posted on May 3, 2001 11:47:44 AM
It's hurting sales. Why would anyone bid on cds and such when they can get them for as low as 75cents on half.com? I've hardly sold any cds on ebay since they started, or anything else for that matter. I'm actually doing better now with sales on yahoo than on ebay in spite of ebay's higher traffic.
posted on May 3, 2001 12:07:54 PM
They're barely able to keep their site functional at times as it is- why they insist on continually tinkering with it is beyond me.
posted on May 3, 2001 12:10:33 PM
There was a thread here on AW some time ago suggesting that they "split" ebay in two. One section being new, retail, fixed price merchandise, and the other being the more collectible auctions. This sounds like what they are heading for by integrating half.com.
Sounds like it would be great for ebay, but lousy for sellers. As it is, to stay competitive on half.com sellers have to list so low that they barely make a profit.
I would wonder how they would manage payment issues. With half.com my CC is automatically charged. With ebay the buyer sends payment according to the sellers TOS.
Buyers (especially newbies) are often confused enough by payment issues. How would this (along with other differences such as feedback) be integrated without further confusing buyers.
[ edited by BlondeSense on May 3, 2001 12:27 PM ]
[ edited by BlondeSense on May 3, 2001 12:32 PM ]
posted on May 3, 2001 12:38:13 PM
Few paid attention several months ago when I got in an uproar over the half.com banners appearing on the Search Results pages for books. I think most figured, It's just books but I don't sell books so why should I care?
But I told you it was going to spread to other categories and here we are. I think you can count on it continuing to spread too.
The only advice I can offer is to find a way to make it work for you. That's what I've done.
Tell you what I'd like to see moved to half.com -- all the antique repros on eBay. What a load of clutter.
posted on May 3, 2001 03:25:44 PM
I'm not a seller, so pardon me if my note is of no help or inappropriate, but I've been unhappy with a number of eBay marketing techniques starting early last year, when eBay brought in DoubleClick just months after the latter became one of the most reviled names among Internet users.
I also sympathize with seller issues too, and feel it is inappropriate for a search to include ads for similar items. eBay sellers are paying for a service, yet are having a disservice foisted upon them by having what I can only call competitive advertising. I feel eBay now has a conflict of interest, selling a service to some, then selling ads for competing products/services/companies. The only kinds of ads that I feel would be truly appropriate for an auction site are for things that would not normally appear in auctions, such as insurance, airline travel, mortgage, housecleaning service, car repair, professional training seminars, etc.
Even as a buyer, I have no interest in the extraneous ads, for I'm on eBay to look for the harder-to-find stuff, not new items I could find at some nearby retail store. I cannot imagine how cluttered the categories must be getting; I stick to searches, where I can focus clearly on what I want.
I wouldn't mind becoming a seller too, but have gotten less and less interested in the possibility, not so much because of the usual minefield of occasional bad buyers and postal problems, but because eBay seems to be lobbing an increasing number of bombs of its own. It is no longer the place where I'd look to get my feet wet in online selling.
I agree that eBay could split off its retail efforts into a separate site (maybe all of them should go into half.com? ), and leave (or should I say restore? ) the collectible/auction area to what it once was. Or maybe it could spin off the latter as ebayauctions.com, for example, continue to develop half.com, and keep ebay.com as a portal to the "Excellent Excitement of eBay" or something, since ebay.com already has built-in draw that most portals like go.com were never really able to build. Retail sales of new products and auction sales of collectibles/antiques are, in my opinion, two separate businesses that do not really fit well together, IMO.
Just my 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?
[ Edited to combine a couple of short paragraphs. ]
[ edited by dc9a320 on May 3, 2001 03:29 PM ]
