posted on June 11, 2001 08:14:41 AM
eBay's released the pricing, etc. for the storefronts.
From PR Newswire this morning:
Company Moves to Expand Buying and Selling Experience for Its Users
SAN JOSE, Calif., June 11 /PRNewswire/ -- eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY), the world's
online marketplace, today announced the launch of eBay Stores, customized
shopping destinations on eBay that will significantly expand the way goods and
services are traded on the site. For sellers, eBay Stores represents a
supercharged way to reach eBay's community of nearly 30 million registered
users. For buyers, eBay Stores will redefine the shopping experience, making
it even easier and more exciting to participate in auction-style or
fixed-price trading.
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/19990423/EBAYLOGO )
"eBay Stores is the next step in eBay's evolution," said Meg Whitman,
eBay's president and CEO. "Our sellers should realize increased sales as
buyers become familiar with their stores. And our buyers will enjoy the added
convenience of quickly being able to browse through the inventory of their
favorite sellers."
A select group of eBay Stores sellers are participating in a pilot program
starting today. The majority of sellers in the pilot program are small
business owners and individuals looking to expand their businesses including:
Instrumentguy, a seller who specializes in musical instruments; Gemprof, a
pearl importer; MoonBuz, seller of computers and electronics; and TexasBrit, a
one-person company specializing in collectibles. In addition, larger
companies such as IBM and Hard Rock Cafe will set up shop at eBay Stores.
One of the pilot program sellers, Michael Pagliaro (instrumentguy) of
Scarsdale, NY has sold musical equipment and instruments primarily on eBay
since December 1998. "I'm excited about the opportunity eBay Stores gives my
business," said Pagliaro. "The new format should help attract more customers
and keep them coming back to me for more products. My success really depends
on creating loyalty and making it easy for buyers to shop."
Beginning June 18, eBay Stores will be open to all qualified online
sellers.
In the coming months, based in part on user feedback from the pilot
program, enhancements will be made to eBay Stores, including a shopping cart
feature, integration of Half.com listings, and additional customization
options. Mid summer, the company will aggregate all Stores and launch an eBay
Stores Hub, a convenient directory of eBay Stores, enabling buyers to browse
and search among all stores or individual sellers. Grand opening activities
will also take place once a larger community of sellers has had time to open
their online "doors" for business.
Sellers can easily list items to eBay Stores directly through eBay or by
using a number of software tools. The tools that currently support eBay
Stores include: Seller's Assistant and Mister Lister, GoTo Auctions'
ChannelFusion and FairMarket's MarketSelect. eBay's new partner, Microsoft
bCentral, as well as Auctionworks and MyAuctionCo are also planning to build
tools which support eBay Stores. These applications access eBay's commerce
engine through eBay's API (Application Program Interface).
Pricing for sellers includes an initial monthly subscription fee of
$9.95 and an initial fee of $.05 per item is charged to sellers. Final value
fees range from 5 percent to 1.25 percent based on selling price. To
encourage seller adoption eBay is offering a free trial period, charging only
final value fees until September 1, 2001.
posted on June 11, 2001 08:30:18 AM
I can live with the Storefront fees! eBay is going to eliminate ALL of the competition since they priced it so competitively! Goodbye ZShops, Yahoo and the rest. No need for ya. Wished it had been free to list and no monthly fee like Half, but this is OK IMO.
Maybe eBay's shrewd move will force Yahoo and ZShops to drop their fees.
posted on June 11, 2001 08:47:46 AM
Stores? --- **yawn** Stores seem boring and uninteresting and perhaps more to the point, unnecessary.
Stores were boring and uninteresting and unnecessary on Amazon too, they had the effect (IMHO) of diluting and fragmenting the whole Amazon experience.
I sold loads of stuff on Amazon a few years ago, before Zshops that is.
posted on June 11, 2001 08:57:40 AM
I think the storefront option is good. There's very little downside ($9.95 per month) and a ton of potential upside. There's very little to lose if we want to give it a try. I'm definately going to take advantage of the opportunity. With only a modest sale or two per month, I'll easily be able to cover the nut. I'm betting we'll be able to do a bunch mre business that that.
