posted on June 11, 2001 12:30:24 PM new
tomwiii, two sales out of 26 listings is a 7-8% success rate---the same success rate my last batch of listings on Yahoo had when the batch closed in early April, and about 4% LOWER than the success rate I had before listing fees were implemented in January. The only "high" sell-through rate I've EVER experienced on Yahoo was in January after the fees were announced, when the bidders decided it was their **last chance** to buy. . .and I sold 45% of my listings (the SAME ITEMS I'd always sold on Yahoo).
I noticed that YaWho's listing numbers went up in the past two weeks---about the same time you put your items up. I figured things were **So Bad** on eBay (so bad I quit listing for the summer) that many sellers were trying YaWho again because it was cheaper (for one listing, anyway).
Two questions:
1) Is a success rate of 7-8% high enough to make it worth all the WORK of listing?
posted on June 13, 2001 06:10:00 AM new
I decided to go ahead and list a handful of things. As of yesterday I already had bids on two of them, and they weren't listed with a starting minimum of $1.99 either. This is better performance than Bidville, and since I still have credits, right now it's still risk-free.
Yup you got that right! Yahoo is still lightyears ahead of Bidville in terms of bidding action and sell-through! It was wrong of me to give up on them the way I did. I sold an item yesterday with a buy it now for more than I've ever gotten on eBay. It would have never sold on Bidville or ePier --- in fact I have it up on both sites with no interest. Yahoo has promise, low listing fees, NO FVFs, much much less competition than eBay, and PayDirect is FREE. They certainly have a massive user base that they still haven't learned to steer toward auctions. Just a little effort on their part and we could see a huge surge in Yahoo auction activity!
posted on June 13, 2001 07:30:42 AM new
I'm not convinced it WAS wrong to drop out during the shake-down period, because there was a lot of listing by folks who were relisting or using credits. It might be a different environment now...less competition but perhaps relatively more quality items for buyers to look at?
posted on June 13, 2001 08:17:23 AM new
huh, I just did some browsing and found a GREAT book for sale at a nice price that I am reasonably confident I can re-sell on ebay. So I put my first ever bid on a Yahoo auction!
posted on June 18, 2001 08:25:40 AM new
Tomwill, the question is how well the same
items would have done on eBay--before you
can talk about whether or not this was a
"not too shabby" result.
Is anyone doing controlled tests using
duplicates of the same items on both venues?
posted on June 18, 2001 08:02:19 PM new
Tom
No, not too shabby since you said you only needed 30% sold to make it worth it.
Grobe
For every item I list on Yahoo there are either 0, 1 or 2 other sellers running the same thing. On eBay there are 20-40 sellers running the same things because these items aren't terribly unique.
I see at least 6 of 10 of the ones on eBay close without bids week after week. The ones that close with winners rarely get as high as my Yahoo opening price. For those 2 reasons I'm not interested in experimenting on eBay. My Yahoo sell-through is good overall (awful some weeks, great others) and I have free credits for relisting.
When I have something very unique--eBay hands down, other stuff Yahoo. I do have listings on the free sites but sales have gone from low to zero lately.
posted on June 19, 2001 09:34:23 AM new
Well I went and listed 4 nonfoil Pokemon trading cards sets on yahoo just to see if anything happens...
I now have spread out from Ebay to half.com (yeah yeah, I know its still ebay related, but the fees are cheaper) and Yahoo... would list on Amazon if I thought anyone was looking... Desperately want to find other active places to sell before Ebay dries up for me completely... 8(
posted on June 19, 2001 04:29:51 PM new
Update: I posted just above that I listed 4 Pokemon non-foil sets on Yahoo. These sets have for the most part been sitting idle on Ebay with a starting bid of $9.99, BIN $15.00.
I just had a Yahoo BIN on one of the sets and payment via Paydirect.
posted on June 20, 2001 04:53:21 AM new
I just noticed the main Yahoo overall portal page has a bit different format for its mentions of the auctions functions. Not long ago there were larger-type, more prominent mentions of a couple of the general categories I sell in, but not now. I had noticed some lower-FB newbies doing some bidding... no problems with them paying, either... now I think I'm mostly seeing a reduced group of return bidders, no newbies, in one area and a general wasteland in a couple of other categories. My better area shows page views ranging from 20 to hundreds, the poorer from zero to 4 or 5, over the last week, with a lot of featuring.
I think that phrase "driving users to auctions" may actually be something they can choose to do to some extent, but they sure aren't doing it very well right now, not to the areas I have to see bidders in.
Edit to add: Ahhh.. katiyana, I see one of the categories they DO mention specifically on the main Yahoo entry page, in a short list following "Auctions" text, is "Pokemon." If I were you, I'd try to catch the wave there with some more listings... feature one or two of your best, pay enough to have them at the top of the list (even if just for a couple days), and emphasize in those listings "I have more items like this, LOOK, please."
[ edited by pyth00n on Jun 20, 2001 04:59 AM ]
[ edited by pyth00n on Jun 20, 2001 05:00 AM ]
posted on June 20, 2001 05:10:37 AM new
I've stuck my toe out just a little and been listing a few items on Yahoo that have been selling on eBay (collectibles). Listed 11 items in the past 10 days and sold 3 with Buy It Nows, each for higher prices than I've gotten on eBay. I set the Buy It Now higher than on eBay since there's no competition for the types of collectibles I sell. The other items are still running with no bids. Not great sell-through but Yahoo's fees beat eBay's hands down, and you apparently get some sort of rebate on listing fees if your item sells. Now I'm going to triple the # of listings and play a little with featuring (costs as little as a dime a day) and see what happens!
