posted on March 23, 2001 08:49:34 AM new
With the economy going down I can see bidville really taking a bite out of ebay. I had to laugh at Meg on tv she said the more the economy goes down the better for ebay. I just cancelled my account with them, and I am sure if the economy goes down why would they pay her high fees? lol
Maybe Meg was thinking about the way ebay used to be a few years ago. When the economy takes a nose dive people start looking for deals. Traditionally these deals have been found on the auction sites.
My personal feeling is that ebay has become more of an on line retail store than an auction site. The variety is still the best, but the deals that used to be there are now few and far between.
posted on March 23, 2001 10:28:33 AM new
Yes bidville is growing but they are also improving the site. The listings are free, no charge for pictures, no credit card required,and they pay attention to the sellers and their problems they have the best customer service on the net. My hits in the last 3 days have realy picked up but would like to see alot more bidding. The sellers have alot of bargains I have bought alot there the extra money I spend on buying auctions has all been getting spent on bidville it is cheaper then the rest for me on what I collect. Have a nice buying/selling day.
I find that the pricing on the items I look for are a little too high on BidVille. I am hoping that the sellers will eventually realize this and bring them down. Without buyers BidVille will become stagnant just like Gold's did last year.
posted on March 23, 2001 11:25:37 AM new
Juggheadd- Nope no mention of buyers was made. She figured if the economy went sour people would want to dump their items. What she doesnt understand since she is rich is people watch their pennies!
At this current time eBay has 5,000,000 listings. Bidville has 10% of that volume, and by the end of the year I predict they will have 1,500,000 listings. Leaving ebay was the best thing that could of happened to me, and I left all my customers know of the move. The high prices will come down as more sellers move in like they are. This holiday season should be interesting!
posted on March 23, 2001 11:38:20 AM new
Its interesting.
Jugghead claims that deals on ebay are now few and far between.
Sasoony laughs at ebay sellers for selling "at liquidation prices".
telwil finds bidville prices to be lower than other auctions.
Jugghead finds them to be higher.
And so on (not picking on anyone in particular, just pointing out how easy it is to find diametrically opposed opinions on selling prices at auctions).
I would love someone to have some sort of "average price index" by auction, so we can actually make some sense of all these statements. I'm not sure how possible it would be to develop a set of "standard" sale items, but it would be great to have some sort of reliable way to sort out prices at auctions.
If we had this, we could make some sense of statements from people like chum who "just cancelled their ebay account" because they don't like paying fees. If it turns out you can make a HIGHER profit at ebay, even with fees, they would look kinda dull, but on the other hand, maybe they are a saavy business analyst if prices at other auctions are comparable. For now, we'll never know.
By the way, chum, until bidville manages to attract a lot of non-trading-card BUYERS, they won't be taking a "big bite" out of ebay, and probably not even a nibble, regardless of the economy.
PS - just saw your latest post. Just to clarify, are you predicting that 1M of ebay's listings will move to bidville? Or instead that bidville will add that independently of ebay?
and if they triple in size, can they do so without charging fees? and if they charge fees, will the current sellers stay, or will there be an exodus, yahoo-fashion, to the next free auction?
I remain skeptical of ANY free internet service until I understand their funding and business model/strategy. Its easy to look promising to start and then completely fizzle out due to poor management and funding.
[ edited by captainkirk on Mar 23, 2001 11:51 AM ]
posted on March 23, 2001 11:49:31 AM new
Sorry but I said the prices are lower on what "I collect". I do not price ever item sold on Bidville. Hope you understand now! Have a nice buying/selling day.
I understood what you said completely. I was just using the various statements made to illustrate the lack of concrete basis to compare prices at auctions, and comparing these prices is a key to making good business decisions.
In fact, your clarification is part of my point - we are all looking at auctions from a partial view - whether for a limited amount of time, or categories, or whatever. Unlike the stockmarkets, there are no overall price indices available to track prices over time, or between auctions, or whatever, and that's a shame.
Its just interesting to compare and contrast the many, many statements made (not just the ones I "picked on" ) about pricing levels at the various auctions.
[ edited by captainkirk on Mar 23, 2001 11:56 AM ]
I'm with you except on the other end of the pricing scale. The items that I collect are priced higher at Bidville than most on line etailers, let alone the other auction venues.
captainkirk
There are so many different categories that there are bound to be differences of opinion. If I was buying and selling sports cards I might say that BidVille is the best place to look. If I was buying electronics maybe ebay is better. I don't think you can come up with an average "apple/orange".
I also don't think that the bulk of the 500K listings on BidVille have been taken away from ebay, but rather from Yahoo when they implemented their fees.
