posted on February 12, 2008 10:59:12 AM new
It seems that eBay continues to raise their fees and, I believe in the end they will wind up hanging themselves. Just think, if eBay finds it necessary to increase their fees every two years or so by 1.5 or 2%, how long will it be before they are charging somewhere in the neighborhood of 17-20% or more in fees? This is, in addition, to the fees sellers pay to their PAYPAL division. Sellers are not going to be willing to pay or afford these fees. Many will either open their own internet stores (like on eCrater) or find an alternate site or go out of business.
Seems to be the perfect opportunity for a company like Google to finally launch their own auction site. They already have Google checkout; if they would add an auction / on-line store, and offer competitive rates, sellers would start moving over to them. I think that I would probably use both sites for starters and as the Google auction/store site started to catch on, would probably end my relationship with eBay.
Having the boycott next week might send a message to eBay, but probably wouldn't change anything with regard to the new fee policy. eBay needs to have a fear of being drowned, and Google is the company to do that. How about, in addition to the eBay boycott, if sellers start to write to the heads of Google, begging them to move forward on creating a site for sellers with competitive rates.
posted on February 12, 2008 11:26:25 AM new
eBaY will not hang themselves.
Yahoo tried auctions.
Google probably has something in the works.
There are oodles of other places for sellers to go.
BUT
the buyers are on eBaY.
eBaY will succeed.
I believe they will make a go of their new SuperPowerSeller concept and them branch off to another division for the hobby seller.
posted on February 12, 2008 02:53:21 PM new
If google thought taking on ebay would be profitable, they would likely do it. They have the cash and resources. I definitely see google working on their payment system to take on paypal, but I don't see them entering the auction game. I think what we could see if smaller companies going after niche auction markets...sort of like we had before ebay took off in 1997. Back then, I was active on a couple of different sites that did real business. It's a lot cheaper to try to attact bidders for a certain type of material than a general site. That's been tried, and everytime (including yahoo) it has failed.
Also, just as a reality check, 17-20% is not an unacceptable number. In live auctions, it isn't unreasonable to pay 18-20% commission. My guess is that most of the noise is coming from part time and marginal sellers. There are some people out there that would complain if ebay announced auctions were free, and they would pay you a commission for items sold. We'll see how the changes pan out, but I have to at least give ebay credit for trying to change things to make them work, because right now I don't believe things are working as well as they can.
posted on February 13, 2008 03:04:29 PM new
Most of my stuff is less expensive, and I am already paying about 15%... 17% to 20% is this latest increase.