Wish all you folks success on Yahoo too! Hope these guys turn it around for our sakes.
If your item sells, you get a rebate of half of anything you paid to *feature* the listing. That policy does let you calculate a seriously reduced featuring fee if you start auctions at a really low price with no reserve so you *know* they'll sell.
posted on June 20, 2001 05:57:40 AM new
If Yahoo starts to take off again, it's going to be an excellent summer for sellers!! If Yahoo did even a little bit of marketing to their 80+ million users it would ignite this powder keg! Some new selling venues are opening up too.
In one important category my research has sometimes shown better realizations on Yahoo than for the same items on Ebay.... but with a tendency for other sellers to note any really nice cluster of bidding, enter more competing listings (paying for featuring, too), and thereby dilute the better results back to mediocre. I have a really strong assessment this could be the vicious circle Yahoo's trapped in now... any improvement in results for sellers gets more listings, more listings (in absence of Yahoo "driving" buyers into the system somehow) results in some weaker results, and sellers back off before the fact of a good selection would bring really loyal buyers back into the area.
I've noted a tendency for newbies to "find" auctions on Yahoo, bid like idjuts for a couple weeks, but then notice Ebay, then possibly notice Ebay's search feature giving good historical price info, then note they can often get better prices on Ebay with a bit of patience and technique, vanishing from Yahoo. I specifically see a couple of newbies I even gave rebates/extras to last month after they *really* overbid for me on Yahoo are active on Ebay but not "with me" on Yahoo any more despite my best efforts not to ream them....
Another several categories that were quite active for me on Yahoo prior to the January policy changes are now dead, dead, dead. I'm experimenting with maintaining 10-day "buy it now" classified ads, in effect, with only a couple featured ads to point to my list in these Dead Zones; I have a lot of variety left to cover to build up a really decent list but my theory is to build up a selection that buyers should want to bookmark and check back on routinely. Dunno, jury's out on that idea; paying (real money) for featuring at a category top, starting the auction *very* low, and not getting but a couple page views (no bids) in 3 days is a bummer.
Having a "Store" area might be a better approach but Yahoo's expensive (and requires an expensive merchant account too), and from what I hear the Ebay "store" is a joke.
Lack of disposable income from the stock market tanking over the last year and the economy spiraling downwards may be more important than any other single factor, though. Not much any seller, or site, can do about that.
posted on June 20, 2001 07:52:55 AM new
So far I'm having the best luck with "for sure" items I could list on ebay and sell. By selling on Yahoo at a more or less maximum price, I save the listing fees [since I use funny money] and final value fees.
I would love to hear from more people who are actively selling now. We used to have a whole group of Yahoo Experts who had good advice about the Yahoo culture. I think they have all abandoned Yahoo now, though.
posted on June 20, 2001 08:17:36 AM new
after reading this board i listed one item on yahoo auction start at 19.99,buy it now 20.00 and it was sold last nite.
with yahoo paydirect ,i am keeping more.
i like to keep the buy it now price close to starting bid,sometimes a penny difference.
list a few more,will see what happens.
looks like yahoo bidders are different ,more younger sets .
i also know ebay dealers shop on yahoo for lower price to resell at ebay or stock up.
posted on June 20, 2001 09:07:51 AM new
Yahoo needs more diverse merchandise. The selection is pathetic since the free listings ended. Users claim they can find almost anything on eBay. Yahoo needs to find a way to increase both the buyer AND seller base, along with the item selection. Increase the seller base and the selection will follow. They should try and incent sellers to list a larger array of items, possibly with rebates of some portion of fees once certain sale targets are hit ($2500?, $5000? per month/quarter)
Somehow, even with their pathetic advertising effort there are a few buyers to be found. Maybe they've always been there wandering around in circles waiting for the better merchandise to show up!
posted on June 20, 2001 12:33:56 PM new
Maybe I'm the exception, but I've always had FAR better luck selling on Ebay than Yahoo with my sets - and plush toys especially. I had one up there for.... I bet a month solid and never got a bid, same plush on Ebay I was selling left and right (had lots in stock so put one up as a test there).
I do know Yahoo I've gotten lots of international sellers wanting cards that aren't easily available in their country - especially UK and Australia. I have established "regulars" in both countries that I email when I have new stuff because they don't always know there IS new stuff.
posted on June 20, 2001 02:41:02 PM new
I did some clicking around this afternoon, basically by finding seller names with high FB numbers and checking their open and closed listings. Some of them have had multiple sales every day for the past umpteen days. Some of the amounts looked very good, too, though I have no way of knowing if they were making profit over whatever they paid for their stock.
Most of the merchandise was NOT books, which is of course disappointing to a bookseller.
At this point my impression is that what may succeed will be high-visibility or desirable items with a more or less fixed value as determined by recent sales on ebay or wherever. By selling on Yahoo one could realize savings by lower listing fees and no final value fees.
A lot of my stuff will need to stay on ebay simply because I can count on more "eyes" possibly seeing it. But I will continue to look for possible items to list on Yahoo, and start promoting it in my emails as I would have Bidville, had there been any point...
I sold an item yesterday with a buy it now for more than I've ever gotten on eBay. It would have never sold on Bidville or ePier --- in fact I have it up on both sites with no interest. Yahoo has promise, low listing fees, NO FVFs, much much less competition than eBay, and PayDirect is FREE. They certainly have a massive user base that they still haven't learned to steer toward auctions. Just a little effort on their part and we could see a huge surge in Yahoo auction activity! 
)
[ edited by tomwiii on Jun 18, 2001 12:33 AM ]