posted on March 14, 2001 08:55:05 PM new
Just like many of former Yahoo US sellers have said over and over, we too, mourn the loss of this site as it was when it was free. However, like any businessman will tell you, you have to spend money to make money! So here's our suggestions to Yahoo which I think might wake them up and be a "Win - Win" situation for us all.
Here goes:
Let's assume that we are Yahoo management and desperately need to raise funds since our ship is sinking. The most obvious scenario is to start charging fees, right? OK. Now, maybe that's not so unfair, but are they really understanding the seller's plight? I don't think so. If the stores close in a mall, what do you think happens to the mall? It dies! And so it is with the loss of sellers.
Our suggestions to Yahoo are as follows:
OK, you need income to survive!
#1. Why not charge a set monthly fee, say $10 (maybe more) for up to 100 listings, including resubmits, for items selling under $9.99 or $14.95, whatever makes sense. This would give them immediate income regardless of whether the seller used the max # or not.
#2. For all items over the $$ amount decided upon in #1, charge a reasonable commission on transactions that CLOSED as sales. And if it is later found that the deal was never consummated, then the seller gets a credit!
#3. They could still charge for special services as they did before.
Given these terms I think there would be a stampede back to use Yahoo because they will have at least met us half way.
You can email them or call them at: 408-731-3300 and voice your opinion. Unless they hear from us and are offered some viable ideas nothing will ever change. Complaining to each other on this site doesn't get the message to them. It's worth a shot.
What say you all???
posted on March 15, 2001 06:42:58 AM new
Remingham
I am sure you are sincere, but I can't imagine why you think Yahoo will all of the sudden listen to any suggestion, since they have turned deaf ears to everything the seller has suggested thus far since the charge plan was implemented.
Actually, I think an e-mail is a total waste of time experience tells most of us that e-mail goes through the Yahoo automated system, out the other end, an auto-response is send based on key words, and that is that.
Why do you think Yahoo is all of the sudden ready to listen just because the situation is worse than they anticipated? They have too much pride, and this, if you read a number of the recent threads, is documented by the way Yahoo does all of its business without total new management, and management that actually comprehends the auction business AND the difference between Yahoo and eBay, nothing will change on Yahoo.
The plan you suggested has been suggested before, but Yahoo isn't listening....sorry....
Id suggest you read this thread, as it relates to this subject
posted on March 15, 2001 06:53:18 AM new
I agree with heike55, I will only pay FVF. I list over 1000 items and if that isn't good enough, well then I will help build another site. I will not be paying monthly fees, especially when most of my items are seasonal in nature. Also, why do you think people would come back and to what? If Yahoo would have reversed their decision within the first couple of weeks, I would have said most would go back. Now after 2 months, I think most people are so angry, there is no way! I do not think Yahoo can say that the site is the same anyway. It is completely different now. A desserted (spelling) island!
posted on March 15, 2001 07:07:52 AM new
The site with only fvf will simply not work. You would have 2 million items or more listed again and that is no good. What they have now is no good. Yahoo has shown in the past and present that are not getting their traffic to click on advertisments, go to the stores or go to the auctions. Nothing is going to work untill they address this. They also have to fix customer service. They have to start getting the illegal items off the site. Most of all they have to fix the pay direct and tos situations of cancleing accounts with no way to find out why. I have had auctions cancled and I have no idea why. When they cancle the auction i get the email that tells me I may be suspended for another violation. All attempts to find out what was wrong fail. So I feel like every time I sign on it may be my last time. I have had other members look at the affected auctions and trust me if their was something wrong we could not see it. I could care less about a couple of auctions being cancled in what i belive to be an error. It is the threat of being terminated with no way to get any feedback or justice that scares the hell out of me. This means to me they can not handle the level of auctions they have now. Right now I keep trying the other auctions, instead of concetrating on my Yahoo biz and pulling in more customers. If Yahoo wanted to they could give the two free auto relists and charge a small fvf. Listings would increase. I just think it is a much bigger problem fixing Yahoo than changing the fee's. I really like the way Yahoo's aution is set up software wise. Listing with auction manager is really fast and easy. But these tough problems to fix I mentioned above must be fixed and I don't see any improvment on them at all. I honestly feel they are not even addressing them. Well I took the time to put down how i feel and would like to see comments about it. Call me crazy, paranoid, or dead wrong. I would like to see feedback and would love to be wrong on how i feel.
posted on March 15, 2001 08:32:16 AM new
FVF does work. It shows that they are serious about providing paying bidders and might care if someone doesn't pay. Anything less is nonsense. Items should relist until they sell or are cancelled.
posted on March 15, 2001 08:40:57 AM new
ALL THESE POST ARE GREAT !!!
