posted on March 26, 2001 08:40:07 PM new
I'm doing well on Yahoo right now but it's low priced stuff. Cross stitch is selling better on Yahoo than on ebay.
posted on March 26, 2001 09:56:04 PM new
I rate yahoo now at a 5. I don't like admitting it, but, many fewer dead beat bidders. However, very few hits mostly sell on the BIN. Before the fees rate at a 7-8. Started with Onsale in late 1997 prior to yahoo buying them and changing to auctions.yahoo. Onsale was great! Yahoo was always eager to cancel the entire account because of an alledged TOS violation without explaining. I lost mail when this happened the first time and I had paid for the extra megas of space. Naturally they wouldn't refund the money and locked me completely out of the account including address book...everything. I would never keep my mail account there again..a warning to the wise.
Zack
posted on March 26, 2001 10:27:52 PM new
Before fees, my sell-through rate (with much, much higher prices) was about 10% (about 1% of open auctions selling daily, or 10% of total listings during 10-day runs).
Since fees, my sell-through was 45% a couple weeks ago and is now about 15% (on 14-day auctions). These are the SAME ITEMS I sold before, but now they're bargain basement-priced.
At these prices, my sell-through should be 80% or more. There's no way I can afford to list with "real" money after my feedback credits run out---15% selling at marginal profits doesn't support YaWho's present listing fees. I'm trying to start listing on eBay again, but they keep GOING DOWN at critical times.
posted on March 27, 2001 02:03:55 AM new
I don't think my 25 YaWho listings are enough to make valid conclusions, but I do know I've only sold 5 items the past 16 days including one deadbeat.
I think it's clear the sell thru rate is down, not up since listing fees, but it may be mostly because of the bad economy.
I predict that even ePay is going to suffer negative growth soon. Surely sellers are going to tire of losing money or making nothing on listings that get no bidders.
For example tonight I did a search in completed ePay auctions for the CdRom computer game: Chessmaster 7000. There were hendreds of them but I just looked at the 1st page of 50 that came up. Assuming all 50 were listed for $.30, the bare minimum, ePay grabbed $15.00 in Listing fees for those 50 items. 6 of them sold at an average price of $8.00. ePay made $2.40 FV fees for that. Ignoting any other fees the sellers may have squandered their money on, the 50 items examined collectively grossed the sellers $48 and they paid $17.40 in fees. That's 36% of the money received went to ePay. $30.60 is left in gross profit without considering the cost of acquiring 50 of the games.
And how much time was collectively spent listing 50 items and completing the 6 that sold? About 15 hours? That makes the revenue on net money received at $2.00 per hour.
So it doesn't make sense to list on ePay unless you are a consumer who is cleaning out the attic for whatever you can get...just like the garage or yard sale. Is there really that many people who are willing to repeatedly do that much work for so little money, or will they all tire of internet auctions eventually when they realize they'd rather be watching a football game on the telly?
posted on March 27, 2001 06:22:55 AM new
I just started listing again, and have maybe 12 items up. [secondhand books] There is a mix of items, some very low price which I will discard if they don't sell, others are "nice" items I would otherwise put on ebay.
Over the past few days, I've had 1 sale per day. This is better than in the past. I am also satisfied with the amounts paid, esp. since I don't have to pay FVF. People are responding to my email, so I hope to get the payments.
Since I have $400 in funny money to spend, my plan is to keep listing steadily, using the first bid wins strategy on 10 day auctions. Maybe after a couple of months I will be able to tell if it's worth actually paying listing fees to Yahoo. Right now it appears to me that there ARE bidders using the site, which is more than can be said for Bidville in my category.
posted on March 27, 2001 08:26:30 AM new
On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd say about a 7. I'm doing as well over here now as I've done on eBay. Big improvement for me.
I've sold over 30 items since I started listing here again on March 11th. I plan to continue as long as it keeps up so well.
posted on March 27, 2001 08:50:22 AM newI think it's clear the sell thru rate is down, not up since listing fees, but it may be mostly because of the bad economy.
I predict that even ePay is going to suffer negative growth soon. Surely sellers are going to tire of losing money or making nothing on listings that get no bidders.
Actually, the site-wide sell-through rate has improved from about 5% before the listing fee to about 30% now.
