posted on September 25, 2001 07:58:02 PM
Hi all - I've been wondering about this "One Hundred Million dollars in One Hundred Days" stuff eBay has been throwing around. As someone else on this board pointed out, that's 40,000 auctions closing per day at an average price of $25.00.
So I decided to find out how many A4A auctions are running today. As of about 7:00 PM EST, here are the totals:
That's a grand total of 36,365 auctions (unless I messed up my addition). If we assume each auction last 7 days, that's approximately 5,195 auctions closing per day.
Looks like eBay has a long way to go to meet it's goal.
posted on September 25, 2001 08:30:45 PM
100 million!! Good Luck Ebay!! Meg and her greedy team. Obviously, they just want immediate publicity, not care about the outcome. There will be less and less A4A auctions as people start forgeting about the tragedy and go on with their lives.
posted on September 25, 2001 08:39:53 PM
looking through some of the closed auctions was interesting. If you put in Auction for America you will get nine pages. There are a lot without bids that just ended. there are a few for over 100.00 at least one for 1,500.00 (high bidder has zero feedback. Most of the bids are for 10.00 and under.
it doesn't seem like Ebay is going to make it. I feel sorry for the people that it could have helped if Ebay would have done it correctly. I would join in and sell things gladly if I didn't have to use billpoint.
I know ebay is doing this as an advertising plug. The people at ebay I am sure are sad because of all who died but Ebay the company isn't. That is part of business. SO I try not to take it personal.
To bad they could have helped a lot of people. maybe they still will. There are other ways they, ebay can add to the funds.
posted on September 25, 2001 09:40:34 PM
Here's a link to eBay's A4A auctions.
http://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/overview.html
Total listed is very close to the number previously quoted.
dendude
posted on September 26, 2001 05:58:12 AM
I don't think a lot of donators realized they were also going to have to eat the postage. I could have donated a lot but right now I couldn't also eat the postage. And while the idea at first seemed very patriotic, I now see it as just competition for my fellow sellers and an advertising gimmick for ebay.
Hopefully, in 2-3 weeks this will be "old news" and everything will be returning to almost normal.
I think ebay tho is gonna be kinda stuck....big talk but maybe not such big results. Maybe they should have just asked for a monetary donation like AOL and others did.
But then I'm sure Meg is going to make up the difference, NOT!
posted on September 26, 2001 07:00:29 AM
Well, here are some ideas: a)allow paypal payments; b)allow specification of charity to get the money (this is being considered right now); c)credit the sellers account with 10% of the sale price with a max of $10 and a min of $1 for expenses; and d)take the pressure off all sellers by ditching the "a4a only" search. The expense thing itself would let me jump in. The paypal thing would have me racing to the storage bin. jmho
posted on September 26, 2001 09:33:04 AM
Here's how they "should" have done it IMHO.
They should have simply BILLED the donation amount to the sellers account (rather than reprogramming the entire site, making sure everyone is using Billpoint, etc). By doing that, they would:
1) Remove the Billpoint requirement which has offended so many people. Sellers would then pay eBay in the usual manner. by credit card, check, etc. Buyers would pay the seller as usual -- through PayPal, check, MO, etc). The seller would have their charitable donation receipt(s) in their monthly itemized bill from eBay. The seller could file credit requests, etc if the bidder was a deadbeat.
2) Allow far more flexibility. For instance, by doing this through billing, they could have easily allowed sellers to donate a PERCENTAGE of the sale to A4A. A few simple check boxes on the listing page: Donate 10% of the final price. Donate 25% of the final price to A4A. Donate all of the proceeds to A4A, etc. This is virtually impossible to do the way they set it up w/ the seller paying directly through Billpoint.
In my opinion, nearly EVERY seller would have participated if they had the option of donating a (small) portion of the sales on selected items. Virtually EVERY buyer would have participated if they weren't required to use Billpoint and could use PayPal, etc to pay.
There was an easy way to do this, and eBay chose to go the "promotional" route instead. Jamming Billpoint down our throats at a time like this is very crass.
The fact that A4A listings are at 33,000 (and dropping) tells you that the Billpoint requirement (and other issues that eBay created themselves) are largely responsible for the poor participation. Their contribution could have been far greater than $100M. As it stands, they'll be lucky to collect $10M (just doing some quick calculations with 33,000 lots listed per week + $5M in cash donations)
posted on September 26, 2001 10:20:20 AM
I too, objected to being forced to use Billpoint. When I inquired about joining Billpoint for this promo but not giving my bank account # which they do not need since I will never be getting any of the money, I never got a response. I told them I would close the account after the A4A promo ended so they would never be sending me any money.Curious!!
posted on September 26, 2001 10:24:14 AM
Wow, that sure proves ebays true objective. I can't imagine, IF they have no promotional goals, that they would turn you down.
posted on September 26, 2001 10:47:37 AM
45% of my eBay sales last 30 were on Billpoint. I find that pretty impressive. But.... That means that the majority of my buyers would not likely buy an A4A item as most opt for other payment methods.
posted on September 26, 2001 11:55:29 AM
Most of you are missing the point. EBAY doesn't need the small seller to make AFA a success. Palm has donated 5 million dollars in excess inventory to sell on AFA. Netflix is selling sets of 100 used DVDs on AFA.
The big companies are using this as an opportunity to get a tax deduction from excess inventory. Any money EBAY gets from small sellers is bonus money but they are not counting on you to make AFA work.
