posted on February 2, 2001 08:28:47 AM new
I'm not sure how long your credits are good, if you can (if you want) try using them a few days after all the free lists close. Not being bossy, just hate to see you not take advantage of your credits, you earned them!!!
posted on February 2, 2001 09:01:28 AM new
Update on the "Dimview Daily Index" (adding his ten category results together as an approximately 10% tracking of the Auctions site overall):
I'm following these on a simple linear graph paper and would describe the clear visual data as this: a linear steep slope down from Jan 10 to Jan 20 (230K to 120K, nearly 50% listings loss), followed by a shallower but still linear straight-line slope from Jan 20 to Feb 2 (120K to 69K). I think either of these lines by itself would fit a simple linear regression line with good statistical significance.
My interpretation of the steeper early slope would be that it shows the effect of Yahoo Auction users either caught by surprise by the new policy and giving up completely in the first 10 days of its effect, and/or users simply giving up immediately from the psychological effects of being treated like so many ignorant sheep by the MBA's running the auctions division and/or Yahoo itself. I'd say it's clear we're within 3 or 4 days of the beginning of another downward inflection of shorter duration as the large group of users who did maximized-efficiency relisting run out of free time. After that effect plays out, my guess is there'll be a trend towards equilibrium as "funny-money" usage decreasing and more users deciding their categories are too decimated are balanced by other sellers coming back and finding that some of them still do OK.
My guess now is a drop to a minimum of 20K to 30K on the Dimview Index corresponding to 200K-300K overall with some recovery from there with stabilization for a month or two in the 300K to 500K range overall... Yahoo clearly can tweak this upwards with more funny-money giveaways even if they don't truly revise pricing policies.
A while back, I opened a thread looking at ten of the "Success Stories" Yahoo keeps cycling through their auctions main page. I had commented that ONE of the ten looked to me likely to be able to continue based on selling $10-$50 items. Whoops, he now has ONE active listing, down from 250. Appears he may have given up completely, there went the main "quality auction" in the group. Another "good" one that sounded likely to move to another site has dropped from 280 to 200 live now, and several marginal-to-hopeless ones have dropped from 480 to 315. That sampling actually makes it look to me that the falloff in a few days may get even more severe than the graphing makes me think, but perhaps I'm wrong about some of these people going to near-zero then.... maybe they have a bunch of Ebay-FB funny-money and will keep going for another month or two with it...
posted on February 2, 2001 09:16:53 AM new
Children and Women FIRST,
Captain should go down with the ship..
Yahoo IS Sinking,
==================================
Trivial Question :
Before the "Titanic" sank the first radio officer Jack Phillips sent "CQD" six times followed by the Titanic call letters.
The WAS before the "SOS" was sent...
Question What DOES "CQD" stand for?
Bonus: What radio kilohertz Frecquancy
was it sent on ?
IF you get this correct YOU might be able to
save YAHOO....
posted on February 2, 2001 10:00:53 AM new
dimview,
GOOD Try, I GUESS Yahoo will still Sink..
You can still try the Bonus.. Yahoo needs all the help tey can get
=========
ANSWER:
Although generally accepted to mean, "Come Quick Danger," that is not the case. It is a general call, "CQ," followed by "D," meaning distress. A strict interpretation would be "All stations, Distress."
"SOS"
This signal [SOS] was adopted simply on account of its easy radiation and its unmistakable character. There is no special signification in the letter themselves, and it is entirely incorrect to put full stops between them [the letters]." All the popular interpretations of "SOS," "Save or Ship," "Save Our Souls," or "Send Out Succour" are simply not valid. Stations hearing this distress call were to immediately cease handling traffi il the emergency was over and were likewise bound to answer the distress signal.
==========
A little FUN... While the Ship sinks...
posted on February 2, 2001 01:40:07 PM new
Hi guys:
Things at Yahoo are not as bad as you think, let us put in context the figures. Total listing is 41.5% of the latest 4-week running average. While they are some free listings still on the board until February 8, 2001. If someone listed on January 9, 2001, for 10 days with the maximum 2 relist options. Those listing will expire before midnight on February 8, 2001. Then, the real effect will be felt. The next official reading of the number of listing on 02/14/01 won't contain any free listings, it my expectation that it would be around 750,000 to 800,000 in line with the 40% to 42% of the 6-week running average.
Wednesday* Total Entertainment Other
01/31/01 865,373 149339 24699
01/24/01 1316283 221472 31646
01/17/01 2043183 310387 42885
01/10/01 2829089 450377 67230
01/03/01 2157093 415807 59305
1-4wks Running
Average 2086412 349511 50267
Percent
of Listings 41.5 % 42.7% 49.1%
*12:00 PM Eastern Standard Time
Bidbay number of listings has surpass Yahoo! for the first time, Bidbay's 992,655 listing vs. Yahoo's 865,373.
