posted on February 14, 2001 07:13:56 AM new
If this were China, these Yahoo spokesrobots would have their lying tongues cut out and left for the buzzards. Anyone want to take any bets that these people will continue to spout the company lie up until the very day that Yahoo closes the door on its auctions?
-------------------------------------------
Yahoo auction listings plummet
By Frank Barnako, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 9:06 AM ET Feb 14, 2001 NewsWatch
Latest headlines
Get Alerted
The number of items available through Yahoo's auction offering (http://auctions.yahoo.com/) has reportedly fallen 86 percent since the company began charging user fees. A spokesperson for Yahoo conceded there has been a slide in items offered but is "very pleased" with the fee structure. "As expected, listings have dropped, reducing clutter on the site and increasing sell-through, ultimately providing a better-quality experience for our consumers," the source told E-Commerce Times. Things could also get worse, volumewise. A news service that monitors the online auction business, the Auction Guild, said it appears people are working off credit balances. "When those accounts run dry, I expect Yahoo auctions to grind to a halt," the Guild's Rosalinda Baldwin said. Another online auction news source said Yahoo (YHOO: news, chart) had 2.6 million items listed early in January, before the fees were initiated, and had 460,000 last week.
----------------------------------------
The only "clutter" left at Yahoo is this group of lying, Talking Head employees... Ironically, Yahoo will probably find a way in the near future to eliminate that clutter too...
posted on February 14, 2001 07:44:24 AM new
Hi folks,
Might I suggest that the % change from last weekend (February 10th) would now be of more interest than the % change from January 10th? Now that the steep decline has ended IMO it's of some interest what the Yahoo Auction numbers do from this point on.
During the last six-day period, the number of Listings at All Auctions declined by 883 or 7.7%, the number of Listings with Bids declined by 500 or 39.9%. The number of Listings at Yahoo declined by 138 or 15.6%. The number of listing with bids, increased from 46 to 59 or 28.3%.
At Yahoo, the Total Number of Listings are 747 with 59 bids or 7.9%, that means that your chances of one of your Listing receiving a bid are almost 1 in 13. The total number of bids are 59 and multiple bids are 10, or 10.2%. That means that you have about 1 in 10 chances of obtaining more than one bid for your listing.
If you were to list a Playboy at Yahoo, in the average, will take you 8 listings to obtain a sale or $1.60 in listing fees and your chances of obtaining a multiple bids are still 1 in 10. That means, that your listing price must include the $1.60 on listing, plus if you use PayPal the additional $0.30 fee and the cost of envelopes and a plastic jacket another $0.10. If your opening price is $2.00, you had a break- even sale.
The best site to list Playboys today is Playboy 19.3% of the listings have bids and 43.1% have multiple bids.
posted on February 14, 2001 08:42:35 AM new
Yahoo management is "very Pleased" by 86% decline in listings, I guess they they become positively orgasmic with a 100% decline??? Yahoo is an example of a company that started with a brilliant idea (search engine) added several other at least semi-brilliant businesses (Yahoo Financial, Yahoo Auctions, Yahoo travel)and is proceeding at an accelerating rate to run each and every one of them firmly into the ground. Almost all experts rate Google ahead of yahoo as a search engine, The Yahoo financial site is riddled with erroneous data in the Company financial profiles, the stock message boards are 90% vulgarity, filth and spam, Yahoo auction listing have plumeted 86% and Yahoo Management is "Very Pleased"!It's unfortunately that Yahoo Auction listings have fallen so far, not a chance that there is a "clue" left that they can bid on!
<<Yahoo auction listings plummet
By Frank Barnako, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 9:06 AM ET Feb 14, 2001
The number of items available through Yahoo's auction offering
(http://auctions.yahoo.com/) has reportedly fallen 86 percent since the
company began charging user fees. A spokesperson for Yahoo
conceded there has been a slide in items offered but is "very pleased"
with the fee structure. "As expected, listings have dropped, reducing
clutter on the site and increasing sell-through, ultimately providing a
better-quality experience for our consumers," the source told
E-Commerce Times. Things could also get worse, volumewise. A
news service that monitors the online auction business, the Auction
Guild, said it appears people are working off credit balances. "When
those accounts run dry, I expect Yahoo auctions to grind to a halt," the
Guild's Rosalinda Baldwin said. Another online auction news source
said Yahoo (YHOO: news, msgs) had 2.6 million items listed early in
January, before the fees were initiated, and had 460,000 last week.>>
posted on February 14, 2001 12:11:17 PM new
It is sad to see the reaction to Yahoo's fees. Almost like a party ending and nobody is willing to stick around and clean up afterwards. The other auction services have to be watching this disaster with a great concern.
posted on February 14, 2001 07:35:55 PM new
Hi John:
Thank you, for your compliment, I would not have done it without your encouragement and guidance. Thank you!
