posted on February 16, 2001 08:04:02 PM new
YHOO, in the news again.
An excerpt:
"Sellers are driven by economics and, with the decrease in noise, they're now making more margin, which leads us to believe they will list more inventory," said Brian Fitzgerald, senior producer at Yahoo Auctions.
posted on February 16, 2001 08:37:40 PM new
"A lot of these other people have gone off to list their ads on the Yahoo classified site," Fitzgerald suggested of the mass exodus of auctioneers.
posted on February 16, 2001 10:48:21 PM new
In the same vein, I read the following article today:
(excerpt
Since it began charging listing fees in January, the site's number of listings reportedly has fallen from 2.6 million to 460,000 last week.
Spinning the dramatic decline in listings in the best way possible, a Yahoo spokesman told E-Commerce Times, "As expected, listings have dropped, reducing clutter on the site and increasing sell-through, ultimately providing a better-quality experience for our consumers."
posted on February 17, 2001 01:01:00 AM new
I'm glad you're laughing, because I'M not---I'm mad as a hornet!!!
"Yahoo hopes that the tool will encourage its remaining users, who the company says sell higher-quality goods, to list more items.....He explained that the company's goal was to ensure that sellers not only priced to sell but also offered high-quality merchandise."
YaWho continues to INSULT US every chance they get, implying that ALL THOSE WHO QUIT LISTING when their unreasonable fees kicked in were cheap-skate leeches with OVERPRICED, LOW-QUALITY, UNDESIRABLE merchandise making "NOISE" on their Auction and CLUTTERING their webpages.
"The people who are not willing to pay will immediately start not paying," said May, who stressed that the volume of listings is not the right metric by which to judge an auction site. Instead, he said, closing rates and average final prices are far more indicative of the site's success.....Yahoo's Fitzgerald had no statistics to offer on those metrics, but added that Yahoo most values the dollar volume flowing through the marketplace as determined by bidding activity and number of transactions, which he claimed have been steady since the increase in listing fees."
Why is it that, because we won't pay YaWho's listing fees as they are, it's ASSUMED by everyone that we won't pay YaWho fees at all?
Has it not occurred to anyone OTHER THAN the sellers that the entire problem could just be that YAHOO'S FEES ARE TOO HIGH??? After all, Yahoo is buying an auction in Australia that recently had to LOWER ITS FEES to keep its sellers paying to list.
Can no one at YahWho comprehend the notion of
5 cent fees = XXXX listings
10 cent fees = XX listings
20 cent fees = X listings
75 cent fees = .00X listings
posted on February 17, 2001 04:49:06 AM new
Yeas, Yahoo has continued to insult and demean the sellers who have left. What I am laughing about most is that this was their plan all along. HA HA.
They planned to get rid of me and probably thousands of other sellers.
I only hope that when they do decide to wake up and see that they have alienated thousands by their actions and characterizations, the people who have been treated in this manner will remember.
I am perfectly happy at the new home that I have found, I am getting more action than I got from Yahoo, and am glad to see BIDVILLE continue to grow.
I constantly see posters asking what everyone will do when these other sites realize that they must charge fees to maintain viability.
Well I hope that the other auctions will at least be reasonable and treat their members with a higher degree of respect than has been displayed by Yahoo. As far as I am concerned they already have by providing better and more responsive CS. That was always one of Yahoo's biggest insults.
There have been many alternate suggestions put forward on these and other forums that would have been more reasonable to the sellers and buyers while still alowing Yahoo to increase it's revenues. Yahoo has blindly charged along ignoring this input and characterizing it as NOISE, and CLUTTER. All the while, Yahoo claimed to be listening to it's sellers. Where are the sellers who proclaimed that this fee structure would help their auctions with the endless relisting fees.
Yahoo has yet to address the issue of whether or not they are acually collecting any substantial money in fees as it appears even to outsiders that most of the currently running auctions are being paid for in credits.
When Yahoo finally realizes that they are not generating this revenue, and in fact will be losing more due to the fact that they have devalued the worth of the banner advertising on the site, they will make some changes. Of course these changes will be described as planned evolution of their strategy because otherwise, they would have to admit they were wrong.
Right now many sellers are adjusting and working hard to build and rebuild their followings at other auction sites. I hope that we all have a plan not to go back to Yahoo at the first sign of comprimise on their part. They will have to try and reconcile many sellers back to the site, but I fear that this would only be a ruse while they attempt to manipulate their money structure further and find new ways to levy fees from the sellers.
DO NOT FORGET THE TREATMENT YAHOO IS GIVING YOU. It indicates what they really think of you in terms of their corporate scheme. Those that will try to convince you that none of that matters and if Yahoo suddenly became feasible again it would be in the interest of sellers to return, please remember this time and know that it will happen again.
In the meantime, I will continue to laugh as their plan further unfolds. It will be real interesting to watch when the corporate executives at Yahoo realize that the administrators of Yahoo auctions no longer have anything to administrate. Then maybe there will be some cost cutting moves made to protect the corporate profit structure and the stock position. Can you say 'DOWNSIZING'?
ALL right, all right, So I can't spell OR type!
[ edited by jimhhow on Feb 17, 2001 04:53 AM ]
posted on February 17, 2001 06:11:04 AM new
Betrayal is a hideous thing and I believe Yahoo has indeed betrayed the sellers that made (ya)who they are.
I tried yawho about two years ago and decided that it was a complete waste of time. Success at that auction must have been hard won and I admire the hard work it must have required.
