posted on February 10, 2001 06:07:08 AM new
After a Dimview Index (those 10 category results added together) plunge to 36.5K yesterday this one looks to have the first rise, to 37K with coin estimate, since the first reading on Jan 10. Pretty sure I extrapolated a range here of 30K-50K back two weeks ago, corresponding to perhaps 400K actual total auctions listings.
My guess is that from here it mostly edges upwards as listers apply funny money, testing whether vacated category space leaves them better results with buyers still poking around. There'll be downwards pressure from the bulk lister expiration inflection in 7-10 days, and constantly for a couple months as funny money gets used up.
My sense is that some categories are decimated but some may be viable going forward, especially with possible promotions to pad listings upwards. More funny money? A free-listing day? Hmmmm a new idea... maybe they could offer a *discount*... like $300 Wallet credits at one time for a lump sum $150 payment? ANYTHING to buffer the effect of this listing fee structure would help, but won't likely let a recovery go beyond a certain level.
posted on February 10, 2001 06:08:41 AM new
Pink Box Barbie (1978 - present)
7715 ~ 1217
Christmas > Tree Ornaments
8344 ~ 523
Christmas > Other
4974 ~ 235
Sewing & Needlecrafts > Supplies
5556 ~ 731
Action Figures > Disney
1016 ~ 120
Candles & Incense
4837 ~ 522
Art > Supplies
192 ~ 18
And they expected this kind of a drop...when will the stupid comments stop! They ought to just admit to wanting to eliminate auctions on Yahoo! PERIOD...
[ edited by deichen on Feb 10, 2001 06:09 AM ]
posted on February 10, 2001 06:20:43 AM new
I was going to run a test on Yahoo, and since late last night I get to through the Security Pass Word, and get the little box that tells you that you are entering a "secure area," and that is as far as I get, that little "entering a secured box pops up," I click, it pops up, I click, well I think you get the picture, can't get passed it to post, although I can easily access my Wallet and such in other ways. My account is functioning but I keep hitting this glitch, so that posting, at least for me since late last night is impossible.
Guess this is another new way to commit suicide. I only wanted to test one new item, so no big loss to me, I'll take it to ebay.
Every category that I track is up. Yesterday they were down 88%, today 87%. I checked one page in antique and vintage jewelry and on that page alone 5 items were listed twice! Now how likely is that?!
posted on February 10, 2001 11:06:36 AM new
Nearly every category is up this morning.
Reasons:
> A few high rated sellers are listing like crazy.
> Several sellers with a rating of "new" are listing.
> Porno listings are increasing (outside of the adult area) and Yahoo will do nothing about it! Since these are categories I normally list in, and there are more porno listings than normal listings, I've been attempting to get them to move these auctions to the adult area. WONDERFUL NEW CHANGES ARE HAPPENING AT YAHOO!
[ edited by outoftheblue on Feb 10, 2001 11:09 AM ]
posted on February 10, 2001 11:17:23 AM new
outoftheblue,
Nearly every category is up this morning.
After the big drop the other day, I've also noticed that listings increase during the day, then remain essentially even or fall slightly by the next morning. I'm only keeping the first-in-the-morning numbers in a text file.
Reasons:
> A few high rated sellers are listing like crazy.
I've noticed that alot of sellers that are listing are coming from Yahoo!MerchantAuctions. Clicked around last night to see if part of the deal is getting free auctions. Never did find out. Anybody know the answer?
> Several sellers with a rating of "new" are listing.
Guess they didn't take Auction Selling 101. If you're going to pay a listing fee go to an auction site with traffic.
> Porno listings are increasing (outside of the adult area) and Yahoo will do nothing about it!
I did take a look at the Mens > Jeans clothing category. Unbelievable!
posted on February 10, 2001 12:29:44 PM new
I started watching these items Jan,18,2001 at 1:13 p.m. I buy and sell their when yahoo announced its great idea to start fees on jan,10,2001 I let 8 days get by me before I started watching (Doing other things like listing in other sites lol.)
Under Toys, Games, & Hobbies; Action Figures.
Sports 3,939 (1/18) 447 (2/10) down (-3,492)
Star Trek 1,408(1/18) 283(2/10) down (-1,125)
Star wars 5,054(1/18) 591(2/10) down (-4,463)
Toy Soldiers 108(1/18) 7(2/10) down (-101)
This is what Yahoo expected to happen??? If their idea was to get ready of the junk boy thats alot of junk!! My guestion is now will yahoo level out or will they stay on course right to the very bottom? Any idea's?
posted on February 10, 2001 01:52:47 PM new
Hi John, dimview and forshoppin:
That is an impressive chart and search results! RespectfulIy, we are asking the questions in the following paragraph. This isn't an attempt to tear-down or bring into question your work and we don't have any reason to doubt the accuracy of your figures. We are only asking those questions, because we want to learn and improve the quality of our own research, if there is an easier way to locate these figures, please share with us.
How do you get the daily total listing figures?
Could you get the number of items with bids, and yes, how?
