posted on December 13, 2002 12:36:59 AM new
I'm serious.
Oftentimes, I read this boards and wonder where the business people are. Yes, there are people here running businesses, -- but are they really business people?
I'm not so sure.
My first conversation/argument on this board, involved a seller who was creating their own auction site -- said it would be better for the seller. I said I'd try it when their traffic approached eBay's otherwise, what was the point of listing on a site that no one was visiting.
Seller didn't get that point, accused me of being an eBay employee/shill for eBay.
Seemed obvious enough to me, more traffic/interested bidders = more sales -- go to the site with the most traffic/bidders = more $.
I though there were business people here -- couldn't understand why that argument was even taking place.
Second argument was about ROI for Auction Mgt. fees.......I don't recall the exact numbers, but I do recall saying that my fees were .5% of my revenue.
A poster responded saying that if I only did $10,000 worth of business and had to pay $50.00 then it would be cheap, but if I had 50k worth of business, then I would have to pay $250.00 and it wouldn't be cheap.
Weird -- I thought the laws of Math hadn't changed -- you're still paying 0.05% the ROI hasn't changed.....invest more, get more back. Simple.
I read an article in Fortune about a seller who said that his fees were more then his profits and that he couldn't afford to list anymore products. This same seller listed each item for 0.01 starting bid -- no reserve.
I don't need to see this guy's sales records to tell him that he's obviously selling a lot of items for a loss between the cost of the item and the selling fees AND that the profit from other items is less then the fees incured. (I.e He makes $2.00 from the item after paying say $3.00 in fees.)
The obvious solution is to analyze his products, remove underperforming items and set higher minimum bids to ensure a higher profit margin.
Oh sure, he won't get as many bids per item and his sales volume in terms of items sold will decrease. BUT, his profits will increase, his fees will DECREASE and he would be able to list more items.
I don't know why that's so obvious to me, but not to him and others who list items for for minimum bids that could result in a loss.
Yes the fees are higher if you list with a profitable minimum bid - but so are your PROFITS.
When I started out on eBay (In July 02) I did the same thing, but I lost money, adjusted, no I'm not. simple.
There was a post on here from a seller who didn't want to make money off of shipping and didn't feel he was cut out for eBay.
*Chuckles*
If you can charge less for shipping then your competitors and still have it be a profit center then do it. Heck if you do it right, it will be less then what the customer would have to pay to ship the item themselves.
Online Payments -- this is always a hot issue. In the end, there are buyers who won't buy from someone who doesn't accept Pay Pal. Nuff Said' IMHO. Find a way to manage it and accept that running a business costs money.
Auction Mgt. Services: A lot of sellers against this too -- this really confused me. If you don't find a more efficient and faster way to manage your business, you're effectively limiting your growth. Period. Furthermore, you're giving a competitor who is using the service, more time to think of ways to make more money then you, research items, etc. -- and still provide service levels on par with you.
I read about a another seller who ended auctions early, so the FVF would be lower. Umm, wouldn't the price be higher too, E.g. your profit?
*shakes head*
Anyway, those are just a few examples of eBay sellers not acting like business people who are trying to run efficient for profit organizations, it's driving me nuts -- hence the rant.
posted on December 13, 2002 02:52:46 AM new
There are many business people who sell full time on ebay and have the spreadsheets set up for their taxes and sales versus fees percentages, etc.
Then are those of us who do it as a hobby, we post here for fun, help and interaction with other sellers.
If a seller is too focused to enjoy the posts without being critical of the others then that's too bad for them, they are missing out.
My degree and main profession is in accounting but this is still my hobby so I keep all the serious side to myself...there is nothing more boring than statistical conversations.
posted on December 13, 2002 06:42:21 AM new
I think you missed my point - if you want to post here for fun, go ahead, if you don't want to talk about spreadsheets, then don't.
What I AM talking about, are people who ARE discussing business practices, and are conducting their business in a way that is effectively shooting themselves in the foot.
