posted on May 31, 2001 05:57:59 PM new
Yahoo Auctions Says Smaller Is Better
By Andrea Orr
PALO ALTO, Calif. (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc. on Thursday said its decision earlier this year to add fees to its popular auction service has proven a clear success, even though it has lost a lot of traffic as a result.
The company said that in the five months since it introduced small listing fees on its U.S. auction site, the percentage of listed merchandise being sold has soared, as has overall bidding activity and average selling prices.
However, the company remains selective about disclosing site metrics. Representatives will not say just how far overall listings dropped when Yahoo introduced fees, but analysts who follow the company estimate the company has lost about 90 percent of its U.S. listings, which effectively eliminates its chances of becoming the market leader.
``They are doing very well, it is just that now it is on a much smaller scale,'' said Safa Rashtchy, an analyst with U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray. ``They are clearly no threat to eBay by any means.''
Yahoo says it hosts about three million auctions on any given day, while eBay Inc. typically hosts six million. Analysts note however, that even that three million figure masks the sharp decline Yahoo has seen in its U.S. business, the place where it charges listing fees.
But smaller could be better for Yahoo as it comes under increased pressure to charge fees for services it once provided free as part of a new focus on building revenues rather than audience size. Brian Fitzgerald, senior producer for Yahoo Auctions, said that by adding fees the company has managed to rid its site of ``a lot of junk'' that never sold anyway.
And because Yahoo is charging a flat fee rather than one based on a percentage of the total sales price, it is proving more economic than eBay for large ticket items, Fitzgerald said. He said computers and electronics, antiques, collectibles and sports memorabilia are all popular on its site, although some very small-ticket items like certain individual baseball cards are not being listed as often.
In the months since it added the listing fees, Yahoo has also taken other steps to attract bidders and sellers, offering premium placement to top sellers and integrating its auctions into other areas of its site, so for example, visitors may be alerted to sports memorabilia items on the block, while they are reading other sports content.
But while the company says it still very much wants to compete with eBay, others say the game is long over and Yahoo is better off positioning itself as a niche auction service.
``I think Yahoo's auction strategy has fundamentally changed, from initially wanting to catch up with eBay, to using auctions as a channel to help other Yahoo properties,'' said U.S. Bancorp's Rashtchy.
``However, it could at some point become a low-cost alternative to eBay.''
posted on May 31, 2001 06:20:14 PM new
Some one should inform this Brian Fitzgerald that more then 75% of that "JUNK" yahoo lost when it introduced it listing fees Has long been Sold and quickly on ebay and other sites.
and dure to there short sitedness and not listening to its users and useing FVF % and fee listing they manage to now lose out on many more thousands of dollars they could ever dream of makeing under there current system.
my bet is many of the items that were listed for free on yahoos site with its piss poor bidding was sold less then two weeks on other sites.
hell these people dont even have to buy this clue its been given to them for free and they still cant afford it. http://www.Dman-N-Company.com
posted on June 1, 2001 07:02:42 AM new
since yahoo started charging listing fee's, we have just left a few auctions on their site and have posted our auctions on tow other sites. we use to post 300 to 400 auctions on yahoo but we are down to maybe 5 to 18. yahoo doesnt have the right to say what is junk and what isnt. the saying is.. one man's junk is another man's treasure. yahoo is being very unfair and greedy!! yahoo has lost by charging listing fee's. click on their success stories at the yahoo auctions page. you will only find 2 or 3 different ones. yahoo was once a great place to be and would be again if they would drop their listing fee's.
posted on June 1, 2001 07:08:30 AM new
If Yahoo!Auctions "business model" of implementing listing fees did such a great job at the U.S. auction site, why did they not repeat it in Japan?
posted on June 1, 2001 07:23:18 AM new
At the beginning of 2000, we totally switched from eBay to Yahoo, and did our major selling on Yahoo, and did great through out 2000.
When in early 2001, Yahoo started charging, we stayed, till they went insane with their TOS cancellations - THAT, AND THAT more than anything else is what sent us back to eBay. Even now, with eBay's new rules, if you get an auction cancelled for a TOS violation, you know why, and your money is refunded - NOT like Yahoo who cancelled your auctions, and you had no idea why, your money wasn’t refunded, and then in many instances, they totally cancelled your account! THAT IS WHAT SENT US PACKING - not the charging.
posted on June 1, 2001 07:41:06 PM new
"the company remains selective about disclosing site metrics."
Mmmmhmmm, every time in Jan-March the press asked them for figures they claimed #'s would be released in April on the end of quarter report. I have never seen them released anywhere, has anyone else? It would be interesting to see facts about how much they've made rather than all our speculation about how much of it is credits.
"However, it could at some point become a low-cost alternative to eBay."
I forget what the maximum listing fee is, $2.25 I think. So if you had a bunch of $1000 items it certainly would be a low cost alternative to eBay. You could pay the insertion fees for all the multi relists it takes to sell and come out cheaper than eBay's FVF's. Now if only I had a bunch of $1000 items to sell.
Dman
"that "JUNK" yahoo lost when it introduced it listing fees Has long been Sold and quickly on ebay and other sites."