I do agree with captainkirk that unless BidVille starts charging fees it cannot survive. Once they do that, it will be interesting to watch the listing numbers.
posted on March 23, 2001 12:10:12 PM new
juggheadd:
I agree with you, can't compare apples and oranges. If it were possible to have an index, it would actually have to be done differently for each category, since, as you point out, the "best" auction might vary between auctions, by category. (the stock market has such "category indices" by the way - they have them for transportation, utilities, etc - I certainly wasn't suggesting that we compare 56K modems and Mickey Mantle trading cards!) I was just thinking it would be, at the very least, fun to develop such an index, and maybe even helpful too!
And I agree that the first 500K listings in bidville came from yahoo...but I was referencing chum's prediction of adding 1M more. Now that yahoo has been cleaned out, where would this come from? Its one thing to grow from this initial surge, quite another to take market share away from a leader like ebay. For all the complaints against ebay, higher fees, etc., the one constant has been that ebay just keeps on growing, and the competition just keeps on failing! (at least in terms of large, overall auctions; smaller, focused auctions may well be doing ok).
The fact that the first surge of growth for bidville came from yahoo actually doesn't bode well for them, in that these are fee-sensitive sellers, and when (not if) bidville adds fees, you have to really worry how many will hang around. But who knows? I don't want to be accused of being negative about Bidville unnecessarily!
[ edited by captainkirk on Mar 23, 2001 12:14 PM ]
posted on March 24, 2001 12:38:36 PM new
What I think it comes down to is what works for each individual. Some will say "I want to see indices, averages, and ratios." Others will say it works or does not work for me. That is the bottom line. THe site is free, easy to use and sign up for, and they are adding improvements all the time. I say, if you are happy with Ebay, or wherever you are, fine, stay there if you think that is best. I wish you allthe best of fortune wherever you are.
If you think you are ready for a new site, and willing to wait and even help it grow some, I think you owe to yourself to try Bidville. See what you think about it, not what someone else sees.
posted on March 24, 2001 03:23:33 PM new
I think the idea of indices is interesting.
One of the major food chains in my area uses a "typical food order" each week to compare what savings a family would experience by shopping at their store.
I can only begin to imagine all the variables that could exist and the effect the possible agenda of the complier could have in making a useful presentation.
All of that aside, I could see a time when an independent source does a weekly report on "best available" values among the auction sites.
Maybe an alternative would be a sample of products with final sale price or expired non-reserve listings on eBay, same product offerings on other venues and fixed price offerings on shopping sites on the net.
A nightmare of variables with s/h fees, guarantees, payment options etc. but some standards for measurement could be established.
It occurs to me this might be an extension of the existing services offered for price comparisons on places like Cnet and MySimon. I don't know what business plan they have for advertising income from listed sources, so their inclusion of auction venues might not be pratical.
I can't imagine anything that would create more first time visits to an auction site than being endorsed by a creditable independent source with high visability as having the "best deals" on a range of popular items.
I'm adjusting the 1st Bid Wins or Take It Price on sites other than eBay to reflect most or all of my listing/FVF savings when using those sites for duplicate items I have in quanity.
To the extent that "retail/one bid items" where sold on both eBay and alternative sites by the same sellers, there could be a 5 to 10% savings to the buyers while profit margins were maintained by sellers on duplicate replenishable items.
ebay is running TV ads which include "if you want it cheap" come to eBay. Maybe there is merit in "if you want it even cheaper than on eBay come to ....".
posted on March 24, 2001 05:41:03 PM new
Didn't Bidville used to allow skipping to a page number in the long categories? It doesn't seem to now but I think I remember it doing so last time I looked.
They really need this feature in some categories to skip past the pages of crap on 1 day relist cycle to see what some less pushy sellers may be offering.
They seem to be attracting a lot of potential sellers but awfully few buyers.
posted on March 24, 2001 08:50:34 PM new
jim: "Some will say "I want to see indices, averages, and ratios." Others will say it works or does not work for me"
Actually, the smart seller (and buyer!) will say both. In a world of near-infinite choices (2000 online auctions and counting...) how does one separate the wheat from the chaff? Certainly one can't try all 2000 auctions, so how does one find the best one? I would think that, if they existed, some common statistical data presented by an independent source would be one heck of a good way to go! That might allow me to narrow down my choices to, say, 5-10 possibilities and then use personal research to establish the best ones for me. Just as my daughter narrowed down the choices of colleges recently to two (from the thousands of possible choices - using search engines to get a "short list" of good choices, and then reseach to pick the final list).
In the absence of such, the alternative is blind luck. Try one, hope it works. Come here, check out a few comments, see if you get any leads that way. Pretty hit and miss...
I'm not sure all this is possible, mind you, but its an interesting avenue to think about...