<"747 with 59 bids or 7.9%"
is that 59 bids for all the items in the category you're following with ending times distributed throughout 0 to 10 days?>
Yes, my figures are snap shot in time. As of this morning, of those 747 Listings (ending 0 to 10/14 days) only 59 Listings had one or more bids. Of those 59 Listings with Bids, 10 Listings had multiple bids, with the majority of those 10 containing only two bids.
Thanks, again for your help. I will be sending you an email tomorrow.
Rudy
[ edited by USMarines on Feb 14, 2001 07:40 PM ]
I did find your numbers interesting because the category you sell into seems to be fairly active.
Here's a question for you and the rest of the sellers. If the number of bids for the whole category is about 8% what does that suggest about the overall success rate for the category? Success rate is the percentage of items that finally close with a bid. If this category has shown improvement could that suggest something about how much Yahoo has improved site wide?
posted on February 14, 2001 11:26:07 PM new
John10101,
Rudy sells in the pornography section (Adult), and yes, the bidding in that section is VERY, VERY HIGH compared to *most* of the rest of Yahoo.
You asked, "If the number of bids for the whole category is about 8% what does that suggest about the overall success rate for the category? Success rate is the percentage of items that finally close with a bid. If this category has shown improvement could that suggest something about how much Yahoo has improved site wide?"
It's difficult to determine the exact "success rate" on Yahoo, because only SUCCESSFUL auctions show up on "Closed Auctions" searches. One would have to monitor EVERY listing within a category to determine the percentage that close with winners, which means you'd have to actually OPEN each listing to see if it has a reserve that has (or hasn't) been met before the listing ended. You'd also have to catch every auction put up with a "buy price" BEFORE it might close with a single bid (meaning you'd have to monitor new listings CONSTANTLY to catch them all, since one could close within minutes of opening, with a buy price).
Even should there be visible "improvement" in a category's "sell-through rate", it cannot SOLELY be attributed to Yahoo's "new, improved HIGH-QUALITY" Auction listing fees policy. Remember, those sellers who are listing now are either using their free feedback credits (MOST LIKELY SPARINGLY) or are paying out-of-pocket SPARINGLY.
Most of Yahoo's newest listings are being chosen by their sellers as MORE LIKELY TO SELL ON YAHOO (from past experience), and all the rest of their items are being put on other auctions (including eBay). That doesn't mean Yahoo's are BETTER listings, or HIGHER QUALITY listings....just that the sellers have had luck with similar items in the past on Yahoo.
So you could EXPECT the sell-through to go up some, at least until ALL the bidders leave.
posted on February 15, 2001 07:41:33 AM new
Granee,
What if someone COULD monitor items as they close? Ooooooooooh! Wild idea?
You're right about the zestier category being "hotter". I was more interested in whether the category has shown sharp declines in the numbers and also increases in success rate.
A category with bids on 8% of all items, and those include items that usually don't get bids yet like those that close out 3-10 days, might have an overall success rate ("sell through" in the local lingo) well over 20%.
posted on February 15, 2001 07:57:10 AM new
John10101,
In "advanced search" you can select "closed auctions" and type in a keyword or two. But you only get the auctions that closed with bids, not the total auctions. So you cannot calculate a sell-through rate.
I can only think of one reason that closed auctions without bids is not included. So you cannot calculate a sell-through rate.
To get a "feel" for what's going on at Yahoo!Auctions, and comparing it to Bidville, I took a look at U.S. Coins > Dollars.
Bidville gives all closed auctions. I counted 35 bids on 69 closed auctions yesterday, which translates to a 50% sell-through rate at Bidville.
Over at Yahoo!Auctions, you cannot search closed auctions by category, so I just took a look at Morgan Dollars and Peace Dollars (the two largest sub-categories), and found 17 and six closed auctions, respectively, for yesterday. A total of 23.
They have 141 and 42 live auctions, respectively, too, so assuming they are evenly distributed by day, they had around 180 coins in those sub-categories yesterday.
And 23 bids on 180 closed auctions is a sell-through rate of 13% at Yahoo!Auctions.
posted on February 15, 2001 08:31:33 AM new
Hi DimView,
Are people here thinking broadly enough? You're trying to determine statistics as a human but you can't because all categories can't be represented proportionally. A machine on the other hand has no difficulty doing this.
posted on February 15, 2001 08:40:19 AM new
John10101,
All we can do is check categories and use an intuitive approach to get a "feel" for what's going on.