The reason I am interested on the answers to these questions are: we are dealers of Adult Magazines (Playboy, Penthouse, adult paperbacks) we track daily, the number of listing using AW and other universal search engines.
We first SEARCH for PLAYBOY at all auction sites. We receive a number of all listing in the "OPEN CATEGORY" for all auction houses supported by these search engine. Then we arrange the SORTING by items with MOST BIDS, we scroll to the last item with a bid and record that number and a percentage of items with bids is calculate.
We realize that some of the Playboys in eBay and Yahoo are NOT listed in the "OPEN CATEGORY," which is supported by these search engine, but in the "MATURE AUDIENCES/ADULT CATEGORY," which is not supported by these search engine. We go to these sites and SELECT that category AUCTIONS->EVERYTHING ELSE->MATURE AUDIENCES->PLAYBOY, record the number of listings and have the search SORTED by items CLOSING TODAY and we count the items with bids, the percentage of items with bids is calculated. We realize that percentage of items with bids would be higher that if we examined all listings. However, that would be to time consuming and we adjust that figure, to reflect the listings that end after TODAY and lower that percentage by multiplying that percentage by our adjustment coefficient.
At Amazon and Playboy (not supported by AW and some other search engines) we do directly to their site and record the number of listings, scroll down to the last item with bids and record it, the percentage of items with bids is calculated. We have also included in our research alternate small sites such as Bidbay, Bidville and others, not supported by universal search engines. Incidentally these two sites the percentage of items (Playboy, Penthouse and Adult Paperbacks) with bids barely shows up on our radar screen, however, we continue to monitor them just in case they improve.
That is how we decide where to post our listing and I will say we get very good results. In early January, we listed a collection of adult paperbacks along with our Playboy and Penthouse magazines from the Evan's collection and from that batch we obtained an impressive 94 percent of sales, after the automatic relisting expired. The listings for Playboy, Penthouse and other Men's Magazines, the percentage was also very high but not as impressive. We occasionally sell other items, but we don't do that type of research, since that is not our regular line of business and research is always time consuming.
How we achieve such high percentage of sales, are by;
Selecting the best sites for our merchandise at the time we are listing, these sites with the highest percent of bids, higher than the percentage found with the Universal search engines;
Listing and sales cost are of course, part of the equation on our selection of site;
Packaging, we use a very professional way of presenting our product, 1 to 3 pictures, a complete but brief description of the item and very professional design and HTML code, with links to our Terms & Conditions of Auction Sales;
The lowest shipping charges in online auctions;
The fastest shipping -- merchandise is shipped within 24 hours of payment, except on Saturday payments after 08:00, which are shipped on Monday mornings.
If we were occasional sellers of these products, we couldn't afford to invest that kind of time and effort. However, for the professional seller is a necessity, since we all sell the same product repeatedly. While we are veterans at collectible sales, we are fairly new at online auctions, but once we started selling there, we want to do an excellent job and keep improving the quality of our services to our clients.
We don't want to mislead other sellers into expecting that type of results, but as we all well know "SEX ALWAYS SELLS VERY WELL." That was the business model for Playboy, Penthouse and other Men's magazines. All I can say, is that this type of research will improve your sales substantially, regardless of what type of merchandise you sell.
We always like to improve the quality of our services to our customers and make the online auction experience pleasant to all our customers, that way the online auctions will continue to grow, improving all the sellers profits.
Presently, the best sites to list Playboy is Playboy Auctions with eBay in second place in the percentage of items with bids and also with higher costs than Playboy, at this time. Unfortunately, you cannot list there, Penthouse or adult paperbacks unless they were published by Playboy. The best site to list Penthouse presently is eBay and Adult Paperbacks to everyone's surprise is still Yahoo, the percentage is not as high as used to be, prior to January 10, 2001, however, is still has the highest percentage of listed items with bids. That is a real surprise for us too!
At the time we listed the adult books, in early January, the best site for them was Yahoo! and we did obtained these results during the dramatic decline in listings, Yahoo is presently experiencing. The "best sites" to list our merchandise changes constantly, we listed a small batch of them at eBay, even though eBay was the second choice, we wanted to validate the results of our research, we also be listing a similar size batch at Yahoo shortly, after Yahoo resolves some of their software bugs.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge, I hope that your research and others, will help other dealers in these times of uncertainty and turmoil in the online auction business.
Rudy
user name AW: USMarines
user name all auctions: USMCQuantico
posted on February 10, 2001 11:42:22 PM new
USMarines,
No need to worry, I'm more-or-less confident in my totals. I hope they can forgive me for it, but I do tweak the others to encourage better accuracy. If mine are wrong, they can feel free to tweak me : )
As for your question, here's a wild idea for you. Internet auction businesses are unlike any other business in that they are open to the world to see. You can't see how many cars are rolling off assembly lines at Ford and how many cars they sell at dealerships any given day, but can't you do just that with internet auctions?
I'm surprised no one's offering auction intellegence to sellers. Before they discontinued it, Ebay Magazine used offer basic performance statistics for their hottest and coldest categories. You'd think that many sellers would find this information valuable and someone would think to offer it.
