posted on July 1, 2001 06:36:39 PM new
Okay, looking for opinions here. Which do you think would be better and why? (Key here is why). Both right now have pretty much nil exposure unless someone actually clicks through and follows your other items for sale. Pricing is similar, but somewhat different. Amazon lets you list 40,000 items for $39.95 a month as compared to Ebay's $9.95 a month plus 5 cents per listing. I DO know that Amazon will automatically relist unsold items as the end of their cycle, which Ebay doesn't. Any thoughts?
posted on July 1, 2001 09:05:57 PM new
What are you selling?
Books, CDs or Videos, you could probably do OK with zShops and justify their $40/month.
Anything else, forget it.
Also, their 40,000 item per month is a useless bell and whistle. Can you really list 1333 items every day?
I don't really regard this as an apples to apples comparison, anyway. The EBay stores are just a glorified auction. Zshops is at least closer to a traditional shopping experience.
posted on July 2, 2001 06:58:30 AM new
True enough on the listing (although with the automatic relisting, I could conceivably see getting to 40,000 listings eventually. Just don't ask me to manage a 40,000 item inventory)
I guess what I'm more interested in is the exposure aspect. Amazon has removed all the tabs leading to the zShops, while Ebay isn't exactly pushing it's stores. Where are the buyers more likely to find your stuff?
posted on July 2, 2001 12:05:40 PM new
I do not think that people generally come to amazon to explore the zShops. Amazon has given virtually nil consideration to the zshops, to include advertising, homepage space, "featured store" tab, or anything. People don't know what they are and so they ignore them. The only way people find the zShops is when their search fails and they get links to auctions/zShops.
I have inventory of 10-15 out of print CDs. I had them on auctions and zShops both, for quite some time. Auctions outsold zShops 3:1 with the exact same ad. I quit their merchant program and now just set them as a 14 day auction and indefinitely relist, and the cost is about $2 a month. That is a lot cheaper than $40/mo and achieves the same effect.