EXCEPT ONE PROBLEM...
PEOPLE LIKE YOU AND ME, THINK WITH COMMON SENSE AND WISDOM... THE WAY GOD MADE US !!!
BUT ON THE OTHER HAND, COMPANY'S & CORPORATIONS THINK DIFFERENTLY, HOW OR WHY, OR EVEN FOR THAT MATTER WHAT PLANET THEY ARE FROM, WHO KNOWS, I CAN TELL YOU ONE THING FOR SURE, THEY ARE NOT FERENGI'S !!!
posted on March 15, 2001 09:09:42 AM new
Thanks to those that took the time to leave feedback!
Much of what was stated is probably true. Yahoo acted very arbitrarily instituting fees without asking for suggestions from us, the sellers, who bring them the business. Afterall, how could they sell their banner ads if there were no auction listings to attach them to????
However, I was trying to be objective about this. Look at how many sellers are willing to pay listing fees and commissions on Ebay.
Sure, they get many more hits, but the fees kill the small guy who doesn't have the big profit margin. And have you ever tried to get any satisfaction from Ebay over a dispute or get an answer to a specific question?? Dream on!!
I have called Yahoo on many occasions and have ALWAYS gotten satisfaction and very friendly help. That in itself is worth something. They also take notes of suggestions we have and pass them along to management. Think of it as propaganda. The more times they hear our pleas and suggestions the better chance there will be that they will do something. REMEMBER, they are bleeding red ink profusely. They have to do something. Their banner advertisers are leaving in droves because their ads are not getting any viewings.
We sell mostly items under $10 & many under $5 and had great success with Yahoo before the fees started. We would return in a flash if they offered us a reasonable scenario costwise. Where have the rest of you gone? Bidlessville, Pootah, Epier, Lycos, BidBay, etc. Most of these sites are ghost towns. Nobody goes there! Yahoo still has name recognition and could rise from the ashes. Maybe they will finally wake up! Just my 2 cents!
posted on March 15, 2001 09:10:02 AM new
Boiled down, Yahoo has to become customer orientated in their auction segment to help with their own corporate survival.
Institute FVF now (and only FVF fees) AND provide adequate customer support in order to help the auction customers get this segment of their business turned around.
Yahoo, listen to and accept ideas and suggestions from customers here at ground zero. Then work rapidly and efficiency to act on the input for improvement recommended by the customers on the front lines here.
The time for Yahoo to ignore their customers and continue to direct Yahoo as they have in the past - is clearly over, and the old Yahoo method of management has became a dinosaur in a very short period of time. Your business methods are or soon will be extinct. Adapt and go with what really worked for other long-lived companies. Listen to the customers who tell you how to get them to pay you money instead of continuing to try and breath the rarified air up there. You've been suffocating long enough and have been arbitrarily forcing changes that none of the paying customers want or will accept - which makes that very bad for business. Maybe some regular air might broaden management prospectives.
It's only a restart. What does Yahoo have to lose by trying it now? I believe they have a lot to gain by trying to make Yahoo auctions successful now and get the 92% of lost listings back and participate in the revenue that would surely follow.
Better plans could be implemented as things evolve, but this way (de-evolution), is a sure method of extinction.
It's a chance, but it's the best one I see for the immediate future. Also from Yahoo, an I'm sorry we didn't listen to our "customers" sooner - would go a long way to improving relations as well. No one is going to hold your feet to the fire for saying that you are genuinely sorry, and would like to make amends. Many of us LIKE to help someone sincere about resolving their problems. Just be sure to send the spin-doctors away for a while and try honesty and candor.
Otherwise....well . never mind because anything short of that won't really help you (or us). It's now time to make a good decision for all concerned. What do you say Yahoo? Many are listening - are you?
JR
(edited for spelling/typos)
[ edited by Randolphjo on Mar 15, 2001 09:12 AM ]
posted on March 15, 2001 09:35:48 AM new
Yahoo!Auctions' management team are like deer blinded in the headlights. Motionless. Lacking a plan of corrective measures to recover from their ill-conceived listing fees.