The bad thing is that Bidbay may be gaining at the expense of Yahoo. I expect Yahoo to come up with a real innovative plan to counteract the results of their last decision. Perhaps you will see a similar program to Amazon's $39.95 for 5,000 listings, except that Yahoo's may be better such as unlimited listing for $39.95 or 5,000 listings for $19.95 and no final sale price commission.
With its present fees structure, Yahoo is only marginally cheaper than Amazon. Yahoo believes that it has the lowest fees, it may in some cases, such as on my personal case. My 159 closed auctions indicate 74 bidders, that is 47%. That means that the average item I have to list must be listed twice to be sold at Yahoo, which is low but fine. My total auctioning costs at Yahoo will be $0.40. My costs at Amazon utilizing the Auction Pro $39.95 per month or $0.008 per listing, plus 5% of sales between $0.01 to $25.00. Since my average sale at Yahoo is $8.22 and 5% of that amount is $0.41. My average cost at Amazon would be $0.42 and if my sales are the same percentage that on Yahoo that would increase to $0.43 per sale. At eBay my listing costs would be $0.25 plus 5% of $8.22 or $0.41 for a Grand Total of $0.68. Relisting is free.
Plus Yahoo, is experiencing a problem, willing sellers are not able to list, I am one of those unable to upload my listing for the past 3 weeks.
Things, should get better at Yahoo, soon, keep the faith! I plan to continue listing at Yahoo, as soon as they get their act together and fix these software bugs!
posted on February 2, 2001 02:02:11 PM new
Marines,
My guess is a listing total about half what you're projecting. We'll see.
Your very rational suggestion of a possible alternate fee structure would save them, I think. It certainly would cover the amount of listing I was working up to at an acceptable price. Frankly, I give it a snowball's chance in Hades that they'll do anything like that, at least under present management. I base my guess there on one fact: they have in no way floated any sorts of "trial balloons" out, as far as ANY message board rumors have gone, to the effect of any thoughts of backing away from this present plan. (YOUR comments are truly guesses, aren't they?)
This new fee structure is clearly completely embittering an awful lot of sellers who've contributed up to several years' effort in building the Yahoo site variety upwards. Any sort of policy modification like what you suggest would allow *immediate* less-bitter thinking to begin, but I feel the longer the bleeding goes on here, the more difficult it will be to reverse the process.... day by day, more sellers are finding small alternate sites, going back to the Great Satan Ebay, putting their planning time into thoughts of a co-op structure, and so forth... sort of a snowballing "anything but Yahoo" mentality.
posted on February 2, 2001 02:43:13 PM newBidbay number of listings has surpass Yahoo! for the first time, Bidbay's 992,655 listing vs. Yahoo's 865,373.
Well, I don't have an MBA, but I can tell you that Bidbay's numbers are COMPLETE B.S.
The numbers they cite include all items in a dutch auction, and they don't have a limit on the number you can list. I once saw someone there who had one of those "How to Get Rich Online" CD's listed -- 100,000 of them. And those are each counted in the total they cite. The management ENCOURAGES people to list outrageous quantities of things in order to inflate their numbers.
To get a comparative idea of how many items are really on Bidbay, I did a search for "Beatles":
Ebay: 9291
Yahoo: 716
Bidbay: 16
Plus Yahoo, is experiencing a problem, willing sellers are not able to list, I am one of those unable to upload my listing for the past 3 weeks.
If this were a wide-spread problem, I think we would be hearing about it. There would be MANY posters here complaining about it. I don't think this is a large enough problem to have a signigicant impact on the listing numbers.
The next official reading of the number of listing on 02/14/01 won't contain any free listings, it my expectation that it would be around 750,000 to 800,000 in line with the 40% to 42% of the 6-week running average.
How can you possibly know what the 6-week running average is going to be when we are only 4 weeks in to the cycle?
I think we can get a much better idea of where this is going in the next 2 weeks by looking at the size of the drop each week.
posted on February 2, 2001 03:40:51 PM newUSMarines, you're DREAMING YaWhoFool Dreams if you think Yahoo will stabilize at 750-800,000 listings....and you're WRONG if you think the total on 2/14 won't contain any FREE listings, because
1) Bulk loader listings placed on Jan. 9th (for free) have 3 runs of 14 days each, meaning they won't all roll off the Auction until midnight of February 20th and
2) Many sellers have hundreds of free Wallet dollar credits left from their eBay and Amazon feedback.
pyth00n, I think YOU are wrong, too, in your estimate that Yahoo will stabilize at 375-400,000 listings (barring any other actions by Yahoo, like rescinding/revising their fees or giving more credits or having a 'free listing day'). I think it will be more like 1/10th of your prediction.