Yahoo! does not report its listings numbers, removes closed auctions without bids from its database, and continues to report erroneous data in quite a few categories.
I would suggest that you will not be able to get a broad view at what's going on at Yahoo!Auctions.
posted on February 15, 2001 10:30:09 AM new
Hi John, granee & dimview:
I will try to explain your questions the best way I can. First we need to bring a few facts or premises:
1. I sell Playboy, Penthouse, Adult Magazines and Adult paperbacks.
2. Playboy and Penthouse is listed on eBay as follows: PRE-1980 is listed on the open category; 1980-to-NOW are listed in the adult section. At Playboy Auctions they list only Playboys all in the open category, at Amazon they list all Playboys and Penthouses in the open category. At Yahoo all the Playboys and Penthouses belong in the Adult category. Today, of the 726 Listings at Yahoo, 505 are in the open section and 221 are in the Adult/Mature category. Most if not all Adult/Mature sections are not supported by Search Tools. Adult paperbacks are listed almost exclusively on the Adult/Mature section, except for Vintage one’s at eBay. When buyers do a Search, they are only Searching the open Category, to get the other Adult/Mature category, the buyer needs to go to that category, since the Search tools is unable.
3. 'Sex' is top search word in the net. The most popular search term for Web surfers is "sex," according to an analysis of 42 million search requests studied by Alexa Research (http://www.alexaresearch.com/rd/rd31.php). "The prevalence of sex-related search terms probably isn't a shock to most people," said vice president Matthew Work. He said "sex" was cited in one of every 300 searches. "We were surprised by the number of people that accessed Web sites by entering site names as search terms rather than just typing them in the address field of their browser," he added. Four of the top 10 search terms were site names: Hotmail, Yahoo, EBay and AOL. The most popular celebrities whose names were searched for were Britney Spears, Pamela Anderson, Backstreet Boys, Jennifer Lopez and Eminem. Pokemon was the most popular specific toy or game search. Playboy was the most-sought media property. I don’t have the URL of the above study.
4. Items associated with sex are not very much influenced by economic conditions.
5. You can’t infer very much from this category about the over all health of the online auction from this categories. They are unique.
6. The figures we report are not auction closings, but Number of Listing with bids for the 0 to 7/10/14 day period. We all know that many people bid at the last minute, so the Success rate may be higher than what my figures reflect.
7. I can’t report on closed auctions, because most auction houses do not kept on their database all auctions without bids. The purpose is to look more successful that they really are. So we settle for the next best thing, Number of Listings with Bids, which is a lower number than successful auctions.
From John: Here's a question for you and the rest of the sellers. If the number of bids for the whole category is about 8% what does that suggest about the overall success rate for the category? Success rate is the percentage of items that finally close with a bid. If this category has shown improvement could that suggest something about how much Yahoo has improved site wide?
In our last batch we listed at Yahoo, the Adult Books a very well seek after commodity received a success rate of 94% during the original and two automatic re-listings. Prices received were not bad. We received multiple bids in most items, and had bid wars on certain items. This category is extremely active, especially for vintage material. Presently Yahoo and eBay are a toss-up as which is the best for this category.
Playboy, Penthouses and other Adult Magazines, sell fairly well at Yahoo, most of the Listings received a single bid with several receiving 2 or more bids. Generally, we obtain the listing price. Again is a fairly active category. However, Yahoo would not be my choice to list those magazines.
From Granee: Rudy sells in the pornography section (Adult), and yes, the bidding in that section is VERY, VERY HIGH compared to *most* of the rest of Yahoo.
We all know that “beauty” is in the eyes of the beholder, as first stated by St. Thomas Aquinas and later by the US Supreme court. There are no pornography sections that I am aware of, on any of the Auction houses. However, there are the Adult/Mature sections on most if not all Auction Sites except at Amazon, Bidville, Bidbay, Playboy, etc.
A majority of my listings are in the Adult/Mature category, however, there is a substantial amount in the open categories. Bidding on Playboy, Penthouse open category and the Adult/Mature category is VERY ACTIVE, compared to most other category at All Auctions, not only Yahoo.
From Granee: It's difficult to determine the exact "success rate" on Yahoo, because only SUCCESSFUL auctions show up on "Closed Auctions" searches. One would have to monitor EVERY listing within a category to determine the percentage that close with winners, which means you'd have to actually OPEN each listing to see if it has a reserve that has (or hasn't) been met before the listing ended. You'd also have to catch every auction put up with a "buy price" BEFORE it might close with a single bid (meaning you'd have to monitor new listings CONSTANTLY to catch them all, since one could close within minutes of opening, with a buy price).
