posted on November 26, 2006 09:07:41 AM new
Dear Sellers,
I hope this note finds you all well. I took over the Auctions department upon JT's departure and have spent the last few weeks digging into our Auction customers' behavior and experience while on our site. We're learning a lot about what makes them tick and click and are hopefully finding some quick wins. One win for our customers, we hope, will come from the revisions of the Make It Mine policy.
We've always allowed sellers with a minimum business rating of ten or more to offer a Make It Mine price on their items. The intention of this policy is to allow a customer the option of either participating in an auction or purchasing an item immediately at a higher set price. Since the introduction of the Subscription Program, the auction starting price and the Make it Mine price have become very close to equal. For example: Starting price - $19.95, Make it Mine - $20.00. We hope you understand our feelings that this scenario doesn't offer a true auction experience and, as a result, we're revising our Make it Mine policy.
Effective immediately, the Make it Mine price must be two times the starting price. For example: Starting price - $15.00. Make It Mine - $30.00.
I sincerely hope this revision isn't an inconvenience to you. I assure you our only intent is to provide your customers a pleasant experience that will hopefully bring them back to shop with you again. We're confident that the implementation of this new policy will help us do that.
We appreciate your continued support and hope to help you with a successful holiday season. If you have any questions regarding this policy, please email [email protected].
posted on November 29, 2006 09:14:38 AM new
More changes... I just got this today.
I don't like the exception they are granting the big sellers for the MIM policy (aka BIN).
I'm glad to see the Trusted Merchant Program discontinued.
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Dear Overstock Merchants,
I write to address the changes that we are making to our auction program. I will preface this by saying that, while I'm sure all of you won't agree with everything I say, I do hope you'll respect my candor, and remind you that none of these changes are being made to discourage you from listing with Overstock or to damage your businesses: they are being made to save this program for all of us.
There are two reasons for our policy revision. One is that it is Overstock's core business to offer fixed priced product (that may be a reason for the MIM's low closure rate). The second reason is that we want to encourage a true auction model, in an effort to stay true to the Overstock brand of offering our customers great deals, and not just a long list of fixed prices offers (which is what MIM has evolved to be). I do apologize, however, for the abruptness of this change in the MIM policy. The "effective immediately" phrase was unnecessary. I know these things can't happen overnight and of course we'll allow the time necessary to make the changes.
As with most policies there will be exceptions granted: in this case, Enterprise Merchants such as Comp USA, Sharper Image, Guthry Renker, etc. will be exempted. We may also make exceptions for a select number of other merchants.
The Trusted Merchant Program: After reviewing the Trusted Merchant Program and meeting with buySAFE, we determined that the TMP was only reinforcing the bonding that buySAFE provides. The buySAFE program offers their 'seal of trust' to the merchants who qualify. However, if you don't qualify for buySAFE, the Overstock TMP could imply that other merchants aren't trustworthy. That's not fair: the TMP really contains no new information, other than that merchant is bonded by buySAFE. Therefore, the TMP is also being discontinued.
Search Listings: We recently removed the Trusted Merchant logo and buyers name from the search results. We did this after conversations with customers regarding what was most important to them when shopping on Auctions. They said product and price was what they were most interested in knowing. In order to encourage clicks to the product pages and to provide a fair opportunity to all of the merchants these pieces of information were removed.
There are more changes to come, all in the light of bringing you more buyers. It's our goal to make Overstock Auctions a successful portion of our business. When we started it, it seemed to be catching fire, but we believe that over the last two years it took some directions that hindered its organic development, and that is not good for any of us. For us to return this to a path of growth and opportunity for all of us, we needed to make these changes to simplify the program, and return it to its first principle: a true auction tab where peers can sell to peers.
I know I should have written you before now. I apologize: my first months overseeing auctions have been learning months for me. I had a mandate to fix this program, and I acted. Please remember that it is in all our interests to do so.
I sincerely hope you'll stick with us, and in any case, wish you the happiest of holidays.