Frankly, I didn't expect the number to drop AS MUCH AS IT HAS up to this point, because I underestimated the number of sellers who closed their auctions in disgust and those who didn't bother to relist at the last minute, letting their auctions die a natural death. I also thought SOME sellers would be using their free credits while there STILL IS an Auction to use them in.
But I DON'T think I'll be wrong about the drop on February 9th. Don't fill in your graphs yet, because the steady downward slope you're watching now will become a VERTICAL CLIFF in just a week. What's left THEN will drop again 12 days later.
The only things that will entice sellers to put their listings back on will be DRASTICALLY LOWERED fees AND the fact that presently closed Yahoo auctions are relatively easy to relist with a few clicks of the mouse. But even at that, Yahoo has lost a LOT of sellers---those who won't return on principle alone, and those who are now firmly entrenched back at eBay or in other small auctions. Even those who WOULD relist on Yahoo (should TheFools make it AFFORDABLE for us) will never feel the same about it again, will never be LOYAL to it again, will never TRUST it again, and will probably never give up trying to sell elsewhere at the same time. After all, once all the WORK has been done to move listings to other online auctions, those listings won't be easily abandoned, especially if there have been any successful sales.
posted on February 2, 2001 03:49:19 PM new
My category was on pace for -0 by Feb 9. It has slowed to a pace expected to end with .9% of the total listed on Jan 9. I expect it to remain there indefinitely.
The business press should be all over this. Business 2.0 mag is probably writing something up right now on it as they cover distressful dotcoms.
posted on February 2, 2001 04:02:06 PM newI think it will be more like 1/10th of your prediction.
I can't imagine that it could go that low (40,000 auctions.) If this were an independent site, maybe so. But this is Yahoo and they have the benefit of having one of this highest traffic networks on the web. They are driving a lot of that traffic to the auctions. This will sustain a certain level of sales -- though it will be relatively small, I would guess.
Plus, if it looks like listings are going to get that low, Yahoo will have to do something drastic, as has been suggested, or just pull the plug, which may be a very real possibility.
posted on February 2, 2001 04:07:57 PM new
Interesting...
Remember yesterday's 1st bid win auction - the 14 day relists?
I looked today to find not ONE auction listed since. This is limited to just the bulk loader, but still...
Bulk loader implies BULK and I have to think that the BULK of the sellers are gone already. It is their shadow that we see.
posted on February 2, 2001 04:59:55 PM new
CategoriesTrack:
Antiques, Art, & Collectibles > Miscellaneous > Postcards - 18,406| 4,654 | 4,612 | 4,617
Antiques, Art, & Collectibles > Miscellaneous > Maps - 473 | 144 | 145 | 145
Coins, Paper Money, & Stamps > Coins > United States - 50,602 | 11,094 | 11,081 | 11,208
Coins, Paper Money, & Stamps > Stamps > United States - 26,678 | 8,834 | 8,815 | 8,596
Computers > Hardware > PC - 19,667 | 6,435 | 6,434 | 6,426
Computers > Software > PC - 14,467 | 6,047 | 6,000 | 5,978
Entertainment > Books > Antique and Rare - 16,541 | 4,416 | 4,344 | 4,335
Entertainment > Movies > DVD - 13,075 | 3,874 | 3,878 | 3,812
Entertainment > Movies > Video Tapes - 42,802 | 15,279 | 15,274 | 15,118
Entertainment > Music > CDs - 29,964 | 9,283 | 9,199 | 9,502
First number, in bold, is "listing fees day" 10-Jan-2001 10:00 AM ET; second is 02-Feb-2001 at 9:40 AM ET, third is at 1:45 PM ET, fourth is at 8:00 PM ET.
posted on February 2, 2001 05:11:20 PM new
amalgamated2000 >
But this is Yahoo and they have the benefit of having one of this highest traffic networks on the web. They are driving a lot of that traffic to the auctions.
I disagree. Yahoo! touts a significant registered user base, but the company has certainly failed to leverage that user base when it comes to Yahoo!Auctions. My guess is <1% ever make that "click".
posted on February 2, 2001 05:44:59 PM newYahoo! touts a significant registered user base, but the company has certainly failed to leverage that user base when it comes to Yahoo!Auctions. My guess is <1% ever make that "click".
That's very true.