Yahoo! itself is likely not concerned about Yahoo!Auctions since its a <10% business segment. Their collapsing revenue stream is a major concern right now and they don't seem to have a plan for that either.
posted on March 15, 2001 10:30:10 AM new
half.com is doing quite nicely with a FVF. (I know they are part of ebay now) But they have a growing inventory, now over 5 million items, and a growing customer base. Yahoo could have implemented the same. They were known for their slower turnaround with auction items.
Yahoo was well on its way to give some competition to ebay, but with their dreams of grandure..... They popped their own bubble with the unreasonable listing fees.
heikejohn everywhere else!
posted on March 15, 2001 11:37:40 AM new
Koogle was at the helm when the fees got started. That is the old Yahoo, the Yahoo with a bad reputation for turning a deaf ear. It'll change, the new CEO will know the mistakes that went on and try some new things.
A FVF is a reasonable tradeoff except that goes against Yahoo's plan on ridding the site of "Get rich tomorrow" and other listings that seldom sell. The problem in Yahoo's logic is that fees haven't prevented that stuff from being listed on ebay.
I'd like to see varying fees based on category. The more your category sells, the lower the fee. If you're in a category where everyone is listing at retail, and no one buys at those prices, then those sellers should pay more. The best categories should be free, the worse should be a minimum of $1. That might give incentive to the sellers who are in bad categories to lower their prices to attract bids, or find somewhere else to list.
posted on March 15, 2001 12:54:41 PM new
I would pay a monthly access fee and a fvf or a token listing fee of .o5 to .10 per auction plus a fvf. I am liquidating an estate and had 350 expensive, slow seling items listed in early 01. I used to average 20-30 sales per month for the last 1 1/4 years and in the slow summer season it dropped to 15 or so sales per month. I don't mind paying if something sells, but can't afford to pay $1440 per month just to list as Yahoos current structure demands. Hope things change soon. I've tried many other auctions and classifieds sights and they all stink. Ebay is prohibitive due to its fees and I sold 1 item on Bidville for $1450, but the other 49 test auctions expire with only 2 to 3 page views if that.
Take Care,
Fookisan
PS: all this depends on what Yahoo returns too if it changes it policy. If the've killed the old Yahoo auctions I would not use them if the buyers and sellers don't return.
posted on March 15, 2001 04:22:50 PM new
Serious mistake not starting with a very low fee and seeing what the market would bear. Let's assume starting with a 5 cent listing fee for all listings. If Yahoo lost 10% of their listings, they could wait a few months and raise the fee to 10 cents. They could have gradually raised fees until they lost 50% of their listings and then set the fees at that amount. I assume a 50% loss of listings was acceptable to Yahoo, since that is what they were projecting.
posted on March 15, 2001 04:37:59 PM new
Let me explain further my post about having fvf only on Yahoo not working. The major problem with not having a listing fee is this. I will use collectable plates as an example becouse this is one area out of many that I saw this happening. You have someone that has 1500 auctions done in bulk loading for plates. With no listing fee they would enter 100 auctions just about every other day for 14 day auctions. I believe this person did not stock a single plate. They probably lived close to a place that carried them. When someone bought one they went down the street and bought it. I say this becouse their were some out of stock comments in feedback. Now I would look through the catagory looking for certain things and really get tired of wading through all these auctions that I was not interested in. If i wanted one of those plates at that price I could simply go to a web site and order it. Then becouse they were doing this others started doing similar things and I just quit looking for plates on Yahoo. Now I am back to looking at the plates becouse the section is wonderfull now. Thier are many bargins from people selling things they no longer want and you can find them in the listings now without having to wade through 10,000 listings that really did not in my opinion have any value but for a few. Now I think Yahoo really needs to allow some amount of relsits to be free. I think they need to strike a balance that people that sell 5.00 to 50.00 items can live with considering the anount of buyer traffic Yahoo has. The collectable plate catagory has about 550 listings right now and I don't see enough sales to support that amount of listing. Plus shill bidding to avoid fee's on items is happening I am sure and that makes the sell rate you see even lower that it appears. I feel that this catagory will drop to a level that will make me forget about it in a few more months. This has allready happened to many catagories. I also sell on Yahoo and need some relief on these fee's or I will have to continue to lower the amount of listings I run here. At this point I really believe listings will dive way under 100,000 durring the summer months. I really think Yahoo management is still thinking that any day now hundreds of thousands of buyers are going to flock to the site and make the listing fee's seem like nothing. I just do not see that happening. I hope it does but I live on planet earth and from here I don't see it.
posted on March 15, 2001 05:51:42 PM new
EDDIEl
I agree with you! FVF will not work! I look around at the FREE listing sites and they are getting loaded with X Yahoo so called Auction folks loading them up with listings at above RETAIL PRICES or BOOK PRICES for FREE advertising to direct them to their websites!