I agree that even Ebay's growth has at least slowed due to the slowing economy. You can see it in the item counts. Before it's taken a dip during Christmas and then goes back onto its longterm uptrend. It doesn't appear to be doing that this year.
posted on March 27, 2001 09:37:11 AM new
"Actually, the site-wide sell-through rate has improved from about 5% before the listing fee to about 30% now. "
Perhaps more sellers are listing at under $10 minimum and taking their chances or using shills to save on listing fees?
posted on March 27, 2001 11:51:40 AM new
It was my understanding from an earlier post that the 30% sell-through rate was for weekends; no rate was given for weekdays.
posted on March 27, 2001 01:17:46 PM new
Hi John
I'm curious if you track these sales ratios by category. Last month and still I contend that the item largely accounting for most of the sites increase was Dale Earnhardt memorabilia. Before his death D.E. daily sales averaged 35 per day. The week after 400 per day. I haven't checked the D.E. closed auctions in a few weeks but I see today the 90 day average has dropped to 174 sales per day. Now that it is leveling off I wonder how the site overall sales increases will be maintained.
I have no D.E. items, my sales avg. is about 10 of 30 weekly Yahoo ads but the important factor is that I send the winners links to my similar items on Bidville and they buy more there.
posted on March 27, 2001 02:06:31 PM newPerhaps more sellers are listing at under $10 minimum and taking their chances or using shills to save on listing fees?
And where do you get this 30% stat? - zzyzx000
Zzyzx000,
I believe the average selling price is now $40. I collect all my own information. Outside the industry and certain professional industry watchers I'm beginning to get the feeling I gather more information and pay closer attention to internet auction industry than anyone else I have ever encountered.
In absolute terms though, it's possible that Yahoo has half the gross merchandise sales as it did before the listing fee. There, you see, I'm not just a mouthpiece for them : )
I'm curious if you track these sales ratios by category. - kasmoon
Kasmoon,
I haven't paid much attention to how individual categories do though I do have that information. I don't think the auctions are much affected by Dale Earnhardt items. Yahoo Auctions (though smaller) is bigger than any one suddenly popular category. Its success rate appears to be constant since early February when the last of the free relisted items closed.
I wonder if Bidville is going to gradually gain awareness among general auction buyers. They no longer show that they have a million items so I wonder if their count is now "honest" (no multiple counting of dutch auctions). As a business I wonder how they're going to make any profit. Anyway, just wondering out loud.
John
Editted to add answer DimView: True, just weekends due to laziness. It might be a bit lower, but I doubt it would be substantially lower. Otherwise, all sellers would list to close only during weekends. However, the distribution of items doesn't heavily favor any particular day, though there's slightly more during weekends (heavy line; use the right axis)
posted on March 27, 2001 02:42:49 PM new
I think you have Bidville mixed up with Bidbay. Bidville has never to my knowledge overcounted their actual auctions.
I think you have to be very careful analizing averages. It seems Yahoo is worthwhile for new expensive consumer electronics items. Those items have always done well on the internet and Yahoo's listing fees are a small % of the sales price. Yahoo does have a huge amount of lookers, so dealers are flocking to Yahoo to sell those items.
But those sales greatly raise the averages of both price and sell-thru while huge #'s of items listed for under $10 are selling for under $10 and causing a loss, or are getting no bids at all.
I don't know how long this will continue, but I have witnessed it on ePay for years with no sign of sellers backing off. There are still hundreds of Atari 2600 games listed for $1.00 and the 5% that sell generally sell for just $1.00. So long as new users continue to flock to the internet, they will continue to learn their lessons the hard way.
posted on March 27, 2001 04:27:10 PM new
For me, two or three sales today alone, which is WAY better than in the past. I just sold a copy of a book on Yahoo for a first-bid-wins of $10, which I sold at auction on ebay for $4.25 a few days ago [another copy I mean].
I got another $10 sale yesterday. That's hardly bargain-basement prices. I am really tickled!
posted on March 27, 2001 05:45:23 PM newPerhaps more sellers are listing at under $10 minimum and taking their chances or using shills to save on listing fees?
I am one of those sellers. I do not practice "shill" bidding but don't mind telling you I have given it concideration on this batch of auctions!!!! I am ashamed of myself too!