When the largest eBay seller in terms of number of sales, is in fortune magazine complaining about not being able to list more products because he can't afford to and a simple shift of his pricing strategy would do the trick -- and hundreds of other sellers use that same strategy -- I think it indicates a problem.......don't you?
You are an accountant after all -- and I think you can agree with me that businesses shouldn't engage in practices that hurt their sales.
Which was the point of my post -- hobby or not, posting here for fun or not -- some sellers are hurting themselves and I don't understand it.
posted on December 13, 2002 08:22:38 AM new
Many sellers are interested in one thing, sales, and they forget it is profits that is the point of being in business. Some will eventually learn how to operate a successful business, and the rest will fall away with the other failed businesses. Is it no wonder 5 out 6 busineeses fail within five years?
It's not just these amateur ebay sellers either, I read up on a lot of big companies who I can only shake my head how poorly the company is run. Yahoo is a great example. Very smart people at the top, yet they are poor businessmen.
The one thing I disagree with is, "I said I'd try it when their traffic approached eBay's otherwise, what was the point of listing on a site that no one was visiting." Traffic doesn't have to be the size of ebay for your site to succeed. Their attention will only be on your items, not thousands of others; on ebay you could lose a customer simply because your item is listed in a different category than the one your potential buyer is looking at; most traffic at ebay is not interested in your specific items.
Of course with your site you have to draw buyers in and that could take time, but you could sell on ebay for the income until the site takes off.
posted on December 13, 2002 09:29:42 AM new
[i]Oh sure, he won't get as many bids per item and his sales volume in terms of items sold will decrease. BUT, his profits will increase, his fees will DECREASE and he would be able to list more items.
I don't know why that's so obvious to me, but not to him and others who list items for for minimum bids that could result in a loss.
Yes the fees are higher if you list with a profitable minimum bid - but so are your PROFITS.
[/i]
What is obvious to me (because I've proven it through painful experience) is that higher minimum bids drive off buyers.
From here, it looks like just one of the MANY assumptions you are making is that because one 1-cent no-reserve seller said he couldn't make money (and it wasn't me in _Fortune_, by the bye) none of them can.
posted on December 13, 2002 09:31:34 AM new
if you are serious about running a business in cyberspace,then use ebay as a learning tool and like some said,as a way to get some cash to support the new business.
no one who is serious about running a business will consider selling an item in 7-10 days or with an ebay store,leave it on the shelf for 30 days.
shopowner should have control over his own shelf space-how to display and how long to display his stock.
easy money on ebay is over,you can sink a lot into ebay-feedback does not mean much,if you stop listing tomorrow,no one is going to miss you.
no one is going to remember your ebay id,or wonder why you are missing ??
posted on December 13, 2002 09:34:46 AM new
[i]
Traffic doesn't have to be the size of ebay for your site to succeed.
[/i]
That's true. All you need is a critical mass of buyers. Odds are you could build up a viable customer base just from past eBay transactions and you have the advantage of having pre-qualified prospects; they tried your product, presumably they liked it. Catalog companies pay good money for this kind of information.
It's a job of marketing, but nothing worthwhile ever came easy.
Here's a good book on building a customer base, though at first glance you might not think so. _Creating a Profitable Catalog: Everything You Need to Know to Create a Catalog That Sells_ by Jack Schmidt.
And what is eBay, after all, but individual catalog pages?
posted on December 13, 2002 09:40:52 AM new
stopwhining has rather a scattershot approach to AW posting, but she made a good point:
"no one is going to remember your ebay id"
Last year, I abandoned an eBay id that had nearly 5,000 in feedback. I wanted to try a completely new concept in selling.
Out of the many thousands of customers who had purchased (some doing many repeat purchases) from the old id, only ONE wrote to ask why it no longer had any auctions.
ONE.
eBay ids are ephemeral, all right. So take your eBay buyers and build an off-eBay business, one that they'll remember.