I'm sure there will be the many nay-sayers who will take their typical doomsday attitude toward this concept. They just can't seem to help themselves...
posted on June 11, 2001 09:03:37 AM
The key is you'll be able to link and drive traffic to your eBay Storefront from within your auction pages. You can offer all sorts of great deals AND VARIETY at your store and showcase the rest of your wares while you're at it. Your store can be a sort of Choice Auction which almost always has better sell-through. I might like what I've listed on my auction page, but my buyer might prefer a different style or item found within my store. The trick is to convince your clientele to enter and make multi-item purchases!
In fact, I bet eBay will encourage it and even make it easy for you to highlight your eBay store. After all, eBay wants to do what Amazon had intended --- get a piece of every transaction made on the Net!
posted on June 11, 2001 11:00:46 AM
They're offering an "eBay Stores" icon to go next to your user ID, in place of the "About Me" icon.
But the pricing is still unclear, at least to me-- not clear if the .05 per item is per month (likely), or a one time fee. If per month, it makes it a bit pricier to list 500 items each month- with most not selling.
posted on June 11, 2001 01:44:25 PM
.05 per item is for one month only,i am very sure.
if you have 1000 items,the fee would be 9.95 plus 50 dollars,total of 59.95.
what about shopping cart provided by billpoint?
is there a fee or is there just a fee from billpoint when purchase is made?
if you sell 200 items out of 1000,commission could add up to 500 dollars(average of 2.50 per item,could be lower),add billpoint fee plus 59.95,it could be a few hundred dollars at least.
advantage-you can sell many copies of the same item without relisting.
comes xmas ,this will be a big attraction,also with most websites,it takes time for search engines to index your site,with this shop,you are instantly indexed by ebay search engine.(if ebay auction search includes shop items???)
but wait,read the fine lines,big shops will be there,more big shops will show up like yahoo,many museum shops,gift shops ,dept stores which have more capital than we do,ebay will be like yahoo,catering to big shops more to small shops.
also ebay bars outside search engines,so your shop would not be visiible to anyone looking outside ebay.
it would be interesting to see how other sites fight back,amzn sells books and have the most traffic,it could spruce up zshops.
yahoo has a great name for quality shops and services,let the battle begin!!!!!!!!!
posted on June 11, 2001 01:53:35 PM
How long will it take to replace the "storefront" window when it breaks? Seriously though...I don't think this will be any more practical than their auction venue has been lately--JMO.
posted on June 11, 2001 04:42:33 PM
the huge success of ebay auction is that dealers from all over the world bring you a diverse lines of products and they dont get stale as they stay online for 7-10 days.
every nite after dinner,you go up there and always seeing something new and the allure of bidding ,outbidded,sniping makes one addicted to the site.
with storefront,a mere 9.95 and 5 cents an item you can keep the items there forever,call it stale!!
worse someone who sells on auction would do his homework by checking your shop and price it cheaper than you,steal your beautiful picture and sell it for less.
ebay searches within ebay,right!!
also what is the format like?yahoo or amzn?
yahoo shop is a class act,you cant have it for 9.95,so if ebay is charging 9.95 now,it will have to raise it soon.
what is hurting would be all the other small sites or independent sites,where would the traffic come from??
posted on June 11, 2001 05:00:45 PM
Good point on pricing below the storefronts....
As a seller who almost always lists "one-of-a-kind" items (meaning I don't have duplicates sitting around) it would be quite easy for me to check out the storefronts for a book, CD, or DVD and see what the big boys are asking, then simply list my item with a Buy-It-Now of just under that price.
Of course, this storefront idea just drives me to search longer and harder for rare items that WILL NOT be sold by the big boys.
posted on June 11, 2001 05:20:16 PM
I don't quite see how it means the end of auctions. The storefronts items won't be searchable except through a seller search. And once there are a lot of storefronts it will be hard to find the storefront that has the same item that a bidder is considering bidding on.
Now, if the items WERE able to be searched along with the auction items I would agree we could write RIP AUCTIONS.
posted on June 11, 2001 05:38:54 PM
Why do you think that items won't be searchable? Maybe they won't be right at first, but I'd be willing to bet that they will be eventually.
And, I also bet they already have plans to eventually raise fees on storefronts too. But in the meantime the auctions will definitely suffer...
posted on June 11, 2001 05:49:52 PM
If the items aren't searchable how in the heck will potential customers know what is offered in the store fronts?