Since Search is disabled for the Adult/Mature Category those closed Listings do not show up unless you do a search by item NUMBER. In addition, most auction houses eliminate or don’t show in their closed auctions every Listing without bids. The purpose seems to be to look more successful that they really are. This problem is not only unique to Yahoo.
From Granee: The sellers are choosing most of Yahoo’s newest listings as MORE LIKELY TO SELL ON YAHOO (from past experience), and all the rest of their items are being put on other auctions (including eBay). That doesn't mean Yahoo's are BETTER listings, or HIGHER QUALITY listings...just that the sellers have had luck with similar items in the past on Yahoo.
That is correct, for vintage Adult Paperbacks; Yahoo is still a good site to list.
From John: You're right about the zestier category being "hotter". I was more interested in whether the category has shown sharp declines in the numbers and also increases in success rate.
Yes, Number of Listings for that category has shown sharp decline at Yahoo, this past week an 18% decline. However, the Number of Listings with Bids has increased by 39.1%. The whole category at All Auctions has shown only a decline in the Number of Listings with Bids – see my week in review posted, eBay showed the sharpest decline of 32%. http://www.auctionwatch.com/mesg/read.html?num=6&thread=17073
From dimview: In "advanced search" you can select "closed auctions" and type in a keyword or two. But you only get the auctions that closed with bids, not the total auctions. So you cannot calculate a sell-through rate.
This is not entirely correct; you will only get those in the open section, which I mentioned above, the ones in the Adult/Mature section would not show up at all.
From dimview: I can only think of one reason that closed auctions without bids are not included. So you cannot calculate a sell-through rate.
Yes, I believe that is the reason, why auction houses offer the seller some limited options in searches.
You can only calculate the success rare or sell thru rate for yourself, since that information is only available to the seller after all the auctions are closed.
Finally on Thursday, we will report “The Week in Review for online Auctions” starting next week, stay tune!
posted on February 15, 2001 12:39:33 PM new
As always Thanks to Dimview, figmente, VM and all others reporting the daily tracking.
Dimview
"Over at Yahoo!Auctions, you cannot search closed auctions by category"
CERTAINLY you can, just go to any category. The link is right next to [show only photos] right below the thumbnails on top of the page. That's how I've always kept track of the total # of sales in my categories per day as it shows all successful sales including FBW that might have closed in minutes. I do not think it works in the Adult categories but it does for everything else.
edit> Forgot to add, there's a several hour delay before everything hits the closed category listing. You'd be a day behind for accurate #'s.
[ edited by kasmoon on Feb 15, 2001 12:40 PM ]
[ edited by kasmoon on Feb 15, 2001 12:42 PM ]
posted on February 15, 2001 01:02:44 PM new
dimview: "I would suggest that you will not be able to get a broad view at what's going on at Yahoo!Auctions."
DimView,
That's not entirely true. Doesn't anyone read my posts?
Rudy,
Thanks for the info and sharing your results -- very interesting.
posted on February 15, 2001 01:08:58 PM new
John10101 >
That's not entirely true. Doesn't anyone read my posts?
Yes. But you are looking for a broad view. Given that Yahoo!Auctions omits all auctions that closed without bids from their database, however, I see it as a momumental task to get an accurate view. And because of that, we are relying on assumptions and generalizations to get a "feel" for the selling and bidding activity which is likely to be quite accurate in the final tally.
posted on February 15, 2001 01:36:45 PM new
dimview: "Yes. But you are looking for a broad view. Given that Yahoo!Auctions omits all auctions that closed without bids from their database, however, I see it as a momumental task to get an accurate view. And because of that, we are relying on assumptions and generalizations to get a "feel" for the selling and bidding activity."
DimView,
You're still thinking inside the box! Think outside the box. Further out. Further. Further. More. More. Almost there. OK ... right there!
posted on February 15, 2001 01:44:38 PM new
John10101 >
DimView, You're still thinking inside the box! Think outside the box. Further out. Further. Further. More. More. Almost there. OK ... right there!
Now, now, we don't want to be so far removed that we're peering through a blurry telescope at Yahoo!Auctions. Or do we?
posted on February 15, 2001 04:28:55 PM new
dimview: "Now, now, we don't want to be so far removed that we're peering through a blurry telescope at Yahoo!Auctions. Or do we?"
DimView,
Ummmm, I was trying to hint you and the others there. Not telescope, microscope. Ya know, within the auction industry there are no secrets. Everyone knows exactly how well everyone else is doing, and with fine granularity.