To list something until it sells is a CLASSIFIED ADD and not an AUCTION!
Probalblly wouldn't be bad if these folks didn't relist every two days!
Also as your example indicates! Another auction site has about 74,000 books listed by apparently one seller! I think they may be using FVF and no listing fee?
Heck I would only like to get $0.01/month from 1,000,000 of you folks for a few years and my forth coming retirement would be great! Better then I ever did working!
posted on March 15, 2001 07:14:04 PM new
EDDIE; I believe you are right. FVF's are not the way to go. I don't think my suggestion for a flat monthly fee would work any better. Lower listing fees that will atract X-Yahoo and eBay sellers seems like the only realistic solution.
posted on March 15, 2001 08:27:54 PM new
They have stated over and over they will not go with FVF's. Dozens of articles posted here for the past few months all use the same old quote "A final value fee would not have reduced the clutter on the site." The scrapped "seller rewards program" limiting sellers to 1,000 ads a month was also designed to reduce clutter and did not work. Face it, if they won't let go of this objective there's no way they'll go with unlimited listings for flat fees either. Heck, they won't even give any free ads to the people paying $100 or whatever a month for a Yahoo storefront.
According to them they don't want a million ads, just a few hundred thousand "quality" ads. They repeatedly state in the press how successful the fees have been producing higher bid activity and sales dollars because bidders don't have to wade through all the clutter to find what they want. As long as they continue singing this tune they won't listen to any suggestion about re-structuring fees. I think the current Auction management team will have to go before any changes will be made.
posted on March 15, 2001 09:00:54 PM new
kasmoon >
According to them they don't want a million ads, just a few hundred thousand "quality" ads.
Interesting, because over the past two days I've made the following purchases
eBay - 2
ePier - 2
Bidville - 2
Yahoo - 1
with several additional purchases planned on ePier and Bidville in the next day or so.
Since Yahoo!Auctions got rid of the "clutter", and that "clutter" has largely migrated to auction sites like ePier and Bidville, does that mean my specialized collection is merely "clutter"?
posted on March 16, 2001 12:34:00 AM new
FV fees I will pay. Listing fees I won't pay. It's just that simple.
I think the posters in this thread are so accustomed to the YahooBot mentality of doing business they have forgot the rest of the world uses some real humans.
All the problems mentioned here with FV fees can be addressed if you hire a few people to police the site. The things Yahoo doesn't want on their site can be made a violation of TOS and the violators banned. Remember now to be a seller you have to use your own credit card since your Yahoo Wallet get's charged. Yahoo could easliy identify a banned seller with a new credit card.
posted on March 16, 2001 04:47:20 AM new
What I think I can distill and infer from some of these most useful news article links that've been posted in other threads is that the auctions decisions have likely been made long in advance and from the "top" probably mostly by that Tim Koogle. One report had him saying a year ago that auction fees would be instituted; another more interesting one suggested that the reason their buyout of Ebay over a year ago fell through was that Meg of Ebay wanted direct lines of communication to the very top of Yahoo should the companies be merged. I can put the two reports together to wonder if Koogle might've even adopted a "I'll show HER" attitude to try to force Yahoo auctions into profitability after trying to "pirate" Ebay sellers with the funny-money offers.
Be that as it may, there's no way the dozen or so Yahoo Auctions people can be expected to be anything but Yes Men to their outfit's (ex-)CEO if he says Jump! regarding their fee policy. Feedback to them in chat sessions? Offering help via email or these postings? Hopeless.
Actually, here's a Modest Proposal. Yahoo might consider setting up a "Survivor" ripoff! Combine a layoff announcement for the company (reducing overhead) with a new chat-room and web-cam subscription offer... you know, like one of those voyeur sites? Charge $25 a week for web access to a conference room with say the dozen Yahoo Auctions employees locked in together with a dozen from the message board division with them required to "vote somebody off the island" each day. Persons voted off are immediately given a real-life pink slip.
Hell, I might even pay to watch that politicking take place! Imagine what they could sell the ad banners for, too!
