellers to move to storefronts which will probably have higher fees than auctions.
posted on April 2, 2001 09:37:35 AMThanks for the info SMW. My hunch is that a few months after the SF's roll out, eBay will ban links to web sites.
I wouldn't bet against you on that hunch. eBay seems to want to control every nitch of the spin off markets that have developed, payment services, hosting services, management services, storefront services, etc.
posted on April 2, 2001 10:21:54 AM
Now I will have to see if bidders will rate storefront owners with higher trust than those (like me) without the volume to warrent one.
Also this cuts off the milk of offsite shopping, when ebay dictates (based on a seller's cost) whether or not I can shop for their stuff outside "the box."
Man, I would follow the "loot" but I find it no where else but there.
They really have the clout. I think they should rename themselves
Obey.com
syntax edit
[ edited by capriole on Apr 2, 2001 10:22 AM ]
posted on April 2, 2001 10:41:09 AM
Along with banning links to web-sites in auction description, I bet eBay will monitor all e-mail that goes through their servers for "gray" or direct transactions.
posted on April 2, 2001 10:56:09 AM
I wonder how this will effect businesses like Tias?
As for eBay control of off-site transactions -- I notice with total disgust that even bidders asking me to cancel my auction and sell privately, are using the eBay email form.
I have an obvious link in my auction, but they never use it.
posted on April 2, 2001 11:11:14 AMToke ...... Ditto. 9 time out of 10 the questions come through the eBay online form, instead of the email link at the top of all of my auction descriptions? Go figure.
Smw
EBay started developing the storefront offering about four months ago
Which is actually a load of B.S.
eBay has been tossing this idea around for close to 2 years now. When it was first brought up on the DNF the idea from the Pink in charge was to make the eBay ME pages into a SF. The idea was not welcomed with open arms & was scrapped, at least for the time being. Of course much has changed in the past 16 months & now the SF idea will indeed be welcomed by some of the larger retail sellers.
posted on April 2, 2001 12:34:00 PM
eBay rules regarding links as they now stand:
Links
Users may place a simple link to another web page in the description portion of their listing to help provide more information about the listed item. However, the following links are not permitted:
links to other auction-style trading sites
links to sites offering the same merchandise for the same or lower price
links to sites offering merchandise prohibited on eBay
Policy: The links described above are not permitted and will be ended. The insertion fee will be automatically credited for that listing.
............................................
eBay rules regarding links in the near future.
Links
Users may place a simple link to another web page in the description portion of their listing to help provide more information about the listed item.
Links to ANY sites that offer ANYTHING for sale, will NOT be allowed.
Thank you for visiting eBay, the greatest monopoly on the WWW.
posted on April 2, 2001 12:52:30 PM
Maybe Ebay will start to crumble because they are trying to hard to take over the everything.
I think that Ebay has changed its personality so dramatically with all the "I want it all, and I want it now" changes it is making.
Part of the reason Ebay did become the monster it is now, is that it seemed user orientated. Now it is just a big institution with no human "feel" to it.
I had sold with Ebay only since 1996, but about a month ago I was so fed up with Ebay greed I decided to try Epier as well.
Now I am thinking of using Epier and Bidville and just a little on Ebay.
posted on April 2, 2001 01:17:02 PM
Reddeer: You are being very generous. I can see something like this:
Sellers are prohibited from placing links to web sites outside of eBay in an auction. Additional information about the auction can be added to the sellers About Me page which can be accessed directly from the auction page.
And...I would bet eBay tries to do something to stop email links on auction pages too, saying they aren't necessary with the "ask seller a question" feature.
That's a great idea, and it's one I've seen numerous retail sellers using lately.
Myself, I don't sell the type of items that would do well on a web site, so the link policy has never been a BIG concern of mine.
I can certainly understand why this will pizz off some sellers, but it won't affect me.
I've always felt that my customers are drawn to eBay for 2 reasons.
1. To find unique items that are difficult to purchase in their area.
2. To get great deals.
I think my future is still secure.
typo
[ edited by reddeer on Apr 2, 2001 08:30 PM ]
posted on April 2, 2001 02:40:48 PM
Gee, I dunno, reddeer. You seem to be quite knowledgeable in the area of the item you've got listed now. Since you're already paying for the bovine wonder, why not have a small site for items like that? Is it that the goodies are too hard to come by? That's still my problem with the eclectic stuff I have. Not to mention, nothing of mine goes together...heh. But, at least you have a wonderful specialty...
posted on April 2, 2001 04:13:18 PM
Why thanks Toke! Check back tomorrow, I have a ton of stuff I'll be flogging on eBay in the next 2 weeks. And yes, the problem is that my supply does not meet the demand. I also find that many times items I would be happy to get a "fixed price" of say $150, can fetch double or triple that amount on eBay.
Screw fixed price retail sales, I'll take the
auction action over that any day of the week.
I was selling on an online mall before I registered on eBay 3 1/2 years ago, the sales were slow, and the buyers were idjits for the most part. On eBay I can check their feedback for an idea of what kind of person I'm about to deal with, and I can usually get far more than I can selling at a fixed price.
That's also why I seldom use BIN on my items. There's no way in knowing what some of these items will end at, and I like being surprised.
I knew one day the mega mall types would show up on eBay, so none of this is any big surprise to me.
IMHO most buyers on eBay like the auction action, and the main thing that keeps them coming back is the sleeper deals that can be found on this site.
And as long as they keep coming back, I'll be here to sell to them.
posted on April 2, 2001 08:15:37 PM
I feel like the jury's made up its mind from the comments in this thread, but I must dissent.
I think the storefronts could be a good idea, if executed more reliably than the rest of ebay's efforts.
I sell niche items not easily found in retail stores, and certainly not in depth, and could create a couple of interesting shops based on that.
I do own a couple of .com names, but creatig the pages and driving traffic to them is a lot of work, and I suspect ebay will have an easy storefront listing format.
Then it will be one click away from my auction, for those interested, and have the credibility of a large corporation that ebay gives. I may not like a lot about ebay, but at least most buyers trust its name.
If they create storefronts, the sellers and buyers will come, count on it. The more the Walmarts and mall chain stores standardize retail, the more demand there is for something different. Only little guys like us are quick enough to see the openings and act on them.
