posted on February 17, 2005 11:51:18 AM
The on-line auction wars are heating up and the tactics used by both players are revealing.
eBay is sponsoring a 7 day contest where registered users can search the site for special listings that eBay itself has salted throughout the site. Not real items, they (the auction titles themselves) are instead the answer(s) to obscure clues posted on a special page devoted to the contest. Find the auction that matches the clue and you win $1000.
Hoo-boy! This has produced just the sort of mania one would expect….boards are abuzz with feverish back-and-forth about the clues and I’m sure worker productivity in February is headed for an all-time low.
The funny thing is that this contest seems to mirror so much of eBay’s shortcomings.
The clues themselves are a fantastic parody of most official eBay announcements in that they are intentionally obscure and maddening to their users.
The contest auctions themselves are in violation of several eBay rules, if taken at face value. For instance, the auction items themselves don’t exist and are not in the possession of the seller. When you”purchase” the auction, you are actually winning the contest.
But the larger question is, to what end is this all intended? Other than publicity for its own sake, the $175,000 in total awards offers no practical benefit for either buyers or sellers. It is rather a distraction from the stated purpose of the site. It reminds me of a drunk at a bar throwing down a wad of bills and bellowing,” Drinks on me!!” with the predictable results.
Also, the contest has spawned a number of scam auctions that mirror the clues in their titles and then rip off unsuspecting dolts.
All in all, a puzzlement.
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[ edited by pandorasbox on Feb 17, 2005 11:52 AM ]
posted on February 17, 2005 12:38:50 PM
:: But the larger question is, to what end is this all intended? Other than publicity for its own sake, the $175,000 in total awards offers no practical benefit for either buyers or sellers.::
While searching thru items that you think could possibly be the right one, you end up looking at numerous items that you might not normally see. The fact that ebay ran this same promotion for a month in the Uk and decided to duplicate it here in the US would imply that it was beneficial and did inspire additional sales.
Sometimes I think that eBay could send the answer to world peace to all of its members and the only response to it would be that they were sending out spam unrelated to the site
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on February 17, 2005 12:46:22 PM
I don't think the promotion is helping sales at all. Bidders aren't bidding because they are too busy looking for the $1000 prizes. The "Treasure Hunt" is eating up a lot of people's online time. Time they would otherwise be looking for items they want to buy.
posted on February 17, 2005 12:53:23 PM
I absolutely agree that the bidders' online time is being eaten up looking for the "Treasure". Has anyone seen today's clues and auctions that they are supposed to represent?
I am convinced that it is sheer luck that anyone is winning. The clue was "summer breeze all year long" and the listing title to win was "Jack Lord switch plate cover" and you would have know this how? Another clue was "Saturday dance program" and the answer was "Barry Manilow Greatest Hits".
posted on February 17, 2005 01:07:12 PM
Minnie, I briefly looked at yesterdays: "A big dish or a big fish?" ???? yeah, hello.(that may not be entirely correct - shows how much I remember it) but jeopardy writers - they are not!!
Free money is always an incentive - look at all the state lotteries. If anyone chooses to bid while they're at it, could be a good thing for sellers, you just dont know.
posted on February 17, 2005 01:36:36 PM
Good point fenix...eBay does suffer from "damned if they do, damned if they don't".
My opinion stems from what is and remains their astounding inattention to customer service as a fundamental element of their long-term success no less important than site integrity or security. The fact that Bill & Meg ( per Bill's recent announcement) just now agreed that CS was a top priority ( in terms of capital outlay ) is indicative of their institutional mind-set. Meg's tenure has been all about market share & market dominance; things the stock market understands...and she has rewarded company investors well. The stock market, however, doesn't understand or know how to value CS as dearly as it needs to be in the unique case of eBay.It is a fuzzy notion, difficult to value as an investment. As a result, Bill & Megs announcement re CS triggered alerts among analysts re future profitability & earnings...they ( the analysts ) do understand the capital outlay required for such a commitment. Ironically, in their hell-bent rush to expand into China to expand market share,CS will, if they are to succeed, have to be a much larger portion of their investment.
An "Easter Egg Hunt" promo, such as this, is a time honored traffic builder in B&M as well as on-line. And yes, one could reasonably assume some increase in sales from increased browsing. But the argument could just as easily be made that sales were lost as well.
In either case, the actual metrics we will never know from the UK promo or from this.
One last thing, the increase in traffic on-line for this sort of promo is helter- skelter. Buyers are not proceeding from a hierarchy of wants or interest but are driven solely by the contest.The largest retail site on the planet does not need more indiscriminate traffic; rather it has to invest in servicing the traffic it already has.
