posted on April 22, 2009 05:22:46 PM new
The latest results are eBay sales drop 18%, while profits fall 22%. Ebay states that the economy is at fault. What is your opinion?
posted on April 22, 2009 09:26:30 PM new
I can't give my opinion because I'd need to use a lot of four-letter words. (And I'm a Nice Girl.)
_____________________
"Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who ***dared to dissent*** from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, ***may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion."*** --Eisenhower
posted on April 23, 2009 07:14:33 AM new
Sales may be down, but they beat the street and stock was up 10%. Mostly due to PayPal and Skype which they are going to spin off.
posted on April 23, 2009 08:38:06 AM new
Ebay states that the economy is at fault. What is your opinion?
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Amazon is doing fine in this economy.
Ebay is run by a ship of fools.
posted on April 23, 2009 08:45:36 AM new
My opinion is that Donahue & Co. will be repeating "It's the economy's fault!" even while Security is escorting them outside on their last day.
Unfortunately I don't think their last day is any time soon. Pierre seems to be happier the more his net worth drops, and we all know how much he cares about working people. "It's only a DOLLAR!"
posted on May 5, 2009 02:26:04 PM new
in the past 20 years i have been a regular visitor to 2 major fleamarkets in europe. A few years ago one of the markets startet to accept sellers with new merchandise and soon they were raising the prices for their booths. the result was that many sellers left and were replaced by more sellers with new merchandise who could afford the higher fees for their space. Soon the number of visitors was dropping sharply. The market has only a few sellers now and hardly any visitors. The other market did never allow new merchandise and only raised their prices for space a little bit over the years. That market has become one of the biggest tourist attractions in the whole region because of the unique merchandise. I was there last week and it was more crowded than ever. I spoke to some of the dealers and they told me that the economy had a positive impact on their business, it was better than ever! Ebay's mr Donahoe is only using the economy as a cheap excuse to blame their downfall on. Mismanagement would have been the only correct excuse!
posted on May 6, 2009 04:23:41 AM new
Reminds of The French Quarter in New Orleans,when store rent went up 3 fold after the investors bought the property,the only ones making money enough to afford rent are stores selling T shirts (3 for $10) and tasteless souvenirs.
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Economic Reform act of Chairman Obama of the socialist States of America :
10 ounces of meat per month,half a yard of cotton per year per adult.
Hellilujah!
posted on May 6, 2009 08:15:29 AM new
"It's the Management... Stupid!"
What is funny about all of this news is that ebay is running the $5000 shopping spree contest if you submit your "ebay success" story.
Mine goes like this:
9 years ago I sold a few vintage Hot Wheels cars I found at a thrift store. I began with a 35mm camera and would take the film to WalMart to develop. I would then scan the photos and load them using dial up service on a computer that was pretty much obsolete. 6 months later I had my first digital camera, and was running 10-20 auctions a weel. 2 years later I had 100-300 auctions up at any given time. If my memory is correct, my annual sales were almost $100,000. Things were great. I was getting as much as 100 feedbacks a month. I was making money, ebay made money, I was happy. Now, my annual sales are around $10,000 and I run about 30 auctions a month.
Ebay now sucks my wallet dry through outrageous fees, paypal fees, and the never ending saga of wasting time keeping up with all of the changes made by ebay on a regular basis. I am lucky to get 5 feedbacks a month, my sell through rate is in the toilet, and I am disinfranchised by their whole system.
One positive outcome is that I now own my own business here in Portland, and much of it was related to my success with ebay. Business hasn't slowed much due to the economy, but it is definately more of a roller coaster ride for sales which makes it difficult to keep things managed properly. If ebay wasn't so poorly managed, then I would feel more comfortable adding more items. This past month it seems that most of the money earned from sales went to expenses. Such a success story!
posted on May 6, 2009 01:25:19 PM new
at least you dont have a grandeur plan of taking your business public.
There are 2 guys who quitted their high pay IT job to start an online mall with regular press release to tell the world what they are up to.
*
Economic Reform act of Chairman Obama of the socialist States of America :
10 ounces of meat per month,half a yard of cotton per year per adult.
Hellilujah!
posted on May 6, 2009 09:56:23 PM new
Ceasarsgarden - I think you captured in a nutshell what happened at eBay. Some of what happened was because of a maturing market. There are still collectible buyers and sellers - the more sellers leave - the more buyers leave. Bad news for everyone.
posted on May 7, 2009 03:00:44 AM new
I'm sure it's more to do with all the changes than the economy. It seems like every month there is some major change that causes us (the sellers) to spend hours making these changes instead of doing new listings. I closed my store rather than make changes to 150 items and if the listing wasn't worth putting into BIN I didn't relist it.
posted on May 7, 2009 03:25:08 PM new
It's a lot more than the economy, because if that were the case why is Amazon doing so well?
I have three different business models on Ebay right now. 2 are doing well, 1 is struggling. That's my ebay store. It never recovered from ebay changing postage limits, and I've not really spent time trying to make it work with the new restrictions. My sales there are down about 80% from last year at this time. When you have thousands of listings, it is not easy to update inventory, so ebay just ended my inventory - and I disposed of it other ways.
For my two other models, one is to sell overstock/backlogged inventory. That is doing well, but I will probably sell through what I need to in the near future - It's not doing well enough to acquire more of this inventory to sell, unless it is really distressed. Opportunities happen, but not as often as they need to happen.
The other model is doing really well, but I don't know what will happen after 2009 when Ebay is supposed to raise the listing prices of pre-filled media items, tripling it from 5 cents to 15 cents. I simply will have to cut back on my listing when that happens, and will see decreased sales.
I'd love it if ebay just kept things the same for a while, but it seems every few months they need to make a change, which occasionally positively affects me, but usually negatively affects me. 2009 should be a really good year for me on ebay, but my guess is that my 2010 numbers are going to be a whole lot lower. We'll see...