I'll buy the part about eBay but as for the other sites I think the stuff is still parked there.
Myauctions
Yep...but...every press statement they've made since Jan claims they're pleased as punch and see no reason to change anything. They are idiots and I don't think anything will ever change their stance on fees.
Dimview
{wink}
Insight
You insult those who were canceled without learning why by continually claiming you had the same problem. ROFL at the times you posted you didn't agree with their rules therefore you felt you didn't have to follow them. 'Screw all my NW complaints I'm relisting the same way, Yahoo's not going to do anything to a power seller.' We posters here told you what to do to fix your ads & save your accounts and YOU chose not to take that advice. Your cancellations were on you, no one else was to blame and they were not a mystery.
By the way, when exactly did you leave Yahoo? I see from the closed list your latest ads just ended 5/24/01. Yet it's been months since 3 of your ID's got the boot and you claimed you'd storm off never to return.
posted on June 2, 2001 11:33:55 AM new
Kasmoon, you said, "So if you had a bunch of $1000 items it (Yahoo) certainly would be a low cost alternative to eBay. You could pay the insertion fees for all the multi relists it takes to sell and come out cheaper than eBay's FVF's. Now if only I had a bunch of $1000 items to sell."
That's ASSUMING that the $1000 items actually do SELL on Yahoo. Paying Yahoo's insertion fees for multiple relists will only "come out cheaper than eBay's FVF's" IF the items sell, and WHEN they sell **before** your Yahoo list/relist fees reach the point of exceeding eBay's listing & FVFs.
Look at Yahoo's closed auctions. How many $1000 auctions do you see there????????
A few used cars, maybe, but nothing else. Only really 'hot' items will bring more than a few dollars now. It's pitiful.
And the truly UNBELIEVABLE part is that Yahoo CONTINUES to hold on to its Auction listing fee structure and public relations 'spin'. Any CEO with half a brain in his head could have and would have looked at the numbers MONTHS ago and stopped this massacre.
But not YaWho. They will paint a rosy picture of their Auction situation until the day they close it down for lack of "quality" listings---which would probably already have happened had eBay not pulled all its latest stunts to infuriate sellers.
posted on June 2, 2001 04:00:42 PM new
Glad to see you posting here again Granee, I always enjoy your Yahoo slams!
I know this is a small portion of Yahoo but the category I had looked at was Computer laptops. I noted there were 115 open ads that were $1000 and over and 51 of them had bids. That's a lot better sell through rate (44%) than the rest of Yahoo. Most of the ads still had days left so the sell through % might actually go higher. So I calculated the difference between putting your new laptop on eBay vs. Yahoo:
eBay 7 day no frills basic ad= $28.93 in fees if listed and sold for $1000.
Yahoo basic ad= $2.25 total fees if sold first run. You could run 12 Yahoo ads for 14 days each=168 day run for a total of $27.00 without featuring. Hopefully in 168 days you would achieve a sale, especially if that sell through rate is constant. (I don't know, I've never peeked in this category before and I only calculated the $1000 & higher ads.)
On the other end of the scale the least Yahoo makes off an ad is 20 cents. If they had a 5% FVF with free listing they would make the same .20 off a $4.00 item sold. The majority of sold items go for more than $4.00 and if they had free listings they would have multi millions of listings to make commissions from. Still they don't see that would be more profitable for them. They would rather court big business to list high ticket goods they only make $2.25 from.
posted on June 2, 2001 04:15:27 PM new
I forgot to add, the 51 laptop bids totalled $69,000. That would have netted Yahoo $3,450.00 if a 5% FVF was in place vs. the $258.75 they got in insertion fees. They obviously don't have any math geniuses working there.
posted on June 2, 2001 11:27:13 PM new
They don't have ANY kind of geniuses working there.
msCuFF @ BV
Additionally... a company that would use the tactics Yahoo Auctions has been using recently to achieve their 'goal' is not going to last much longer on the Web or anywhere else for that matter.
Taking into account Yahoo's stock market plunge and the Dot Com Death phenomenon I wouldn't be completely surprised if Yahoo Auctions became a casualty. Afterall, how many dot coms have already disappeared that actually had GOOD business ethics?
Word of Mouth travels fast. The speed with which word travels on the web may prove to be even more amazing.
posted on June 4, 2001 06:06:41 PM new
"But while the company says it still very much wants to compete with eBay, others say the game is long over and Yahoo is better off positioning itself as a niche auction service. "
Just which 'niche' would that be? The only niche I ever saw that wasn't already locked up by ePay was the 'junk' sellers who said in unison they could pay FV fees but not listing fees, and whom YaFool showed the door to.
[ edited by zzyzx000 on Jun 4, 2001 06:07 PM ]
posted on June 4, 2001 10:47:52 PM new
kasmoon, you said, "I noted there were 115 open ads that were $1000 and over and 51 of them had bids. That's a lot better sell through rate (44%) than the rest of Yahoo. Most of the ads still had days left so the sell through % might actually go higher."
These were (I assume) NEW laptop computers. Did you open each auction to see if the listings had RESERVES on them, and if so, if those reserves had been met???