I gambled and lost. I have bids on all but 2 of my auctions (those two were listed last night). I started at $9.99 no reserve and gambled I could get some bid interest going early. I did. Unfortunately nobody is proxy bidding. They are bidding one increment at a time. I have 3 closing in the next hour and it will by far be the worst prices I have ever gotten on any auction site.
I have nobody to blame but myself, but I felt I had to give it a try. I am regretting that decision now.
It doesn't matter if your sell through is high if you have no profit or worse yet sell at a loss!!!!!
posted on March 27, 2001 06:34:30 PM new
Well, I had been considering putting up a few auctions, but nixed the idea because I believe the slow ongoing decline in the number of listings is a direct reflection of sellers concluding that Yahoo!Auctions is not a cost-effective auction site.
The problem continues to be a lack of traffic. Yahoo!Auctions management team stated that steps would be taken to drive buyers to the auction site, but I've seen nothing from Yahoo! to lead me to believe that is going to happen anytime soon, if at all.
posted on March 27, 2001 06:50:09 PM new
I started listing on Yahoo about a year ago. Typically, I have between 20 and 30 auctions going at a time, and for most of the past year, my rate of sales has been about 2 a week.
In the past 2 weeks (with the same number and type of listings), I have had about 30 sales, many for prices much better than I get for the same item on eBay. In fact, there are some items I have stopped listing on eBay entirely- I only put them on Yahoo now.
Yes, that's it. IMO, one of the problems with trying to discuss sales is that there is such a wide variety of items out there, and each is going to have its' own ups and downs.
The fact that one particular seller (or category) on one site (or another) is doing well often means little to sellers whose own category is entirely different and is not performing at the same level.
posted on March 27, 2001 09:08:55 PM new
Ha ha you spoke to soon Bidbay now has on their front page over 1,030,000 listings lolol. I guess they got a bunch more 1 cent items listed for the games. Someone must have remembered to hit the relist button lol.
posted on March 27, 2001 09:55:51 PM new
While the new YaWho may be good for a few sellers, if you look at the big picture and the 92% decline in listings, you can conclude it's not ok for the vast majority.
If YaWho wanted just new computers and Digital cameras sold there, they may get their wish, but it was an expensive experiment on their part. They turned their back on the inexpensive and not-so-popular items for whom there were perhaps only a handful of potential buyers in the whole world at any one time. These are the flea market items and they may take a long time to sell but they did sell. As we told them, 5% FV fees were reasonable, but listing fees were too expensive.
In December they would have made $500 in FV fees at 5% from my 2000 listings, or $6000 in listingg fees at the current rates.
The business they turned their back on is a niche that will be picked up by others. Bidville has picked up 500,000 listings from YaWho's discards. Now they need to pick up the buyers.
Sunday I went through my records and made a mailing list for just my past PC software customers. I sent them all a notice that I've moved to Bidville and showed them how to use the search engine to search for my items in just the Computer category. That has generated about 10 sales so far. I'm hoping others with a a YaWho history will follow suit and inform past customers where they now are listing.
BTW if you do a mass mailing, please don't put all the addresses in the "to" field of your email program. If you do, you will also send the entire list of email addresses to all the recipients...a breach of privacy. I use a rather unpopular email program called Agent, so I don't know how this compares to others, but if I send the message to myself and then copy my mailing list (email addresses seperated by commas) into the field called "Bcc", then a copy of the message gets sent to everybody on the list as if they are the only one getting the message.
posted on March 27, 2001 10:49:55 PM newBut those sales greatly raise the averages of both price and sell-thru while huge #'s of items listed for under $10 are selling for under $10 and causing a loss, or are getting no bids at all. - zzyzx000
Zzyzx000,
It could be true that much of the items on Yahoo are $10 or below. If that was true it would be very Ebay-like. Not too long ago and this could still be true, $10 was the median closing price on Ebay. So, half of all items closed on Ebay in the $0-10 range and many sellers apparently find that a profitable price range. And I know I'm repeating myself but the average selling prices on both Ebay and Yahoo are about the same now at $40.
I think the reason is that, though many people are perfectly comfortable with internet auctions, a large number of people aren't comfortable sending a total stranger, say, more than $20 for goods they can't inspect first.