But Yahoo is doing things to increase promotion of the auction site -- featuring it on their front page, running banners throughout the site, including auction promotion in the signature line on outgoing Yahoo email, etc.
However, even with all of this promotion, as well as far fewer competitive listings, my sales on Yahoo are still WAY down since the fees went in to effect.
I just think that for some sellers, particularly those who sell high dollar items, Yahoo might remain viable due to the traffic from the site -- however small.
Granted, it will be a very small number, but I would be surprised if the listings go below 200,000 or so.
Of course, there is the whole notion of "critical mass", which would indicate that a site with only 200,000 listings is not sustainable. I guess we will see.
posted on February 2, 2001 07:45:53 PM new
Hi amalgamated2000
posted on February 2, 2001 02:43:13 PM new
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bidbay number of listings has surpass Yahoo! for the first time, Bidbay's 992,655 listing vs. Yahoo's 865,373.
Well, I don't have an MBA, but I can tell you that Bidbay's numbers are COMPLETE B.S.
The numbers I used, are generated by an independent source and are available by subscription only. I do not have any reason to believe their numbers are not correct.
I also believe that Yahoo is going to change their fee structure soon. My believe is based on the stock trends analysis such as the following one:
<<YHOO was last traded at 33.000 on volume of 10,908,100 shares. The stock opened at 36.500 and has traded within a 11% range with a low of 32.875 and a high of 36.625.
A Moving Average describes a stock's price trend with respect to a specific time frame. To calculate a 10-day moving average, the closing prices for the most recent ten days are added together and then divided by ten. This renders the Average price of the stock for the most recent ten sessions. By calculating this average daily using only the most recent data, the average "moves" in conjunction with the underlying stock price. The moving average provides a reliable reference for tracking both trends and performance.
YHOO shows a large negative divergence from its 200-day moving average line of more than 30%. Generally, the greater the difference between a stock's price and this important long-term technical indicator, the steeper will be that stock's prevailing trend (up or down). A divergence this size from the 200-day line ranks in the bottom twenty percent of the market and is technical indication of weakness for YHOO.
YHOO is near a point of transition. The stock is trading within 10% of its 50-Day Moving Average Line. If YHOO is moving towards the 50-day line (either up or down,) this point of convergence is significant to investors. A break above this line (positive divergence) on strong volume implies a new uptrend, while a fall below the 50-Day Moving Average Line, (negative divergence) is indication of impending weakness.
YHOO has exhibited substantial selling pressure recently, as implied by its trading more than 10% below the 10-Day Moving Average Line. Be advised that points of convergence with the 10-day line are significant to short-term investors. A break above this technical indicator can be early indication of a new upleg, while a dip below this mark might mean the beginning of a down-trend.
If the stock is below its 50 or 200-day moving average line, but is approaching the 10-day line, this is a sign of short-term strength and signals growing momentum. However, if YHOO is below all three of these moving average lines, the stock is exhibiting a bearish downtrend.
Market timing (in any scenario) requires thorough analysis of a stock's relationship to its moving average lines. Considering other indicators in conjunction with moving average lines is recommended.
The above report is based on mathematical calculations and, as such, no investment decision should be based solely on its conclusions. Follow this link for the full disclaimer .
Please forward all questions and comments concerning this report to: [email protected].>>
The previous 52 weeks low was $24.13, further deterioration of the auction traffic is going to hurt advertisment revenues and consequently the price of the stock. Their stock is only $9.00 away from their previous 52 weeks low!
posted on February 2, 2001 10:51:53 PM new
I dont know if this is ok to do or not. Moderator, if this is against AW rules let me know. I have just checked Yahoo stock on Yahoo's finance page and showed a graph spiraling downward. (It could be becasue of the market, not directly related to yahoo's current decisions on their auctions) BUT There is a section that shows trades made by key people who are involved with Yahoo. http://biz.yahoo.com/t/y/yhoo.html
Take a peek. I am not a finance expert. but even Jerry Yang, one of the founders of Yahoo just sold 43.500 shares of Yahoo stock. Maybe I am wrong and it doesnt mean anything but It sure looks funny to me
posted on February 2, 2001 11:32:24 PM new
But looks at it! He isnt the only one who has been selling his stock, so have the other key people!!! I dont understand
posted on February 2, 2001 11:37:22 PM new
Iluvauctions: It's considered insider trading whether the stock is going up or down. That's why such trades by officers of the company and its board of directors are required to be reported to the SEC each month and are made public. From the url posted, it appears that many of the shares were issued as stock options at very low prices (8 cents a share in one case!) so I'm not too surprised that the employess are cashing in now to lock in their huge profits.