44% of listings in a category HAVING BIDS doesn't mean anything with "hot" items like laptops. What's much more IMPRESSIVE is if all those laptops end up selling. I know when I was shopping for a new laptop six months ago, every one I found listed on Yahoo Auction had a reserve and/or opening bid at the retail level.
If YaWho Auction really DOES now have a sell-through rate of 31% (as they're claiming), I'd be willing to bet that figure is for ALL of Yahoo's Auctions, including Japan, just as their claim of having 3 million Auction listings includes the 2 million they have in Japan (which is still basically FREE for sellers at a nominal $2.25/month charge) and all their other foreign Auction listings.
They should be ashamed of themselves, spitting out deceiving "numbers" like that. . . and the stupid reporters who QUOTE IT VERBATIM without questioning the ACCURACY of the figures should be sent back to journalism school.
posted on June 7, 2001 08:26:57 PM new
Time for me to sound off on Yahoo. In today’s auction watch it was stated that Yahoo says they will be more specific in the TOS cancellations. However the other day Yahoo canceled 90 of my postings (Legitimate music posters) and my account was gone. There was no valid reason for the cancellation and in Yahoo’s email to me it states that someone claimed I violated their TOS but would not say what the violation was.
Today my account was reinstated. Auctions are still gone, but Yahoo made a mistake. If Yahoo thinks I am going to pay for 90 insertions of my auctions to have them cancel it and then say OOPs.. they have another thing coming. Time to call the credit card company and issue a dispute!
Yahoo had their head up the backside. They are causing more grief then anyone else combined. As soon as other free / cheap sites start drawing more business YAHOO will find them selves sitting on a stoop somewhere strumming a fiddle and singing the YAHOO sound to themselves!
posted on June 7, 2001 08:58:15 PM new
One time YaFool cancelled a listing of mine and I got some details from an employee I got on the phone. I sell a lot of old software to collectors. Early Microsoft software sells pretty good so long as it's complete in the original packaging. The item in question was Microsoft DOS 4.0 on 5.25" floppys for an obscure and long extinct PC from the 1980's.
So the story I got is that Microsoft monitors the auction sites and decides when items resold are violating their licensing policies. We could argue all day about whether I had the right to sell this package, but the bottom line is that Yahoo simply did whatever Microsoft wanted.... Microsoft has more lawyers than Yahoo is my rationale for that.
Then the Yahoo "Posse" did 4 same time NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH spam objections to a handful of my listings. I has 2000 listings, and with all the deadbeats, and complications of maintaining that many listings, I had that many duplicate listings for the same item. I did not have them in different categories..it was simply a mistake that gave me no advantage and which I would have deleted in a heartbeat if I had known they were duplicated.
So somebody at YaFool, deleted ALL 2000 of my listings. After talking on the phone to somebody there, all I could learn is that this was not automatically done by a computer, but was approved by an employee, with no warning or contact with me first.
From what I've been reading lately, I guess I was lucky I wasn't suspended, and so I was allowed to resubmit my 2000 listings.
So it seems YaFool hasn't learned anything the past few months. They shoot first and ask questions later (never, actually).
posted on June 8, 2001 10:00:09 AM new
{ROTFLMAO MODE ON}
Now, let's be fair. We should all strive to become "premium sellers" just like Yahoo!Auctions says. And its so easy, just a few simple steps:
> one of the top rates of items sold (i.e. sell-through)
> high gross merchandise sales within his/her category
> consistent quantities of inventory from month to month
> overall high quality of items and listings positive bidder ratings
> a fresh and functional Yahoo! Auction Booth
Yahoo!Auctions has been running, let's say, 200,000 auctions for the January-February-March quarter. Perhaps they averaged fifty cents each in listing fees. So they've been generating $100,000 each week, or $1.3 million for the quarter.
The company reported $180.2 million in revenue for the quarter, so the "major" impact of Yahoo!Auctions is to contribute a piddly 0.7% of overall revenue.
Now do you see why the head office has done nothing to turnaround Yahoo!Auctions.
I think your Yahoo Auction revenue estimates are too high (even if ALL the listings were paid for with REAL money instead of feedback credits, which they weren't).
With a constant 200,000 Auction listings, running an AVERAGE of 10 days each (since few listings are put up for a week, and some bulk loader listings run 14 days), the total number of listings per quarter would average around 1,800,000. At 50 cents each in average fees (which is probably more in the neighborhood of 30 cents) YaWho Auctions generated maybe $900,000 this quarter (still assuming no feedback credits were used). That's .5% of their quarterly revenue. . .and I agree that that's why Yahoo's new CEO has done nothing about the Auction, and probably WON'T do anything about it except to eventually shut it down.
I took a look at some of the Premium Sellers and had to laugh. The only really successful one I saw was a charity auction selling authenticated 'star' and sports memorabilia (which was probably donated). Some were selling new collectibles (not very successfully), and one seller had a link to his AuctionAddict storefront in his Yahoo listing! The others were selling mostly items under $10, many for the opening bids of $1.00. (WHY BOTHER? It's not worth the TROUBLE of selling something for $1.00!!) One Premium Seller has a negative rating of over 15%!!!!!!!!!!!!