I'll certainly give it a try - why not, for once something from eBay is affordable for once - at least for a time.
ON THE OTHER HAND - I was also listing on Amazon when they started the Z-Shop and that was the end of Amazon - basically, from that point on I couldn't sell a heater to a resident of the North Pole on Amazon Auctions and the Z-Stores didn't work either, I tried them also.
We'll see what happens with eBay.
I would say if eBay keeps feels reasonable and doesn’t demand hosting pictures, etc., then it will virtually kill off Yahoo, who has done a good job of destroying themselves.
posted on June 11, 2001 06:12:05 PM
From the Announcement Board
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
***eBay Stores Coming Soon***
eBay will be offering buyers and sellers another way to
connect on Monday, June 18th: eBay Stores. Sellers will
be able to set up their own storefront on eBay and sell
their fixed priced items in quantity, giving buyers the
ability to purchase items they want immediately.
Sellers will be able to begin opening their Stores on
Monday, June 18th.
Buyers will be able to search for items within a
seller's store, the checkout process will be easy and
convenient. Any items a seller has for auction on eBay
will appear alongside the fixed price items in their
Store. Fixed price items, however, will not appear in
the eBay core site Search.
Pricing for sellers will include an initial monthly
subscription fee of $9.95 and an initial listing fee of
$.05 per line. Final value fees will range from 1.25
percent to 5 percent, based on the selling price.
eBay will help sellers promote their Stores in a number
of ways, including the new Stores Directory, links to
the Store from the View Item page of a seller's auction
items, a Stores logo next to the user ID, a unique URL
for offline marketing and bookmarking and Seller Search
and About Me search. A seller who opens a store will
have the eBay Stores logo in place of the About Me
logo, and the About Me page will automatically fill the
About My Store tab.
In the coming months, enhancements will be made to eBay
Stores based on user feedback. Upcoming features will
include a shopping cart, integration of Half.com
listings and additional customization. A few weeks
after the June 18th launch, the eBay Stores Hub will be
available, a convenient directory of Stores that will
enable buyers to browse and search among all stores or
individual sellers. Once the seller community has had
time to open their online "doors", eBay will host a
Grand Opening celebration.
We hope that you are as excited about eBay Stores as we
are. We believe that this new marketplace will benefit
eBay sellers and buyers tremendously.
Regards,
eBay
My Ebay Auctions
My Books on Half.com
My Movies on Half.com
posted on June 11, 2001 06:12:35 PM
At this point they are saying the storefront items will not be searchable in the auction search. So at this point that is what we have to work with. They may change that later...everything in life is subject to change (except death) so it is possible this too will change.
From what I can see, in a few weeks ebay will be putting a storefront "hub" on the home page where all storefronts are listed. Its not clear to me yet if that "hub" will be searchable.
And yes, it is possible the fees will go up.
But even if storefronts at some later point in time will be searchable in the regular search or the fees raised is no reason to discount the storefronts out-of-hand. It is also possible these point will not change ever..or for a long time.
It is an interesting concept...we will have to see if it works
posted on June 11, 2001 06:28:58 PM
OK, apparently you have to have a minimum feedback of 20 or be verified in order to qualify for a storefront. Also, You HAVE to take credit cards along with your other payment choices.
QUOTE
In order to create an eBay Store, you will have to meet certain seller requirements Click the link to complete each of the requirements:
1 ) Be registered as an eBay seller . If you are not yet registered as an eBay seller, do so now !
2 ) Minimum Feedback of 20 or ID verify . If you don't have have a minimum of 20 feedback, please go through ID verify to open your store.
3 ) Store Sellers must accept credit cards. If you're looking for an easy, convienient way to accept credit card payments online, Register now for eBay Online Payments - it's free.
If you're already registered for Billpoint, you do not need to register again.
END QUOTE
This is a partial email which was received by someone after they signed up for a storefront:
QUOTE
As an eBay store owner, you get:
1) Your own eBay store Web site address (URL): http://www.ebaystores.com/username.
Distribute your Web site address and watch your sales grow.
2) Your store's name and link highlighted in all of your eBay listings.
3) A built-in store search engine for your buyers.
