posted on January 5, 2001 08:39:32 PM new
It appears that Yahoo sellers are going through the five stages of grief......astonishment, anger, denial, overwhelming sadness, and finally you too will reach acceptance.
Why would Yahoo use up all that server space in a clearly unprofitable venue? Just as we the sellers, got very few bids compares to "The Auction Giant", Yahoo's auction pages were not getting enough hits to sell advertising. They weren't making any money from their auction site, I know I seldom did!
It seems as if they had two options. Send out a press release admitting their auction site was a failure and they were disbanding it, or charging us sellers a fee in which we basically get nothing (meaning bids) in return. This way they can back out of the auction business gracefully as we sellers angrily stomp out the door.
Frankly, I doubt if anyone other than us auction sellers know or care about the new fees. If Ebay wants to buy Yahoo, so be it. But it still comes down to the bottom line, and as has been stated before, it's just business. We'll accept it, and then adapt to it.
posted on January 5, 2001 09:35:18 PM new
Yeah, I'm not sure I agree with my last paragraph either. I was just trying to end my statement gracefully.
But then I've been thinking....another reason we get so emotional about any of the auction venues changing is because in the end, we don't have a whole lot of power to do anything but leave. And loss of power is very very sad.
posted on January 5, 2001 09:42:33 PM new
I respectfully disagree there too. It is just that we as users must help nurture the new sites that show promise and not be so impatient. To do so allows Epay and Yahoo to get away with this.
posted on January 5, 2001 11:20:34 PM new
ohandrea,
I personally have skipped stage #3---denial. Not for one minute have a let myself deny this is happening.
Yahoo Auction's problem isn't their number of HITS (they've increased dramatically), it's the $ amount of advertising fees THEY CAN CHARGE per hits that's the problem. ALL the net services who've been paying their bills with advertisers' dollars these last couple years are now getting a TINY FRACTION of the revenue per hit they once did. Just look at AllAdvantage and the once-free ISPs like Netzero, Alta Vista and countless others. Everybody's free ride on investor funds is over.
What's still *not clear* is whether the Powers-to-Be at Yahoo actually BELIEVE their auction will withstand this fee implementation (and THRIVE, even), as their spin claims......
or whether they want to phase out their Auction, and they believe that getting sellers to leave voluntarily will cause less of a tempest than would shutting down the site as it is now......
or whether this is all an orchestrated plot they've concocted with eBay to allow Yahoo Auction to be bought and absorbed into eGreed's growing mass conglomerate.