I stumbled into the funny money offer at yahoo and decided to sign up. So now I have nearly $2000 in funny money that's telling me to either spend it and help yawho by listing or forget it and let yawho & the funny money disappear.
The sellers that made yawho didn't have the oportunity that presented itself to me and that is horribly wrong. All the sellers that made yawho a viable site are rightfully upset.
Now that I've apologized let me get to my point. I'm enjoying great success at yawho and the sellers that made the site what it is should too! You're bidders are still there looking for you. They can't find you though because you don't want to spend 20¢ (¢ = alt 155). So some refugee like me is listing and selling, enjoying the product of your efforts.
Please pick your best items and list them. Do cultivate a free list site but don't totally abandon the site you've worked so hard to build. Your nose has worked to hard to be removed from your face.
respectfully,
d
posted on February 17, 2001 06:33:32 AM new
What I didn't realize was that the feedback were "popularity ratings". Didn't realize this was a beauty pageant. Thought I was offering a product and people were commenting on that and my customer service!
Yahoo Rating - BAD. No customer service, no response to email. Product lacking in everyway.
I also hope that people remember how YaWho has treated the sellers (and buyers) and when YaWho does come to it's senses the mass does not return.
posted on February 17, 2001 09:25:23 AM new
vvalhalla,
I don't speak for others, but personally I wish success to all the sellers who are currently at Yawnwho. This situation is not of their making. I also hope that when The funny money runs out, you will leave also, because Yawnwho never had the bidder base to support sufficient sell through needed to justify the fees. So as long as it is not costing you anything in real dollars, have a blast. The only way I was able to sell my collectibles was with a reserve. then I had maybe a 15-20% sell through first time. When you start looking at those fees adding up for 4-5 relists, there is just no way I could do it. I would have to raise my prices too high to sell. So, no, I will not go back and list even the stuff I know is popular and pay real money to support a site that we sellers never got any real support from. I would rather turn my efforts to helping build a site that does provide CS and listens to feedback from sellers.
also, though I tried several times, I was unable to sell anything on Yahoo with a minimum and no reserve. I am happy to say that is not the case where I am now. I don't know why this is, I still sell the same stuff, just more of it.
Yeah, typos again...
[ edited by jimhhow on Feb 17, 2001 09:27 AM ]
posted on February 17, 2001 12:26:14 PM new
Yahoo! keeps stressing the "sell through" factor. I am waiting to see some real numbers on that!
I have been monitoring certain categories and have not been able to determine if there are actually more auctions closing with bids and a satisfactory closing price.
Doesn't look like it to me.......I still see pages and pages of no bids. There are less pages to monitor though and that is cutting down on the time I have to spend looking!
posted on February 17, 2001 11:44:31 PM new
walhalla,
You pointed out what is probably the biggest "slap in the face" that YaWho is giving to its former sellers---absolutely NO recognition or reward for service rendered on Yahoo ITSELF to Yahoo buyers, by YAHOO SELLERS (as shown in Yahoo feedback).
Yahoo gave as much as several thousand dollars worth of Wallet dollar credits to each eBay and Amazon seller who asked for it, so now the ones with tons of "funny money" to list for free on Yahoo are NOT THE SELLERS WHO BUILT YAHOO AUCTION over the last few years, but are instead the sellers who BUILT EBAY AND AMAZON.
How truly ironic.
YaWho has given NOTHING to its own sellers for their YAHOO feedback....not recognition, not "thank you", not Wallet dollars. It seems that the "new, improved" YaWho values the sellers from eBay and Amazon CONSIDERABLY MORE than it does its OWN sellers.
posted on February 18, 2001 12:50:23 AM new
granee
Yahoo planned it this way. They knew that when they started charging to list they would lose most of the sellers that were currently on the site. They decided to lure sellers away from Ebay and Amazon that were already paying fees. They were sure that once all those listing credits ran out some sellers would stick. They also thought that because many of the sellers they gave credits to were successful on Ebay so they must be selling "quality" items. Could you imagine what the site would be like right now if they hadn't given out all of those credits. There would be nothing left at all.
As it is, a lot of those high volume sellers are still there listing and that keeps Yahoo going while they acquire new sellers to replace the ones they lost. They are slowly acquiring new sellers but who knows how long they will stay active....
Unfortunately, the old sellers, the ones that helped them build a somewhat successful site, are now of little value to them. Many of these people were unwilling to pay fees and that's why they were selling at Yahoo in the first place.
The smart thing would have been for them to strcture their fees in such a way that more sellers would have stayed. It would have still thinned the ranks a bit but the site would have been better off because of it.
[ edited by outoftheblue on Feb 18, 2001 12:52 AM ]
posted on February 18, 2001 12:51:16 AM new
These are the most intelligent comments, concerning Yahoo Auctions, I've read. Granee, I couldn't agree more with your comments. A flat rate of 10 cents per listing would improve the "quality" of Yahoo's listings and pretty much blow eBay out of the water.
Sellers are premature writing Yahoo Auctions off. Yahoo still has everything in place to mount the comeback of the year and emerge as a serious competitor to eBay. Yahoo has the traffic, and an auction site that puts the poorly designed, unreliable eBay site to shame.
The only obstacle is comming up with listings fees that will provide a win/win situation for Yahoo and sellers looking for a real alternative to paying eBay's fees.
Remostpark Co-Founder Yahoo Clubs "Seller Zone Uncensored"