4) The ability to list auction and fixed price items. And remember -- listing fees are only $0.05 when selling fixed price items in your store.
posted on June 11, 2001 06:47:41 PM
If that's what the eBay stores are going to look like, it's quite retarded! There's no clear delineation between store and auction items, and where the heck are the store specific items??? A store should look like a store, NOT an auction page! A CDNow or Amazon type store layout is what they should be shooting for, not what they've thrown up so far!
posted on June 11, 2001 07:09:48 PM
I'm with you on that eSeller004
It's a lame look and not at all what I expected or really want in a storefront.
Plus, eBay should have come out of the gate with a shopping cart. That always was the biggest drawback to zShops.
My customers tend to buy in multiples and purchase accessories, too.
BTW, what happens to "Buy It Now" when storefronts are online?
I agree. It wasn't what I thought it would be at all. From the looks of it, all it is is a glorified Sellers list with all your BIN items. It looked like all the store items where also up for auction. I thought it would be one or the other, not both. Up for auction on ebay, AND sitting on the "shelf"? You click on the items, and it takes you to THE AUCTION PAGE? I was thinking it might be something I would use for items that are not "auction material".
Unless there is more to this than I just saw, I'll pass. I was thinking I might like this, but...
posted on June 11, 2001 07:46:25 PM
Hi guys. If you want to create a store now just click here http://www.ebaystores.com/id=822296 and then click on SELLER,MANAGE STORE at the top portion of the page. You can get a jump on everyone else but, shhhh, don't tell.
posted on June 11, 2001 08:03:00 PM
I just posted this in the other "storefront" thread. This is my take on it. If it goes down like I think it will, and you can't list BIN any more with out having a "store front" ya'll can say you heard it from Microbes first.
Yup, a list of BIN items. So they want you to pay 9.95 a month, plus a nickle a item to have 2 sellers lists...
Wanna' to bet the "Free while promotion lasts" BIN option disapears? Wanna' bet the only way to use BIN is going to be signing up for a "storefront". That's the ONLY way they will get anyone to use this, and even then, they won't get many takers. I've used BIN on some items, but I can do with out it if that's what they are up to.
posted on June 11, 2001 08:10:38 PM
I guess I'm just jaded. They're telling me it's a tie for Father's Day, but for some reason I keep thinking it's a hangman's noose. Okay, to be fair, it doesn't look that bad.
So now sellers will be offering cheapo auctions just to drive business to their stores. How else will the stores get traffic? I wonder how much eBay will allow. "Visit my store for great deals on ... " or would that be keyword spamming? Huge banners? Or will sellers simply jump up and down and yell, "Hey, look at my store?" I'm a little unclear on the concept.
Amy, eBay will be making changes based on user input. And the first thing store sellers will want is to be included in the search listings. I don't believe eBay will exclude them for long. Search is one of those features that costs nothing and results in more sales.
BTW, when I said "goodbye auctions, hello eMart" I didn't necessarily mean that in a bad way. I'm having a little trouble understanding how these stores will work, if they're not included in any search engine.
posted on June 11, 2001 08:13:22 PM
Microbes ...... Yup, that's exactly what I was just thinking. Wanna use the BIN feature, no prob, sign up for a BIN Storefront. All for the low low cost of ...
posted on June 11, 2001 08:24:45 PM
reddeer, what else CAN it be? All the items in the "Store" are just plain ole auctions that have a BIN price. ONLY a NICKLE? Ebay would NEVER do that (unless they had already collected an AUCTION listing fee of 30 cents or more) The kicker is paying the 9.95 a month for the privilege. Gotta list LOTS of BINs before it is really worth it.
Yup, my take is this is the end of the "free while promotion lasts" BIN.
So now, if a buyer askes (thru ebay's ask seller a question email ) if they can buy something after the auction closes, I won't have the option of re-listing with BIN and letting them collect FVF's, unless I pay ebay an extra 9.95 a month... What do you think even honest ethical sellers are going to do???
posted on June 11, 2001 08:37:41 PM
As an FYI to the curious, we were not asked to participate in the Pilot Program for eBay Stores. Probably has a lot to do with our unwillingness to accept Billpoint (or any other type of Credit Card, other than PayPal).
Wished it had been free to list and no monthly fee like Half, but this is OK IMO.
